practicehacker

This weekend at LegalTech the makers of practice management suite Clio launched ClientConnect, a secure portal that will enable attorneys to share documents, collaborate, bill, and take payments in a secure evnironment on the web. And oh yes – it’s free to every Clio subscriber.

ClientConnect very nearly solves the universal problems that plague asynchronous multi-party communication. In other words, with ClientConnect there are no more e-mail roadblocks, mixed signals, or convoluted conversation-threads in the way of attorney-client communication. As a result lawyers can now make files of any kind, as well as time-sheets, notes, and case details available in seconds just by  recording them in Clio or uploading them to Clio’s super-fast collaboration-servers.

The highlights of ClientConnect include

• document exchange and collaboration
• clients can audit case activity anytime
• case notes are now instantly available
  
• clients can pay bills in seconds by PayPal
  

All told both clients and lawyers will benefit from the ability to collaborate in an open, secure, round-the-clock system that requires no software and has a virtual 0 learning curve. For those lawyers still on the fence, the advent of ClientConnect makes it hard to justify not trying Clio’s 30-day free trial.

from Read/Write/Web comes .. a glimpse into the future

Universal (Geo) Tagging

Take a picture. Add comments. Your phone will automatically tag the picture  and send itto a central online location like Flickr. Others can find your picture using its location or tag and cross-reference it on a  map. Bye-bye privacy …

Instant Information

Your phone will soon be able to provide background information on pretty much anything. Better yet, assuming that a sufficiently large photo-tag database develops, your phone will be able to recognize the object in question automatically and retrieve the right information.

Recommendations on Demand

You want to go to a certain restaurant or see a movie. Do you know anyone who’s been there?, seen it, or done it? Soon you’ll be able to find out immediately and search for their recommendations and reactions.

Proximity-Based Contacts

Friends and colleagues  in your vicinity will be detected automatically. You can  contact them  right away to set up that long-overdue meeting.

Cash, Credit, or iPhone?

Walk into a store and choose the credit card icon to communicate securely with the register via Blue Tooth or Wi-Fi. The transaction is secured via biometrics (fingerprints, retinal scan, etc.).

The Demise of Paper

Get receipts and business cards on your phone via Bluetooth or Wifi; they will also be automatically uploaded and backed up online. Enhance and annotate the information with instant access to online sources keyed to your subject as well.

Critical Data on Demand

What’s better than keeping personal information on a flash-drive for emergencies? Keeping it on your phone so you can access it anytime.

Deals, Deals, Deals

Retailers can now track your location and send competing deals to your attention – before you buy from Toys R Us, consider this offer from KB Toys for instance. The possibilities are limitless.

Author’s Note: This year I got to blog the ABA Technology Show once again as I did last year in this pair of posts here and here. In addition, this year I was given the opportunity to publish my work in the prestigious publication TechnoLawyer. And on a related (and equally important) note, this was the second year in a row that I was sponsored by the august DuPage County Bar Association, thanks to the hard work of directrix and champion of technology, Glenda Sharp. To Glenda and this year’s bar President, Fred Spitzzeri, a great big Thank You! Here’s to doing it again next year …

I Attended ABA TECHSHOW 2008 and All I Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

Eliminating the Paper Chase: From Boxes to Bytes (Paperless Office Track)

A Real World EDD Motion Hearing (Litigation Track)

The Mobile Office: Take Your Desktop in Your Pocket (Mobile Technology Track)

Outlook Tips and Tricks (Roundtables Track)

So You Want to Be an ABA Author? (Special Session)

Beating the Startup Blues: A Tech Survival Guide (Solo/Small Firm II Track)

Grand Finale: 60 Sites In 60 Minutes

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: SQ Global Solutions

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: Legal Bar by BEC Legal Systems

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: Electronic Discovery

Crazy Mazy’s Best of Show: Adobe Acrobat Professional

A Report from the Exhibit Hall and Suggestions for TechShow 2009

following my last post – Security expertise. Most of the time we focus on the system/network. Technology has also given us Video Surveillance equipment. The idea of having a $500,000 home in Elburn working the downtown lake front, has become fact.

Visit:      spygearco.com

Online Surveillance Equipment – Naperville, IL

Don’t pass up their blog, things you can do with a iPod…

I’ve noticed a few interesting trends that seem to point to a future in which our experiences on the Web might be tailored to our personal preferences without our ever having to spell them out. Welcome to the practical application of the Attention Economy.

Revenge of the Attention Economy: If you’re not familiar with the ‘attention economy’ concept check out my post here. Seems that information used to be expensive and hard to come by, but with so much of it available instantly for little or nothing it’s our attention that’s selling at a premium nowadays.

Necessity is a Mother: Advertisers are already hard at work getting our attention; but the need to surmount the ‘noise’ in our daily lives in order to make their point is more important than ever. Enter attention protocol markup language (APML). By building APML into the fabric of websites visited by tens of millions every day like Yahoo, MSN, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others, it will be easier than ever to measure, track, and predict their behavior. Voila – better ads, and maybe a more relevant browsing experience? Or a master manipulator’s dream?

I Want My MTV Back: Among professional critics on the ‘Net, the hot ticket is privacy and data ownership. In other words, assume that you leave a trail of virtual breadcrumbs behind you every time you get online; do you own that trail or can the information be used by your ISP, your software vendor, or others to shape your next browing experience (or sell you more of their product)? One blogger reviewed the actual policies of popular websites like Facebook, Yahoo, MSN, LinkedIn, and MySpace, and published his findings here. The results were not encouraging.