Technology for Lawyers
I used to work in litigation support technology when I was with Arthur Andersen in the 90s (pre-Enron, AA was a great company), so I had the opportunity to work closely with a few law firms and corporate legal departments during that time. The technology landscape is dramatically different now, so I thought I would touch on a few resources for the legal profession.
The Mac Lawyer (themaclawyer.com) is a site about using Apple’s Macintosh in the practice of law. They have a good article there called “Why We Went Mac and Have Never Looked Back” (Part One and Part Two) with an overview of the various applications and processes implemented in a law practice, including hardware, software, calendar, mail, networks and backups.
From the article by Randall A. Juip (of the Juip Richtarcik Law Firm):
The short of it is this — I can’t tell you how simple my and my practice manager’s jobs are not having to worry about the technology in the office. Our technology does what it is supposed to do — it works and lets us work to serve our clients. We don’t spend valuable time working on getting our technology to work. While there have been a few headaches, are significant only in that they are the exception, not the rule.
Some of the tools in use in Mr Juip’s practice:
- Apple’s MacBook Pro laptops
- Apple’s iMac desktops
- Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 (Word, Excel & PowerPoint)
- Apple’s iWork Suite (Pages, Numbers & Keynote)
- Sage’s Timeslips for tracking and invoicing billable time
- RealLegal’s E-Transcript Viewer (for reading PTX files)
- BusySync for calendar syncing and sharing
- Evernote
- Dropbox for cloud data sync / backup
- Apple’s TimeMachine for incremental file backup and recovery
I would also recommend a small-to-medium size law practice consider the Mac Mini Server for local file-sharing, calendars, contacts and web site hosting. It runs OS X Snow Leopard Server and offers a lot right out of the box for $999.
Personal anecdote: In 1997 I was working with a young litigation attorney on a new web-based document management system that provided an environment for lawyers, opposing counsel, outside counsel and consultants to review discovery documents, which was great because it eliminated the need to copy and ship mountains of paper among the various parties. The lawyers could review docs online, redact sensitive info, flag for privilege, create production sets, print files, annotate, etc. It helped keep costs down and there was good security built in. The young lawyers really “got it” but the senior partner on the case — the guy who wrote the checks — said there’s no way I’m putting my confidential documents on the internet. I understood the concern—he thought of the internet as a wild frontier where anything goes and there’s no security and you can’t trust technology. We finally were able to assuage his fears a bit, but he was never very comfortable with it. I hope things have changed a bit since then.
Other legal tech resources
- MacLitigator – Litigation & trial technology for the rest of us
- Apple Briefs – Improving your law practice with Macintosh
- Using the iPad in the Courts and Office
- Macs in Law Offices (MILO) at Google Groups
- U.S. Code for iPad
- Michael J Evans: Law + Technology
- TechnoLawyer Blog
Filed under: Apple, Hardware, Mobile, Software Tags: dropbox, evernote, law, mac, workplace | No Comments »
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