Fasten Your Seat Belt: 60 Law Practice Tips in 60 Minutes

VSB Solo and Small-Firm Practitioner Forum July 21, 2008

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq. John W. Simek Sensei Enterprises, Inc. www.senseient.com [email protected] [email protected]

60 TIPS IN 60 MINUTES

By Brett Burney, Barron Henley and Sharon Nelson (reprinted by the kind consent of Mr. Burney and Mr. Henley)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. MARKETING...... 1 1. Reduce Print Advertising:...... 1 2. Utilize SEO – Search Engine Optimization:...... 1 3. Do Not Allow Uncle Vinny or Cousin Charles To Design Your Website: ...... 1 4. You Had Me At Hello:...... 1 5. Update Your Site or Become Invisible:...... 1 6. Author! Author! Start Writing Articles: ...... 2 7. Become a Lecturer:...... 2 8. Network Online:...... 2 9. Be Wary of Legal Directories:...... 3 10. Tear Down The Banner:...... 3 11. Pros and Cons of Keywords:...... 3 12. TV and Radio Advertising:...... 4 13. Should You Blog?...... 4 14. Should You Podcast? ...... 5 15. Digitize Your Elevator Speech: ...... 5 16. Power of the Spoken Word:...... 5

II. MANAGEMENT ...... 5 1. Training, Training, Training: ...... 5 2. Have A Disaster Recovery Plan In Place:...... 5 3. Have, And Follow, An Employee Termination Plan:...... 5 4. Devise, Monitor And Enforce An Internet And E-Mail Usage Policy: ...... 6 5. Consider Monitoring Employee Internet Usage: ...... 6 6. Yet Another Plan You Need – The Incident Response Plan: ...... 6 7. Start Going Green: ...... 6

8. Think About Employee Retention And Fringe Benefits: ...... 6 9. Stop Waiting for Hardware to Die Before Replacing It! ...... 7 10. Replace All Of Your Computers, All At Once, Every Three Years:...... 7 11. Create a Firm Cookbook:...... 9

III. ETHICS ...... 9 1. Use Illegal Software:...... 9 2. Send A Document To A Client To Sign And Don’t PDF And Lock It:...... 9 3. Miss A Court Date Because The E-Mail Notice Was Trapped By Your Spam Filter: ...... 9 4. Go To A Place On The Internet You Wouldn’t Like Mom (Or The Senior Partner) To Know About:...... 9 5. Use The Auto-Complete Function With Abandon: ...... 10 6. Use Weak Or Non-Existent Passwords: ...... 10 7. Write In Anger:...... 10 8. Hit The “Send” Button Quickly:...... 10 9. Leave Your Computers On At Night:...... 10 10. Don’t Change The Defaults: ...... 10 11. Put Client Data On An Unencrypted Thumb Drive:...... 11 12. Put Client Data On An Unencrypted Laptop:...... 11 13. Send an Email Containing Confidential Text or Attachments Without Encrypting It: ...... 11 14. Have Client Data On A Cell Phone That Doesn’t Require A Password: ...... 11 15. Donate Your Old Computers To Charity (Or Otherwise Dispose Of Them) Without Wiping The Hard Drives:...... 11 16. Converse Via E-Mail With Your Client Using The Client’s Work E-Mail: ...... 11

IV. FINANCE ...... 12 1. Measure ROI Fanatically:...... 12 2. Get Audited by Your CPA (Not the IRS):...... 12 3. It's Always The Person You Least Expect Who Steals From Your Business: ...... 12 4. Keep Electronic Discovery Costs Down: ...... 13 5. Understand RFPs: ...... 13 6. Pay Good Money For A Good Marketer: ...... 13

7. Save Money - Never Use Inkjet Printers: ...... 13 8. Increase Your Bottom Line - Make It Easy For Clients To Pay:...... 14 9. Get a Charitable Deduction for Old Hardware: ...... 14 10. Consider Leasing Your Computers (and Other Technology):...... 14 11. E-Better-Billing: ...... 14

V. TECHNOLOGY ...... 15 1. The Ultimate Device Charger:...... 15 2. Windows Vista Tips:...... 15 3. Your Keyboard and Mouse Is a Petrie Dish of Bacteria:...... 16 4. Adobe Acrobat Resources for Legal Professionals: ...... 16 5. Fax Machines Are So Yesterday! ...... 16 6. Free Teleconferences: ...... 16 7. Windows Shortcut Keys: ...... 17 8. Wireless Phone Headsets:...... 17 9. Explain Things to Your Client or the Jury with Pictures:...... 17 10. Visually Spread Out with Multiple Monitors: ...... 17 11. Jott.com:...... 18 12. Use Firefox and Its Top Add-Ons:...... 18 13. Sharing Calendars over the Web: ...... 18 14. How to Search For Old News Stories:...... 18 15. Determine If You're Vulnerable to Hackers: ...... 19 16. Revolutionize the Way You Organize Information with MindManager:...... 19 17. Microsoft Office 2007: ...... 19 18. Google Services: ...... 19 19. RPost – Registered E-mail:...... 19 20. How To Email Large :...... 19 21. Get Old Versions of Software:...... 19 22. 3G Networks:...... 20

Yes, we can count and we know there are more than 60 tips listed here. For the actual presentation, we promise to trim, but it seemed a shame to discard perfectly good tips for the sake of a number, so enjoy the abundance!

I. MARKETING

1. Reduce Print Advertising: Reduce print advertising, including the yellow pages. I haven’t looked at the yellow pages in years. My kids order their pizzas and movie tickets online and book their airfare and hotels there too. As the population ages, fewer and fewer people search for lawyers in the yellow pages. Newspaper circulation is declining by roughly 2% a year – and your ad today is on a birdcage floor tomorrow. Whatever you save from print, put that money online – it’s where your future clients are!

2. Utilize SEO – Search Engine Optimization: It’s not sexy but you need to understand it. Everyone (almost) has a website. But if you don’t understand anything about SEO, you’re going to fall behind the curve and get lost in the Google searches. It is not surprising these days to hear that savvy lawyers are getting 20% or more of their business online. But don’t believe the snake oil salesmen. This doesn’t happen overnight, at least not without cheating – and cheating will eventually cause the God Google to penalize you or de-list your site entirely. Learn the essence of SEO – and that it is an ever-moving target. A good resource: The Lawyer’s Guide to Internet Marketing, 3rd Ed. By Greg Siskind (ABA 2007).

