TechnoLawyer: TL NewsWire

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers a document automation tool with built-in case management, a utility for setting up Windows networks, and a utility for managing and monitoring your network once you set it up. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Document Automation Catches Up to George Jetson
By Dennis Kennedy

Lawyers of my generation periodically daydream about George Jetson's job — push a few buttons and then put your feet up on the desk the rest of the day. That vision of the future didn't pan out and probably never will, but technology can make the lives of lawyers easier — most notably document automation software.

Unfortunately, while many lawyers crave automation, many also fear it because of a feeling that such systems are difficult to set up. This concern is especially prevalent among smaller firms. Easy Soft's EasyDocs aims to address this concern by focusing not only on an easy way to create document templates, but adding case and document management to the mix as well.

In the EasyDocs world, your practice revolves around the case documents you create. Thus EasyDocs enables you to automate standard forms and commonly-used documents, and manage your work on your cases at the same time. EasyDocs uses a case-oriented approach with which lawyers are familiar.

You can organize and display your templates by practice area, state, or categories. EasyDocs is network-friendly so you can store these templates centrally on a file server for everyone in your firm to use.

You can assemble your documents for output in either Word or PDF format. You can use your existing document templates and forms or create new ones. The history tab enables you to see all the documents in your case and regenerate a document with a single mouse click. EasyDocs is especially attractive for certain types of real estate practices because you can automatically import HUD-RESPA information.

The most unique feature of EasyDocs is the way it combines document preparation, document management, and task tracking into a single tool, making a lawyer's job, well, easy. For example, by default, all documents related to a case are stored in the same client folder. And each case has its own task list. The Case Log provides a dashboard so you can view all the document-related activity associated with open cases in one place.

EasyDocs costs $499 for a single-user license or $199 for a single user annual term license. Additional seats cost $99 each. Learn more about EasyDocs.

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 email archiving appliance, a Web-based time-billing solution, and a powerful desktop search tool. Don't miss the next issue.

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

The Renaissance Man of Desktop Search Tools
By Dennis Kennedy

Lawyers spend an increasing amount of time searching. While cynics might quip that lawyers spend much of that time looking for misplaced files (both electronic and paper), even the most organized lawyers need to search their hard drives and networks as well as discovery documents — and the free desktop search tools often fall short.

ISYS Search Software's ISYS 8 moves law firms well beyond the realm of free desktop search tools into powerful and versatile search technology. ISYS 8 offers a wide array of tools that enable you to find the information you need fast whether it resides on your PC, a file server, or elsewhere on your local or wide area network.

ISYS 8 works with your unstructured data as it finds it, including email. In fact, it can index and search data in more than 200 file formats (including Office 2007) in 60 languages, and each index can accommodate up to 64 million documents. You do not have to prepare your data before indexing it. You can, however, select from a number of indexing options, and automate indexing with a scheduler. For example, you could have ISYS index your email and attachments every hour.

ISYS 8 gives you a wide range of search options from the familiar standard keyword search to Boolean operators to useful options like "Starts with" and "Sounds like." ISYS 8's "Intelligent Agent" can even automatically perform searches for you and notify you of new results. ISYS also uses "fuzzy logic" to help you find "mis-shaped" words from OCR scans and "Synonym Rings" enables you to engage in "concept searching" — finding documents that contain terms related to your search terms (e.g., nicknames, synonyms, etc.). For email and other structured files, you can search by fields such as TO, CC, and BCC.

In addition to fast and powerful search, ISYS enables you to navigate and work with your results in many helpful ways. You can search within your initial results, filter or automatically categorize results, highlight, group, or cluster hits, set views or previews, and hide results that do not matter to you. ISYS 8 has a "Did You Mean?" feature to suggest alternative search terms for you. You can annotate your results, print or extract them to a file, and even search metadata.

ISYS 8 boasts a number of new features that should prove quite helpful with many legal tasks. Regarding electronic discovery, the "Entities" feature can identify people, organizations, email addresses, and similar information in your search results and group the documents you find accordingly. For knowledge management, ISYS 8's new "Best Bets" feature enables you to designate model documents for certain search terms. And for large firms, "ISYS Federator" can synchronize indexes across the network and even across the globe so that everyone in the firm obtains the same search results.

