TechnoLawyer: TL NewsWire

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THE LAW FIRM WEBSITE YOU THOUGHT YOU COULDN'T AFFORD

During the heyday of the yellow pages, a small law firm could create an advertisement that looked just as good as everyone else's. However, designing a website that works on all devices, and which has a blog, client portal, payment processing, and other modern amenities that clients expect can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

MyCase Websites … in One Sentence

MyCase Websites provides law firms with a modern website that integrates with the MyCase cloud practice management application.

The Killer Feature

MyCase pioneered the client portal. The company's founders felt that secure communications should reside at the heart of a practice management system. With MyCase Websites, your client portal becomes part of your website. And your website resides at the domain name of your choosing, further reinforcing your brand and making it seem like you built everything yourself.

Clients can go from reading your latest blog article to communicating with you, downloading case documents, paying a bill, reviewing upcoming calendar events and tasks, and accessing other case information you make available.

"MyCase Websites was a direct request from our customers," Founder and VP, Product Management Matt Spiegel told us. "It provides a professional online storefront, and enables law firms and their clients to easily and securely access the MyCase practice management software directly through the law firm's website."

Other Notable Features

You start by working with MyCase to select from a collection of professional designs with custom color options and layouts. These templates are "responsive," which means your website automatically adjusts to the size of the screen of each visitor to provide an optimal user experience. Google ranks responsive websites higher.

Speaking of Google, MyCase Websites ensures that you always use best practices for search engine optimization without having to learn what this means. For example, your web pages will contain keywords related to your practice, especially in the all important page titles and URL slugs.

The MyCase Websites content management system enables you to create new web pages and publish a blog without having to know HTML. Social media integration means you can automatically post links to your new blog posts to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more.

MyCase sets up a Google Analytics account for your website so that you can review traffic statistics and measure the performance of your marketing activities.

What Else Should You Know?

MyCase Websites costs $500 for the initial setup. Thereafter, the ongoing service costs $50 per month. The practice management software costs $39 per month per lawyer and $29 per month per non-lawyer staff. Learn more about MyCase Websites.

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 NewsWire covers speech recognition software for lawyers that works with nearly any microphone such as the one on your smartphone (see article below), a cloud word processor with new spreadsheet functionality, an iOS scanning app with OCR, and an online payroll processing service. Don't miss the next issue.

BENEVOLENT DICTATION

A meme exists to the effect that no one makes telephone calls anymore. Except that many people still make many telephone calls, including lawyers. Furthermore, voice recognition has become an area of intense research. Every smartphone now includes it. In short, your voice is still a thing. Maybe you should learn to use it more productively.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Legal … in One Sentence

Launched earlier this month, Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Legal is speech recognition software designed for legal work.

The Killer Feature

In Dragon's early days, the difference between success and failure depended on your diligence and your microphone. It required reading training materials and an optimized microphone. Nuance realizes that training software is like watching paint dry and thus a deal killer.

The microphones built into computers have become so good that Dragon 13 Legal works with most of them. Automatic microphone detection lists all available microphones, enabling you to switch among them. If you prefer dictating on your feet or perhaps while holding a yoga pose, you can use your Android smartphone or iPhone as a wireless microphone. Alternatively, you can dictate into the free Dragon Recorder app for the iPhone and then import the files into Dragon 13 Legal.

Nuance has also eliminated the need to train the software (though it remains an option for optimal accuracy). You can expect 99% accuracy out of the box with this percentage improving as the software adapts to your voice. A language model tuned for legal terms and a legal dictionary means that Dragon 13 Legal understands legalese. The software also knows how to format citations.

Other Notable Features

The Dragon 13 Legal Macro Recorder enables you to integrate with any other product you use. For example, you can create a voice macro to run a conflicts search in your practice management system. Meanwhile, Smart Format Rules enable you to teach Dragon 13 Legal how to handle abbreviations, paragraph numbers, etc. to obviate having to make the same corrections repeatedly.

