Category Archives: Office Management

The Mac Lawyer Discusses Legal Technology & Marketing in Asheville, NC

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ashevilleToday, I had the pleasure of giving presentations on legal technology and marketing at the Managing Your Practice In A Noisy, Changing World conference in Asheville, NC. My sessions were on the following subjects:

  • Technology: Small firm technology, including hardware, software, and iPads and iPhones
  • Marketing: Small firm marketing, taking a comprehensive look at use of the simple all the way up to how to implement social media for the small firm

Of course, these are two of my favorite subjects, and the attendees were very engaged and appeared to enjoy both sessions. Thanks to Tom Grella and the staff of the 28th Judicial District Bar for inviting me to speak at this conference. If you are interested in having Ben Stevens present at a conference, you are welcome to send him an email at Ben@SCFamilyLaw.com

25 Essential Legal Blogs

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25 essential legal blogsThe Business of Law blog recently published its list of 25 Essential Legal Blogs. It is a tremendous honor for The Mac Lawyer to have been included among such esteemed company.

If you haven’t already checked out this virtual who’s who of legal blogging illuminati, you should take a moment to do so. Some of my personal favorites include:

Use Doodle to Easily Schedule Meetings

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DoodleMeetings compose a significant portion of the professional lives of most attorneys. Scheduling them can be a real pain, and the more people there are to coordinate, the bigger the pain. Fortunately, technology can now make this process relatively painless.

Doodle is a free web-based service that enables you to enter a few details about your meeting or event, then select a few dates and time proposals, and send the email like to everyone you wish to invite. Yes, you really can finally say goodbye to massive, inbox-filling email exchanges trying to nail down a convenient meeting time.

Source: Schedule Meetings with Doodle Instead of Email Back and Forth by Tim Baran, published at Legal Productivity.

Readdle’s Scanner Pro Available for Free for a Limited Time

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Scanner ProScanners are an invaluable tool for most attorneys. Do you ever use your iPhone or iPad as a document scanner? If not, you should – as it’s very handy when you aren’t near a “real” scanner.

There are numerous apps that provide this functionality, but one of the best (and The Mac Lawyer’s personal favorite) is Scanner Pro from Readdle – and it’s available for free for the next week because it’s been named Apple’s “App of the Week”.

Scanner Pro is one of the most highly rated scanning apps in the App Store, and it turns your iPhone or iPad into a portable scanner for documents, receipts, notes, photos, and more. The app removes shadows, sharpens scans, and corrects perspective in order to make scans as “readable as possible,” and it utilizes edge detection in order to create fast, accurate scans, and it stores scans as PDF files that can be emailed/printed or uploaded to Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, etc.

Even though I believe that Scanner Pro is a bargain at its normal $6.99, this marks the first time since it was released in 2011 that it’s been available for free. If you don’t have it yet, do yourself a favor and click here to get it now.

Source: Readdle’s ‘Scanner Pro’ Named App of the Week, Available for Free published at MacRumors.com.

The Top Legal Productivity Mobile Apps of 2013

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mobile appsIf you don’t read the Legal Productivity blog, you’re definitely missing out, as it’s one of the best out there. Last week, it published its Top 20 Legal Productivity Mobile Apps of 2013. Many of the usual suspects are present, including some of my personal favorites:

You can check out the entire list of apps at the link below. You are also welcome to share your personal favorites in the Comments below.

Source: “Top 20 Legal Productivity Mobile Apps of 2013” by Tim Baran, published at the Legal Productivity blog.

What Do Legal Experts Predict for 2014?

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2014What do the experts predict for the legal industry in 2014? The Make More Rain Blog polled legal technology experts, including Lee Rosen, Sam Glover, Rick Georges, Larry Bodine, and Jeffrey Brandt to get their thoughts on what to expect in the coming year.

This article includes my predictions for 2014 in the area of law firm technology:

I believe that 2014 will see even more attorneys integrating Macs into their practices. Younger attorneys are more likely to already know the many benefits that Macs provide when compared to PCs, and older attorneys will continue to have their interest piqued from their increased usage of iPhones and iPads. The continued development of more specialized apps developed for the legal field will only help.

Some of the other contributors’ predictions were very thought-provoking, particularly Lee Rosen’s (“2014 will bring a bigger gap between winners and losers”) and Sam Glover’s (stressing the importance of lawyers focusing on their professional obligations). I have tremendous respect for Lee and Sam, and I thought their predictions were fascinating and their rationales for same. Check it out for yourself at the link below.

