practicehacker

Law firms looking to perform services online still need to pay careful attention to the rules of professional conduct. The ABA gives a few minimum guidelines:

1. You must still establish an attorney-client relationship before representation.
2. Terms and Conditions should be published on the public portion of the firm’s website.
3. Clients must be residents of the state in which your firm is authorized to practice.
4. Clients should have access to a fully secure web account to ensure confidentiality.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you’re interested in “going virtual”, contact our office for more information.

Source: ABA Law Practice Today

Microsoft Office 2010

Just when the future of its venerable franchise was in doubt this movie about Microsoft Office 2010 reminds us that the company can still afford top-of-the-line PR.  On the other hand it remains to be seen whether Redmond can produce software that isn’t bloated and crash-prone.

Whatever the answer, by the time the dinosaurs at Microsoft roll out their “finished” product they will already have had to compete with the likes of Google Apps, Zimbra, Zoho, LiveOffice, and much, much more. Maybe that’s why the rumored price for the next-gen office suite is $0.00; take that everyone else in the world!

Does anyone else think Microsoft’s unweildly size and sluggish reaction times have finally overcome its monopoly power?  Hey, a guy can dream.

Thought I’d share some choice video from TechShow 2009 featuring all 4 of the Best of Show winners that I wrote up in TechnoLawyer, plus interviews with some of my heroes such as Bob Ambrogi, Jay Funeberg, and Kevin O’Keefe, as well as sightings of legal blogging all-stars like Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighelle. I’m still excited.

See related videos here and find me on YouTube as practicehacker.

We're the ABA Damnit! We own you!

This was my 10th year at ABA Technology Show in Chicago. This year was particularly cool.  Here’s why:

Meeting The Heavies: To me, seeing people like Dennis Kennedy, Tom Mighelle, Bob Ambrogi, Jim Calloway, Kevin O’Keefe, Brett Burney, Andy Atkins, Jay Foonberg (!) and the rest of my pretend blog friends … I mean pretend LinkedIn friends … is like reconnecting with long lost relatives. Exciting and a little intimidating. But all of them were really great and down to earth. Except that Kennedy. Such a prima donna. I kid, I kid.

Meeting Canadians: Who can forget meeting the Great Librarian of Upper Canada! Beat that. Then there was Phil of the Future (my name for him), Steve Matthews (nice guy), Brett Burney (I think he’s Canadian), Dominic Jaar (vive la Quebec libre!), the boys from Clio (or as I called them, the Booth Babes), and a host of other talent from the Great White North. It was great to meet you all: now go back where the ice doesn’t melt until July.

Technology Becoming Accepted: This year for the first time in memory I noticed a preponderance of grey hairs and the careful gait of partners scoping out potential buys for their offices.  This was not the brash, flash-in-the-pan TechShow of the late-90′s in which the Internet was decried as a fad.

SaaS, Saas, and more Saas: Software as a service was all over the place, and by next year it will be pervasive. This year I was knocked out by the number and variety of kick-ass SaaS providers at the show including Clio, RocketMatter, and VLO Tech. Clio was my hands-down favorite for a number of reasons – I intend to use it in my own practice. Whatever your cup of tea, the idea of throwing away the IT department in favor of the Cloud is gaining traction fast.

Less is … Less: One lamentable fact about this  year’s show – there was less of it than I’ve seen in a long time. Another casualty of the economy I’d say, but we shouldn’t overlook the fact that many legal technology vendors have been slaves to profit instead of boosters for innovation and the slow economy is making it painfully apparent what a royal screw job they’ve been giving lawyers all these years. Many players couldn’t make it ? Good riddance to bad company.

Other than that however, it was a great experience as always and one that I heartily recommend to one and all. If you haven’t been to TechShow, go there. If you have, come back. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

For more coverage see my SmallLaw Column in TechnoLawyer.

Check out Twitter coverage of TechShow.

As always, I’d love your thoughts. E-mail me at mhedayat[at]mha-law.com or tweet me @practichacker.

ttyl

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.

.. because we own you ..

You may have heard last week that the military-industrial-googleplex took its first step towards domination of the Internet browser market. Its answer to Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and the rest of the field? Chrome. Watch the fateful announcement below or download the product here to try it.

A sample of last week’s commentary (ironically, taken from Google itself) demonstrates that the response from the Interneterati was lukewarm, but having tried the product I’d say Chrome lives up to some of its promises. It’s fast loading, has a number of conveniences built in, and it incorporates Google’s search functionality. That said, there is much it doesn’t do. It lacks the extensions and themes of Firefox, the security features of IE, or cutting-edge cool of Apple’s Safari. Finally, as you might expect Chrome suffers from ‘newbie syndrome’ — most of the third-party goodies I use aren’t ready for Chrome.

Still .. it’s nice to have another choice in browsers, and more competition is never a bad thing. So I’ll be using Chrome as often as I can to collaborate, do research, and run online office applications, all the while hoping that it becomes a viable alternative to what’s already available.

Your thoughts on Chrome? E-mail me at mhedayat[at]mha-law.com and let me know.