Another automation feature of sorts enables you to proofread your documents by listening to them. You can play your original dictation, but you'll likely find the text-to-speech playback more helpful.

What Else Should You Know?

Dragon 13 Legal enables you to control the toolbar and other commands by voice in popular applications such as Microsoft Word 2010 and later, WordPerfect X6 and later, Gmail, and the major web browsers. Dragon 13 Legal requires Windows 7 or later. It costs $799. If you don't need the legal features, Dragon 13 Premium costs $199 and Dragon 13 Professional costs $599. Learn more about Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 Legal.

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 NewsWire covers an office suite that includes software for automating tables of authorities (see article below), an iOS email app compatible with most email protocols and services, an iOS law dictionary app that works inside other apps, an iOS app for organizing paper stickie notes (not a joke). Don't miss the next issue.

A POPULAR OFFICE SUITE SWEETENS ITS LEGAL BUNDLE

Software is unpredictable regarding its ability to upend the status quo. However, it follows a predictable path. Multi-functional software such as a word processor renders single-purpose utilities obsolete. This process is now playing out regarding products to create tables of authorities.

WordPerfect Office X7 Legal Edition … in One Sentence

Launched recently, Corel's WordPerfect Office X7 Legal Edition is an office suite that now includes Perfect Authority (normally $199.99), which automates the creation of tables of authorities.

The Killer Feature

Perfect Authority works with citations in Bluebook, California Style Manual, Florida Rule 9.800, and Louisiana Public Domain formats. You need not manually mark citations as Perfect Authority finds them unassisted.

You can place the table of authorities you generate in your current document or create a separate document. Either way, you can update the table of authorities as often as necessary. When placed in the same document, the table of authorities can contain a page number hyperlinks.

Perfect Authority's Option Sets enable you to create, save, and apply settings for citation type, dot leaders, fonts, margins, Passim, sorting, and more. You can create multiple Option Sets for different courts, document types, etc. The Dictionary Editor further enhances automation by storing short-forms and legal terms with the correct capitalization and spelling.

"Perfect Authority was developed and integrated into WordPerfect Office as a result of numerous requests from our loyal users," Corel Executive Vice President of Graphics & Productivity Nick Davies told us. "The automatic creation of tables of authorities from within WordPerfect saves lawyers and their teams a significant amount of time."

Other Notable Features

Because the PDF format has become essential to law practice, Corel has enhanced the PDF capabilities in WordPerfect. For example, you can now create PDF forms, import PDF documents and edit them, save documents in PDF or PDF/A formats, and apply security settings.

The new Favorites features facilitates quick access to frequently-used documents and enables you to open several documents simultaneously. The enhanced Macro Manger contains several new macros.

Other improved features include Bates numbering, metadata removal, redaction, optical disc burning (via Roxio), and of course the perennially popular Reveal Codes. BrainStorm training videos help you get up to speed.

What Else Should You Know?

WordPerfect Office X7 Legal Edition costs $349.99. Those eligible can upgrade for $224.99. Corel offers discounts via many bar associations. You can try it for free. Learn more about WordPerfect Office X7 Legal Edition.

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 NewsWire covers an integrated billing, practice management, and trust accounting cloud application (see article below), an add-on for WestlawNext, an iOS app for creating diagrams, and a cloud time-tracking application. Don't miss the next issue.

LEGAL PRACTICE MANAGEMENT FOR ALL ASPECTS OF YOUR BUSINESS

Last decade, integrated software was like an army that had advanced beyond its supply lines. It held a lot of promise, but the technology simply didn't exist yet to make it successful. From force of habit, many small law firms still use a smorgasbord of software products, but the times have changed.

CosmoLex … in One Sentence

Updated recently, CosmoLex is a cloud legal practice management application with integrated billing, calendaring, conflicts checking, task management, and trust accounting.

