TechnoLawyer: TL NewsWire

In today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a new litigation support tool for mobile litigators, a new and improved version of a popular practice management application, and a powerful e-discovery search tool. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Discovery on the Go
By Jill Bauerle
Litigation never sleeps. The same is apparently true of the programming wizards at Dataflight Software. Hot on the heels of FYI 2.0, released in late 2005, comes FYI 3.0. FYI enables litigation teams to securely access their Concordance and Opticon databases remotely over the Internet.

FYI 3.0 has two components — FYI Core Server and FYI Reviewer. FYI Core Server is the brain — it resides on your firm's server. FYI Reviewer serves as the eyes and ears — the front-end application (you can also use Concordance and Opticon to access FYI Core Server).

FYI Reviewer now sports a simple Google-style search while retaining Advanced Search for power users. FYI 3.0 also works with Syngence's new "Synthetix" technology, which ranks your search results by relevance without any slowdown. Once you find relevant facts and documents, you can "tag" them and add "issue codes" and annotations. New multi-level tagging enables you to place a fact/document in more than one group. You can also send tags and their related facts and documents to CaseMap with one click.

When you pull up a document, the new image viewer enables you to view the scanned image and its text side by side. FYI Reviewer also handles transcripts and electronic discovery. You can import transcripts in ASCII, LiveNote, PTF, or PCF format, and then manage and annotate those transcripts as you see fit.Regarding e-discovery, you can review everything, including e-mail, in its native format with its metadata intact.

FYI Core Server also boasts a number of new features, including true SSL encryption, and separate firewalls for the server and the database. You won't need a Web server to run FYI Core Server, and you won't need weeks to get it set up. FYI Core Server runs on Windows 2000 or higher.

Learn more about FYI 3.0.

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, tech expert Jill Bauerle covers a security utility that will nuke files for good, a discrete wireless Bluetooth headset, and a free tool for storing and sharing your bookmarks, Web clippings, and other information. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Hasta La Vista, You've Been Erased
By Jill Bauerle
Gone but not forgotten, remnants of old files can remain on your hard drive long after you've moved them to the recycle bin. The next time you have confidential documents to delete, try Eraser 5.8 from Heidi Computers. An advanced security utility, Eraser "shreds" magnetic remnants embedded in your hard drive by overwriting it numerous times in different patterns using Peter Gutmann's method. Without such a tool, deleted files sit on your hard drive until written over. Even then, forensic experts can reconstruct them, making you and your confidential files vulnerable. Eraser not only scrubs existing or "deleted" files and folders individually, it erases entire hard drives using the software's "Boot and Nuke" feature, and prevents file recovery applications from functioning. Eraser can also eradicate indexed, encrypted and compressed files, caches, cookies, Norton Unerase files, and more. If you're in a hurry, you can instead erase the first and last 2KB of a file, rendering it unusable. Once you download the freeware, Eraser's simple interface enables you to pick and choose your action on the spot or set up a schedule. Eraser is free and supports Windows 95 and higher as well as DOS. Learn more about Eraser.

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 free online task management tool, voicemail software for Skype, and a multifaceted instant messaging client. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Better than a String Around Your Finger
By Jill Bauerle
Lost your to-do list? Overwhelmed by the number of task management tools out there? Take a deep breath and log onto Remember the Milk. A Web-based, user-friendly tool, Remember the Milk helps you visualize your most important tasks without getting lost in sub-menus and multiple screens. The "Overview" page lets you see what's due today and tomorrow, what's overdue, and what the week ahead looks like. The "task cloud" literally puts all of your task headings like "bills" and "calls" in a bubble and sizes each them according to how task-heavy they are. So if you have to make five phone calls and pay one bill, "calls" will loom menacingly in the task cloud, eclipsing "bills." Different lists for work, personal, etc. help you to separate the various facets of your life and prioritize accordingly. A special feature of Remember the Milk enables you to keep track of time the way that we humans typically conceive it — today, tomorrow, a week from now — and change a due date from "tomorrow" to "1 week from tomorrow" in one click. Reminders come in many forms, including e-mail, instant messages, and SMS. You can e-mail tasks to your Remember the Milk account and automatically create a new list using your subject line. Other highlights of this program include "smart lists" that help you prioritize tasks, a contact list of other Remember the Milk users to whom you can send reminders, list sharing and public lists, iCal synchronization, an "undo" button, recurring tasks, keyboard shortcuts, and an archive for old lists that you're not ready to delete. Once you get a taste of Remember the Milk, you could became as zen about your work load as the smiling cow on the corner of the screen. Remember the Milk is free. Learn more about Remember the Milk.

