TechnoLawyer

Originally published on June 14, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Last week Apple hosted its annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. WWDC enables developers to learn from Apple engineers, but is best known for the opening day "Keynote" at which Steve Jobs and his team usually unveil the next version of iOS, which powers the iPhone and iPad. Last week, Jobs and his team announced not only iOS 5, but also iCloud. iCloud in particular holds great promise for large law firms.

Always Be in Sync Without Syncing

iCloud essentially serves as a central repository for your data. It sends that data to all of your Apple devices — computers, smartphones, and tablets — plus Windows PCs. Both Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5 will take advantage of the estimated 12 petabytes (a petabyte is one million gigabytes) of storage located in Apple's new $1 billion 500,000 square foot North Carolina server farm.

While iCloud makes for fun water cooler conversations for the average technophile like me, what does it mean for you and the "normal" lawyers at your firm? In short, it means always having your work in sync, no matter where you are or what device you're using — all without having to do anything such as sync.

Although Steve Jobs' keynote address focused primarily on using iCloud for music, photography, and word processing applications, iCloud's reach is far more extensive. Jobs alluded to the use of iCloud for storing two significant types of data — documents and key value data.

Regarding documents, the concept is easy to understand. If you create a document on your iPhone, it will be sent up to iCloud and then wirelessly "pushed" to all of your other devices such as your iPad, Mac, and Windows PC. You need not do anything because, as Jobs put it "iCloud is integrated with your apps, everything happens automatically … it just works."

Key value data is best described as user information (e.g., the appointments in your calendar) that doesn't reside in a single contained "document." The storage of key value data is significant in iCloud because it enables developers to transfer information and settings among all of a user's devices without requiring the developer to invest in their own expensive data server.

Until now, this issue has been a major impediment to small-time developers like me as well as law firms that develop their own enterprise apps.

Now, for example, I can incorporate iCloud storage and syncing into my Court Days Pro app, enabling lawyers to sync their litigation calendaring information and settings on all of their devices without me having to purchase and maintain a costly server. Apple not only provides the infrastructure and storage for iCloud at no charge (up to 5 GB per user), but also provides the software programming tools (called APIs) so that developers can easily incorporate the service into their apps.

What About Dropbox and Other Cloud Services?

Other services such as Dropbox (which I covered in BigLaw earlier this year) offer cloud storage and syncing of documents across multiple devices. However, as good as Dropbox is, it is not incorporated into the underlying operating system of the device and, therefore, requires quite a bit of effort by developers to effectively implement the service into their applications. GoodReader is an example of a document reading app that does a good job incorporating Dropbox.

iCloud seems like it may solve many of the problems associated with implementing cloud storage and document syncing in a lawyer's daily workflow. If I take notes at a court hearing, I want those notes on my desktop computer instantaneously so that I can work on them as soon as I return to my office. Likewise, if I revise a letter on my desktop word processor, I want those changes on my iPad. If I scan a document with my iPhone's camera, I want it seamlessly uploaded to my PC. And I want all of this done without me having to click or touch any buttons.

That's the idea behind iCloud. It's now up to developers to put this functionality into the legal and other apps on which your law firms relies.

Written by Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone.com.

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.

Originally published on March 29, 2011 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

I have previously written in the BigLaw newsletter about the benefits, as well as the drawbacks, of developing mobile apps for both marketing purposes and in-firm use. I have also discussed the app development and approval process.

Today I'll share my recent experience and the challenges I encountered developing my own commercial iPhone apps for lawyers. Even if your firm does not yet develop mobile apps, I believe you'll find these lessons useful for all your technology initiatives.

Focus on Essential Tasks and Avoid Feature Bloat

When I first started developing apps two years ago, I heard an Apple executive say that the best mobile apps do one thing and do it well. What I garnered from this advice is that an app should be developed from the get-go with a singular purpose in mind.

Ask: What will users want to do with the application and what is the most efficient way to offer this functionality? The Swiss Army Knife approach to app development or development in general rarely works, as it grows too cumbersome (feature bloat). Users should be able to start the app, use it for a single purpose, and quickly get out.

I took this approach when I developed my first iPhone app — Court Days. It started with the simple idea that an attorney should be able to quickly calculate the number of court days or calendar days from a given date. At the time (when there were a mere 50,000 iPhone apps), a few date calculators already existed on the App Store, but all of them calculated the number of calendar days between two dates. None excluded weekends and holidays — an essential feature for lawyers. I wanted such an app for use in my own law practice so I believed in the concept.