The Killer Feature

Integration of your law firm's finances and client work eliminates duplication and reduces errors. For example, CosmoLex handles the entire client intake process. You can use it to conduct a conflicts search, schedule the initial meeting on the team calendar, enter the initial retainer into a new trust account, assign the matter's initial set of tasks to you and your team, convert completed tasks into billable time entries, generate a bill, and apply the retainer to the bill.

"We knew that a simple but robust integration of calendaring, task tracking, billing, and trust accounting would solve the majority of operational efficiency problems at small law firms," CosmoLex CEO Dr. Rick Kabra told us. "The bonus of anytime/anywhere access to these capabilities in the cloud exponentially increases the productivity gains realized."

Other Notable Features

CosmoLex's 360-Degree Financial View is a one-page dashboard that displays a snapshot of important financial data across all matters, including fee advances in an operating or trust account, unbilled work, and unpaid bills.

You'll find support for any style of billing such as hourly, contingent, and flat fee. Time entry requires just three clicks or taps. The Shorthand tool expands abbreviations that you set up for faster entry. Built-in cost accounting enables you to charge for overhead. Billing features include invoice customization, batch billing into PDF or Word format, and the ability to email invoices and reminders for past due invoices.

CosmoLex handles any trust accounting scenario, including preventing common trust accounting mistakes such as ledger card over-draft, three-way bank reconciliation, an audit trail of all trust account activity for each client and matter, low retainer replenishment requests, check printing (standard and voucher-style), and statements for clients that comply with your governing ethics rules. Trust accounts are always audit ready and IOLTA compliant.

CosmoLex goes beyond traditional conflicts checking. For example, finding a matching name doesn't necessarily mean a conflict exists. For this reason, the Conflict Checking function shows you relationships (e.g., John Smith was a witness for opposing counsel in a case five years ago).

Law firms must safeguard client data from external threats, and limit access internally. CosmoLex uses only datacenters in the United States with the latest encryption and other security protocols. Your data gets backed up automatically every four hours. Role-Based User Security enables you to create groups of people to designate which functions of CosmoLex they can access.

What Else Should You Know?

CosmoLex features a responsive design that automatically adapts to smaller screen sizes, enabling you to use it in any web browser on any device. CosmoLex costs $50 per user per month ($43 if you pay annually). You can try it for free. Learn more about CosmoLex.

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 NewsWire covers an Android app that automatically tracks your telephone calls and text messages (see article below), a Bluetooth keyboard that works with any device, a portable USB charger that consumes virtually no space, and an iPhone app that digs up the dirt on your contacts. Don't miss the next issue.

AN ANDROID APP THAT CAPTURES CALLS AND TEXT MESSAGES

The best tool for tracking billable time is the one that does so automatically. The second best tool is the one you have with you. Because software cannot (yet) read your mind, you need both tools. This means a smart app for your smartphone.

Chrometa for Android … in One Sentence

Launched this week, Chrometa for Android tracks your billable time, including telephone calls and text messages, and securely sends it to your Chrometa or Chrometa Teams account.

The Killer Feature

Chrometa is a popular web application that uses locally installed apps to automatically track the time you spend working on your Mac or Windows PC (Chrometa Teams is the multi-user version). Lawyers who use Chrometa told CEO and Co-Founder Brett Owens that they like the convenience of communicating with clients via text messages but find it difficult to bill for them.

Chrometa for Android addresses this problem by automatically capturing the time you spend on text messages as well as telephone calls. You finalize your captured time, and either generate bills or export the data to your firm's billing software using Chrometa. You control when to sync your smartphone with Chrometa. This enables you to prevent sending your personal communications over a weekend or while in vacation to Chrometa.

If you use Google Contacts, Chrometa can match each telephone number when you sync so that it can organize your time entries by client. Keyword-based rules in the web application categorize all your time entries in an even more granular manner, including assigning the corresponding matter (project) and grouping those that are not billable.

