TechnoLawyer: Email/Messaging/Telephony

Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a program that tracks the time you spend in client-related email (see article below), a site that enables you to compare smartphones, a new online practice management and document assembly application, and an iOS app with a legal dictionary, settlement calculator and other such tools for lawyers. Don't miss the next issue.

Automatically Track Time Spent on Client-Related Email

Late last year, Business Insider, a publication that breathlessly covers startup companies and new technologies, admitted that the world is not changing that fast. The article noted that every minute people post 695,000 Facebook status updates (impressive), but send 168 million email messages (off the charts). Among lawyers, the numbers are likely even more skewed in email's favor. Because lawyers spend so much time in email, that's where they lose the most billable time. Did you spend 25 minutes or 35 minutes replying to your client? Most lawyers are honest so they under-guesstimate, but accuracy is not a crime. The new version of a popular time tracking program can help.

Chrometa 2012 … in One Sentence
Chrometa 2012 automatically captures and categorizes the time you spend working on your computer plus it can track offline time too.

The Killer Feature
Previous versions of Chrometa would tell you how much time you spent in Outlook or in Gmail throughout the day, enabling you to capture all that time. But it didn't list the time per message so if you read 25 work-related email messages, and sent 10 you'd have to look back at your messages and apportion the time among them -- a fair amount of work.

Chrometa 2012 now shows you the time spent per message, identifying each message by subject line, to/from/cc fields, and if applicable even the email folder name.

Chrometa 2012 achieves this feat via two free plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail respectively. The Outlook plugin works with Outlook 2007 and 2010, while the Gmail plugin works with Google's Chrome browser on Mac and Windows.

"Our new Chrometa plugins for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail close the loop on email," Chrometa CEO Brett Owens told us. "Once you install our email plugins, you'll never lose another minute of billable email time or waste time reconstructing that billable time."

Other Notable Features
Chrometa 2012 captures time on Macs and PCs. It notices when you stop using your computer such as for a phone call and can ask you about it so you can also track offline time. You access and manage your captured time using a web browser.

Chrometa 2012 can automatically categorize the time it captures. For example, now that Chrometa can capture time spent per email message, you can create a rule for each client or even matter. Then Chrometa will place all email time per client or per matter into that category. The rules work for all the time Chrometa captures (e.g., time spent in Word documents). When you log into your Chrometa account, you can convert all the time captured in a category into time entries with one click.

Also new in Chrometa 2012 is the ability to create bills (invoices). In other words, Chrometa can now serve as your billing program, not just your time capture program. You can send bills directly from Chrometa via email or export them into DOC, PDF, or XLS formats.

If you already use a billing system, Chrometa offers a growing number of integrations, including Clio, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, PCLaw, and Timeslips. You can also export Chrometa time entries and import them into virtually any billing system.

What Else Should You Know?
You can choose from three versions of Chrometa (all single user) or from two versions of Chrometa for Teams (for multiple users). Pricing for Chrometa starts at $19 per month, whereas pricing for Chrometa for Teams starts at the same price per user per month. Learn more about Chrometa 2012.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published in our free TL NewsWire newsletter. Instead of reading TL NewsWire here, sign up now to receive future issues via email.

Prevent Inadvertent Disclosures and Other Email Mishaps

The early days of the web favored large firms. Tim Berners Lee gave the world HTML, and Marc Andreessen the web browser. But if you wanted a client portal — then known as an extranet — for secure communications and document sharing you had two expensive choices: build it yourself or use overpriced turnkey solutions. As a result, small law firms and even most large law firms still use plain old email for client communications. Now, email is fine for newsletters like TL NewsWire, but it's not ideal for confidential attorney-client communications or exchanging large files. Fortunately, even sole practitioners can now afford a client portal.

Privacy Data Systems All-in-One Privacy Suite … in One Sentence
Privacy Data Systems All-in-One Privacy Suite (PDS Professional) is web communications service that enables law firms to securely exchange messages and large files with clients.