3. Do Not Allow Uncle Vinny or Cousin Charles To Design Your Website: Get a pro. Websites need to be tested against all commonly used browsers and there are many tricks and tips that an amateur won’t be aware of. Design for Google. No one else really matters. Though the stats vary, roughly 75% of those online use Google for searching. As a fringe benefit, if you design for Google, you’ll do well by most of the other search engines as well.

4. You Had Me At Hello: You win or lose clients in seconds with your website’s look and feel. It’s not just Google you have to design for. Who are your potential clients? If it is Joe Sixpack, you need to talk directly to him. Perhaps you have bold print - “ARE YOU IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW? WE CAN HELP” along with a picture of a man being handcuffed. You are now talking directly to Joe – and his family. On the other hand, if you are marketing to corporate executives, you need a “Brooks Brothers” kind of website. Mind you, don’t think gavels and law books – that’s old hat and doesn’t tell anyone anything. Think creatively, use your imagination, and stretch your use of the English language and photos to say something new.

5. Update Your Site or Become Invisible: The bitter truth: all websites will fall in Google rankings if not continuously updated. Keep broadening and deepening your site with new content. Content is still king. But design also counts. No matter how spiffy your website looks today, remember that websites inevitably age. Website design and content is an ever-moving target so make sure you review your site

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periodically to keep it current, fresh, and modern. If you can’t keep your website current yourself, hire someone to do it – just don’t let it go stale!

6. Author! Author! Start Writing Articles: If you can’t get them published elsewhere, at least you can post them on your own website. And you might be pleasantly surprised to see how easy it is to get your articles published online – or how many bloggers might be happy to mention and link to a good and relevant article.

7. Become a Lecturer: Lecture to your community or start teaching CLEs. It may easier to lecture to community groups in the beginning, but spread your wings. Then make sure all your speaking engagements are listed on your website. When you have enough, put a speaking calendar on your website, with a clear and easy way for folks to contact you to arrange a presentation. Remember that it is critical to teach, not sell, at these presentations. If you know your stuff, they’ll remember you without the sales pitch. Once you have your feet wet as a lecturer, advertise yourself to bar groups, civic associations, etc. using your electronic contact list. I’ve even lectured on cruises – a great gig if you can get it!

8. Network Online: Networking in the old days was a royal pain. You had to get in the car to drive somewhere you probably didn’t want to be to shake hands with people, some of whom you quickly came to realize that you didn’t want to know, in order to eat a rubber chicken lunch listening to someone you didn’t want to hear talk about something you weren’t in the least interested in. All this in the hope of making connections while burning away billable hours. In this brave new world of the web, networking is far easier. A few of the best ways:

• Join a listserve, perhaps in your area of practice, or in your geographic area. Simply giving a helping hand here and there, or appearing competent your area of practice, will generate referrals.

• Work for your local or state bar association. Almost all of this work is now done electronically or by telephone conference, with only the rare personal meeting. This is great way to form a network of colleagues.

• Join and work with one of the ABA sections and divisions. This can also be useful, particularly if your area of practice extends beyond your own state. I have certainly developed some of my most cherished friendships through the Law Practice Management Section – and without question, the networking afforded has been beneficial to business while at the same time providing an avenue of “giveback” to the legal profession.

• Consider joining a social networking site that caters more to professionals like www.linkedin.com.

• Use your content management system (Outlook for many of us) to the max. Use it to send newsletters (electronic is cheaper of course), to remember birthdays

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and holidays, to offer congratulations, and to send news of interest. Remember, if you choose to send a notable news story to a group of clients, send the e-mail to yourself and bcc everyone else. People get testy when their e-mail addresses are broadcast to strangers.

• Create e-mail distribution lists (search Help if you don’t know how to do this). This way, you can easily contact the members of any particular group, e.g. Bar Board of Directors, at any time without typing in individual addresses.

• Use the task list and its reminder function. Solos and small firms sometimes use this feature as “poor man’s case management,” but it is an invaluable tool for reminding you to perform that marketing task that has somehow gone the way of good intentions. If you told someone that you’d get back to them about a subject of mutual interest and you don’t have time today, make sure it becomes a task that nags you digitally until it gets done.

• Doing good is marketing. This was certainly one of the stranger discoveries I ever made. Having been active in many good causes for years, it came as a very pleasant surprise that the folks I was working with to rescue dogs were quick to refer us. Likewise, potential clients who knew of my philanthropic work were astonishingly more likely to hire me. The wonderful truth here is that many clients will be drawn to someone they perceive as nice. Don’t puff yourself up, but don’t be shy either – put your community service on your website. That section of my website actually draws an incredible number of hits. Who knew that being nice could have such collateral professional benefits?

9. Be Wary of Legal Directories: They often promise more than they can deliver. Let’s face it, the salesman for legal directories have a product to sell. If they don’t quite lie, many of them certainly take liberties with the truth, particularly with the likely results of your placing an ad! They all have glossy brochures and lots of demographics, but the only thing that matters to you is whether potential clients are coming to you as a result of your ad. Make sure that the directory offers real statistics that show you the number of hits on your listing, the referring website (often Google or Yahoo), and then see if they ended up on your website (your own statistics would show this) or if they called you. Over-investment in legal directories is a common mistake. Even some of majors, Findlaw, Martindale, Lawyers.com, etc. may not provide much in the way of a return. Sign up for a year. If it did anything for you, you’ll know. If not, stop the bleeding and get out.

10. Tear Down The Banner: Banner ads? No brainer. Don’t do it. All of the experts agree that this is a fast way to burn money. Banner ads have a very low click through rate. You can do far better elsewhere.

11. Pros and Cons of Google Keywords: Another oft-heard question – should I invest in Google keywords? My answer is a grimace and that old Texas two step shuffle: It just plain depends. We seem to be past the days when click through fraud (notably, your competitor clicking on your ad to drive up your expenses) was a huge problem.