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 Web-based utility that stores and organizes your Web clippings, an eBay search engine for smarter and safer shopping, and an all-inclusive Web-based calendar and contact application to keep you and your world in sync. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Bye Bye Bookmarks
By Jill Bauerle
Too many bookmarks in your browser? Forgot why half of them are even there? Time for an account with Clipmarks. Whether you're researching a case, comparison shopping, or keeping track of celebrity gossip, Clipmarks is a Web-based utility that provides a permanent URL for storing and organizing Web clippings. Unlike a bookmark, which just takes you back to an entire page, a Clipmark enables you to "clip" a certain portion of a page and apply "tags" to that clip for easy retrieval. In short, it enables you to create a searchable database of everything you find on the Web. After creating your account and installing the required Firefox extension or Internet Explorer toolbar, the Clipmarks editing symbols appear in your browser. As you mouse over text on a Web page, just click on the paperclip symbol embedded in your toolbar and automatically enter editing mode. This tool actually "clips" text by copying paragraphs or photos into a Clipmarks folder once you click on the "Save" button. You can keep multiple clippings in one file. Each folder contains a link to the original Web page (in case you need to refer to the original source) plus searchable title, tags, and comments. Other tools include an e-mail button to share your clips, a bookmark button that sends your clips to services such as del.icio.us or BlinkList, and "cliprolling" (an RSS feed of your clip tags). On Clipmarks' home page, a "word cloud" shows the most popular topics in real time. Clipmarks offers four views: "Mine," "Public," "Board," or "Hot." For each clip you create, you have the option of marking it public or private. Check out what everyone else is clipping in "Public." See who's commenting on your clips in "Board." Or look at popular clips in "Hot." One possible use for Clipmarks is to draw attention to articles you've published on the Web. Who knows, maybe your clips will become the next hot topic! Clipmarks is free. Learn more about Clipmarks.

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 fax server software that enables you to send a fax as easily as an e-mail, an appliance that will protect your e-mail from enemy #1 — spam, and a hardware/software suite that integrates with your firm's copiers and scanners to bring you closer to a paperless office. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Bridging the Gap Between E-mail and Faxes
By Jill Bauerle
A fax consists of an image whereas e-mail consists of text. So, they're vastly different, right? Wrong. They both consist of bits. Bits are bits are bits. So then shouldn't faxes behave more like e-mail? That's the thinking behind Zetafax 2006, the new version of Equisys' popular fax server. Zetafax 2006 integrates with Exchange, which means you can send and receive faxes securely within Outlook. Faxes arrive in your choice of PDF or JPEG format. If you don't use Outlook, fear not — Zetafax 2006 works with virtually all other e-mail programs thanks to its SMTP Gateway. Alternatively, you can use the Zetafax 2006 client or a Web browser. Among its other e-mail-like features, Zetafax 2006 features a junk fax filter that can block faxes from designated telephone numbers. You can set up a firm-wide junk fax filter, and also give users the ability to set up their own personal filters. With e-mail, you can preview your message before sending. Equisys brings this same ability to Zetafax 2006 thanks to its "what you see is what you fax" technology. With e-mail, you can easily annotate and edit messages before forwarding them. Zetafax 2006 gives you the same power over faxes that you wish to send to someone else. E-mail's greatest strength lies in its distribution costs — none. Faxes still require telephone calls, but Zetafax 2006 enables you to distribute faxes via IP T.38 (fax over IP) or V.34 to reduce costs. You can even configure Zetafax 2006 to send non-urgent faxes and large distributions at night to take advantage of off-peak rates. Zetafax 2006 runs on Windows 2000 or later, and works with most class 1/class 2 fax modems as well intelligent fax boards by Brooktrout, Eicon, and Intel Dialogic. A Zetafax 2006 5-user, 2-line starter system sells for about $510. Learn more about Zetafax 2006.