The Killer Feature
Under immense pressure, many bar associations have given their blessing to email for client communications. So you need not worry about being disbarred if you misaddress an email message, just fired and maybe sued — with perhaps negative reviews on Avvo, Google Places, Yelp, and elsewhere too. Not good. A lesser problem but still a problem occurs when you correctly send an email message but it ends up unread in your client's spam folder.

PDS Professional eliminates email mishaps. For example, if you misaddress an email message, the unintended recipient won't be able to read it because they won't have the access code. When you correctly send a message, PDS Professional provides "immediate and irrefutable" proof of delivery.

"Lawyers and their clients need to communicate quickly, and share documents with each other, but standard email systems are not secure enough to maintain privacy," Privacy Data Systems Vice President of Operations Ray Blackburn told us. "We have put together an affordable suite of privacy tools that combines security with the ease-of-use of email."

Other Notable Features
PDS Professional provides your firm with a Secure Inbox — an encrypted web page branded with your logo — that you can provide to your clients. As a result, unlike other services, your clients need not register to send you secure messages and documents. Likewise, they don't need an account or any plugins to receive messages and documents from you.

PDS Professional includes a number of bank-grade security features, including view-only documents, watermarked documents, electronic signatures, rights management settings, message recall, and biometric authentication.

For example, the eSignature technology enables your clients to sign documents electronically using a process approved by the ESIGN Act. Rights management enables you to impose controls on messages such as preventing printing, downloading, forwarding, etc. With Message Recall, you can prevent delivery of a message you have already sent. If your client has already read the message, you can prevent it from being opened again.

What Else Should You Know?
In addition to all this security, PDS Professional enables you to send large files. Each licensee receives 2 GB of storage space, which you can increase if needed. PDS Professional works in all modern web browsers. It costs either $14.50 per month, or $145 per year. You can try it for free. Learn more about PDS Professional.

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Ay Uaxe, How to Migrate From GroupWise to Exchange: Two War Stories

Steven Silberman, Review: Dragon NaturallySpeaking From a Solo's Perspective

Kurt Walberg, A Fan of Multiple Monitors Offers Some Tips

Richard Schafer, Review: SimplyFile for Archiving Client-Related Email

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on August 30, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

With Hurricane Irene just recently having rumbled her way through my adopted home state of North Carolina — including making a mess of our beautiful Outer Banks and eastern regions — disaster preparedness (or business continuity to use a popular euphemism) is on my mind. Watching Irene's progression up the east coast and the trouble she wrought en route, I imagine it must be on some of your minds too.

When we talk about technology, we often engage in a facile and glib debate over operating systems, Angry Birds, and coolness. God knows, I'm a card-carrying member of that club — new and cool is my red meat as regular readers of my SmallLaw columns well know.

But in deference to all the law firms who are digging out from Irene, I want to use this issue of SmallLaw to address how to get your firm as ready as possible for the next Irene Mother Nature throws your way. Below you'll find my top five tips.

1. Go Paperless

The discussion over going paperless in a small law firm often centers on efficiency, collaboration, ethics and mobility, all of which are important facets of the decision.

However, it's not until you wake up one day, however, and your entire office suite is under six feet of water and your paper files have turned to pulp that paperless' importance as a disaster preparedness measure become clear.

Sure, you may only need offsite digital copies of everything once in a career — but the day you need it, you really need it. Offsite backup is a good start, but if only 25% of your key data is digital, you are still sunk when the high waters arrive.

2. Sever Your Servers With Hosted Communications

Floods and natural disasters are good reasons to consider embracing hosted communications — meaning both your email and your phone system. If your communication hubs run out of server boxes in your office and they're under water, they're useless. Sure, some backup strategies can help mitigate this porblem, but if I were running a small firm today, I'd get rid of all my servers — applications, email, documents, telephone — the whole shebang. With Hosted Exchange, Google Apps, and VoIP phone systems, it has never been easier.

3. Centralized Document and Practice Management

According to the ABA's 2011 Legal Technology Survey, the adoption rate of document and practice management software in small law offices remains dismal.

