Ernest Svenson a/k/a Ernie the Attorney is a smart guy. I am fortunate to have gotten to know Ernie over the years as a fellow blogger, and I was able to have dinner with him last year when I was in New Orleans for an ABA meeting. Of course, one of the many things I like about Ernie is that he’s a Mac guy, but I really like the fact that he thinks "big."
For instance, Ernie is a big fan of technology, and he explains how attorneys can implement it into their practices. He says that his theory of technology is that "it should just work." I agree wholeheartedly, and one of criteria I use in reviewing any product is the ease with which I can use it without having to consult its manual.
Ernie has published a lengthy article titled "Digital Workflow – Technology I Use to Practice Law" that is recommended reading for all attorneys, regardless of how tech savvy they are (or aren’t). In this article, Ernie discusses what tools he uses, and (more importantly) why he uses them. I urge you to read his article and then spend some time thinking about what you use and why you use it.
Source: "Software I Use, and Recommend" by Ernest Svenson, published at Ernie the Attorney.
I think the recommendations here are sound, but for PDF organization, I would not recommend Yep 1.8 (which, as Ernie notes, has no upgrade path).
Instead, DevonThink Pro Office can actually be set to auto-file PDFs based on the OCR of the contents.
I handle the IT for many law offices in the central valley (West Coast). And what I have found that works for annotations and storage is to go with the solid backups.
We use a mac based server:
Mac Pro or Mac Mini server.
Adobe 9.0 cc. Calcourtforms etc that deal with 32 bit issues.
TimeNet Law. A great billing and time calculator for all of my lawyer’s employees. It is constantly being fine tuned. its amazing.
Mozy for our offsite backups. Which we use a Drobo network attached storage to backup data and encrypt it. Then we send it to Mozy.
Almost everything has been moved off of word Perfect. We now use Mac Office 2004~08.
All of my clients are able to remotely log into their servers via AFP or FTP. All clients can print as if in the office. And it was all done budget friendly. Plus incase of fire I have my clients backing up server preferences and settings to my office.
We use Kerio for our email server directly from the in house server. This solves a lot of the issues of random or expensive services from other providers. Plus with compact storage backups we can retrieve any mail at any time. Ever.
With all of this we have covered all permission issues that would result such as sensitive HR data etc from employees that otherwise Cloud data would not permit.