TechnoLawyer: Utilities

I have some great news to share with you. As you can see below, we have changed the structure of our TechnoLawyer NewsWire articles to better serve our two audiences — those who want a quick overview of new products and those who want an in-depth analysis.

Specifically, the new In One Sentence section describes the product we're reporting on in one sentence, and the new Killer Feature section describes its most important feature. Readers who want more information will find a detailed discussion of the product’s Other Notable Features as well.

Please let me know what you think, and please sign up to receive TechnoLawyer NewsWire if you have not yet done so. We publish only a few select articles here in our blog. For example, this week's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a hosted extranet for law firms, a Word add-on that enables you to manage defined terms in legal documents, and new PDF software for power users. We've placed one article below. The other two are available only to subscribers of the newsletter. — Neil J. Squillante, Publisher

Show Your Clients That You Care
By Peter R. Olson

Lawyers get in trouble when they focus on work at the expense of client communication — similar to doctors actually. While a clever cross examination or well drafted legal brief might impress your clients, they care more about the outcome and your hand-holding along the way. After all, the leading cause of disciplinary complaints is poor communication. But in this day and age, you need more than the bedside manner of Dr. Marcus Welby. You also need the technology of Dr. McCoy.

Attorney and Client ... in One Sentence
CLC Technology's Attorney and Client provides you and your clients with a collaborative online work space (extranet).

The Killer Feature
Using a Web browser, your clients can access the documents in their case file, review upcoming calendar items, and find contact information for everyone at your firm who works on their cases. Your assistant may like Attorney and Client even more than your clients do.

Other Notable Features
When you take on a new matter and enter it into Attorney and Client, your client receives a login via email (they can change the default password to make it more secure).

Attorney and Client features a dashboard that lists all recent activity. You can brand the dashboard and other pages with your logo.

A busy matter may involve dozens of documents — incoming mail and your work product. Attorney and Client enables you to upload multiple files simultaneously. You can also create and file documents into folders using drag and drop just as you would in Windows Explorer. There is no storage space limit.

In addition to the matter-specific calendar and case file, Attorney and Client also includes secure and searchable instant messaging and discussion threads. You can elect to use one or both or neither of these communication tools on a matter by matter basis.

To keep everyone in the loop, you can create email alerts for calendar items, documents, etc. For example, if a document changes, Attorney and Client can let everyone know. You can even use Attorney and Client to send bills to your clients, thus creating an archive automatically.

What Else Should You Know?
Attorney and Client costs $29.95 per month per attorney. You can try it for free for 30 days. It works in all modern Web browsers on Mac and PC. Learn more about Attorney and Client.

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

Coming June 26, 2008 to Answers to Questions: Michael Schley reviews ISYS:desktop 8 compares it to free desktop search programs, Douglas Folk explains why you may not want to switch to Mac and he reviews Trend Micro OfficeScan, Wayne Grant reviews Topdeq's GO-2 desk, Phyllis Dubrow reviews PureText, and Harold Lloyd reviews Nuance products PaperPort, OmniPage, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Coming June 20, 2008 to Fat Friday: Charles Stokes explains why his law firm remains a Dell customer, Tom Trottier reviews the Treo 680 and lists his favorite Treo apps, Kerry Hubick shares a tip about about line numbering in Microsoft Word, Thomas RuBane reviews Apple's Spaces (and we debate the use of virtual desktops versus multiple monitors), and Mark Adams reviews pdfDocs Desktop, including concrete examples of how it can solve ten common problems. Don't miss this issue.

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

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a video email service, and Outlook plug-in that makes your email messages more useful and easier to find (see article below), and a Web-based suite of tools to help you assess and improve the document review process. Don't miss the next issue.

Fall in Love With Email All Over Again
By Peter R. Olson

Email. You can't live without it, but living with it has become a challenge because email today doesn't look a whole lot different than email a decade ago. But you use it differently. And because it has become much more important, the volume of messages you need to process has ballooned. Time for an upgrade don't you think?

Xobni ("inbox" spelled backwards) is an Outlook plug-in that analyzes your email messages to supply you with the information you need. For example, Xobni offers "lightning fast search." Xobni begins to display results as you type and separates contacts, messages, and attachments. Xobni also groups your messages into threaded conversations — even if the subject of a related message has changed.

Xobni doesn't just search and group, however. It also transforms Outlook into a Facebook-like social network except with no setup required and no annoying email alerts informing you that a friend just ate a lightly-buttered English muffin.

Select a message and instantly see useful data such as past sent and received email involving that contact along with an email frequency ranking, and a time of day chart that tracks when the contact typically sends email. Xobni also provides a detailed view of all past document exchanges for each contact. You can even discover shared friends.

Tired of copying and pasting information from email signatures? Xobni extracts telephone numbers from messages and automatically displays them for each contact. With one click you can add phone numbers to your address book. Xobni also facilitates the scheduling of meetings. One click creates an email message listing your available times based on your Outlook calendar. You can of course edit the message before sending it out.

Xobni currently works with Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007. The company plans to integrate Xobni with other email clients in the future. For now, Xobni is free. Learn more about Xobni.

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.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers an alternative word processor, a utility designed to automate the formatting of legal documents, and software that automates time capture (see article below). Don't miss the next issue.

Stop Tracking Your Time and Start Capturing It Instead
By Peter R. Olson

As a lawyer, you may not love living your life in painstakingly quantified six minute time increments, but until some of the so-called "alternate billing" options become mainstream, the billable hour (more like the billable one-tenth of an hour) remains your meal ticket. So instead of wasting your time (money) complaining, how about automating your time capture as much as possible?