Anecdotally, in my work, I find that law firms regard this software as somewhere between an unnecessary expense and a "nice to have." Much like the decision to go paperless and host your communications, if you imagine having to run your firm the day after a disaster (with all of your employees working remotely from their homes), the decision to centralize document and practice management is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Frequency of need is not the same as degree. You only need an emergency room once in a while, too, but if you didn't have one nearby the day you needed it, you'd be in big trouble.

4. Laptops Over Desktops Plus Smartphones and iPads

I frequently talk with lawyers who debate whether to buy their staff laptop or desktop computers, citing that desktops are cheaper and more powerful. A disaster should convince you that mobility trumps the marginal cost savings and power of desktops.

Laptops have another advantage. When the power goes out, they continue running for a few hours. But even laptops have their limits. Smartphones (and 3G iPads) tend to have a much longer battery life, and can access the Internet via your carrier. Some smartphones can even serve as a mobile hotspot. Law firms have issued smartphones to their lawyers for many years. Some have begun to issue iPads as well.

5. Home Office Essentials

For your lawyers and staff to be productive working from home while your office is underwater, in addition to a laptop they will need an internet connection robust enough to run their VoIP phones, a headset with a microphone, a printer, and a scanner.

Whether you provide this equipment for your staff or require that they provide it for themselves is a matter of your compensation and training systems. Either way, if you want your staff to work rather than just watch Sports Center until your office reopens, they will need the tools to perform their work.

Conclusion

I hope you and your firm survived Hurricane Irene with nary a puddle. But I also hope this article prompts you to prepare for the unthinkable.

Written by Erik Mazzone of Law Practice Matters.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

This special edition of TL NewsWire was originally published on December 15, 2011.

In 2011, we reported on 212 new products in TL NewsWire — far more products than any other legal publisher to my knowledge (TL NewsWire is one of nine TechnoLawyer publications).

For each product we cover, we track the number of clicks. Not for nefarious reasons mind you. We track clicks in the aggregate so that we can see which products you and your fellow subscribers find most and least interesting to help guide our future coverage. We also track clicks so that we can engage in one of publishing's most enduring cliches — the annual top 10 list.

Wait. Did I say top 10? Silly me. At TechnoLawyer, we always give you more for your money (even though TL NewsWire is free). Below you'll find the TL NewsWire Top 15 Products of 2011.

1. TrialPad

In the year of the iPad, it seems fitting that an iPad app tops the list. TrialPad replaces an ELMO for displaying documents. Lit Software recently released version 2, which contains more advanced trial presentation features. Will TrialPad disrupt incumbents Sanction and TrialDirector? Only time will tell, but Lit Software appears to be the leader among companies developing legal-specific iPad apps.

2. Workshare PDF Professional

You have to give Workshare a lot of credit for its insane pace of software development. It's the Adobe Systems of the legal industry. Speaking of which, Workshare PDF Professional takes aim at Adobe's Acrobat with a low price of $79.

3. Canon imageFORMULA DR-C125 Scanner

As someone who appreciates elegant design and feels there's too little of it in our industry, the imageFORMULA DR-C125 captured my attention because of its space-saving upright design and U-turn paper path. Apparently, many of you agreed by ranking it third.

4. LexisNexis Firm Manager

SmallLaw columnist emeritus Mazy Hedayat (Crazy Mazy) is a tough lawyer to please. So imagine our surprise when he praised Firm Manager, LexisNexis' cloud practice management system. Thanks in part to Firm Manager, 2011 marked the turning point for cloud applications in the legal industry.

5. Workshare Point

Document management remains the most popular topic among TechnoLawyer members, but I didn't realize how many of you have an interest in Microsoft SharePoint until we covered Workshare Point, which transforms SharePoint into a legal-specific document management system. Kudos to Workshare for having two products in the top five.

6. MyCase V2.0

The second cloud practice management system on the list, MyCase uses Facebook-like technologies for interacting with your clients, including billing, communications, and document sharing. Perhaps the more apt comparison is Salesforce.com's Chatter.

7. Smartsheet

Another hot area — project management, especially for law firms charging flat fees or under pressure from clients not to exceed engagement letter estimates. Traditionally, you practically needed the equivalent of a medical residency to use project management software. Smartsheet is a cloud application that attempts to simplify this once obscure (for law firms) discipline.

