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The Paperless Law Office

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Ben Stevens Posted in How Do I ...?, Office Management 1 Comment

This month’s Law Practice Today webzine from the ABA Law Practice Management Section focuses on how to implement and utilize paperless strategies in law offices. I had the pleasure of serving as the editor for this issue, and I am very pleased with the result. You can read the following articles at the links provided below, and I hope that you find them helpful:

As many of you already know, my family law practice is not paper-based, as all of our documents are scanned and stored digitally. Not only does this make my practice more efficient, I can access all of the documents in all my clients’ files from anywhere, which enables me to work and/or send information to them at any time, no matter where I am. If you want to learn more about how I utilize technology in my practice, I am speaking about this topic at the upcoming MILOfest 2009 seminar, which is being held in Orlando, Florida from November 5 – 7, 2009. You can learn much more about this seminar by clicking here.

The Legal Mac :: What if Apple Stores Billed by the Hour?

Posted on July 20, 2009 by Ben Stevens Posted in Office Management 2 Comments

Apple Stores are known for their knowledgeable personnel and excellent customer service. Not coincidentally, those are also the hallmarks of outstanding law firms. This month, the Law Practice Today’s The Legal Mac features an article from Jay Shepherd which questions what it would be like if these stores were run like law firms — and by extension, why law firms can’t be run more like Apple Stores. It is a very thought-provoking article, and I hope you enjoy it. – Ben Stevens, The Mac Lawyer

What if Apple Stores Billed by the Hour? Lessons for Law Firms by Jay Shepherd

A few weeks ago, I was out to dinner with my wife and girls. Nearby was an Apple Store, so while we waited, I scurried over for a quick purchase. I needed to get a new antiglare plastic sheet for my iPhone. Keep in mind, I was going to purchase what is probably the least expensive item in the Apple Store.

Anyway, I got to the store, made my way over to the iPhone accessories (there are about six million of them), grabbed a screen protector, and took a moment to see if there’s anything else I need (“need” being a vague term). At this time, a store representative, Anil (or it could have been Pete or Algernon – I don’t remember the names, so I’m invoking dramatic license and inventing them) came over and asked if I needed any help. This occurred not in a hovering, vulturelike, typical salesperson way, but rather in an “I’m-here-to-help” way.

“No,” I said, holding up my screen protector and my iPhone. “I just needed to get this.” He replied, “Great. But that particular protector is for the original iPhone. You have an iPhone 3G. You need this one.” Of course, he was right, and I swapped protectors with the correct one that he handed me. He then led me over to Angelina (license again), who took my credit card and quickly rang me up on her little handheld device. She asked me if I found everything I needed, and I confirmed that I did.

At that point, Angelina pointed to the screen protector and asked, “Do you want help putting that on?” If you’ve ever tried to put an adhesive sheet of plastic onto a piece of glass, it’s tricky. If you stick it on too early, you end up misaligned and, well, stuck. “Sure,” I said. She then called Pam over, telling me that Pam was the best screen-protector sticker-onner.

Pam led me over to another table. She took my iPhone and gently and carefully cleaned the glass face. Then, with the movements of a nimble surgeon, she peeled the backing off the protector, lined it up, and lowered it to about a millimeter above the glass. Then — and this is the cool part — she just dropped it that last millimeter. The protector floated down and landed evenly on the screen.

Pam then took a card and squeegeed the protector so that no bubbles would form under it. And that was it. My screen protector was perfectly installed, my receipt was being emailed to me, and the whole process took about six minutes from start to finish. I returned to my family just in time to sit down and order dinner.

So to recap: three Apple Store team members waited on me, all working together to make the smallest possible Apple Store sale. No one cross-sold me anything. I didn’t get snookered into a new Apple Cinema Display or a new MacBook Air. Three employees: $14.95 in sales revenue.

Now what if the Apple Store was run like a law firm? What if the Apple Store billed by the hour?

Continue reading→

Can Law Firms Be Run Like Apple Stores?

