TechnoLawyer: Online/Cloud

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, technology journalist and freelance writer Taeho Lim covers a comprehensive online service for litigators, and a "back office" accounting and time-billing program and "front office" case management program that integrate with each other. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Empower Your Front Office
By Taeho Lim

What's in your front office? A receptionist, comfy leather sofa, and a coffee table with some magazines and newspapers? Nice. But I wasn't asking about that front office. I mean your digital front office — the one you use for interacting with your clients and managing your calendar and matters.

What's that? You don't want to show it to me? Sure, I understand. You may want to take a look at the just-released Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0.

Understanding that email remains the killer app, LexisNexis has reengineered Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0 integration not just with Outlook, but Microsoft Exchange Server. So if you want to migrate to Windows Vista and Exchange 2007 or add a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, go right ahead.

Come to think of it, better managing your matters so that you can stop and smell a few roses before you push up the daisies is also a killer app. The new "Task Panel" enables you to find what you need quickly. Similarly, enhanced "Triggers" should also make life easier. For example, when you change a contact from "prospect" to "client," Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0 can send an alert to your assistant to begin the client intake process.

Also new in Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0 is the ability to create five user-defined record types. Thus, in addition to creating contacts, appointments, tasks, matters, etc., you can create anything else your firm needs to track such as assets, damages collected, etc. LexisNexis has also beefed up the number of colleagues you can associate with a matter, event, etc. — it's now 100, up from 6.

Other new features include a more powerful search tool for conflict checking and other searches, a customizable personal journal for reviewing your matters, events, tasks, etc., auto-completion when searching for contacts and matters, an improved and updated CaseMap link, and smart archiving that warns you about incomplete items.

Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0 is easier to set up than ever before, thanks to seven new wizards and five default security profiles (you can create more if needed). It integrates tightly with new Lexis Back Office powered by Billing Matters 9.0 or Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9. Learn more about Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, technology journalist and freelance writer Taeho Lim covers a comprehensive online service for litigators, and a "back office" accounting and time-billing program and "front office" case management program that integrate with each other. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

The Bigger the Better When It Comes to Integration
By Taeho Lim

When you're big, it's easier to find partners that want to team up with you. No, this statement does not mean that heavy or tall people have an easier time starting law firms. We're talking strategic alliances between large companies.

Take LexisNexis, for example. Its Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9 has a bevy of new features, many of them linked to key alliances with other industry leaders. For example, want to process credit card payments within Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9? No problem, thanks to integrated credit card processing powered by PPI.

Want integrated payroll as well? LexisNexis has partnered with ADP for that service. When you run payroll, ADP automatically generates all the appropriate entries in Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9. You can either print payroll checks or take advantage of direct deposit. This integration also enables you to print W-2s and 1099s, and file federal and state tax returns electronically or via mail (your choice).

LexisNexis also seems to have emphasized ease of use in the latest version. The new "BillFlow Manager" provides a centralized tool for all client billing activities, enabling you to more accurately and quickly generate and send out bills.

Of course, to generate bills, you must track your progress on work. Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9 can track any portion of an hour and provides automatic timers. You can synchronize a timer to track the time you spend in applications such as Microsoft(R) Word, Outlook(R), LexisNexis Total Practice Advantage, and more. Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9 also provides tools for task-based billing. No matter how you bill, entering a matter number automatically retrieves lawyer and billing rate information.

For those of you in the corner office, Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9 features beefed up reporting, including new sorting and filtering options that can identify your most profitable clients, staff and practice areas.

Also, if trust accounting requirements keep you up at night, Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9 should provide some relief with its built-in safeguards to prevent overdrafts, as well as reports that provide an audit trail for all transactions.

Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9 tightly integrates with Lexis Front Office powered by Time Matters 9.0 and LexisNexis Total Practice Advantage. Prices start at $400 per user. Learn more about Lexis Back Office powered by PCLaw 9.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, technology journalist and freelance writer Taeho Lim covers a comprehensive online service for litigators, and a "back office" accounting and time-billing program and "front office" case management program that integrate with each other. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Soup-to-Nuts Litigation Software and Services
By Taeho Lim

What's worse than multiple logins? Not much, that's for sure. LexisNexis Total Litigator provides an "end to end" litigation solution that directs you to the appropriate legal resources and tools for each step in your case. By tying together virtually all of LexisNexis' research and litigation services, you'll only have to login once no matter what you need to do.