ISYS 8 costs $1,000 for a network license plus $100 per seat with volume discounts available. Learn more about ISYS 8.

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 the new version of a popular e-discovery program, a Web site monitoring service, and an online court rules service. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Bring Order to the E-Discovery Chaos
By Dennis Kennedy

Ask any member of a corporate legal team, IT department, law firm, or legal service provider how they would describe e-discovery — "chaotic" and "expensive" would likely emerge from their mouths. E-discovery usually involves many steps, short response times, and too many cooks in the kitchen. Sensitive corporate data ends up in too many places, costs continue to grow and legal teams tire of the constant fire drill.

Attenex Patterns e-discovery software was designed to bring order to this chaos, enabling legal teams to develop standardized, repeatable processes that reduce the risk, cost, and time associated with e-discovery. The latest version of Attenex Patterns — version 4.0 — includes more than 50 new features and enhancements in the areas of e-discovery data processing, review, and project management.

Some of the key new features include the re-use of documents previously processed and reviewed — including valuable work product such as document marks and annotations. For large enterprises and firms, this re-use can eliminate costs associated with the same documents being examined multiple times to fulfill similar requests.

New project management capabilities and reporting options provide customers with improved insight into reviewer productivity rates and project status. Because Attenex Patterns clusters similar documents together, the new reporting tools enable a manager to verify that all similar documents were marked the same. These reporting tools also provide transparency to project managers who need to know the progress of a matter. Attenex Patterns also now supports the clustering and review of both electronic files and scanned OCR and TIFF documents in 23 languages.

Attenex Patterns' patented email suppression function enables reviewers to de-dupe or eliminate duplicate email messages in a string, dramatically reducing the number of emails to review. Users can also now extract embedded Microsoft Office and PDF files from email messages, ensuring the review of all documents and reducing the risk of disclosing sensitive data embedded in an Excel spreadsheet.

Attenex Patterns provides flexible deployment options unique in the industry.  You can deploy the software on-premise, in a hosted environment managed by an "Attenex Advantage" partner, or in a customized combination tailored to the demands of the customer's environment.

Additionally, Attenex Patterns can integrate with virtually any litigation support software thanks to the new Attenex Patterns Software Development Kit (SDK). Thus, once you complete a review, you can easily export your work product and your final document set to case analysis software, trial presentation software, etc. Learn more about Attenex Patterns 4.0.

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, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an online service for staying on top of court filings involving your clients, a free tool for clipping anything on any Web page, and timeline creation software for Mac users. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Your Link to Electronic Litigation
By Dennis Kennedy

We have moved past the days of sending associates down to the court house to check the latest pleadings. Electronic filing and access to court records over the Internet have changed the way we access and manage court records. Access to court dockets is only step one. We can now do much more than ever before with court information, moving from access to action.

LexisNexis' CourtLink service takes us further down the road of electronic litigation. It starts with access to court dockets, but adds a set of powerful tools to improve support functions and provide information to lawyers, litigation support personnel, clients, and other members of today's expanding litigation team. You can quickly retrieve the dockets and documents you need, but that's just the starting point.

CourtLink gives you a broad range of information tools. It enables you to stay up-to-date with your cases, access the court docket, and receive alerts about events in your cases. You can also monitor courts with other actions involving your clients. For example, you can learn about a new suit as soon as it's filed.

Using CourtLink's Strategic Profiles, you can obtain insight into trends, patterns, tactics, risks, and new opportunities. You can also review litigation history to learn about a judge's experience in a certain type of case and history of applicable decisions, the experience, success rate, strategies, and resolution history of opposing counsel, and much more.  In short, CourtLink doubles as a strategic litigation tool as well as business development tool.

CourtLink enables you to search by parties, types of cases, key words, docket numbers, patent numbers, and much more. You can search many courts in a single search. You can also set alerts to let you know about developments that interest you. Once you identify suits that interest you, you can use the tracking service to send you regularly-scheduled updates by email.

CourtLink enables you to see information visually using graphics and charts. In fact, because much of the information in CourtLink is timeline-oriented, you can import CourtLink data into LexisNexis' TimeMap 4.1 so that you can better visualize trends and create demonstrative evidence for settlement meetings and other purposes. CourtLink also seamlessly links to CaseMap to help you to build a successful case strategy.

