TechnoLawyer: TL NewsWire

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, lawyer and legal technology legend Dennis Kennedy covers an electronic signature service and repository geared at corporate counsel, a comprehensive suite of e-discovery tools, and a service that digitally certifies transcripts. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Electronic Agreements Deserve Electronic Signatures
By Dennis Kennedy
Going in-house was supposed to improve your quality of life, but thanks to the Sarbanes-Oxley era in which we now live, your compliance workflow has kicked into overdrive.

For example, you need your worldwide salesforce to sign a compensation agreement with your new commission structure — and track who signed it and when. Similarly, you need to have your technical staff execute assignments of invention, again with archiving and tracking not to mention approval by their counsel. Many other headaches, er examples, abound, including the deployment of nondisclosure agreements by non-legal staff.

If only you could manage this workflow electronically. For several years now, electronic signature laws have permitted the use of electronic signatures, but the adoption of electronic signatures has not occurred because no one bothered to build a suite of tools to make it easier than using paper.

EchoSign's eponymous service may finally help usher in the revolution. EchoSign is a secure Web site for sending, signing, tracking, and storing documents — everything from retainers to nondisclosure agreements to assignments of inventions to deal documents. Instead of e-mailing a file, you just upload it to EchoSign.

To start, you set up a secure EchoSign account using any browser. There is nothing to install and no downloads. Even better, EchoSign's signature service is free.

EchoSign converts Word and other document formats to PDF, and then delivers the file to recipients with signature instructions. Recipients can either electronically sign the document or print and sign it the old-fashioned way. Even when they sign it on paper, the document remains within EchoSign thanks to a special fax number to which recipients return signed documents. No need to wait for these executed documents to arrive in the mail.

When you use EchoSign for signatures, you automatically create a repository of all of your signed documents. You can annotate, search for, review, share, and print them at anytime. With EchoSign, everyone on your team will know which documents were signed and when.

EchoSign's free signature service includes storage for your last 20 documents. To store more documents, you can choose from two plans — $12.95 per month for up to 1,000 documents (Pro) or $20 per user per month for unlimited documents (Enterprise). The Enterprise plan also includes a branded site and other extranet-like features.

Learn more about EchoSign.

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 powerful cost recovery system, a budget PDF creation tool, and a document management system for solos and other individual users. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Teach Your Accounting System How to Count
By Dennis Kennedy
Since Lex Systems introduced The Count cost recovery system in the early 1980s, it claims that it has found only three firms in which the staff kept accurate manual records for more than 33% of the copies made for clients. If you work at a firm that charges for photocopies, faxes, prints, telephone calls, etc., that statistic should give you pause about what costs you don't recover.

The Count interfaces with your current accounting system, capturing and transferring the usage data and transaction records you specify. It also provides reports to help you manage the process. The Count works on any available PC and your existing network so you need not purchase any proprietary equipment.

Lex Systems customizes The Count to conform with your firm's procedures and security requirements, making it easy to set up. Even better, Lex Systems guarantees that The Count will earn your firm a profit.

If you change equipment, procedures, or software, Lex Systems takes care of the necessary upgrades, usually at no extra cost.

The Count has successfully integrated with virtually every legal accounting program, including Juris, Tabs3, Timeslips, Thomson Elite and Omega Legal to name a few.

Lex Systems creates your system the way you specify. Everything, including customization, installation, support, and certain equipment, is included in a single annual license fee based upon usage. Costs are based on your individual requirements. If Lex Systems does not successfully implement The Count for you, your firm owes Lex Systems nothing.

Learn more about The Count.

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 service that can prove the sending, receipt, and content of an e-mail message, an online backup and document management tool, and an e-mail add-on that can convert attachments into secure PDF files. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Proving You Sent that E-Mail Message
By Dennis Kennedy
"But I never got your e-mail!" "That's not what your e-mail said!" "You never gave me that advice!" With today's overly-aggressive spam filters — not to mention less than honest adversaries and even clients — you need a simple and secure way to confirm and archive legal advice and other information sent via e-mail.

In technical terms, law firms realize they may need to show proof of sending, proof of delivery, and even proof of content (it's easy to edit an e-mail message after receipt) for important e-mail messages to prevent disputes.

The Registered E-mail® System available from BlumbergExcelsior offers a solution to protect senders of email, and it works whether or not the recipient has enrolled in the System. The service generates and returns a "Registered Receipt™" to the sender. All information necessary to verify the Registered Receipt™ and to reconstruct its original content is embedded within the receipt itself.

Each receipt contains an audit trail of information, including recipients and their email addresses as well as their e-mail servers and client programs. Receipts also contain a "digital fingerprint" — the time delivered, received, and opened, a copy of the original message with any attachments, and other information about the transmittal. These Registered Receipts conform to statutory requirements and prove both delivery and content. The Registered E-mail® System does not store any e-mail with a third party, making it truly secure.

You buy the service on a per use basis (starting at 79 cents per use) with stamp-like package plans available in which you can pre-pay for a pack of Registered E-mail® units for use by anyone within your firm. A free trial enables you to send 10 e-mail messages at no charge.

Learn more about the Registered E-mail® System.