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Google has done a good job of securing its advertising to contain, if not wholly prevent, fraud. However, the question remains, will those keywords convert to money? Once again, it has a lot to do with how narrow your area of practice is and how much the keywords cost. “Personal injury attorney” is going to cost a lot more than “aviation law attorney.” If you have a niche field, you might try it. Anecdotally, most lawyers I’ve spoken to are not fans of Google keywords and have had zero luck with Yahoo’s similar system. The few lawyers that speak well of buying keywords have tended to have very specific targets “DWI Fairfax,” “Lemon Lawyer Virginia” and the like. Buying keywords is a gamble, and it can suck down money in a hurry, even though you cap the amount you want to spend. If you want to try it, decide how much money you want to spend each month, try several sets of keywords and measure the results!

12. TV and Radio Advertising: Is TV and radio advertising beyond my reach? Maybe not. You might be surprised. Forget radio during rush hour, when the prices are sky high. But think about the weekends, when we’re all running to soccer fields, going to the grocery store, or just folding laundry with the radio on. You may be able to get 30 second ads for as little as $40 on the weekend.

• Network TV is out of sight, but not so cable TV. Once again, think weekends, when people are chilling out at home. A 30 second slot on the Golf channel may be only $6 (no, I’m not kidding) and the viewers are primarily men, affluent men, a good target for many lawyers. Channels like CNN may be more like $25, but we’re not talking a huge drain on your budget. Once again, study the demographics for the various channels.

• Whether it is radio or TV, negotiate fiercely. I finally ended up with year-long TV and radio contracts, but we traded the length of the contract for amazing prices, that were about 60% off the original quoted price. Far more than other kinds of advertising, it is “Let’s Make a Deal” all the time in these worlds.

• Let us not forget production costs. I’ve been able to get radio stations to produce ads for free with a year long contract. The production of a cable TV ad, complete with background music, cost $1000 – a blue-light bargain for TV spots that have run hundreds of times on four different stations.

13. Should You Blog? Is it worthwhile to start a blog? Possibly. The blog express is still running strong. A blog is basically a kind of personal journal on your website, often your reflections on what has been happening in your area of law. The top entry is the most current one. You can configure your blog so visitors can comment – or not. Blogs are easier than ever to set up, thanks to content managers like Wordpress, and Typepad. However, you need to keep up with a blog and to get entries made on a fairly periodic basis to keep the blog current. You also need to get the word out about your blog – often through other bloggers, and that can be a real effort. There are now, amazingly, more than 2000 legal blogs. Another great stat: Over 50% of reporters surveyed in May 2007 said that they had quoted at least one blog in the

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past week. Reporters research online too – if they find a current blog entry from you on the subject of interest, they just might call!

14. Should You Podcast? Is it worthwhile to start a podcast? Possibly, but not for most lawyers. A podcast is basically a sound file (think digital radio broadcast) where you spend perhaps 20-30 minutes discussing a topic. You then post your podcast on your website – and you can post it for free at iTunes as well. Podcasts are more work than blogs, especially if you want to achieve good sound quality and edit the end result to get rid of the “ers” and “ums” and “you knows.” I suspect podcasts will remain in the hands of the geek lawyers for a while, until technology is simplified as much as blog technology has been simplified.

15. Digitize Your Elevator Speech: Have an electronic version of your elevator speech. This is the speech in which you can summarize who you are and what you do in a compelling 15-20 seconds. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Keep a fast template at hand which you can customize and send out as needed.

16. Power of the Spoken Word: Get prospective clients off e-mail and onto the phone. Your chances of “landing the client” are much higher if they can speak to you – and it is far less time consuming. Once they are on the phone, remember the old tried and true principles of marketing: Smile when you talk because the smile will be in your voice – and listen, listen, listen. Prospective clients have a story to tell – and they will like you better for sympathetically listening than for talking about why they should hire you.

II. MANAGEMENT

1. Training, Training, Training: Did we mention training? Why lawyers and law firms are so resistant to this is somewhat mysterious. They will spend tens of thousands on new software and simply dump it on the firm with little or no training. Without training, employees are likely to learn only the rudimentary functions of software necessary to complete their tasks. It has been estimated that lawyers use less than 10% of the software features that would help their productivity and efficiency. Training dollars are an investment, not merely an expense.

2. Have A Disaster Recovery Plan In Place: Surely the wisdom of this is now apparent in a post-Katrina world. Don’t plan for all things – an alien invasion is a fairly dim possibility (I think) – but do plan for floods, fires, bombs and other likely catastrophes. Remember in your planning that communication is the number one problem post-disaster. And don’t forget to review your plan once a year – things change very quickly.

3. Have, And Follow, An Employee Termination Plan: This is a chronic problem for employers. Once an employee is terminated, they should no longer have access to your network. If the employees murmurs that there are personal files on the computer, have a trusted employee monitor the process of copying those files. Kill the employee’s ID on the network, forwarding e-mail as necessary to someone else.

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Above all things, make sure you cut any remote access. Terminated employees are often unhappy employees, and their access to your data rarely spells anything good.

4. Devise, Monitor And Enforce An Internet And E-Mail Usage Policy: Nothing is so great a time-waster as the Internet. Make sure your employees are given specific instructions about what they may and may not do, including instant and chat rooms. Do you want them streaming audio and video and sucking your bandwidth? Probably not, so tell them. Incidental personal use of e-mail is usually granted, but do not assume that the policy will solve your problems. Most firms today are monitoring, at least to some extent, their employees’ usage of the network. You don’t have to be Big Brother, but you do need to keep control of the very seductive Internet!

5. Consider Monitoring Employee Internet Usage: It's likely that you won't believe what your employees are doing on the Internet and everyone knows that having an Internet Usage Policy doesn't mean that any one is actually adhering to it. Consider a product like Spector CNE (www.spectorcne.com) which will record everything your employees do online, including: instant messages, chats, emails sent and received, web sites visited, applications launched, network connections established and bandwidth consumed, files downloaded, files copied to removable media, and keystrokes typed. Of course, you announce that you're going to do this first.