LexisNexis offers CourtLink on a subscription or transactional basis. You choose the options you want to use. Contact LexisNexis for details on options and pricing. Learn more about CourtLink.

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 the latest version of a popular litigation support solution, a Web conferencing service that works with Macs and PCs, and a Web-based contact manager. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Litigate. Integrate. And Disintegrate the Competition.
By Dennis Kennedy

Litigators today face a bewildering set of choices among hundreds of litigation software packages and electronic discovery tools. At the very least, you want programs that link to and work well with your other programs. Even better, you'd like to find a home base, starting point, or "dashboard" for all of your litigation work.

LexisNexis CaseMap has released the newest version of CaseMap, its popular case analysis tool. CaseMap 7 focuses on integration and clearly embraces the concept of a litigation dashboard.

Since its introduction, CaseMap has made it easy for litigators, paralegals, and even expert witnesses to organize, analyze and take control of their cases. Each new version has added new features attuned to the needs of litigation teams, and the new CaseMap 7 continues that tradition. Both new users and existing users will find much to recommend in CaseMap 7.

Not surprisingly, CaseMap 7 features tighter integration with LexisNexis' growing collection of litigation tools, especially LexisNexis Total Litigator. This particular integration enables you to work with the facts in your case in new, helpful ways.

For example, you can select a fact like a company name in CaseMap and send it to Total Litigator to find background information, similar cases, and relevant business intelligence about opposing counsel or the judge handling your case. Equally helpful, right-click a case citation to get a copy of the case or Shepardize it. For those who use CourtLink, CaseMap 7 makes it easy to work with pleadings and docket information. CaseMap 7 also offers an integrated menu that enables you to use other LexisNexis litigation tools.

CaseMap 7 doesn't just integrate with LexisNexis products. It has also taken its Adobe Acrobat integration even further. Enhancements in Adobe Acrobat 8 are compatible with CaseMap 7. For example, CaseMap's Acrobat PLUS plug-in facilitates the use of Acrobat 8's new  Bates Stamps tool.

Litigators can't get enough of Bates stamping so CaseMap 7 features improvements to its own PDF Bates stamping capabilities with a new set of power tools, including analysis, finding and filtering, and synchronization. The Bates Analyzer looks at your Bates numbers and checks for inconsistencies, duplicates, and anomalies. The Bates Find and Filter utility helps you find and view only the documents you need. The Bates End/Pages Synchronization tool can adjust your Bates numbers during the production process, keeping everything synchronized.

CaseMap's "Send to" feature has become a popular way to get information to and from other litigation programs. In CaseMap 7, this tool has become more powerful with a bulk send capability, complete with a wizard to help you define what you want to send.

You can download a free 30-day trial version of CaseMap 7.  Learn more about CaseMap 7.

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 a calendar synchronization program, a new case management program with built-in Google mashups, and an e-discovery project management solution. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Take Your Calendar Everywhere You Go
By Dennis Kennedy

We recently reported on ClearSync 1, an application that enables you to create multiple calendars (personal, work, kids, etc.) and keep them synchronized across multiple programs (including Outlook) and devices (including Treos and other Palm smartphones).

Hot on the heels of that version, the company has released ClearSync 2, which contains improvements and new features. ClearSync 2 features both online and desktop applications so you can easily create, maintain, and share calendars and contact lists among the various groups to which you belong even when you do not have Internet access. You can even give members of your group the right to edit entries for you.

ClearSync 2 provides six important new features.

First, Automatic Synchronization updates calendars and contacts when you and those with whom you share calendars are connected to the Internet or at scheduled intervals. In other words, you no longer need to manually synchronize or worry about someone else making a change and forgetting to synchronize.

Second, you can now search across the calendars and contacts of everyone in a group (e.g., your department, your entire firm, your family, etc.).

Third, you now have the ability to share your calendar with with Mac and Linux users, and can even import iCal files. iCal has become a calendar standard of sorts online.

Fourth, when you set up repetitive events (such as a weekly meeting), you can create exceptions for holidays, etc. when that event will not take place.