When you log into your account using any Web browser, LexisNexis Total Litigator organizes the home page based on the typical steps in litigation: Early Case Assessment, Draft/File/Serve, Discovery, Research, Gather Intelligence, and Trial Preparation.

Below each step, you can access corresponding tools and resources. In "Early Case Assessment," you can research companies, witnesses, judges, arbitrators, lawyers, jury instructions, demographics, jury verdicts, and dockets. Total Litigator also points to software tools like LexisNexis CaseMap, TimeMap, and NoteMap that may come in handy at this stage.

"Draft/File/Serve" enables you to download forms, search for briefs, pleadings, and motions, retrieve court documents via CourtLink, serve process, file documents electronically via LexisNexis File & Serve, and verify citations and automate brief drafting with Shepard's Link, StyleCheck, BriefCheck, and Full Authority.

"Discovery" provides similar forms and research services focused on discovery issues. You can also sign up to receive free case summary alerts so that you can stay on top of this rapidly changing field. If you use Applied Discovery, you can access your account through Total Litigator by linking the two services. This step also points to software programs like Concordance.

"Research" provides access to LexisNexis' bread and butter — its vast legal research services, including cases, statutes, agencies, court rules, news sources, and of course Shepard's. You can also enter a citation to quickly find a court opinion, statute, etc. "Gather Intelligence" enables you to find experts, public records, copyrights, trademarks, patents, and much more. Trial Preparation provides access to LexisNexis resources such as Matthew Bender's collection of opening and closing statements.

LexisNexis Total Litigator also provides email alerts to keep you updated on docket activity, relevant changes in the law, and important facts pertaining to your case. In addition, you can conduct freeform searches in which you can combine sources. Learn more about LexisNexis Total Litigator.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming August 28, 2007 to TechnoFeature: If you need to find an online legal research service, you've come to the right place. In this article, lawyer and technology enthusiast Carroll Straus reviews the features and functionality of Loislaw. Though owned by publishing giant Wolters Kluwer, Loislaw is a relative newcomer compared to LexisNexis and Westlaw. In her review, Carroll discusses why she prefers Loislaw to its more well-known rivals, but also points out what she doesn't like and what she hopes will improve. As a bonus, Loislaw accepted our invitation to respond to Carroll's observations.

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Published on Tuesdays, TechnoFeature is a weekly newsletter that contains in-depth articles written by leading legal technology and practice management experts. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Read our latest coverage of CaseMap here.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers the latest version of a popular case analysis program, a financial forecasting and modeling program for law firms, and a freeware and shareware emporium that uses a problem/solution format to help you find products. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Case Analysis Never Looked So Good
By Dennis Kennedy

LexisNexis CaseMap, a litigation case analysis program, is a rare breed in that its user base consists of virtually everyone from solos to large firms to government agencies. What these litigation teams have in common is a need for a central location to enter facts, issues, and evidence, and then generate reports.

In the latest version, LexisNexis CaseMap 7.5, LexisNexis has lavished lots of attention on the reports — the program's public face. Reports and ReportBooks look a lot snappier now that you can add graphics to the title page, including your logo.

Also, a new Reports menu enables you to access all reports with one click. From this new menu, you can also configure Page Setup and Print options, insert a TimeMap timeline, insert a NoteMap outline, send a spreadsheet report to Word, WordPerfect, or a Web browser, export to Excel, and launch the Summary Judgment Report Wizard.

As for the all-important content within your reports, you can now include "By-Issue" reports in ReportBooks. These reports display records linked to an issue (e.g., all facts and documents associated with the breach of contract issue). You can use the default By-Issue reports that ship with CaseMap and also build your own custom reports.

LexisNexis has also beefed up CaseMap's "Link Summary" technology. As a result, you can now generate reports that show the number of documents a party, witness, or other key participant has authored (LS: Docs Authored) as well as the number of email messages sent (LS: Emails Authored) and received (LS: Emails Received). These reports should make deposition preparation much simpler. Just click the count to access all the documents or email messages. As for getting these records into CaseMap in the first place, it's easier than ever thanks to an an overhauled "Send-To-CaseMap" tool.