IntApp's Time Builder 2.2 is a time capture solution that tracks your time keeping by directly monitoring email, smartphones, phone systems, calendars, and document management systems. Time Builder aims to reduce the time spent entering time.

Rather than scribbling down your time notes for later entry into a separate accounting or billing program, Time Builder provides you and your colleagues with a "journal" of all your billable activity. From this report, you can quickly create time entries in your billing software.

Using Time Builder's Web-based configuration interface, your administrator chooses specific applications for continuously monitored time tracking. Time Builder can email everyone's journal daily, weekly, or not at all (your choice) with your time breakdown. Time Builder enables you to exclude peripheral activities like personal email messages and phone calls.

By presenting this information directly within your existing time entry applications, Time Builder makes it easy for lawyers or their secretaries to review, edit, and then approve billing entries. You can configure Time Builder to send journal reports via email or to present information directly into your existing time entry application so you can review, edit and submit entries through a single, consolidated interface that you already know how to use.

Time Builder's time monitoring integrates with Microsoft Exchange, BlackBerrys, Windows Mobile phones, Avaya and Cisco VoIP phone systems, Interwoven, Open Text/Hummingbird, Lexis InterAction, Elite WebView, Advanced Productivity Software's DTE, Sage Carpe Diem, and Aderant CMS. Learn more about Time Builder.

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

Coming May 9, 2008 to Fat Friday: Debra Bruce reviews the Verizon XV6700 Pocket PC (and we comment on its successors), Wesley Y.S. Chang reviews ActiveWords and explains how he uses it in his practice, Stephen Seldin discusses how the Internet has affected CLE and how a different pricing structure could help, Christel Burris discusses the method behind the madness of Microsoft's various Office 2007 suites, and Michael Caldwell responds to the continuing discussion about biglaw associate salaries. Don't miss this issue.

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

Coming April 24, 2008 to Answers to Questions: Mark Manoukian discusses the benefits of open source software (and how you might use it every day and not know), Brad Jensen explores whether reformatting your hard drive provides enough protection from snoops, Craig S. Clark reviews Passwords Plus as well as the Treo 700wx, Daniel Fennick reviews his experience using PracticeMaster and Tabs3 together, and Theo Yates reviews PDF995 PDF converter plus the Wayback Machine. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.

Today's issue of TechnoLawyer NewsWire covers a new business productivity suite with legal-specific features (see article below), a plug-in for Gmail and Google Apps email, and the world's most advanced keyboard. Don't miss the next issue.

Fabled Word Processor Meets PDF, Falls in Love
By Neil J. Squillante

Traditionally, the software industry presented law firms with a dilemma — single-task best-of-breed programs or easier to manage but lower quality all-in-one programs. And then came the suite, which offers best-in-class programs designed to work together.

Corel's new suite, Corel WordPerfect Office X4, seeks to take the suite where it has never ventured before with new features and programs that eliminate the need to purchase standalone programs from other companies.

At the heart of the new suite lies WordPerfect X4, which features a robust set of PDF tools. You can create, import, edit, and archive PDF files (including PDF/A). WordPerfect integrates with most scanners and now has its own OCR engine so you can convert scanned PDFs into editable text to save as WordPerfect, PDF, or Microsoft Word formats.

WordPerfect can handle just about any document format, including Microsoft Word 2007. You can also convert between formats. If you have become accustomed to Microsoft Office, you can make all of WordPerfect's keystrokes and menus mirror those of Word.

WordPerfect X4 also eliminates the need for tools for redaction, metadata, and legal utilities as it includes these functions. You can redact documents in any supported format, including Microsoft Word and PDF. You can save documents without any metadata. The Legal Toolbar enables you to create tables of authorities and tables of contents, and the Pleading Filler creates pleadings that will satisfy any court. Corporate lawyers will find redlining tools as well as the ability to publish to EDGAR.

This being a suite, Corel also includes a number of other programs, including some that are new. For example, WordPerfect Lightning is a "Web-connected digital notebook" in which you can capture your ideas and other information (text and images) as well as quickly view files in WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, or PDF format. It also includes Snapshot Tool for taking screenshots, The Navigator for organizing and sharing the information you collect, and The Connector for online contact management and calendaring.

If these and Corel's other new additions to the suite aren't enough, WordPerfect Office X4 also provides many customization options. For example, you can use PerfectScript or Microsoft Visual Basic to create macros and run scripts. In addition, Corel can work with your firm to customize WordPerfect X4 and the other components of the suite for your specific needs.

Corel WordPerfect Office X4 sells for $299. Users of previous versions can upgrade for $159. Learn more about Corel WordPerfect Office X4.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published on Wednesdays, TechnoLawyer NewsWire is a weekly newsletter that briefly discusses and provides links to three hot new technology products and services of interest to legal professionals. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Coming April 18, 2008 to Fat Friday: Barron Henley clarifies some misconceptions about lawyers and word processors, Kerry Hubick reviews Laplink's PCmover for migrating files from an old computer to a new one, James Atkins shares how he improved his remote access speeds when working at home, Roger Jones discusses the many benefits of left-hand mousing, and David Estes reviews the Treo 700p. Don't miss this issue.

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

Coming April 7, 2008 to Answers to Questions: John Starkweather reviews several online calendaring and project management solutions, James Keuning reviews RoboForm and suggests a clever (and free) way to create strong passwords, Bruce Brightwell explains why lawyers shouldn't worry about legal research service adhesion contracts, David Herdman discusses the benefits of learning both Word and WordPerfect, and Harry Dreier shares his LexisNexis search results for "out of title" cases. Don't miss this issue.

How to Receive this Newsletter
Published Thursdays, Answers to Questions is a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. Please subscribe now.