Fifth, you can quickly create calendar events and then drag and drop them to any date — even on a different calendar.

Lastly, ClearSync 2 now features automatic software updates, which more and more computer users have come to expect thanks to the success of Windows Update.

ClearSync 2 comes in three versions: free with a limited feature set (calendar only, no synchronization), Silver (includes everything except wireless synchronizing, encryption, and telephone support), and Gold. Silver sells for $19,95/year and Gold sells for $59.95/year). You can try ClearSync 2 for free for 30 days. Learn more about ClearSync 2.

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 a new lawyer-centric practice management program and an electronic billing system that enables corporate counsel to keep a lid on legal fees. Don't miss the next issue.

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

A Dashboard for Pro Lawyers
By Dennis Kennedy

Too often, the information we want exists in several different "silos." Our documents are in one place, contacts in another, and financial information in yet another. We could manage our information and our law firms better if we could see, access, and use our information from one central location.

ProLaw 11.6 combines document, case, and client relationship management with time, billing, and accounting functions. The new version of this venerable practice management program offers you a flexible and lawyer-oriented Dashboard to connect your silos of information and let you get the information you need in a familiar Windows- and Outlook-style interface. And it's all done with an lawyer-centric focus.

From a single screen, you can see your personal calendar and view your current matters. You can also customize your dashboard to display your contacts and saved searches, and use pop-up menus, smart data entry functions, a navigation bar, and a Quick Find feature. You also get a wide variety of custom display features, including grids and lists, with groups and sub-groups, the ability to show or hide records, and even customize your screen.

ProLaw 11.6 also features improved integration with Microsoft Outlook and Word, and provides the much-desired ability to capture and save email messages along with documents in the corresponding matter. Plus your Outlook calendar can sync with your ProLaw case docket calendar. Best of all, you do not need to leave Outlook or Word for the synchronization to occur in ProLaw.

You will also find a wide variety of reporting tools, and many ways to print and save information in the file type of your choice. You can analyze matters, dockets, financials, profitability, and more. ProLaw's deep integration with Westlaw enables you to do research of all kinds directly from ProLaw.

You'll also find a variety of other enhancements from earlier versions, including the ability to split billable hours and expenses across several related matters, saving hours of manual re-entry of data. ProLaw 11.6 makes it even easier to enter and track time, generate financial summaries by matter, and create enhanced profiles for documents and matters. Learn more about ProLaw 11.6.

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 FRCP-ready email archiving tool, a personalized news site that learns what you like, and a free suite of online services, including email at your own domain name. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Vault into Email Bliss
By Dennis Kennedy
Email is essential, but the way we now use it serves as a textbook example of the law of unintended consequences. Its growing volume has produced a number of pain points. For example, how do you manage all your messages? How do you archive and search old messages? How do you handle bulging PST files? Do you find yourself deleting messages and attachments because you've reached the storage quota for your inbox? And what about email in discovery?

Symantec's Enterprise Vault 7.0 aims to solve these problems by providing and archiving tool for managing organizational data, including email, instant messages, and other content. Enterprise Vault's intelligent classification engines help you bring order to the growing chaos with a suite of helpful tools. As a result, you gain better control of data in a simpler manner with reduced storage costs.

Enterprise Vault offers a variety of useful tools. Automated management tools help you avoid annoying mailbox storage and size limitations. You can better manage PST files, expedite backups, and improve disaster recovery with centralized email management, and improve your ability to archive data. Archiving features enable you to store and retrieve email and other data in ways that meet your compliance and electronic discovery requirements. Archiving files may reduce your local storage requirements by 50 to 75%.

These tools automate the archiving of data in a number of useful ways, including content-based archiving. You might use the fifty predefined rules, pop-up menus to require users to select among pre-defined categories, or work in connection with your content or document management system. As a result, you can manage data based on your unique retention, deletion and compliance policies based on content, not just by senders and receivers. As you would expect, administrators have a lot of granular control over application of policies to individual users.

Enterprise Vault 7.0, the newest version, also offers a module for electronic discovery needs called the Discovery Accelerator, designed to help you with the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Discovery Accelerator has three components to help you with predisclosure meetings, legal holds, and native file presentation. Users of Symantec's Information Foundation 2007 will appreciate the integration of Enterprise Vault with this security tool to help manage enterprise information policies.