Once I overcame a fairly steep learning curb associated with mastering my first programming language, the actual "coding" of the app was not very difficult. Like writing a letter or brief, if you follow the basic rules of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and syntax, the device will do what you tell it to do. Mix in a little bit of elementary school math (in my case, adding and subtracting court or calendar days), and you have a simple and useful tool.

You May Not Know What's Missing Until You Build Version 1.0

That is not to say I didn't encounter hurdles, the most significant of which I anticipated but grossly underestimated in terms of the amount of time and resources necessary to overcome. The problem is that every jurisdiction within the United States, at the federal, state, and local levels, observes different court holidays. For example, Alaska observes Alaska Day, Hawaii observes King Kamehameha Day, and Louisiana and two counties in Alabama observe Mardi Gras Day. Many of these regional holidays change from year to year and in some states, such as Massachusetts, individual courts set their own court holiday schedules.

Once I collected holiday data for 63 different jurisdictions and completed the app, I felt satisfied with the experience. The Court Days app was well received by the public and I received lots of constructive feedback from lawyers — much of which I incorporated into future updates to the app.

As time went by, however, I was troubled by the fact that I did not use Court Days in my own practice as much as I originally anticipated. It's not that the app did not work as intended — because it did. Rather, I found that it slightly missed the mark in terms of being a tool that I wanted to use in the ordinary course of my practice.

It dawned on me that lawyers do not perform date calculations in a vacuum. The date calculations are always performed in context with a future and pending action, such as a hearing date or filing deadline. The app, on the other hand, performed simple date calculations without context. In other words, litigators need triggered calculations (e.g., 16 court days before a certain date) before starting up the app. It was just as efficient to manually count days on a paper calendar. The app was designed to be simple, but it turned out to be a little too simple. And I suspected that other attorneys had reached the same conclusion.

An Essential Function Trumps Simplicity

I began to reevaluate the Court Days app to find a solution that I could promote as a viable tool for practicing lawyers. After experimenting with a number of different concepts, I finally settled on a solution that tested the boundaries of my number-one rule — simplicity. The new app, Court Days Pro, would still calculate court days, but would do so using a rules-based approach.

For example, in Court Days, if you want to know the deadline for opposing a motion a motion for summary judgment in California, you would first have to remember that the opposition must be filed 14 days prior to the hearing, and then enter both a target date and the number 14 into the calculator.

By contrast, with Court Days Pro, you would have the primary triggering event (the hearing on the motion for summary judgment) and all the associated rules-based deadlines (dates for moving papers, opposition briefs, reply briefs, etc.) preprogrammed into the app — eliminating the need to remember and manually enter the counting information.

Although this functionality seemed like a good idea, I didn't want to release the app absent real world testing. Once app development was complete, I gave the app to 20 practicing litigators through an ingenious free service called TestFlight, which enables developers to overcome some of the hurdles that exist when beta testing iOS apps. After several weeks of real world testing, I collected the beta testers' comments and suggestions, many of which I incorporated into the final version of Court Days Pro, which is now available on the App Store.

Emulate Apple's Iterative Approach

Every few years, Apple unveils a new product category, but thereafter it refines these products — most recently with the iPad 2. This iterative process and attention to detail has made it the most valuable technology company in the world.

App development is similar. It requires you to constantly reevaluate and refine the product to meet the needs of end users and stay ahead of the competition. Just a couple of weeks out from Court Days Pro's release, I'm already working on an update that will add feature requests (e.g., a help screen). I have certainly learned a lot, but the learning process never ends. I expect to push out updates and revisions as I continue to receive feedback from real world users. I suspect the same is true of the technology initiatives currently underway in your law firm.

Written by Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone.com.

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.

Originally published on February 22, 2010 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Some large firm lawyers tend to travel more than others. I don't travel much, but when I do I like to travel light. However, because I'm technically "on the clock" during a five hour flight between coasts, I prefer to use the time to review documents in preparation for my upcoming meeting or hearing. But the number of documents required to consume five or more hours of flight time would take up a lot of room. What to do?

GoodReader and Its Brethren to the Rescue

Last fall, while preparing for a trip from Los Angeles to Seattle, I planned to take along more than 750 pages (measuring four inches thick when printed) of discovery responses to review on the plane. I didn't want to take that much paper with me nor did I want to take my laptop solely for the purpose of using Acrobat. I considered abandoning the whole idea of working on the plane in favor of watching a movie on my iPad when I realized that, maybe, I could upload the documents to my iPad.