Other enhancements include live spell checking, the ability to add Facts (people, places, documents, etc.) on the fly, tighter integration with NoteMap, and case auto-logon, which enables you to side-step the login dialog when you're the only person working on a CaseMap case. Learn more about LexisNexis CaseMap 7.5.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming August 24, 2007 to Fat Friday: Jean Mahserjian reviews the AT&T 8525 smartphone, Ben Schorr discusses one minor misconception about Word and one major misconception about WordPerfect, Joshua Stein provides some further comments on his TechnoFeature about New York's Lawyer Advertising Rules, Dixon Robertson shares how he got 60 years worth of his father's photos into digital format, and Roy Ackerman discusses what it took in terms of phone calls and downloads to activate Acrobat 8. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Fridays, Fat Friday is a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an automated metadata removal utility, a database that doesn't require programming, and monitoring software designed to keep your servers up and running. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

Metadata, Meet Your Match
By Dennis Kennedy

We regularly read news accounts of sensitive, confidential, or downright embarrassing information being exposed through poor metadata handling practices. Metadata is all that hidden data associated with your document files, including deleted text, comments, author name, date created, email addresses, and more.

We most often hear about it in connection with Microsoft Word documents, but metadata can also be found in PowerPoint presentations, and any other office suite that generates OpenDocument format (ODF).

3BView's 3BClean metadata management tool does what its name suggests. It helps you ensure that each document contains only the appropriate metadata or none at all if you prefer. When you email a document, 3BClean automatically monitors and cleans unnecessary metadata pursuant to your settings.

3BClean emphasizes automation. You can administer rules-based metadata policies for your entire office through a central administrator. No software is installed on user desktops and little or no user training is required. 3BClean can scale from single documents to thousands of documents. It also cleans email attachments sight unseen and even supports Webmail, BlackBerrys, and PDAs — a plus in this day and age as lawyers often send email with attachments when they are on the road, in court, or burning the midnight oil at home.

3BClean's smarts and versatility stem from the fact that it resides on a server. As a result, it also integrates with document management systems and works on Mac and Linux machines as well as Microsoft Windows. This centralized approach enables you to enforce firm-wide policies consistently both in and outside of the office.

In addition to metadata scrubbing, 3BClean can convert files, at your option, to a cleaned, secure PDF format for worry-free distribution. (Traditional PDF conversion does not remove metadata.)

In a new twist on the free trial, you can upload a document to 3BView's Web site to test 3BClean. You can also sign up for a free 2 week trial. Learn more about 3BClean.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an easy-to-use document assembly program, a new case management program available online or in a client/server format, and a backup utility capable of backing up open database files. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

I Came, I Saw, I Created Legal Documents
By Dennis Kennedy

All legal documents are created in one of three ways — staring at a blank page, using an existing document as a model, or using document assembly software. A classic trilemma, staring at a blank page means you have to reinvent the wheel, using a model is prone to embarrassing copy and paste errors, and document assembly software is difficult to set up.

Fortunately, someone forgot to tell Esquire Innovations about document assembly software being difficult to set up. Esquire's iCreate 4.0 comes out of the box with many useful templates ready to go, including letters, memos, fax cover sheets, pleadings, agreements, Bates labels, address labels, envelopes, etc. You can easily tweak these templates as you see fit such as adding your logo and lawyers to your letterhead.

Of course, you can also use iCreate to build your own templates for any document type. The design philosophy behind iCreate is to enhance Microsoft Word (and Excel and PowerPoint), not force you to learn something entirely new. Nowhere is this philosophy more apparent than with iCreate's iHyperstyles Toolbar, which iCreate adds to Word. The iHyperstyles Toolbar turns the daunting and difficult job of working with Styles in Word into a much simpler process that enables your firm to standardize its approach to document formatting.

With the iHyperstyles Toolbar, everyone in your firm can create, modify, apply, and manage styles and paragraph numbering in Word. From the toolbar, you can create new numbering schemes and save them for use on other documents, apply headings, simplify the creation of tables of contents and authorities, and of course apply formatting. You can also apply multiple styles and numbering schemes in the same document, automate the handling of paragraphs, and clean up manually-typed documents.

iCreate's other features include QuickMerge, which integrates with the address books of Outlook, GroupWise, Lotus Notes, and InterAction to make the insertion of contact information seamless, iCreate Label, which creates any imaginable label size, icCalendar, which can grab an Outlook calendar and place it in Word, and iBatesLabel for Bates stamping.

As you might expect, iCreate integrates with popular document management systems such as Hummingbird, InterWoven, NetDocuments, and Worldox.