8. Kodak SCANMATE I920 Scanner

Too little too late for this troubled American icon? Well, many of you found Kodak's entry into the sheetfed scanner market of interest. Like Canon's scanners, the SCANMATE i920 supports supports TWAIN and ISIS applications.

9. Nylon Sleeve With Handles

Easily the biggest surprise on the list. Why? Because it's the only product among the top 15 that we covered in a roundup article as opposed to a feature article (roundup articles appear below the feature article in each issue of TL NewsWire so they're not as prominently, um, featured). Incidentally, I have two of these sleeves — one for my iPad 2 and one for my MacBook Air. It was my search for a sleeve with handles that led to our coverage of this product.

10. RogueTime Version 1.1

RogueTime ties into your iPhone's Phone app so that you can convert phone calls into time entries (iPhones capture the time of each call). Apps like RogueTime could persuade lawyers to use their iPhone as their only phone.

11. KnowledgeTree

KnowledgeTree is a cloud document management system. In our coverage, we focused on the new KnowledgeTree ExplorerCP, a desktop application that connects to the mothership.

12. Doxie Go

I think we covered this portable scanner before any other legal publisher. Its cable-free and PC-free design seems liberating. Doxie Go will soon have some competition. We received a pre-release demo this week, but I can't tell you about it yet. Stay tuned to TL NewsWire.

13. Sohodox

Cloud skeptics at small law firms rejoice — a document management system for 1-20 users that runs on your own damn hardware.

14. NetDocuments R1-2011

Yes folks, another document management system. And none other than the undisputed champion of cloud document management systems. NetDocuments redesigned its user interface this year.

15. ClearContext Professional 5

This Outlook add-on learns your habits so that it can start taking care of tasks for you. It can even make email messages disappear for a specified period of time so that you can fool yourself into thinking you've achieved zero inbox.

You Want More?

So there you go. The top 15. What's that? You want a top 20? Okay, okay. I won't write about them, but numbers 16-20 were (drumroll please):

16. AdvologixPM

17. ActionStep

18. Pathagoras 2011

19. Credenza Pro

20. Chrometa

How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Ken Laska, Lessons About Cloud Security From Historical Icons Hammurabi And Sitting Bull

Jason Pink, Our Law Firm's Search For A New Phone System: What We Learned

Greg Goonan, A Caveat About Verizon Data Plans When Traveling Internationally

Alli Lyde-Stad, Review: Fujitsu Scansnap S1500

Paul Bagley, My Late Friend's Amusing Lawyer Email Disclaimer

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on July 12, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Who's on your list? You know which list I mean.

Deep within the folds and confines of your LinkedIn connections or Outlook contacts or Facebook friends or wherever exists the hub of all your business relationships, there is a small and very exclusive group — the people whose support and friendship has made the difference between success and failure for you.

Maybe you call them referral sources or key clients or just friends. What you call them and where you store them is less important than that they exist in the first place. I'm going to refer to them as VIPs for the sake of brevity.

Over the years, first as a practicing lawyer and later as a practice management advisor, I've heard many lawyers and marketing gurus refer to the need to compile a core group of 10, 15, or 20 people who comprise a professional's list of VIPs — the folks who help you build your practice and make your business world go round.

Top of Mind

It's not enough to build this group of VIPs though. You need to maintain contact with these heavy hitters — enough so you always remain top of mind when they need your skills, but not so much that you annoy them. Remembering enough detail about their lives that you demonstrate sincere interest, but not so much that you become creepy. (It's a fine line — remembering their kids' birthdays is okay, but remembering their spouse's yoga schedule is creepy.)

But with all the effluvia and ephemera that pass through the transoms of our minds and Facebook walls, there's not as much gray matter to remember the important stuff as we would hope.