Source: “21 Expert Predictions For The Legal Industry In 2014” by Frank Strong, published at the LexisNexis Make More Rain Blog.

Learn How to Start a Law Firm via Podcast

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“Let’s Start a Law Firm” aspires to be everything you wished law school had taught you and nothing you wished it hadn’t taught you. This short-run podcast explores the topics of whether starting a law firm is right for you, the logistics of starting and running a business, finding and hiring clients, setting up an office, technology in law offices, and finding legal and nonlegal help.  

Two Kentucky attorneys – consumer lawyer Ben Carter and criminal defense attorney Annie O’Connell – host the show. They decided to do this show to help law students, lawyers who can’t find work, and attorneys looking to get a better boss (themselves) navigate some of the non-legal aspects of starting and running a business. 

The fourth episode, “Finding and Hiring Clients”, premieres later this week, and it will focus on important questions that every start-up attorney must answer: How do I find potential clients? How do I help potential clients find me? Once we’ve found each other, how do I know whether to take a case? Under what conditions will I take the case? How do I get paid?  Topics include: attorney advertising, “networking”, social media, attorney websites (and attorney non-websites), fee arrangements, invoicing, and retainer agreements. 

You can subscribe in iTunes and find links to the products, websites, and services they mention in the show notes available at bencarterlaw.com/letsstartalawfirm.

The Mac Lawyer Speaking at Solo & Small Firm Conference in Charleston

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Ben Stevens will be speaking at the South Carolina Bar’s 2013 Solo & Small Firm Conference this Friday, September 20th in Charleston, SC. This year’s theme is “Making the Most of What You Have!” to help attorneys work better, not harder, by learning how to capitalize on the products and skills they already have.

The faculty at this conference features several ABA TECHSHOW favorites as Catherine Sanders Reach, Bruce Dorner, and Steve Best.  The conference will be held at the Charleston Marriott on Lockwood Boulevard, and I will be giving presentations on Riding the Cloud: How My Firm Uses Cloud Case Management and Practical Practice Pointers and Terrific Tech Tips. I appreciate this opportunity, and I look forward to seeing everyone there.

Rocket Matter Unleashes New Features

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The best keeps getting better. It’s no secret that Rocket Matter has long been the leading online case management and billing software for lawyers. Today, it released it’s latest update (code-named “Kirk”), which includes several exciting new features:

  • Clients can now log into the user portal to access and pay their accounts online (through an integration with Law Pay) and their ledgers are automatically updated.
  • Users can now send ICS invitations to clients to schedule meetings.
  • Clients can update their contact details through the portal, which can be configured to show the law firm’s logo.
  • Integration with Copy2Contact enables users to complete contact forms automatically simply by copying and pasting blocks of contact information.

Law Technology News featured Rocket Matter’s new release today, which included the following quote from me:

Ben Stevens of The Stevens Firm, P.A. Family Law Center, concurred with Gilbert. “While other programs also offer the ability to share data with clients, Rocket Matter has taken this to the next level by offering clients the ability to view their invoices and to pay them online,” said Stevens in an email. “Smart lawyers know that time is money, and this streamlined process can’t help but make them more profitable.”

P.S. This release is so good, that even Kirk’s nemesis, Kahn, was reportedly quoted as saying, “This release from Larry and his crew is not too bad… not too bad at all.” 😉 

Technology Presentations at SCAJ Annual Convention

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Earlier this year, Ben Stevens was named the chair of the Technology Committee for the South Carolina Association for Justice. Later this week, he and Jenny will be attending the SCAJ annual convention in beautiful Hilton Head Island.

Ben planned and will be moderating Computer Technology seminar there, which features “How We Do the Digital Law Thing by Thomas A. Pendarvis, Esquire and “How Litigation Apps Can Make You A Better Trial Lawyer” by James T. McLaren, Esquire and Jonathan Lounsberry, Esquire.

Ben will also be giving a presentation at the Litigation at Sunrise seminar on “Five Essential Apps for Trial Lawyers”.  Ben serves on SCAJ’s Board of Governors, and he previously served two terms as chair of its Family Law Section. He has been an active member of SCAJ for almost two decades, and he proudly shares its mission of protecting the public and keeping South Carolina families safe.