The company offers two purchasing options. If you need a full-blown document assembly tool for creating templates, you can of course purchase iCreate, which includes the iHyperstyles Toolbar. If you just want to make Word's Styles easier to use and standardize them across your firm, you can purchase the iHyperstyles Toolbar by itself. Learn more about iCreate and the iHyperstyles Toolbar.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

As you may have heard, one week ago we released two eBooks in one PDF file: BlawgWorld 2007 with TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide. Currently available for free download from about 65 Web sites, you can download a copy here.

A compendium of 77 outstanding blawg posts, the BlawgWorld 2007 section of our eBook follows a well-proven model — repurposed content reaches new audiences.

For example, some people watch movies in theaters, but even more people watch them on DVD, HBO, network television, iPods, airplanes, etc.

Also, popular newspaper columnists and comic strip artists often collect their work in books. And those who write books often publish a chapter in a magazine.

Why should blogs be any different?

That's what we think, and that's also what the folks at SharedBook think. Talk about timing — the same week that we released our eBook, SharedBook released Blog2Print.

On-demand vanity publishing for blogs, Blog2Print enables bloggers and their readers to order a blog as a book (you get both a PDF eBook and a printed version). You can select the entire blog or posts within a date range, and add cover art, a dedication, and other material. At this point in time, you cannot cherry pick blog posts. Also, Blog2Print currently supports only Blogger.

Blog2Print joins Blurb in an increasingly crowded space.

Now, I personally think it's more interesting to read a collection of essays from different blogs than from one blog, but I think Blog2Print and Blurb have many potential uses.

For example, law firms that publish a blawg could use Blog2Print to send a book of their blawg posts to their clients every year.

Also, a number of blogs exist that have a beginning, middle, and end just like a book. For example, my personal favorite, The Darth Side, is a diary of Darth Vader written during Episodes V and VI, the last two Star Wars movies (sequence-wise). It's hilarious and a perfect candidate for printing in book form. In fact, the author has already made a PDF file of the blog available for download — and it's certainly easier to read the PDF file than to read the blog.

So, how well does Blog2Print work? My printer industry blogger friend Jim Lyons has already given it a spin using his own blog as the proverbial guinea pig. Read his post, Enhanced SharedBook Blogger Widget.

Also announced last week, Wikitravel introduced Wikitravel Press, a new service that enables you to print your own travel books using information from Wikitravel, a user-generated online travel guide.

(Blurb and Wikitravel Press links provided by Bob Ambrogi of Lawsites.)

About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an online document repository for transactional lawyers, an inexpensive PDF creation tool for Windows, and a suite of PDF utilities for Mac. Don't miss the next issue.

Below you'll find one of the three articles from today's edition:

How to Find a Good Deal Document
By Dennis Kennedy

Large firm transactional lawyers often have the benefit of a handy document bank of prior agreements that they can use when working on a new deal. An agreement similar to what you need can serve as an initial prototype, a checklist for issues, or as a useful way to determine how others treat similar deals.

But even the largest firms don't have every possible document available in house. And what about smaller firms?

Real Practice's RealDealDocs provides access to hundreds of thousands of exhibits from public filings from the SEC EDGAR database selected for relevance to transactional lawyers. Real Practice has categorized these documents and made them searchable using its own technology. As a result, you get access to not only thousands of agreements, but also millions of deal clauses, created by lawyers from the leading law firms in the U.S.

RealDealDocs organizes these materials so you can use simple pull-down menus to find the type of agreements you want. You can search by document or clause, or browse document categories. For document searches, you simply select the type of document and then drill down into sub-types. You can run full-text searches. The search results display of relevant documents with titles, parties, law firms, and other information to help you select a relevant document.

RealDealDocs currently highlights four main topic areas — mergers and acquisitions, securities and corporate finance, labor and employment, and real property and leases, but also provides materials in other practice areas.

You can use RealDealDocs for many other useful purposes than document creation. Documents from other deals make excellent issue checklists, indicate how a party you're negotiating with might have modified standard provisions in the past, and make for an effective parry when opposing counsel tells you that lawyers never change a certain provision.

Real Practice offers a 10-day free trial, with RealDealDocs available in daily ($9.95), weekly ($19.95), and monthly ($29.95 or $39.95) plans. Multiple user plans exist. Learn more about RealDealDocs.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that enables you to learn about new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.