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 soup-to-nuts solution for managing your litigation matters and collaborating with clients, a secure chat room service for law firms and businesses, and a new site in which anyone (including you) can become a beat reporter or columnist. Don't miss the next issue.

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

New Tool Enables Firms to Impress Their Clients
By Jill Bauerle
When it comes to client priorities, litigation takes the cake — dockets, deadlines, deliverables, depositions, and documents all add costs to their legal budget. Given the complexity of even small cases, you would think that dozens of companies would offer litigation management solutions. But that's not the case (no pun intended). Sensing a need, CaseKnowledge has launched an eponymous service in the form of a "powerful extranet platform that makes case information immediately available to your clients from any Web browser. CaseKnowledge features a powerful shared calendar and timeline with which your firm can manage all of its open cases, including court dockets, depositions, document production deadlines, and the many other events that transpire during the discovery, trial, and appeal phases. As its name implies, CaseKnowledge also stores all the accumulated knowledge for each case — the theory of the case, the litigation plan and budget, settlement exposure analysis, case resolution strategies, interrogatories, deposition transcripts, expert witness interviews, and much more — all searchable with versioning and approval workflow technology. Unlike other litigation management programs, CaseKnowledge doesn't just manage your case information, but also your client communications. Instead of emailing your clients and colleagues, you simply post a message within CaseKnowledge, which then alerts them via email. They can then reply to your post within CaseKnowledge. The result is a threaded discussion in one place that you can easily search. Speaking of email alerts, CaseKnowledge can send users email alerts for approaching deadlines. Your firm can centrally configure these alerts by case type or by client. For those in the corner office, CaseKnowledge provides a dashboard with an overview of all active cases. From the dashboard, you can pull up a variety of information and reports, including Total Case Cost, Case Status, Spend Analysis, and Exposure Analysis. Even better, you can also create dashboards for clients displaying their entire litigation portfolio. This ability to report information to your clients in a manner not likely provided by the other firms they retain could persuade them to send all their litigation to your firm. CaseKnowledge costs nothing to set up. Instead, CaseKnowledge charges a monthly fee per active case. Learn more about CaseKnowledge.

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 unique tool for personal injury lawyers and other litigators that automates future earnings and other calculations, a feature-rich time-billing application (free for solos), and an outliner for managing all those deep thoughts of yours (or perhaps just your grocery list). Don't miss the next issue.

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

What's Your Case Worth?
By Jill Bauerle
Practice management software does just about everything these days — except crunch numbers. The folks at WorthMORE Software noticed this void and filled it with CaseWORTH, a new software tool designed to help personal injury and other litigators make short work of calculations such as lost income, medical expenses, subrogation payments, and more. Armed with CaseWORTH, you'll have plenty of ammunition at a settlement conference or trial (regardless of which side you represent). You can use CaseWORTH in conjunction with practice management software such as Time Matters and Amicus Attorney or as a standalone tool. After entering the claimant and case information, you can begin calculating whatever the case demands. For example, the "Future Earnings" module can extrapolate future lost income from past history, and calculate their present value. Similar tools exist for past medical expenses, subrogation source payments, past earnings, future medical expenses, travel expenses, burial expenses, legal expenses, liens, and more. The "Damage Summary" screen enables you to see a running total in one place with the ability to drill down for closer inspection. With the "Math Worksheet," you can use the numbers from the modules to evaluate different scenarios. Even more impressive, the "Settlement Calculator" tracks all demands and offers (you can scan and attach the corresponding documentation for quick retrieval). This tool has a number of nifty features — the "Required Settlement" calculator shows you the settlement amount required to cover the claimant's expenses, the "Actual Settlement" calculator shows you how a settlement amount would be distributed, and the "What If" calculator enables you to adjust any of the numbers to evaluate the consequences. When you finish all your number crunching, you can print a "Settlement Statement" ready for the claimant to sign. CaseWORTH runs on Windows 98/2000/XP. Pricing begins at $1,000, which includes one lawyer license and two paralegal licenses. You can purchase additional lawyer and paralegal licenses for $300 and $100 respectively. Learn more about CaseWORTH.