"By popular request, we added text message capture to the latest version of our Android app," says Owens. "Thanks to all the billable time Chrometa for Android can capture, lawyers can get paid for all the time they spend communicating with and producing work for clients."

Other Notable Features

In addition to automatically capturing telephone calls and text messages, Chrometa for Android also enables you to manually enter time for other activities. The time entry screen lists your billable time, a field for a description, and a list of clients and matters from which you can choose.

Manual time entry takes two forms. You can quickly enter billable time after the fact. Alternatively, you can start a stopwatch within Chrometa for Android when you start a billable task such as a meeting. When the billable event ends, you stop the timer and create a time entry based on the stopwatch. You can pause and resume the stopwatch as often as needed during a billable task.

What Else Should You Know?

Chrometa for Android is free for Chrometa and Chrometa Teams users. The app works on smartphones running Android 2.3 and later. Chrometa ranges in price from $12 to $19 to $29 per month depending primarily on how many devices you want to track. Chrometa Teams costs the same per user. Learn more about Chrometa for Android.

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 NewsWire covers the new iPad app for a popular practice management system (see article below), a portable scanner that works with Android and iOS devices, a communications automation iPhone app, and device for improving and tracking your sleep. Don't miss the next issue.

LEGAL PRACTICE MANAGEMENT ON THE IPAD TAKES ORBIT

Law firms like the benefits of infrastructure but not its baggage. For example, back in the 1990s, law firms welcomed server-based practice management systems because of the collaboration they made possible. But they stuck the servers out of sight. Nowadays, cloud practice management systems have completely eliminated the need for local servers. However, web browsers have become a pain point given the resurgence of native software thanks largely to iOS.

Rocket Matter iPad Edition … in One Sentence

Announced today and launching soon, Rocket Matter iPad Edition is a free app for users of Rocket Matter, a cloud practice management system.

The Killer Feature

Rocket Matter iPad Edition features a customizable dashboard so that you can instantly see what's happening with your matters as well as across your entire law firm if you have the access rights. In addition to choosing what to display and the color palette, you can further customize the dashboard with a personal avatar and photos.

From the dashboard, you can access documents, add notes to a matter, create calendar events, delegate tasks, enter time, generate bills, review trust account balances, etc. Rocket Matter iPad Edition offers the same functionality of the web version of Rocket Matter.

"The Rocket Matter iPad Edition is not just a mere app," Rocket Matter CEO and Co-Founder Larry Port told us. "It's an entire tablet-based solution that ties into Rocket Matter's cloud data storage. We've carefully watched how lawyers, law firms, and bar associations have all eagerly embraced the practical advantages that tablets provide. We took these observations and combined them with direct suggestions from our lawyer partners to build unmatched legal practice management software."

Other Notable Features

Complementing the dashboards, Rocket Matter iPad Edition can generate a number of reports that provide a detailed snapshot of your firm's financials, including accounting, billing, and trust accounting. Customizable parameters and date ranges enable you to generate a report with the data you want. If you have an AirPrint or other compatible printer, you can print reports directly from your iPad.

Good design makes products easier to use. Legal cloud software companies have the most talented designers and user experience engineers in the industry. Rocket Matter has such an abundance of so-called "front-end" talent that it also designs websites for law firms. This team created a new user interface specifically for the iPad. Port describes the screens in Rocket Matter iPad Edition as "sleek, intuitive, and seamless."

Within a web browser, cloud applications function only when you have an Internet connection. This is a limitation of web browsers. By contrast, Rocket Matter iPad Edition works with or without an Internet connection. Any changes you make while offline synchronize when you reconnect to the Internet.

What Else Should You Know?

While Rocket Matter iPad Edition is free, it requires a Rocket Matter subscription. Prices range from $52 per month per user for the two-year plan to $65 per month per user without a long-term commitment. The company also offers annual and quarterly plans. You can try Rocket Matter for free for 30 days, including Rocket Matter iPad Edition. Learn more about Rocket Matter iPad Edition.