6. Yet Another Plan You Need – The Incident Response Plan: This is not specifically a disaster recovery plan – it usually refers to a data breach or a hack. Whether someone outside breaks in and gets your data or someone on the inside leaks it out, you’ve got a problem. What does the law in your state require you to do? Keep an eye on federal law as well. And what are your ethical duties if client confidentiality is breached? Have a headache yet?

7. Start Going Green: Most lawyers are recycling and generally trying to be greener at home, but that movement hasn’t hit most law firms yet. We all have a duty to the planet so if you want to make a start at “greening” your law office, here are a couple of great resources: ABA Website for Sustainable Law Offices: www.abanet.org/publicserv/environmental/sustainable_law_office.shtml and “Going Green at Work” from the ABA Young Lawyers Division: http://www.abanet.org/yld/tyl/jan08/kibert.html

8. Think About Employee Retention And Fringe Benefits: In the old days, health, life and disability insurance, along with a retirement plan, seemed like plenty to offer employees. But in our more competitive world, fringe benefits are really changing. To boost office morale and help retain employees, law firms are bringing in bagels or donuts periodically, buying gourmet coffee machines, offering pantries of free snacks, bringing in catered lunches, paying for health club memberships, offering the complimentary services of a portable massage therapist, and the list goes on and on, restricted only by your own creativity. If you haven’t thought about employee morale for a while, today might be a great time to start.

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9. Stop Waiting for Hardware to Die Before Replacing It! This is the most expensive and inefficient method of replacing hardware or upgrading it. Instead, schedule the replacement of hardware and software; and do it before the things you're using stop working. Penalties for waiting for things to die before replacing them include:

• Disruption: If someone's computer stops working, for example, then they're likely to get no work done until that computer is fixed or replaced. Downtime can be extremely expensive and this is typically avoidable if the replacements are scheduled.

• You Lose All Negotiating Leverage: If you have to buy something in a hurry, you're going to have to buy whatever you can get the quickest. You don't have time to negotiate and if you're only buying one of whatever you're replacing, you're not going to get any quantity discounts either. If you schedule the replacement and replace multiple items at once, you do have time to negotiate.

• You Have No Time To Research: Whatever it is you're buying (printer, computer, phone, PDA, headset, etc.), there are probably multiple options. Every day, people who are forced to buy technology in a hurry find out later that they bought the wrong thing or the most expensive one or the one that is missing features they wanted. If you schedule the replacement of technology in advance, you'll have plenty of time to find the right technology for you and conduct research to make sure it's the best you can fit within your budget.

• You Probably Have to Buy Retail: You can almost always get a better selection and lower prices from online vendors. However, if you need to replace dead technology today, then you're not going to be able to wait for an online vendor to ship something to you. Therefore, you're going to end up in a retail establishment, and pay extra for not exactly what you needed.

• You're Forced To Buy Whatever Is In Stock: There are two distinct markets in the computer world - home and business. Most bricks-and-mortar retailers cater primarily to the home market; and you have to buy whatever is in the box. So although you might be looking for an "business" computer with Microsoft Office included, you might end up with a "home" computer that comes with 3D Surround Sound and a powered subwoofer, a joy stick and a bunch of games. Of course, that would be inappropriate for an office environment and now you're going to have to go and spend $350 for Microsoft Office a la carte when you could have had it included with a new computer for only $150 extra.

10. Replace All Of Your Computers, All At Once, Every Three Years: Experts have long recommended a 3 year replacement cycle for computers. There are multiple reasons for this including:

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• Keep Up With Rate of Change (Improvement): Replacing every three years allows you to remain current with the anticipated rate of technological change— systems become obsolete in approximately three years.

• Consistent Budget Amount: You can budget a consistent amount of money each year for information technology changes and upgrades.

• Less Disruption and Leverage: As discussed previously, it is always less expensive and disruptive to schedule the replacement of outdated equipment rather than simply waiting for it to die.

• Not Worth Fixing Old Computers: To determine the value of a 3 year old computer, go to www.ebay.com and do an "advanced" search. You'll find that a 3 year old computer sells for around $200 to $300 if it's a brand name machine. If it's generic, then the price drops to around $100 if you can sell it at all. Therefore, if anything goes wrong with a computer that is only worth $200, the cost of fixing it will almost certain exceed the value of the computer you're trying to fix. Of course, this is not a good use of your money.

• Less Expensive To Support: You or your computer person only needs to support one hardware and software configuration. If they fix a problem on one computer, they know how to fix it on all the rest. If they find an update to apply to one computer, they can apply it to all the rest. This saves time and money in troubleshooting and resolving the problems with each supported configuration.

• Users Can Help Each Other More Easily: Your users can help each other with questions about how the computers work, because they all have the same software and hardware. This saves time and money spent on computer consultants, and increases overall user productivity.

• You Can Easily Reload Computers: You can use programs like Norton Save and Restore or Acronis True Image to create an "image" of one of the computers. If any of them begin having trouble, you can simply re-load the original image and get it back to the state it was in when you bought it.

• Lower Training Costs: If you train your users on new software (as you should), they will all have the same version of that software and therefore benefit from group training. Otherwise, you must usually train separately on the different versions, which is more expensive.

• Lower Administrative Costs: Reducing the number of hardware configurations reduces the number of support contracts, warranties, and vendors that you must track and manage.

• Less User Frustration: You won't have arguments and dissention regarding who gets the newest computers.

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• Bottom Line: The wait to upgrade comes down to opportunity cost. The longer you wait to retire old, problematic technology, the higher your opportunity cost and that translates directly into dollars.

11. Create a Firm Cookbook: No, this has nothing to do with food; but it has everything to do with recipes. The idea is to get into writing all of the things related to your office that you don't know how to do yourself - and each of these things is a recipe. For example, do you know how to: a) restore a file from your backup; b) log onto your server; c) run invoices from your accounting system; d) reach the person who can fix your copier if it stops working; or e) reach someone who can answer an insurance question? If you answered no to any of those questions, you need a recipe for each one. If the person(s) currently responsible for any of those things you don't handle yourself were to leave, it can be very expensive to re-acquire that information, not to mention the disruption it can cause.