The solution ended up being an App Store download away. I bought an app for my iPad called GoodReader, which has since become the single most important and most often used "law practice" application on my iPad. GoodReader is just one of many document readers available for the iPad. Regardless of what mobile platform you use (Android, BlackBerry, iOS, etc.) many reasonably-priced and well-designed document readers exist (I list a few at the end of this column).

How to Evaluate a Mobile Document Reader App

Mobile document readers perform two core functions: (1) display the most common types of documents (PDF, Microsoft Office, iWork, TXT, RTF, etc.), and (2) provide a file management system to keep these documents organized.

In terms of displaying documents, the ability to quickly and cleanly display very large PDF files is by far the most important feature. GoodReader handled my 750-page document with absolutely no problem. Navigation between consecutive pages is accomplished by finger swipe or tap. You can also scroll though the entire document in seconds using a scroll bar.

The developers of these document readers have added a number of useful features, the most welcome of which is the ability to annotate PDF documents. Here, again, GoodReader excels. It enables you to insert text notes, highlight text in a variety of colors, underline or circle text, and bookmark pages just to name a few.

As for the document organization component, loading documents onto the device is the most important feature to evaluate. Generally, the app will provide several options — via iTunes, WiFi network, cloud service (e.g., Dropbox, Google Docs), FTP server, or a mail server (Exchange, IMAP, POP3). GoodReader not only accommodates all of these methods, but also enables you to download documents into the application from the Web by entering the a document's URL.

In addition, most mobile document readers provide the ability to create folders for storing documents. GoodReader, for example, provides lots of file management tools, facilitating copying, moving, and deletion of files, creation of folders, password protection, archiving (ZIP files), and emailing of documents.

GoodReader Alternatives Worthy of Consideration

Although GoodReader is one of the best document readers, several worthy alternatives exist. For iOS devices, two close competitors to GoodReader are Air Sharing and ReaddleDocs.

Popular choices for the Android-based devices include RepliGo Reader and Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite.

RepliGo Reader is also available for BlackBerry.

Written by Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone.com.

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.

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

In my first BigLaw column on iOS apps, I explored how large law firms can use mobile apps to promote their services to potential clients. In my next column, I discussed the process for developing apps for the iPhone and iPad and submitting them to Apple for approval. Today, I will explore how law firms can develop Enterprise Apps.

An Enterprise App is designed to serve the specific and customized needs of your law firm — your lawyers and staff, and perhaps your clients too. Enterprise apps don't generate revenue from App Store sales or overtly promote your firm. Rather, they are developed for the purpose of helping your law firm conduct its business.

Unlike the typical iOS app available for download to the general public through the iTunes App Store, enterprise apps are only available to people associated with the enterprise, and it is the enterprise, not Apple, that controls the channels of distribution.

For an example look at Apple itself. Its EasyPay app enables its own Apple Store employees to process sales transactions from anywhere on the sales floor using an iOS device. Only Apple Store employees have access to the EasyPay app.

How to Create and Distribute an Enterprise App

To develop enterprise applications, you must register for Apple's iOS Developer Enterprise Program. At a cost of $299 per year, membership in the program provides you with access to Apple's iOS Software Development Kit (SDK) and all of the tools necessary to develop and distribute iOS applications to your users. The process for developing enterprise apps is essentially the same as that for developing standard iOS applications — up to the point of actual distribution.

One major benefit to developing apps in-house through the enterprise program is that you get to bypass Apple's review and approval process — an elusive, time-consuming, and occasionally-frustrating process to say the least. Also, application updates can be rolled-out immediately without having to wait one to two weeks for Apple's stamp of approval.

If there is a downside to in-house app development, it is in the mechanism for distributing apps to enterprise users. Despite all the criticism of Apple for maintaining a monopoly over the distribution system for non-enterprise iOS apps (i.e., the iTunes App Store), the experience of purchasing and installing these apps is seamless and efficient.

This, however, is not the case with enterprise apps, as there is no App Store-like portal for enterprise app distribution. Instead, your IT department must distribute the application file and a provisioning profile certificate to each user, along with detailed instructions explaining how to install the application file and certificate on the iOS devise using iTunes. This process must be repeated any time the app is updated.

Examples of Law Firm Enterprise Apps

Distribution hassles aside, law firms are beginning to develop sophisticated enterprise apps. For example, DLA Phillips Fox, Australia's largest law firm, developed an enterprise app for the iPhone that enables its employees to access and view documents remotely. It also includes an elaborate time-keeping component that gives its attorneys the ability to remotely enter and record timesheets.