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 NewsWire covers a virtual desktop and network service that eliminates the need for you to buy and maintain server hardware (see article below), active noise canceling headphones, an Outlook add-on that analyzes your email messages for grammar and style and makes suggestions, and a legal research service. Don't miss the next issue.

TAKE A PERMANENT VACATION FROM MANAGING TECHNOLOGY

Some people who claim to take a vacation cook their own meals. This isn't a vacation. It's called camping (even when it occurs in a city). Most vacationers are not among the world's most talented cooks. Indeed, many people plan their restaurant itinerary as carefully as their other vacation activities. Nowadays, technology shares similarities with vacations. Some law firms still want to manage everything onsite, but most would prefer to let experts handle the "cooking" via the cloud — if only they could find the right "restaurant."

Abacus Private Cloud … in One Sentence

Launched this week, Abacus Data Systems' Abacus Private Cloud (APC) is a secure virtual desktop and network service on which you can run any software you want.

The Killer Feature

Law firms love the idea of outsourcing their IT infrastructure, but have concerns about security and functionality. Abacus Data Systems CEO Alessandra Lezama spent most of her career managing datacenters. She tells us that most online applications use the so-called public cloud. Your firm's confidential client data might reside on the same server as a videogame in a country with an unstable government.

APC resides in datacenters owned and operated by Abacus Data Systems in the United States. Furthermore, although the company offers a practice management system called AbacusLaw, APC is software agnostic. This means you can use whatever products you want while still reaping the benefits of the cloud.

Here's the deal. APC works on any Internet-connected device — Mac, PC, iPad, and smartphone. After logging in, a virtual desktop takes over your screen. From here you run the software you've asked Abacus Data Systems to install — QuickBooks, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, etc. You can also use any web browser to run cloud applications such as Clio and WestlawNext. APC offers deep integration for AbacusLaw and Office 365.

"Piecemeal technology is no longer sufficient to remain competitive in today's legal landscape," says Lezama. "APC can take any local IT infrastructure and desktop software environment and weave it into a fully integrated, virtual workplace accessible remotely from any device anywhere, anytime."

Other Notable Features

In addition to a virtual desktop, APC provides you with a virtual network comprised of SSD drives. You won't need a file server anymore. You share documents with colleagues using the Corporate Drive (a User Drive exists for your personal documents). You can scan to and print from these virtual drives, which save every version of your documents.

APC requires no capital investment. Abacus Data Systems takes care of the entire deployment, including 24/7 monitoring and technical support, antivirus protection, backups, maintenance, security updates, software upgrades, etc.

The datacenters that house APC have five tiers of physical, network, and data security. This has earned APC the SOC2/SSAE16 certification. Abacus Data Systems guarantees 99.999% uptime — the highest possible. Your data, which you can retrieve anytime, has its own dedicated IP address.

What Else Should You Know?

You can tailor APC to meet your firm's specific requirements. You can scale your use of computing resources up or down quickly to adjust to the needs of your law firm. Pricing starts at $165 per month with no long-term contract required. Learn more about Abacus Private Cloud.

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 NewsWire covers an integrated accounting, billing, and practice management system with automated billing technology (see article below), a multifunction inkjet printer with specifications similar to that of laser printers, software for running Windows on your Mac, and a popular stock photo store that significantly reduced and simplified its pricing today. Don't miss the next issue.

THE SOONER YOU BILL, THE FASTER YOU GET PAID

Some studies have shown that up to 20% of a law firm's invoices are in arrears at any given time. This negatively impacts cash flow, not to mention morale if you have difficulty meeting payroll. This problem often stems more from inefficient billing workflows than from deliberately delinquent clients. Better technology can therefore improve your cash flow.

LexisNexis PCLaw 14 … in One Sentence

Launched this week, LexisNexis PCLaw 14 is a financial and practice management application with new automated billing technologies.