CRM to the Rescue

CRM or client relationship management (companies outside the legal sector use the word "customer" instead) software can help. Long the province of salespeople, CRM software helps you manage your VIPs by enabling you to stay in regular touch with them, and reminding you of the important details of your relationship with them. It does this by:

1. Serving as the repository for all key information about your VIPs.

2. Reminding you when you interacted last with a VIP and what you talked about.

3. Prompting you to follow up with them in the timeframe you choose.

I realize this publication is called SmallLaw and not Selling Power, but don't let the sales origins of CRM software get you wrapped around the axle. When I was in college, I worked as a file clerk for a sole practitioner in a little hippie town in upstate New York. His "CRM" system consisted of a bunch of stuff typed on index cards. I know because I filed the cards.

Some CRM Options

When you start thinking about using CRM in your practice, it's important to recall that the end goal is strong relationships with your group of VIPs. Don't miss the forest for the trees, and become consumed by finding the CRM software with the most widgets, doodads, and gizmos. Find the product that best helps you connect with your VIPs.

Here's a test — if you are spending more time curating your VIP details in your CRM program than you are having lunch with your VIPs, you're on the wrong track.

As I've mentioned in previous SmallLaw columns, I'm a bit of techno-gadfly — and my experiments with CRM are no exception. I've tried 800 pound gorilla Salesforce (which TechnoLawyer uses), some more streamlined options that I liked (Highrise and BatchBook), and one or two forgettable options that ride on top of Outlook.

I can heartily recommend all three of the options I just listed. If you are in the market for CRM, they are each worth a look and all have free trials. The truth is, though, I don't use any of them. I found my personal CRM nirvana someplace else.

Back to the Inbox With Xobni

Covered several times in TechnoLawyer NewsWire, Xobni is a well-known Outlook add-on that helps users draw more functionality out of their email programs. I tried it years ago and was not terribly impressed — I don't keep enough email in Outlook for it to be particularly helpful so I cast it on the scrap heap of my discarded tech toys (if you use Outlook, check out that version).

Recently though, Xobni released Xobni for Gmail (currently in beta), which has provided the answer to my CRM needs. It pulls from all my contacts in Gmail, as well as their LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter information. It provides a graphical "relationship summary" of the frequency of our email exchanges and topics, including other people commonly included in our exchanges. And because in Gmail I keep all of my old messages, it draws on an unbelievably extensive history of information with each contact.

Best of all, though, it does all of this (courtesy of a Google Chrome extension) right in my Gmail inbox automatically without my needing to go to some other place to interact with it. It richly contextualizes my email exchanges when I need it and gets out of the way when I don't.

Xobni for Gmail does not have a task component built in, but that works for me anyway. I'm a bit of a Getting Things Done nerd (GTD — another three-letter acronym for a future SmallLaw column) so I use other tools for my task list.

Experiment for Yourself

Don't take my word for it. Try Xobni for Gmail or Outlook, Salesforce, Highrise, and Batchbook for yourself. See if one of them helps you keep track of your VIPs. They're your VIPs, after all. Shouldn't you treat them like that acronym?

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on October 11, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Does your email archiving solution leave you wanting more? Tired of dealing with an Outlook plug-in that doesn't play nice? With archived email and attachments that are sometimes available and sometimes not (usually when you need them the most … like in a client meeting)? With the need to perform two separate searches, often via two different interfaces, to search your "live" email and your archived email?

On the administrative side, are you tired of backing up two separate environments, administering your email archive through a separate admin console, possibly one without the most intuitive knobs, dials and levers for making it behave and perform?

Have you considered eliminating your third party archiving solution altogether, and implementing Exchange 2010's native Personal Archive?

The thought may seem daunting when you let yourself dwell on all of the problems you encountered implementing your third-party archiving solution in the first place, and when you extrapolate the problems you likely will have moving your messages to Exchange 2010's native archive. But there are a number of very sound reasons, from compliance, to recovered software licensing fees, to improved administrator and user experience, that merit serious consideration.

What Is Personal Archive and Why Should You Care?

Personal Archive is a new product name from Microsoft that is entirely unrelated to PST files. In fact, Exchange 2010 has tools for importing any old PST files you might have lying around. Also, Exchange 2010 Archiving requires an Exchange Enterprise Server License and Enterprise CALs sufficient for all user mailboxes using the technology.