III. ETHICS

1. Use Illegal Software: You know who you are. You buy academic versions of software and use them in your law office. You buy a single license for an application and install it on three computers, contrary to the license agreement. You find a neat piece of software that is free for personal use, and you use it on your law office computer. “Naughty, naughty” is all I’ll say, but the Business Software Alliance (BSA) will say far more. Potential liability for EACH copyright violation: $150,000. Average out-of-court settlement: $80,000. They come with a U.S. Marshal and immediate ex parte authority to inspect your computers. If you are in violation of the copyright law at the time of inspection, you are toast. Intent is irrelevant. The moral? Make sure that you are properly licensed – and if you have a reasonable size firm, conduct an annual software audit. For heaven’s sake, have all the licenses in a single file.

2. Send A Document To A Client To Sign And Don’t PDF And Lock It: All too commonly, clients take it into their heads to alter a document sent to them by their lawyer. THEN they sign and send it back. Be careful – PDF and lock down all important documents – the exception is when you are working on drafts of a document, when it is easier to use Word and the “Track Changes” feature. However, once done, PDF and lock the document before it is sent around for signature!

3. Miss A Court Date Because The E-Mail Notice Was Trapped By Your Spam Filter: Don’t laugh – this happened to a respected firm in Colorado. The court was not amused by counsel’s failure to show up and assessed sanctions against the firm, requiring it to pay for the opposing counsel’s time. For heaven’s sake, whitelist the domain of the court – and important client domains at well. Remember that you cannot shift the blame to a third party service provider, however much you might like to. Why? Because court rules say you can’t.

4. Go To A Place On The Internet You Wouldn’t Like Mom (Or The Senior Partner) To Know About: This is precisely how spyware gets on your machines.

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Adult sites are particularly notorious for doing this, but many sites (even those with screensavers, computer utilities, recipes, etc.) do this to make extra money. Even a judge once called me after opening a “farm girls and their animals” e-mail attachment. He found himself trapped in an endless barrage of pop-up porn which refused to go away. Understandably, he was somewhat reluctant to call the courthouse IT staff. Enough said? J

5. Use The Auto-Complete Function With Abandon: This feature is so helpful and so potentially deadly. It is incredibly easy to let this function go and send an e-mail to someone other than the intended recipient. At best, the result is embarrassing. At worst, it is a genuine problem where you have perhaps sent confidential data to an unrelated third party or, the nightmare of nightmares, to opposing counsel.

6. Use Weak Or Non-Existent Passwords: Passwords are critical defenses, so do not use your pet’s name, your child’s name or the name of your favorite sports team. Make your password complex, including numeric characters. A good tip is to do a short sentence that you won’t forget. I love TECHSHOW 2008 will work just fine.

7. Write In Anger: An old chestnut, and still one to bear in mind. The unfortunate part of electronic communications is that when someone writes us something idiotic, we can immediately reply and point out the complete lunacy of what has just been transmitted. This is particularly tempting when a lawyer is under attack. Don’t do it! Cool off. Go take a walk. Do anything other than reply immediately with words that cannot be recalled and may live forever and come back to haunt you! Remember, there is no “do over” key for e-mail.

8. Hit The “Send” Button Quickly: We’re all so busy that hitting the send button promptly after composing an e-mail seems so natural. Done with this . . . on to the next thing. There is an inherent danger here. Look at the message one more time – is it going to the right people? Have you proofread? Is there anything wrong with the tone or substance? Just pause a minute. Remember – each time you send an e-mail, you must pretend you will see it on the front page of the Washington Post, on a billboard on Route 95, and in front of your mom’s face. If it can be in all three places without causing embarrassment or a problem, you’re probably ready to hit “Send.” Did we mention a warning about the lack of a “do over” key?

9. Leave Your Computers On At Night: Are you nuts? Do you personally know each member of the cleaning crew? Can you vouch for each of them? Robbers who broke into an entertainment complex in Colorado found themselves unable to open the safe even though they had the code. Perplexed, they looked around and found a computer that was on and Googled information about the safe. Moments later, the safe was open and they left with $12,000 – so you see, it is very helpful to have computers on at night – helpful for all the wrong sort of people.

10. Don’t Change The Defaults: Every script kiddy and macho hacker knows the defaults of all common computer-related devices. In fact, they are posted on the Internet. If you don’t want a burglar in your house, you always, at a minimum, lock

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the door. Changing the defaults is locking the door. In December of 2007, a noted hacker on his way to prison said that 85% of the time, he was able to gain access to computer networks through use of the default passwords on a router. So quit helping these guys out and change those defaults!

11. Put Client Data On An Unencrypted Thumb Drive: Look at the size of a thumb drive. Smaller even than our now very small cell phones. How often do we lose cell phones? About 50% of us have lost one at one time or another. Here we have an even smaller device. It is critical that data on a thumb drive be protected either by requiring a password or by encrypting a portion of the drive which carries client data.

12. Put Client Data On An Unencrypted Laptop: More and more lawyers are using laptops and tablets. Unfortunately, a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds and you have a 1 in 10 chance that your own laptop will be stolen this year. If your laptop is loaded with confidential client information, then you must encrypt it! Windows XP Professional and Vista both have encryption features built-in. You can also excellent third party applications such as GTSecuriKey (www.securikey.com) or PGP Full Disk Encryption (www.pgp.com).

13. Send an Email Containing Confidential Text or Attachments Without Encrypting It: Good encryption software encrypts both the text of the email and the attachments. Furthermore, by using passwords you can make sure that only the intended recipient opened it. Good encryption software like www.mailitsafe.com lets you confirm that only the intended recipient opened your email, you're notified of the date and time they opened it, you can cause it to self-destruct within a certain number of days, and you can reel the email back in as long as the recipient hasn't read it yet (even though you've already sent it).

14. Have Client Data On A Cell Phone That Doesn’t Require A Password: As my business frequently forensically images cell phones, it always strikes me as remarkable how few cell phones we see that require a password. It may well be that we are simply the “hurry up” generation that doesn’t have time for that extra step, but if there is client data on the phone, it certainly seems like we MUST take the time to ensure that client data cannot be accessed if we accidentally lose our phones in a cab!