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 low-cost online emporium for printer labels, a speakerphone for your PC, and and a USB 2 WiFi adapter. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Label This One a "Bargain"
By Dennis Kennedy
No matter how far we might have come on the road to the electronic office, the fact remains that law firms use a lot of labels — for mailing, shipping, filing and many other purposes. In fact, a trip to a law firm's supply room can give you an education in the many varieties of labels available today and a historical tour of the firm's past labels. The cost of all those labels add up to real dollars. And finding the labels you want at a big box office supply store can prove difficult.

Worldlabel.com enables you to shop online for the labels you need and save a lot of money and time in the process. Worldlabel.com is a label manufacturer that eliminates the middleman's mark-up and ships directly to the user. Bargains anyone? Its Web site claims savings ranging from 25% to 90% over the big box stores.

Worldlabel.com offers more than 50 sizes of labels for laser and inkjet printing, available in 18 different materials and several colors. Need Avery labels? Check Wordlabel.com's handy Avery cross reference chart. As a manufacturer, it can also make custom labels for you.

Law firms often want to use label templates. Worldlabel.com offers free downloads of label templates in Word and PDF formats. It also recently published a collection of label templates in the Opendocument format, which has obtained ISO approval and is gaining acceptance around the world.

Worldlabel.com also has a customer support team with experience in inkjet and laser printers to answer your specific questions. 

Learn more about Worldlabel.com.

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 Bates stamping utility, a search engine that digs through user forums and message boards, and a nifty pair of wireless iPod headphones. Don't miss the next issue.

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

The "Easy Button" for Bates Stamping
By Dennis Kennedy
The original Bates stamper was patented back in the 1890s. Since then, Bates stamping has served as the primary method of sequentially marking and numbering documents or images as exhibits in discovery or trials. You might be surprised to learn that this long-lived technique has become a leading tool for law firms transitioning from paper discovery to electronic discovery.

For the many litigators searching for the electronic version of a Bates stamping machine or labels, Easy Bates by Rennie Glen Software provides a simple and flexible software tool for Bates stamping today's digital evidence.

Easy Bates focuses exclusively on Bates stamping. It stamps Bates numbers onto PDF and TIFF documents. It also can print labels for paper documents. Easy Bates gives you seven choices of fonts. You can use both letters and numbers, and even create multi-line stamps.

You simply drag and drop your document files into the Easy Bates document list and they get electronically stamped.

Easy Bates sells for $199 with significant volume discounts. An unrestricted ten-day free trial is available. Adobe Acrobat is not required. The company has a history of providing free upgrades, and intends to continue this practice as long as possible.

What's keeping you from moving into electronic discovery? If it's the lack of an easy-to-use bates stamping tool, you may no longer have an excuse.

Learn more about Easy Bates.

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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a legal accounting/billing program with powerful compensation allocation technology, an e-mail marketing tool that integrates with Outlook, and a financial news and mortgage supersite. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Kiss Your Compensation Spreadsheets Goodbye
By Jill Bauerle
Given lawyers' reputation for hating math, why do so many firms devise complex compensation formulas? Maybe lawyers actually like numbers. Whatever the case, the folks at Software Technology have addressed a long unmet need with Tabs3 Version 14, the latest version of its popular accounting/time-billing software. Specifically, Software Technology redesigned its Receipt Allocation technology, which now features powerful Compensation Rules. While these Compensation Rules enable you to allocate fees among lawyers using simple percentages, you can also use complex formulas that include multiple timekeepers, date ranges, and amount limits. And apportioned billable hours. If you can think it, Tabs3 can handle it. Once you set up your compensation rules, you can generate a Fee Compensation Rules report by client or timekeeper. And with the new Payment Allocation feature, you can review automated payments and make manual payments. Also new is improved handling of duplicate statement numbers as well as the ability to credit multiple accounts with a single journal entry (e.g., fee income, costs advanced, reimbursable expenses, etc.). Naturally, you can restrict access rights to these and other sensitive areas of the software. Tabs3 also features a number of redesigned and new reports, including Cash Receipts, Client Analysis, Receipt Allocation, Timekeeper Analysis, Timekeeper Realization, and Unallocated Payments. Apart from these new features, Tabs3 retains everything that has made it so popular — accounts payable, billing, general ledger, trust accounting, and integration with PracticeMaster (a free copy of which comes bundled with Tabs3), Palm devices, and more. Tabs3 is designed for solo to mid-sized firms. Solo pricing starts at $295. Learn more about Tabs3 Version 14.