The Killer Feature

Batch Email Billing enables you to review, edit, and email multiple invoices to clients — 5, 10, 100, or more simultaneously. If you accept credit cards, PCLaw can process and apply payments to further increase payment speed and reduce delinquencies.

From the same screen, you can monitor trust account transfers and retainers applied during the billing cycle for every invoice. You can generate a report listing all the invoices you emailed. This information also resides within each client's file.

"No matter how large or successful, cash flow is king for law firms," PCLaw Product Manager Steve Fetters told us. "Law firm customers today look for every way possible to speed the billing process so they can get paid faster. Batch email billing in PCLaw 14 helps reduce monthly invoicing time from days to just hours. The sooner the bills go out, the faster payments start arriving."

Other Notable Features

LexisNexis has also enhanced the dashboards in PCLaw. For example, the My Clients dashboard now enables you to access client time sheets, document a client telephone call, and record a collection memo. As with the previous version of PCLaw, My Clients continues to display for each client appointments, email, documents, ticklers, tasks, recent time entries, and financial information such as trust balance and overdue invoices.

The My Practice dashboard displays your appointments, email, tasks, recent matters, and news pertaining to your practice areas. The My Business dashboard displays firm-wide financial data such as Key Performance Indicators with the ability to drill down to financial statements, invoices, and more.

Finally, the new version of PCLaw makes it easier to onboard new clients. In addition to checking for conflicts, PCLaw can now email an intake form to prospective clients, and later import completed forms into PCLaw. You can alternatively perform client intake during a meeting or print your firm's client intake form from PCLaw for clients who prefer paper.

What Else Should You Know?

PCLaw costs $935 for the first user and $695 for each additional user. Prices include both the software and the first year of an Annual Maintenance Plan (AMP) subscription. The AMP subscription includes telephone technical support, software updates, PCLaw Mobility for secure access to PCLaw from your smartphone, and online training courses. Learn more about LexisNexis PCLaw 14.

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 NewsWire covers cloud ediscovery software with new near-duplicate document processing technology (see article below), a new twist on cable management, legal proofreading software that you can train, and an iOS app for creating time-lapse videos. Don't miss the next issue.

GROUP "LIKE" DISCOVERY DOCUMENTS TO EXPEDITE YOUR REVIEW

If you're like most lawyers, the documents you create go through multiple rounds of drafts. And you probably have email conversations with threads that would kill a few trees if printed. You're not the only the one who generates these so-called "near duplicates." Documents nearly but not exactly the same have become an expensive problem in ediscovery.

Lexbe eDiscovery Platform … in One Sentence

Launched this week, Lexbe eDiscovery Platform, a cloud application for processing, culling, reviewing and producing electronically stored information (ESI), now includes near duplicate grouping technology called NearDup Groupings+.

The Killer Feature

NearDup Groupings+ takes advantage of specialized servers in Lexbe's datacenter, enabling it to scale to handle cases of any size. It "runs quickly" according to the company, giving it a speed advantage over on-premise software running on a single PC or even a small cluster.

NearDup Groupings+ also speeds up the review process while minimizing risks. Grouping similar documents in a collection of ESI facilitates accelerated batch issue coding. Of course, NearDup Groupings+ doesn't only group similar responsive documents, but also similar privileged documents. This makes it less likely you'll inadvertently disclose such documents, a growing problem thanks to the volume of email, attachments, and other ESI even in small cases.

Speaking of email, it has long posed a challenge for near-duplication software not to mention mighty Gmail. Conversations involving some of the same people but on different topics often mistakenly get grouped together. NearDup Grouping+ looks beyond the sender, recipients, and subject line to group email messages more intelligently — like a human being. With more confidence in the near duplicate groupings, you can review email threads more quickly.

Other Notable Features

Lexbe eDiscovery Platform supports documents in their native format and Outlook PST files. You can also load documents in PDF or TIFF formats; it automatically processes and performs OCR on scanned documents. Bates stamping can occur at the document level for native files and on each page for PDF and TIFF files, providing for flexible review and productions.