Posted on June 26, 2009 by Ben Stevens Posted in Office Management 1 Comment

Apple Stores are known for their knowledgeable personnel and excellent customer service. Not coincidentally, those are also the hallmarks of outstanding lawfirms. Jay Shepherd has written an article which questions what it would be like if these stores were run like law firms – and by extension, why law firms can’t be run more like Apple Stores. It is a very thought-provoking article, and I recommend it to attorneys everywhere.

Source: "What if the Apple Store Billed by the Hour?" by Jay Shepherd, published at The Client Revolution.

Attorney Billing Timesheet Templates

Posted on June 4, 2009 by Ben Stevens Posted in How Do I ...?, Office Management 6 Comments

Even though there are many fine time and billing programs for the Mac, some attorneys prefer to take an “old school” approach and use timesheets. If you prefer this low-tech option, you should read the article at the Esquire | Mac blog, which provides the following easy to use templates:

If you decide to use either of these timesheet templates, you will want to keep your spreadsheet easily accessible. One way to accomplish this is to keep it in your Dock. To do so, simply drag the document to the right side of the Dock (where your “stacks” folders are kept), and it will stay in the Dock for one click access to your timesheet.

Source: “Excel and Numbers Templates for Attorney Billing Timesheets” by Adam Greivell, published at his excellent Esquire | Mac blog.

Reminder :: Free Webinar :: Using Macs in Your Law Firm

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Ben Stevens Posted in Mac vs. PC, Office Management, Online Resources, Switching to Macs Leave a comment

FREE Webinar! Using Macs in Your Law Firm
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009
Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT
Space is limited! Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/458254538

Description:
Until recently, law firms needed PC’s to run their practices. No longer. Scanners, software, printers, are now available to practice law on the Mac, and the iPhone is now a powerful business tool.

Ben Stevens, aka The Mac Lawyer, will get us up to speed on how a firm can transition to Macs for legal work. We’ll answer audience questions, conduct interactive polls, and discuss the latest gear and software for the Mac platform.

For those of you on Twitter, follow our conversation with the hashtag “#rmwebinar”!

Your host will be The Mac Lawyer himself, Ben Stevens:
Ben Stevens is a practicing attorney located in Spartanburg, SC. After using Windows machines for over a decade, his office has been all Mac-based since August of 2005. Ben has given presentations on both technology and legal topics at continuing education seminars, and he enjoys speaking on those subjects. Ben’s blog, TheMacLawyer.com, is synonymous with the Mac legal movement as is the Google Group he co-created, Macs In Law Offices (MILO). Ben is also a co-host of the MILO podcast.

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements:
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

Free Webinar :: Using Macs in Your Law Firm

Posted on May 14, 2009 by Ben Stevens Posted in Mac vs. PC, Office Management, Online Resources, Switching to Macs, Technology 2 Comments

Larry Port from Rocket Matter and I will be conducting a free webinar next Thursday, May 21, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. entitled Using Macs in Your Law Firm. The webinar description is listed below. I hope that you can attend, and if you are interested, you can register by clicking HERE.

Until recently, law firms needed PC’s to run their practices. No longer. Scanners, software, printers, are now available to practice law on the Mac, and the iPhone is now a powerful business tool.

Ben Stevens, aka The Mac Lawyer, will get us up to speed on how a firm can transition to Macs for legal work. We’ll answer audience questions, conduct interactive polls, and discuss the latest gear and software for the Mac platform.

The Legal Mac :: Marketing and Macs

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Ben Stevens Posted in Office Management, Online Resources 2 Comments

The Legal Mac section of the February 2009 Law Practice Today features the article "Marketing & Macs" by Victor J. Medina:

Not just for creative types anymore! A long-time staple of the technology needs of designers, ad agencies, etc., Macs are now worthy opponents of PCs when it comes to the needs of "serious" people. Read more about the ever-growing list of applications designed to help you market your business.

Marketing can mean a lot of things when you are dealing with a law practice these days. Technology has given rise to a new class of marketing activities and the flattening of the world has allowed many attorneys to handle most of their marketing from their living room (or office desk). With all of the services offered on the Internet, lawyers can now design and print their own business cards and brochures online – and many are doing so. More importantly, those attorneys who can create things that are decidedly in the talented-amateur level of design will be able to distinguish themselves from their competition. That’s where Macs come in.