As you can see from this example, a key advantage for law firms is the ability to control the distribution of sensitive and confidential information. Email is not the most secure means of transmitting information, as it can to easily be forwarded (accidentally or intentionally) to others. To minimize the potential for a breach in confidentiality, a law firm could develop an enterprise app that enables an attorney or a client, upon entering a password, to view highly-sensitive information located on the law firm's server without the need to distribute the information by email.

Because enterprise apps do not show up in the iTunes App Store, it is difficult to know how many law firms are following in DLA Phillips Fox's footsteps and developing their own enterprise apps. However, as adoption rate of iPhones and iPads in law offices continues to rise, I expect to see many more law firms distributing enterprise apps to their attorneys and clients.

Written by Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone.com.

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.

Originally published on December 6, 2010 in our free BigLaw newsletter. Instead of reading BigLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

So, you read my last article discussing the challenges and virtues of creating a smartphone app to market your law firm. Now, you're ready to start developing your own app. In this issue of BigLaw, you'll learn about the process of developing the software and getting it approved for distribution to the public by Apple. The development and approval process for Google's Android OS is similar to, albeit less stringent than, Apple's so if Apple approves you app Google will likely approve it too.

App Development Considerations: In-House or Outsource?

Regardless of whether you plan to distribute your app to the general public or to your own employees, the process of developing an app for the iPhone starts out the same — you must find someone to design the app and write the code. One of the reasons development for the iPhone has been so prolific is that Apple has made it fairly easy to develop software with its Software Development Kit (SDK). Anyone regardless of experience can join Apple's iOS Developer Program for a mere $99 and start programing apps.

Of course, you can hire an experienced software development firm to design and program your app, but if you don't have a minimum of $20,000 to spend and you have some ambitious tech-savvy lawyers in your office, you can take a shot at developing your app in house. That's exactly what I did. Although I had no previous programming experience, after about four weeks reading books on Objective-C (Apple's coding language), asking a lot of questions in online forums, and another four weeks of playing around with the SDK, I had my first iPhone app submitted to Apple for review.

Navigating the App Review Process

Once development of the app is completed and all the bugs worked out, your firm cannot distribute it to the public through Apple's App Store absent Apple's approval. The elusive and highly critical process by which Apple reviews apps for approval has always been the subject of much contention among developers — especially because all developers must enter into a strict confidentiality agreement and are thus prohibited from discussing many aspects of the development and review process.

This protocol occasionally results in apps being rejected for vague reasons. Apple has recently relaxed (slightly) its approval requirements and has provided developers with some 150 criteria for surviving the review process. Nonetheless, the review and approval process typically takes two weeks. If your app is rejected by Apple, you will need to correct any problems with the app and start the review process all over again.

If you are fortunate enough to have your app approved, within hours of approval it will be made available for download to mobile users around the world though the App Store. If you're developing the app to promote your law firm you likely will make it available for free. But, should your firm want to sell the app for profit, Apple will take a cut of 30% of all sales. Because the App Store is the exclusive venue for distributing both free and for-sale apps, there is no way around this requirement.

You will need to maintain and update your app as necessary, particularly, when Apple releases new products and operating system updates, which may require some reprogramming and yet another journey though Apple's review and approval process.

What About Enterprise Apps?

Distributing apps to the public through an app store is just one aspect of mobile app development. In my next column, I'll explain how to develop and deploy "enterprise apps" — apps specially designed for use by your law firm's employees only.

Written by Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone.com.

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.

Originally published on November 8, 2010 in our free SmallLaw newsletter.

At a time when law firms and their clients seek to reduce expenses, the option to conduct meetings online, rather than in person, has evolved from a novelty to a viable cost-saving opportunity. Of course, a standard telephone conference has long served as a cost-effective way to communicate. But it has limitations — particularly when more than a handful of parties join the call or when the participants need to jointly review documents. Web meetings work better for these more complex scenarios. But which service best suits small law firms?

Battle of the Web Conferencing Titans

The beauty of Web conferencing lies in the ability of the meeting moderator — or any designated participant for that matter — to share his or her computer screen with the other participants. For example, if you want to walk your client through an agreement, you can open the document on your computer and "share" the screen with your client. The client sees the document on his or her own screen within the Web conferencing application's window.

Of the many commercial online meeting services available, the two leaders in the field are Citrix's GoToMeeting and Cisco's WebEx. At the most basic level, GoToMeeting and WebEx offer the same general service. One party initiates a Web meeting from a computer and invites others to join via email or calendar invitation. The invitees then join the Web meeting either by clicking a link in the invitation or by entering a meeting ID in their Web browser. The service launches a small application on the user's computer — which in most cases does not even require any system administrator privileges — that connects the participants. Both services enable each participant to choose between communicating through their computer's microphone and speakers or headset or by telephone.