A Google-like search interface facilitates Boolean keyword searches. Lexbe eDiscovery Platform also features more advanced tools such as concept, stemming (derivatives of root words), and fuzzy searches. Saved searches automatically include newly added documents. You'll find a standard set of issue tags, but you can also create your own custom tags.

Administrative controls enable you to automatically assign documents to reviewers for "load-balanced" reviews. Review progress reporting helps you stay on top of staffing and production deadlines. Lexbe eDiscovery Platform produces documents in whatever format you agree upon with opposing counsel (e.g., Native, PDF, or TIFF load files).

What Else Should You Know?

Lexbe eDiscovery Platform costs $22 per GB per month regardless of the number of cases and users (discounts exist for customers with large cases and/or many accounts). This price includes NearDup Groupings+. However, the latter is also available as a standalone service. When used in this manner, Lexbe delivers near duplicate load files for other popular document review products. Learn more about Lexbe eDiscovery Platform.

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 NewsWire covers software that adds legal research and litigation drafting tools to Microsoft Office via the Ribbon (see article below), a scanner rental service, an iPhone time management app, and a cloud practice management system for litigation. Don't miss the next issue.

GIVE MICROSOFT WORD AND OUTLOOK A LAW DEGREE

Microsoft Word and Outlook don't realize you're a lawyer. That's too bad because you spend so much time using these iconic software products. Your usage generates a wealth of data about your cases in the documents you create and the email messages you send and receive. Realizing this, LexisNexis teamed up with Microsoft to help you leverage this data to automate many common tasks.

Lexis for Microsoft Office 4.2 … in One Sentence

Launched recently, Lexis for Microsoft Office 4.2 adds legal research tools to Microsoft Word and Outlook and litigation drafting tools to Microsoft Word.

The Killer Feature

An email message arrives with an attached brief from opposing counsel. You need copies of all the cases and other source materials cited in the brief. Time for a ton of manual labor, right?

Not with the new version of Lexis for Microsoft Office, which adds a button called "Get Cited Docs" to Word's Ribbon. Clicking the button taps into your Lexis Advance account and places all the cited documents into a virtual stack. In addition to reading these materials on your PC, you can print and/or email them (PDF format). You can also apply filters such as displaying negative treatment from Shepard's to start your own research.

Get Cited Docs works with Word and PDF documents. In the latter case, technology from Nuance converts the PDF document into Word format on-the-fly. A document need not arrive as an email attachment. Get Cited Docs can import and then work its magic on any Word or PDF document with citations.

Other Notable Features

Lexis for Microsoft Office also assists you when writing. For example, Check Cite Format checks your citations against the Bluebook, California, or New York rules. It shows your citations in context and suggests corrections, essentially acting like a spell checker. It also updates "Id" citations.

As its name suggests, Check Quotes compares quotes in your document to the source material in Lexis Advance. When it finds a difference, it shows you the original in context and offers you a suggested correction. It works with block quotes and understands brackets and ellipses.

After cleaning up your document with Check Cite Format and Check Quotes, Prepare TOA automates the creation of a table of authorities that it validates against Lexis Advance. Options include adding, editing, and moving headings, separating cases and statutes, separating federal and state sources, and placing party names on separate lines. You can update the table of authorities as often as necessary.

Lexis for Microsoft Office also adds functionality to Outlook by highlighting keywords such as citations, companies, judges, lawyers, etc. Clicking on a highlighted item displays the corresponding court opinion, etc. from Lexis Advance. You can also display search results from Bing and Google as well as run citations through Shepard's.

What Else Should You Know?

Lexis for Microsoft Office works with Microsoft Office 2007, 2010, and 2013. It requires a Lexis Advance subscription. Learn more about Lexis for Microsoft Office 4.2.

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.