15. Donate Your Old Computers To Charity (Or Otherwise Dispose Of Them) Without Wiping The Hard Drives: As much as you’d think this was obvious, every time a college student does a new study with hard drives purchased on eBay, they find law firm data. If you have someone who is IT competent, it is a simple matter to wipe the drives effectively. If you do not, it might cost you $100 per drive to have it professionally wiped. A small price to avoid a big security hole and the loss of client confidentiality.

16. Converse Via E-Mail With Your Client Using The Client’s Work E-Mail: This is always a troublesome area, since it is not yet fully clear whether the attorney-client privilege will apply to e-mail sent from a work machine, whether via a work e-mail address or a personal e-mail address. In at least one case in Virginia, the judge found

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that there was no privilege between attorney and client for anything sent from a work computer. Period. I believe that decision was wrong, but that doesn’t change the current practical implications for lawyers. Better reasoned decisions from other states have indicated that the privilege would not be lost if the client took reasonable measures to protect the privilege (e.g., not using the work e-mail address, keeping attorney-client e-mails segregated on the hard drive in an appropriately named folder) especially where the incidental use of e-mail for personal reasons is explicitly permitted by the employer. The bottom line is that, at least for the moment, the attorney-client privilege is at risk whenever a client sends you an e-mail from a work machine.

IV. FINANCE

1. Measure ROI Fanatically: Return on investment. Three words that bedevil the attorney trying to maximize the benefit of an insufficient number of marketing dollars. Make sure that every client who comes through the door fills out a client intake sheet which asks the pivotal questions: How did you hear of us? Have you visited our website? If they visited your website, did they found you through Google or another search engine? Did they locate you through a directory? Find out what prompted them to go there. Surprisingly, a number of studies have shown that folks go to legal websites because they’ve seen something in print. It is critical to find out if clients came to your website because website visitation is so often the validation used after someone has heard about you from a friend or seen your ad. Just because they didn’t first hear of you from the website doesn’t mean that your website isn’t working well for you in a collateral fashion! Make a simple chart to find out where your clients are coming from.

2. Get Audited by Your CPA (Not the IRS): It is always money well spent to retain a CPA who specializes in professional services companies and ask them to review everything you're doing from an accounting standpoint. They can help you make smarter decisions based upon hard numbers; they can explain how to pull useful information out of your accounting system (imagine that!); and they can usually provide many ways you can reduce costs and increase revenue that never occurred to you. More importantly, it will make sure that the person handling your accounting is doing it correctly. We've spoken to many lawyers who didn't find out their books were a train wreck until the person creating the wreck left for another job. If this happens to you, you'll become painfully familiar with the term "forensic accounting." We are audited quarterly by our CPA and although the audits are not exactly inexpensive, they always pay for themselves many times over. Plus, it's a tremendous peace of mind to know that all of your financial ducks are neatly in a row.

3. It's Always The Person You Least Expect Who Steals From Your Business: Unfortunately, this happens far more often than you know. Protect yourself against embezzlement and fraud by your employees or colleagues. Ask your CPA and malpractice insurance carrier to provide recommendations on how you can structure your business to make it very difficult (if not impossible) for someone to steal from

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you. There are many preventative measures you can implement from division of accounting responsibilities, to having bank account statements delivered to your home address, to required vacations for employees handling accounting functions at your office. Trust but verify; and don't be a victim.

4. Understand Your Own Billing/Accounting Software: Do not rely on one or two staff members to run reports, provide documentation, etc. Catch cheaters or even staff embezzlement by knowing how to run key reports yourself. Make sure that the steps for all standard accounting procedures are written down so you can execute them yourself.

5. Keep Electronic Discovery Costs Down: Not just for your clients, but for you too. Have a real document management system. Take out the darn trash and stop moving all sorts of useless, unneeded data to ever larger storage systems. Have a litigation hold team and a litigation hold plan ready to go. If working with major ED companies is busting your wallet, think small and find a boutique company. Don’t like all the processing fees to convert to TIFF and PDF? Think native. The times, they are a-changing and there are a lot of ways to save money in ED. The key is to find a company you trust – in the unregulated world of ED, there’s a lot of highway robbery, and vendors are often charging what the market will bear, which doesn’t necessarily bear any relation to true value. Be a savvy consumer.

6. Understand RFPs: OK, this is not fun. Requests for Proposals are a royal pain in the posterior. But this is how many clients are selecting counsel these days. If you can’t respond well to an RFP, you are handing off clients to your competition. Do some homework, get educated, and learn how to produce a stellar response to an RFP.

7. Pay Good Money For A Good Marketer: More than ever, what works for law firms is summed up in one world: Creativity. The same old tired marketing with pillars, law books and gavels just won’t cut the mustard anymore. A good marketer will bring a world of imagination to your advertising and really get you noticed. If you want to check out one site with a lot of creative marketing ideas, take a look at http://rossfishmanmarketing.com/

8. Save Money - Never Use Inkjet Printers: For example, the black ink cartridge for an HP DeskJet 5650 contains 19 ml of ink and costs $19.99 ($1.052 per ml). The color cartridge contains 17 ml and costs $34.99 ($2.058 per ml). There are 3,785.4118 ml in one gallon. Therefore, black ink is $3,982 per gallon and color ink is $7,791 per gallon - IF you could print with every drop of ink in the cartridge (which of course, you can't). Furthermore, a study by TÜV Rheinland across all brands found:

• Printers report ink empty when 20% to 64% ink remaining (Kodak EasyShare 5300 was worst)

• Single ink cartridges report empty when average of 20% of the ink is left

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9. Increase Your Bottom Line - Make It Easy For Clients To Pay: If you are not already accepting credit cards, think about doing so. Consider moving into electronic billing – they will get the bills more quickly and they tend to pay more quickly as well. If you are charging a flat fee for a project, think about requesting 50% up front and 50% on delivery. An “evergreen” provision in your retainer agreement (requiring a specific balance to be kept at all times in your trust account) can work wonders as well.