Enterprise Vault 7.0 integrates with Microsoft's latest applications, including Exchange Server 2007 and Windows Rights Management Services, and enable you to search encrypted email and view email natively without using Exchange. Enterprise Vault also handles data from a wide range of content management and other commonly-used document management systems.

Enterprise Vault starts at about $40 per user license per year for 25 users. Learn more about Enterprise Vault 7.0.

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, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an online file sharing and backup service, a new cost recovery tool for legal research, and an online task manager. Don't miss the next issue.

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

No Problem, It's On My Other Drive
By Dennis Kennedy
The world has moved from file-storing to file-sharing. Even novice computer users have files on several computers, hard drives, USB drives, and, increasingly, online storage sites. Accessing, moving, and managing all of our files can become quite a chore. Plus we often want to send files too large for email inboxes. And let's not forget the importance of backing up all our files. What's a busy lawyer to do?

MyOtherDrive.com offers a suite of online file storage and sharing tools. It's a online storage site with a familiar Explorer-style interface, and a set of useful tools. If you have access to the Internet, you will have access to your files. Best of all, especially for lawyers, you can control who accesses your files — from the public to specific individuals.

MyOtherDrive.com began as a photo-sharing site, and offers a full set of photo-sharing tools. However, it handles all types of files — documents, PDFs, audio, and video. Simply join the service and upload your files. The site's viewers also let you preview files without downloading them.

MyOtherDrive.com sets itself apart from similar services in the ways you specify who can access your files. You can make files fully public or accessible only by you for backup purposes. You can share with specific individuals or groups, such as family, friends, colleagues, or clients. As you invite people to access your files, MyOtherDrive.com helps you build a "social network" with other members of MyOtherDrive.com. You can email hyperlinks to non-members so they can access your files.

The free version gives you 5GB of storage and 10GB/month of bandwidth. The "Pro" versions offer unlimited bandwidth and from 25GB to 200GB of storage at annual costs ranging from $19.99 to $99.99. Learn more about MyOtherDrive.

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 email discovery appliance, PDF software for lawyers, and a free project manager. Don't miss the next issue.

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

PDF for Lawyers
By Dennis Kennedy

Once upon a time, lawyers were grateful for PDF simply because of its ability to preserve the layout of the original document. Legal life was good. But then lawyers became more demanding of PDF, particularly when clients, discovery requests, and other aspects of their job became more demanding of them. Legal life was not so good.

Enter Bluebeam Software's Bluebeam PDF Revu, a "complete PDF solution," which means that in addition to viewing PDF files, you can also create, edit, and comment on them.  Bluebeam PDF Revu can also convert any file to TIF, JPG, GIF, BMP, PSD, PNG, EMF, WMF or PCL.

If you use Microsoft Office, you can use Bluebeam PDF Revu to create PDF files from Office documents with one click of your mouse. Even better, within Outlook you can automatically convert attachments to PDF upon sending the message. When converting Office documents, PDF Revu offers many security features (e.g., preventing the copying of images or text) plus you can apply watermarks and stamps such as date, time, document name, path, etc.

Other useful features include the ability to print any document to PDF, add images to PDF files, create bookmarks within PDF files, create PDF booklets with the "Bluebeam Stapler," copy and paste exactly what you want ("True Text"), and work on a Tablet PC.

That's all well and good, but where is the legal love? Bluebeam designed its new version 5 with lawyers in mind. For example, litigators can apply Bates stamps. You can standardize Bates stamping in your firm by creating Bates stamp templates with a prefix, suffix, and any number of digits.

With Bluebeam PDF Revu 5, you can also permanently redact text or images. The redaction tool doesn't cover the information. Instead, it actually removes it from the file. You can black out these areas if preparing files for discovery. If you're working on a document of your own, you can replace the excised material with different material.

Bluebeam PDF Revu 5 also has features for corporate lawyers, namely the ability to compare PDF documents. Bluebeam PDF Revu sells for $149 with volume discounts available. Learn more about Bluebeam PDF Revu 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.