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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers litigation software that enables you to review documents at warp speed, a cost recovery technology that tracks everything from photocopies to BlackBerry phone calls, and a free online content management system for creating blogs or entire sites. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Review 2,000 Documents/Day Without Breaking a Sweat
By Jill Bauerle
Imagine a technology that can sift through discovery documents and create a radar-like map, making it a snap to identify documents as responsive, nonresponsive, or privileged. Sound like a Star Trek episode? Actually, this technology exists today in the form of Attenex Patterns Document Mapper, which enables lawyers to analyze documents at warp speed (well, ten times faster) and with greater accuracy (2,000 document decisions per day versus 200 using traditional methods). The key lies in the "document map" Attenex Patterns Document Mapper creates of your universe of documents. The software analyzes the nouns and noun phrases and clusters like documents together to help reviewers analyze similar material, and make faster, more accurate document decisions. For example, Attenex Patterns Document Mapper can tie together related e-mail messages, identify key players and dates, and even provide an early risk assessment (especially helpful for regulatory matters). Armed with this data, you can better strategize, evaluate legal theories, and conduct a cost analysis. On a more nuts and bolts level, Attenex Patterns Document Mapper's suite of tools enables you to dynamically reorganize and categorize documents as you review them. Specifically, the "Document Viewer" enables you to review documents in their native format. You can assign up to nine configurable categories (such as responsive or privileged) to documents as you review them. You can also add annotations and perform additional document tagging (e.g., a reason for privilege). Attenex Patterns Document Mapper also features powerful search tools. Lawyers often dread reviewing documents. With Attenex Patterns Document Mapper, lawyers may soon request to be beamed up to the document review room.. Learn more about Attenex Patterns Document Mapper.

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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a new and improved version of a case analysis tool, conversion software for PDF and other files, and a handy utility for magnifying items on your screen. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Litigation Software that (Almost) Does the Thinking for You
By Jill Bauerle
Behind every open and shut case is a lot of hard work. To help litigators and litigation teams save time while producing even better results for their clients, LexisNexis CaseSoft has released CaseMap 6, the latest version of its popular litigation analysis tool. CaseMap 6 sports many new user-requested features and a "faster," "retooled" database engine that accommodates hundreds of custom fields. Also, its new look will make users of Microsoft Office 2003 feel right at home. Among the new features is the Intake Interview Jumpstart, which enables you to e-mail clients a questionnaire about their case. When you receive their completed questionnaire, you can import it into an existing or new CaseMap case file and even generate a ReportBook. Such automation seems to be everywhere in CaseMap 6, which also includes document index creation, bulk e-mail importing, and tight integration with the new CaseMap Bates Stamper. The revamped Issue Analysis Mode helps you decide when to file for summary judgment, and the MSJ Statement of Fact Creator helps you create the accompanying brief. Similarly, new tools exist for identifying privileged documents, and then creating a privileged log. Other new features include links to CaseMap Webinars for on-demand learning, the ability to create a fact from a document, batch copying of linked PDF files, and bulk updating of linked file paths and field values. LexisNexis CaseSoft has also enhanced existing features, For example, more options exist for creating and formatting ReportBooks, and you can now link to more applications than ever, including CaseLogistix, Interwoven WorkSite, Hummingbird DM5, and iCONECTnxt. Pricing for CaseMap 6 starts at $595; upgrade pricing starts at $199.  Learn more about CaseMap 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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a hot new bates stamping technology, a Web-based time-tracking application, and a virtual mall for malware-free software. Don't miss the next issue.

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

A Bates Stamper on Steroids
By Jill Bauerle
Once upon a time, lawyers manually affixed bates stamps to documents. Thanks to xerography, copy machines eventually replaced the hand stamps of old. Last week, LexisNexis CaseSoft announced the latest in bates stamping technology — CaseMap Bates Stamper. This nifty utility plugs into Acrobat Standard or Professional 6 or 7, and enables you to apply bates stamps to one or more PDF files. A wizard walks you through the bates stamping process, providing options along the way. You can use any combination of letters and numbers for the bates stamp (prefix plus number — up to 34 characters total), and then store that particular format for future use. You can use any font, position the bates stamp anywhere in the document, and even add a white background to ensure that the bates number will be visible. When batch processing, you can have the CaseMap Bates Stamper ignore documents that you've already stamped. This way, you won't have to select only the new files, which kind of defeats the purpose of batch processing. When you finish applying bates stamps, you can use the Send PDFs to CaseMap wizard to incorporate the documents into CaseMap. A new addition to this wizard enables you to list the documents in CaseMap by bates number. Once in CaseMap, you can create facts and issues from the documents along with the corresponding bates numbers and hyperlinks. As with all LexisNexis CaseSoft products, the CaseMap Bates Stamper comes with one year of free support. CaseMap Bates Stamper sells for $149, but the company is offering it for $99 until May 31, 2006. Learn more about CaseMap Bates Stamper.

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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a remote access program that can connect to any computer regardless of operating system, a Web-based contact and calendar manager for the whole firm, and a place to find instructional audio and video downloads for however, whenever, and wherever you want to listen. Don't miss the next issue.

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

A Backstage Pass to Your Network
By Jill Bauerle
Accessing your firm's network remotely need not seem like mission impossible thanks to the new version of pcAnywhere from Symantec. Version 12 can connect to just about any PC — even if it's behind a firewall. The new version enables you to connect to computers running Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows from any PC or Pocket PC device. Other new features include a gateway for remote users to connect to the hosts they need, a session manager that places all sessions into a tabbed window, several encryption options, "bandwidth auto-detect" for optimizing sessions based on the user's connection speed, and a "help wizard" that can guide the least savvy of lawyers through a session. pcAnywhere costs $199.99. Learn more about pcAnywhere.

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.