Microsoft espouses the ability of native archiving to achieve compliance through the following means: "preservation, discovery, control, protection, reporting, and availability."

At first blush, it appears as though Exchange 2010's toolbox of features could go a fair way toward achieving compliance if used properly in the context of a business compliance policy and practice that is at least moderately disciplined. And yes — Microsoft is careful not to make too grandiose a set of claims about Exchange's native compliance-supporting features being a silver bullet/complete solution for all your compliance needs. But really, there's a lot here.

Some highlights of features that support compliance (and which provide general utility):

• Multi-Mailbox Search Support: Configurable through the use of roles to be a process which can be managed outside of IT.

• Support for Litigation/Legal Hold: Once applied, all items which are deleted are searchable/recoverable for the duration of the hold.

• Content Retention: The ability to specify retentions periods and rules for both production and archival message data which can be different or the same across both environments.

• Dynamic Email Signature Blocks: Often required for compliance (e.g., "this is not tax advice" and other such disclaimers) using data (including logos) stored in the Active Directory.

• Protection/Message Encryption: Transport Layer Security (TLS), Opportunistic TLS, integrated content filtering, SSL, and more.

• Auditing: Permits determination of whether users have access to and when they accessed certain email folders and messages. It can also report on any multi-mailbox searches that have been performed, etc.

• Built-in High Availability (HA): Functions provide for the reliability that many compliance standards require, saving your firm from the potential for costly fines and a loss of reputation in the event that critical discovery data is not recoverable.

User Benefits

And the top three user benefits are:

1. No Outlook plug-ins to crash.

2. All email messages (live or archived) are searchable via a single interface using Outlook or webmail.

3. Along with Exchange 2010's increase in the number of messages permissible in the critical Exchange folders (Inbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items), native archiving also eliminates the need for users manually to prune and file their aging messages. The personal archive automatically creates duplicate copies of a given user's mail folder structure within the archive, and moves older messages to the corresponding archive folder (moving anything older than two years to the archive by default, but configurable based upon your firm's business rules).

Administrator Benefits

And the top five administrator benefits are:

1. Simplification of email backups and improved tools for managing retention policies.

2. Simplification of email administration through consolidation of all email and archived email under a single, unified architecture.

3. Improved access to critical administrative functions related to ongoing maintenance, operations, and archiving via webmail.

4. The provision of a native, high availability solution that performs continuous replication of mailbox data ("live" and archival) from a production mail server environment to a backup mail server environment and that simplifies and automates failover of mail services and/or data on the fly.

5. The ability to store production mailbox data on high performance data storage devices (e.g., SANs with SSDs), and either or both backup HA and/or Personal Archive data on cheaper/lower performance disk — without losing any of the seamlessness of the HA solution or of the Personal Archive being always available alongside your live message store.

Well, Should You?

Yes. Exchange 2010's native archiving solution is ready to replace your third party email archiving solution. But is your firm willing — and prepared — to do what it takes to wrestle that costly and complicated monkey from its back?

Written by Matthew Berg, Director of IT at Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C..

How to Receive BigLaw
Many large firms have good reputations for their work and bad reputations as places to work. Why? Answering this question requires digging up some dirt, but we do with the best of intentions. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, BigLaw analyzes the business practices, marketing strategies, and technologies used by the country's biggest law firms in an effort to unearth best and worst practices. The BigLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Stephen Cohen, Review: Verizon Droid Pro

Caren Schwartz, Practice Management Versus CRM Software

Jeff Lisson, Why Some Lawyers Need To Use An Email Disclaimer

Nicholas Bettinger, Tips On Using Multiple Monitors

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TL Answers contains these articles:

Kerry Hubick, Review: PCmover Plus Windows 7 Upgrade Tips

Keith Collins, Review: iPhone 4S (Upgrade From A Treo 755p)

Edward Zohn, Review: Hosted Microsoft Exchange

Don't miss this issue — or any future issues.

How to Receive TL Answers
Do you believe in the wisdom of crowds? In TL Answers, TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers. This newsletter's popularity stems from the relevance of the questions and answers to virtually everyone in the legal profession. The TL Answers newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.