10. Get a Charitable Deduction for Old Hardware: AFTER you've securely deleted all information from old computers using appropriate erasure software, find a charity, take a photo, and get a receipt. To determine the value of your deduction, check eBay for closed sales of whatever you donated (you're likely to find plenty of representative sales). Print the results of your eBay search as evidence of the value. To find a charity, consider the following:

• www.charitynavigator.com

• www.youthfortechnology.org

• www.pcsforschools.org

• www.computerswithcauses.org

• www.recycles.org

11. Consider Leasing Your Computers (and Other Technology): When you buy computers, you can either write the expense off as a Section 179 deduction (up to $125,000 in 2007) or you can depreciate it over 5 years. Since the useful life of a computer is 3 years, the 5 year depreciation plan isn't particularly attractive. However, you may want to spread your deduction over the useful life of the computer rather than take it all in the year you purchased it. I'm not dispensing tax advice, but my CPA tells me that if I utilize an "operating lease" rather than a "capital lease" (with a fair market value end-of-lease purchase option rather than a $1 end-of-lease purchase option), I can deduct every lease payment as an operating expense. This would enable you to effectively take your deduction over 3 years rather than 5 (which is what you have to do if you depreciate them). Other benefits of a true lease include the ability to give that old equipment back to the leasing company at the end of the lease term. It forces you into an advantageous 3 year replacement cycle (since most equipment leases are for 3 years) and there's a lot to be said for a predictable "technology payment" which will remain the same for the term of the lease. Finally, "smart leases" give you a way to roll services, hardware and software into your monthly lease payment. This allows you to have an all- encompassing technology payment that covers everything.

12. E-Better-Billing: Electronic billing no longer simply refers to sending paper invoices via e-mail. Today's e-billing systems are sophisticated matter management systems that allow your clients to keep a detailed eye on every aspect of legal work

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done for them. That may sound scary, but systems/services like Serengeti and LAWTRAC enable your corporate clients to create more useful reports on legal spending, and provides them an environment to become more comfortably involved in their outside legal activities. E-billing services like Serengeti are accessible over the Internet, and charge the client a monthly fee based upon estimated system use during the year (minimum of $2,000/month). Obviously, an e-billing system may not be for everyone (i.e. it may work best for keeping track of litigation work), but it could be worth mentioning to your clients who have expressed concern about "runaway" legal costs and a desire to become more familiar with legal work being done on their behalf.

13. Review G/L Reports Monthly – Know Your Bottom Line Per Month: Where are you bleeding money; where are you making money? How much did you spend on office supplies this month vs. last month vs. last year at this time? If you don't track this kind of information, you probably have no idea where your money is going.

14. Put A Value On Staff Productivity: Invest in technology and training to make your staff more efficient which, in turn, affects your bottom line. When the staff can handle more work, more efficiently, profits increase.

15. Cost Recovery Pays for Your Equipment: That copy machine may cost you $1,500/month, but how many copies are you making and are you billing clients for copies produced? If not, why not? Be reasonable and responsible when doing this and invest in Cost Recovery software or at least adopt protocols to offset the cost of using and maintaining internal machinery (copier, fax, postage, printer, telephones, etc.). Many cost recovery systems integrate directly with legal accounting software, www.quitrac.com and www.copitrak.com being good examples.

V. TECHNOLOGY

1. The Ultimate Device Charger: Chargepod from www.callpod.com.

2. Windows Vista Tips:

• Many people are questioning if they "need" to upgrade to Vista. Generally speaking, we would strongly advise against upgrading a Windows XP computer to Vista. Many who have done so opened up a Pandora's Box of problems. If you have a smooth-running Windows XP computer right now, with no real problems and plenty of RAM and hard drive space to support your current workload, stay with it. However, if you're considering a new computer, it's definitely worth choosing Vista for your new operating system. Those who have purchased a new computer pre-configured with Vista and designed to run it have generally avoided the problems that have plagued users who upgraded from Windows XP. Of course, you need to make sure that every existing peripheral you're attaching to the new computer has a Vista driver so it will work properly. This includes printers, scanners, all-in-one machines, external hard drives, USB

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hubs and the like. Finally, if you plan to load old programs on your new Vista computer, you also need to make sure that those old programs will run on Vista.

• Vista Screen Snipping Tool (capture screen shots of anything on your screen) - it is under Accessories

• Vista Flip 3D for switching applications - hold down on the Windows key + tab, then use your arrow keys to scroll through the open applications.

3. Your Keyboard and Mouse Is a Petrie Dish of Bacteria: A study by Dr. Charles Gerba (microbiologist from Univ. of Ariz.) found that the average desktop surface has 21,000 bacteria per sq. in., a computer keyboard has 3,300 bacteria per sq. in., a computer mouse has 1,700 bacteria per sq. in. and a toilet seat has 49 bacteria per sq. in.! What to do:

• Washable Keyboards by www.unotron.com or www.sealshield.com

• Washable Mice from www.unotron.com and www.belkin.com

• Clorox Disinfecting Wipes - safe for computer peripherals (and your desk)

4. Adobe Acrobat Resources for Legal Professionals: This tip never gets old – you should better educate yourself on the numerous features of Adobe Acrobat and PDF files in general. For example, instead of sending 5 separate Word documents to your client or co-counsel, consider "wrapping" them all up into a single PDF file complete with "bookmarks" to each document and a cover letter. You could also digitally sign the PDF file and even secure it with a password so you know that it can't be changed. When you send a PDF file instead of Microsoft Word of Corel WordPerfect documents, you know that your recipient will see your document exactly how you mean for it to be viewed, without having to worry about what version of Word or WordPerfect they have on their computer.

• http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw

• www.planetpdf.com

• www.pdfforlawyers.com

• David Masters book from LPM

5. Fax Machines Are So Yesterday! So try an online fax service instead. Send and receive faxes from anywhere you have Internet access. Secure, private and easy. See www.myfax.com, www.efax.com, www.greenfax.com, www.onebox.com or www.rapidfax.com.

6. Free Teleconferences: www.freeconferencecall.com The "catch" is that the number for your conference participants is a regular long-distance number (a toll call). Fortunately, this is not as big of a problem as it once was, and participants with cell

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phones may not care at all. If you prefer to provide a toll-free number for your participants, it will cost you 12 cents per minute.