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 place on the Web where you can share your legal or other expertise, a service that enables you to search specific sites and save those searches, and a personalized virtual desktop accessible from any computer — all free. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Use a Lens to Improve Your Firm's Visibility
By Jill Bauerle
Wikipedia relies on many experts in a given field to cover one topic. Squidoo takes the opposite approach by inviting experts to set themselves apart rather than collaborate. If you haven't already created a free "lens" (a Web page on steroids) on Squidoo, what's stopping you? Maybe you already have a blog or an "about" column on your Web site, but one more item that increases the likelihood of prospective clients finding you through Google couldn't hurt, right? Join Martha Stewart and others on this blog-meets-wiki mashup for sharing your knowledge, increasing your profile, and pointing traffic to your Web site. Each Squidoo lens consists of "modules" — building blocks. A number of different modules exist for different types of content — text, links, tags, feeds, etc. Thus, on your Squidoo lens, you can list your latest blog posts, link to court opinions involving your firm, provide an overview of your legal expertise, and much more. Each lens you create comes equipped with an RSS feed to which people can subscribe. Squidoo ranks its lenses daily according to frequency of updates, traffic, inbound and outbound links, and user ratings. Just as fun as it is to share your skills, Squidoo also teaches you new ones. Squidoo features lenses ranging from learning Mandarin to figuring out which colors work best on the Web. Squidoo promises a new feature soon that will earn royalties for you or your favorite charity — plus frequent flyer miles and hotel points. Squidoo is free. Learn more about Squidoo.

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 fast, versatile PDF suite, a Web-based billing system, and an anti-spam appliance with a unique twist. Don't miss the next issue.

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

A Sly Suite of PDF Tools
By Jill Bauerle
Does your PDF software leave you enough time to fetch a cup of coffee when opening files? Instead of sitting like a hen in front of your screen, try Foxit's quick-footed PDF tools. Foxit develops a number of programs for managing, reading, writing, and converting PDF files. At 1MB, the free Foxit Reader downloads instantly and runs without installation. No more "welcome" screens and agonizing waits. Foxit Reader supports Chinese, Korean, and Japanese character sets once you download a special plugin. Another program, Foxit Reader Pro, has added features like a typewriter tool for inserting text, a note tool for inserting comments, and text-marking tools for highlighting, underlining, and striking out text. With Foxit Reader Pro, you can also draw lines and shapes, convert pages to pure text, and browse files in the Foxit Library. Other Foxit programs include the Reader for Pocket PC, PDF Editor (which enables you to freely edit text and images in PDF files), PDF Text Viewer, and PDF Page Organizer. Foxit's tools require Windows for the most part, but Foxit Reader can also run in Linux. Foxit Reader is free; Foxit Pro costs $39. Check Web site for pricing on other Foxit programs. Learn more about Foxit.

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 customizable, integrated case management program, an online project management system, and a universal word count utility. Don't miss the next issue.

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

Case Management Software that Caters to Your Every Whim
By Jill Bauerle
Imagine a world created just for you in which everything worked as you envisioned. Well, that'll probably never happen. But with Abacus Data Systems' new AbacusLaw v2006, you can at least create a practice management system to your exact specifications. With AbacusLaw v2006, not only can you customize the interface and toolbars, but you can even remove menu items and other elements that you don't use. What else is new in this major upgrade? AbacusLaw v2006 features BlackBerry synchronization, private notes and calendar events, complete drag and drop, your choice of Google, MapQuest, or Yahoo for integrated maps, zip code lookup, a mini-calendar that can display 1-12 months, an enhanced Notes editor, and the ability to email events to anyone. Abacus Data Systems also focused on improving the integrated accounting component. The "intuitive check writer" looks just like a paper check, and the "enhanced check register" enables you to quickly search for checks using any parameter. AbacusLaw now saves every bill in PDF format and links it to the corresponding matter. When working at your desk, you can easily toggle among multiple timers as you move through your to-do list — plus you can now post time entries from anywhere in AbacusLaw. With AbacusLaw's new reports, you can always get a handle on your firm's activities. For example, the Matter Synopsis Report gives you a birds-eye view of all current activities, and the Malpractice Report lists all matters without any notes or future calendar events. AbacusLaw v2006 runs on Windows XP/NT/2000. Learn more about AbacusLaw v2006.

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.