Beyond the basics, there are some notable differences between GoToMeeting and WebEx. In my opinion, these differences make WebEx the better choice for small law firms. First, WebEx provides video conferencing, a feature currently absent from GoToMeeting. Second, in addition to screen sharing, WebEx enables you to upload, share, and annotate individual documents. Third, all features of the WebEx service are available to both Windows and Mac users, whereas the Mac version of GoToMeeting is missing some important features such as document annotation and the ability to display only a portion of your computer screen.

In terms of price, both services offer a single-user plan for a flat fee of $49 per month that includes an unlimited number of Web conferences. Under the flat fee plan, WebEx allows up to 25 participants per meeting, whereas GoToMeeting limits the number of attendees to 15. At the enterprise level, both companies offer multi-user plans that you can customize to suit your law firm's particular needs.

Mobile Web Conferencing

Both GoToMeeting and WebEx have ventured into the realm of mobile Web conferencing by releasing apps for Apple's iPad (and in WebEx's case, for the iPhone too.) Here, WebEx again excels.

Although the GoToMeeting app provides the mobile participant with the audio and the ability to observe the moderator's screen, it doesn't provide any of the text messaging functionality available in GoToMeeting's desktop service. The audio levels also tend to be much lower, the video appears to stutter a bit, and the app lacks a button to exit the conference.

By contrast, the WebEx application includes the text messaging features, the audio sounds loud and clear, and the on-screen images are noticeably less choppy.

Neither app enables the viewer to take control of the moderator's screen.

Conclusion

GoToMeeting and WebEx offer lawyers an economical alternative to in-person meetings. The technology works as advertised. Going forward, we can expect more functionality on the desktop and especially mobile devices.

Written by Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone.com.

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 November 1, 2010 in our free BigLaw newsletter.

Apple's App Store offers more than 200,000 apps for the iPhone (primarily) and iPad. Apps run the gamut from games to social media clients to sophisticated document editors to flashlights. Yet there is a shortage of law-related apps, especially those developed by large law firms. In future BigLaw columns, I'll discuss the app development process as well as enterprise apps for internal use at large firms. Today, let's explore law firms apps as marketing tools.

Ignore Smartphone App User Psychographics at Your Peril

The iPhone — now in the hands of over 30 million users, many of them corporate executives — seems like an ideal platform for large law firms to advertise their legal services. However, most firms have not yet released an app.

App development is not cheap. Even the simplest of iPhone apps costs around $20,000 to develop — and that's just to write the code. The price can quickly escalate to upwards of $50,000 once you include the costs to maintain the code, house and run the servers necessary to feed information to the app, and the need to keep the app up to date with Apple's iOS operating system releases. While you can spend less to develop an app, the cost savings is usually apparent in the resulting quality and utility of the app.

Despite the high costs of entry, some law firms — big and small — have ventured into mobile advertising by releasing iPhone apps. Did being first to market help these firms? Probably not. Most of these apps don't offer significant value, which means that those who download them quickly abandon them.

Mobile industry analysts and Apple's own software engineers have stated that the most successful mobile apps are those that do one thing and do it well. Generally, users of mobile technology have a short attention span. They want to click on an app, use it, and move on. They don't want to spend ten minutes drilling through attorney bios, case law updates, and legal news it as if they were sitting at their desktop computer viewing a Web site.

This psychographic profile of a typical app user explains why the current iPhone offerings by law firms have failed. Most law firm apps consist of simplified regurgitations of their Web site. They try to squeeze too much information onto a tiny screen and do not offer anything to motivate users to return to the app a second time. So, what should your app contain?

The Recipe for Law Firm Smartphone App Success

To succeed, advertising your law firm should be incidental to the primary purpose of your mobile app — not the other way around. Ideally, it should offer frequently-updated information or a tool that makes users want to return to the app again and again. Also, incorporating game dynamics can help make a useful app even more addictive.

Morrison & Foerster's free MoFo2Go app is probably the best of the law firm apps currently available. In addition to attorney bios, legal news, press releases, and firm newsletters, the app also provides some entertainment value by including a small labyrinth game. Although a step in the right direction, the game is not compelling enough to persuade users to return.

Obviously, developing an app that corporate executives download in droves is easier said than done, but not impossible. Eventually, a large law firm will release such an app. It may as well be your firm.

Written by Dan Friedlander of LawOnMyPhone.com.

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.