7. Windows Shortcut Keys: Windows + L will lock your computer. Windows + M minimizes all programs. Windows + E launches Windows explorer. Windows + D will minimize all programs (similar to Windows + M) and hitting it again will bring all programs back to view. Ctrl + Z is "undo" almost anywhere. Ctrl + Y is "redo."

8. Wireless Phone Headsets: NOT Bluetooth headsets for mobile phones, but headsets for your desk phone. If you want to talk and use the computer or do anything else, you need one of these. Consider the Plantronics CS70 with handset lifter and on-line indicator.

9. Explain Things to Your Client or the Jury with Pictures: SmartDraw Legal Edition (see www.smartdraw.com) allows anyone to produce timelines, evidence charts, legal flowcharts, estate planning diagrams, crime scene diagrams, accident reconstructions, forensic diagrams or even patent drawings. The Legal Edition regularly sells for $449, although it routinely goes on sale. Includes a free trial.

10. Visually Spread Out with Multiple Monitors: Get Multiple Monitors and you'll never go back to one.

• Two 19" Dell UltraSharp monitors cost $591 less than one 30" Dell monitor and provide more screen area.

• Studies show that this will make you more productive - my own experience verifies it.

• Put one monitor in portrait mode – like looking at a full piece of paper.

• Requirements: 1) An OS that supports multiple monitors (anything after Win 98); and 2) Two graphics cards, or one with multiple ports

• See the Matrox DualHead2Go or TripleHead2Go if you don't want to buy a new video adapter.

• Difference between DVI and VGA – make sure your monitor and PC have the same ports and purchase adaptors if necessary.

• Changing the settings for multiple monitors in Display Properties.

• Turn off your monitors when not in use to conserve energy and keep the heat down (monitors produce a good amount of heat).

• Use www.localcooling.com – go greener!

• MaxiVista.com

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11. Jott.com: Truly one of the best services I've used in a long time. Put Jott's toll free number on your cell phone speed dial. "Who do you want to Jott?" "Myself" and leave yourself a message which will be converted into an e-mail and sent to you (you can also listen to the audio from the email). Jott to yourself time spent on a project, or expenses for a meal when you can't write it down. I use it while I'm in the car. I do some of my best thinking when I'm on the road, and I can't very easily write something down. So I connect my Bluetooth headset to my mobile phone and Jott away. FREE!!!!

12. Use Firefox and Its Top Add-Ons: It's faster than IE, has long had features IE7 just added (like tabbed browsing), it's more secure, more customizable and its set of add- ons is unparalleled. Fantastic add-ons include:

• IE Tab - For those web sites that just don't work right if you're not using IE, you can the IE Tab add-on for Firefox which will render any web page in IE (it even fools Microsoft's site).

• Tab Mix Plus - Enhances Firefox's native tabbed browsing capabilities

• AdBlock Plus (really useful when a site refuses to load because of a pesky banner ad, although I don't advise using all the time. The Internet is supported by ads.)

• Google Notebook - easily clip and organize information from the web into notebooks which are stored on the web, accessible from anywhere and can be shared.

• NoScript – "makes Firefox the safest browser around." Only allows scripting from trusted sites.

• PDF Download – allows you to choose to download PDFs or open them in browser tabs. From Nitro PDF.

13. Sharing Calendars over the Web: A great way to share docket calendars with clients – permanent or temporary.

• Outlook 2003 or 2007 - even without a Web or Exchange server. http://tinyurl.com/yq7z2u

• - http://tinyurl.com/36gtqd

• 30 Boxes - 30boxes.com

14. How to Search For Old News Stories: It's sometimes hard to find news stories older than 90 days or 1 year. Sure you could always jump on LexisNexis to find it, but it might be worth checking out some free sites first.

• – the main page only goes back 30 days, but they also have News Archive Search (http://news.google.com/archivesearch) they may require a fee

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depending upon what you need (i.e. the article comes from a paid service like WSJ).

• Search archives of newspaper web sites

• Topix.com

15. Determine If You're Vulnerable to Hackers: Try ShieldsUP - the best way to test any open ports you may have – www.grc.com. Use at home/office to test your own systems, and use whenever you travel.

16. Revolutionize the Way You Organize Information with MindManager: A great way to brainstorm, or formally map out the flow of a litigation project. Get everything out of your head and into a diagram - see www.mindjet.com

17. Microsoft Office 2007: There are plenty of reasons to upgrade and this is easily the best version yet.

• New features of Word 2007

• New features of Outlook 2007

18. Google Services: Check out Google SMS, Google Notebook, , Google Patent Search, for Mobile, , iGoogle, & .

19. RPost – Registered E-mail: Allows you to provide verifiable proof of email delivery, email content and attachments, date and time sent and received and audit trails. See www.rpost.com.

20. How To Email Large Files: First, don't use regular email. It will overload your e- mail server, and your recipient's e-mail server. You don't know if you're recipient has download restrictions, and it takes too long for your recipient to download the file. Below are two recommended services, but be mindful of confidentiality issues when using these services – read the user agreements.

• MediaFire - www.mediafire.com - free, up to 100MB per file, no sign up required, unlimited desk storage

• YouSendIt - www.yousendit.com - free or pay accounts with sophisticated options

21. Get Old Versions of Software: There are times when you may not need the latest update of a piece of software. For example, you might be using an older PC, new versions of the software cause problems with your computer, you just don't need new bells and whistles, you're perfectly happy with the old version. Well, most older versions are free!

• www.oldversion.com

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• www.oldapps.com

• www.old-versions.net

• Some software companies will offer older versions – e.g. TechSmith: you can download fully-functional one-version-behind apps and register them: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140292/article.html?tk=nl_sbxcol

• "Abandonware" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware

Cautions:

• These apps are no longer officially supported, which means you will not get security updates, etc.

• Probably are not going to find most commercial applications such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Office.

22. 3G Networks:

• What are they and why would need to use them?

• Using your cell phone as a wireless modem for your laptop.

• Verizon/Sprint vs. AT&T/T-Mobile

• Using a PC Card or USB dongle to connect to a 3G network

• PDANet from JuneFabrics.com

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