It is well-known that Macs have been, and are, the go-to computer choice for people in the creative world. Most of the notable bloggers, ad agencies, and writers all use Mac computers. (Tom Clancy is even credited with saying, “Never ask a man what kind of computer he drives. If it’s a Mac, he’ll tell you. If not, why embarrass him.”) What’s lesser known is the fact that Macs are becoming the go-to computer for “serious” people who want to separate themselves from the pack in business.

Continue reading→

How Lawyers Practice Law and Serve Clients with Macs — Really!

Posted on October 6, 2008 by Ben Stevens Posted in How Do I ...?, Mac vs. PC, Office Management, Product Reviews, Software, Switching to Macs 5 Comments

As my readers are aware, I presented two seminars at the ABA TechShow 2008 this past March in Chicago. One was "How Lawyers Practice Law and Serve Clients with Macs — Really!" which I co=presented with Jeff Richardson. Our written materials from that session were recently republished in the September 2008 Law Practice Today webzine, as follows:

While most lawyers are
wedded to the PC, these two lawyers enumerate the advantages of the
Mac, for work, for home, and for the pure enjoyment of it.

For over a decade, every one of the hundreds of press releases issued
by Apple has ended by noting that “Apple ignited the personal computer
revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal
computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh.” Apple’s critical role in the
early days of personal computers is beyond debate, but for a period of
time in the 1990s, Apple seemed to have lost its way. Its computer
lineup was confusing, its market share reached an all time low, the
company’s stock price fell to $5 a share (in current share prices), and
Dell CEO Michael Dell famously quipped that if he owned Apple, “I’d
shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

Since then, the company has had a resurgence. Apple’s computers and
software have received rave reviews, its market share is at the highest
point since the Mac was first introduced in 1984, Apple has taken over
the digital music market with the ubiquitous iPod, the company is
already a formidable presence in the cell phone market with the iPhone
introduced just last year, and at the time of this writing (January of
2008) Apple’s stock price has risen to over $200 a share.

With a record number of people now switching from PCs to Macs, the
question for lawyers is: should you switch too? And if you do, should
you maybe just switch for your home computer, or also for your office
as well? Most importantly, what do you gain and what do you lose by
making the switch?

Continue reading→

Guest Post :: Lawyer Uses His Mac to Create Online Video To Get New Clients

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Ben Stevens Posted in Guest Posts, How Do I ...?, Office Management 1 Comment

The following guest post is from Gerry Oginski, a Mac-using medical malpractice & personal injury trial lawyer in Great Neck, New York:

As the internet has taken hold and more lawyers have recognized the benefits of marketing online, one marketing tool is defining the standard of advertising on the web. Online videos. It is the newest, hottest tool available for lawyers to communicate their message on the web. Admittedly, attorney videos are one-way communication, but they offer significant advantages over every other advertising medium.

Most attorneys have failed to understand the true value of video and how it can improve their chances of a potential client calling them over their competitor. Legal marketing experts agree that the sooner you start to see the value of video marketing, the sooner you’ll see the results. Legal marketing expert Larry Bodine recently commented that putting video on your website is “…a great opportunity to present how you look, how you talk, what you’re like, and make yourself more attractive to clients. It’s a great business-getting technique.” The key to encouraging a website visitor to call you, is with video. Static websites and fancy graphics just do not cut it any more, and fail to distinguish yourself from your competitor. Tom Foster, CEO of Foster Web Marketing says “If you get in early by putting video on your website, you can take advantage of good search placement on the video search engines.”

If you thought that internet video was for the MTV crowd, you’d be wrong. If you thought that video for your website was only for geeky techno-lawyers, you’d be wrong too. If you thought that putting a video of yourself online was useless, you’d definitely be wrong. In fact, Google thinks you’re so wrong that they recently paid one billion dollars to buy a video sharing site called YouTube. To give you an idea about the reach that internet video has, consider a ten minute video clip by comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham: his video has been viewed over 60 million times. Most attorney videos are viewed in the hundreds of times, but it shows the potential that video has. Plus, if done correctly, does not cost you anything more if it is watched 100 times or 100,000 times.

Pre-Historic Times

In the pre-internet age, lawyer advertising was limited to television, radio, yellow pages, billboards, newspapers and magazines. Since the 1970’s when the Supreme Court of the United States decided that lawyers could advertise (Bates v. State Bar of Arizona), the general public has been bombarded with lawyer ads. Every jurisdiction in every state has their own peculiar set of ethical rules regarding what lawyers can and cannot say in their advertisements. Cheesy lawyer advertisements have been the bane of late-night talk shows and comedy shows for decades.

Lawyers trying to get a foothold into their particular market often looked upon lawyer advertising as a necessary evil. Many felt it was beneath them to advertise. Not many lawyers wanted to be in the same category as a salesman looking to pitch his latest slicer and dicer. Traditional advertising is costly. Lawyers often complained that the cost to advertise in each medium were prohibitive. The ads themselves were not able to be viewed repeatedly for the same cost, and unless a potential client was looking for an attorney at that moment, they would likely ignore the daily messages they were inundated with.

The New Millennia :: The Internet

With the dawn of the internet, attorneys began to develop web sites as an ancillary way to “get their name” into the public eye. Many New York lawyers felt, and still do, that they’d rather busy themselves practicing law, rather than marketing their services. The common thinking was “Hire a marketing person to do all that advertising for us.” The problem was that most marketing people had no experience with developing web sites for lawyers. Many did not know what a website could be used for and how it could be advantageous to a law firm. The early lawyer web sites consisted of only a few pages and held little information besides your law firm name, and the type of law that you practiced. It gave no real information and did nothing to distinguish you from your competitor down the street. It was analogous to a downed pilot in a war movie who was obligated to give only his name, rank and serial number. Those bland websites did little to encourage a potential client to call.

With the advent of interesting and focused lawyer websites, it is simply not enough anymore to have static websites with fancy graphics and photos. How does your website with nice pictures of tall buildings and cityscapes and mean-looking lawyers with their arms folded across their chests, like the Knights of King Arthur’s Court preparing for battle, differentiate you from your colleagues? The reality is that your website is probably not very different from your main competitors. Maybe your website uses different colors; maybe you have a different template and design; maybe your font is different. Put aside the design and focus on the substance. What is it that you are trying to tell a prospective client who is searching for an attorney online? What information do you offer that your competitor does not? How can a prospective client make an intelligent choice about whether to pick up the phone and call you instead of the biggest law firm on the block? Does your website distinguish you and your firm from every other law firm practicing in your specialty? If it does, you have a distinct advantage. If it doesn’t, you need to look critically at what you are doing in order to improve your online presence.

Google :: Why You Need To Know How It Works

Today’s internet has exploded with creative and useful ways to educate and inform millions of viewers. A “Google search” has made it commonplace to search for anything and anybody with a click of a button. Google has cornered the market on creating the easiest and arguably most powerful search tool on the internet today. Why is this important for lawyers looking to market their services and their law firm? It’s not only important, it’s vital for a lawyer to understand how Google searches work. Only by understanding the concepts of how a search engine works, can a law firm take advantage of it with video marketing.

Typically, a potential client will do a Google search if they are looking for an attorney online. Obviously there are many search engines, but Google’s popularity cannot and should not be ignored. The results that pop up on Google will likely determine if your website will be clicked on. If you are on page 10 of a Google search result, it is unlikely your website will be found. The same reasoning applies if you had a full page ad in the yellow pages and were at page 30. The yellow pages representative always managed to explain that even if you were at page 30, “just one client” would be enough to pay for your ad. Unfortunately, the yellow pages rep never explained why a potential client would call your firm, 30 pages from the front, instead of the other 29 lawyers in front of you. However, if your website comes up on page one of Google, there is a good chance that a website viewer will click on your site. Unfortunately, with all the competition today, that alone does not get a potential viewer to call you.

Once a viewer actually clicks on your site, what do they find? Is the website static and filled with fancy graphics or flash media that does nothing to differentiate your site from all the others? What information do you provide that will cause a viewer to want to pick up the phone and ask you questions? The answer according to Gerry Oginski, a medical malpractice and personal injury attorney in Great Neck, is video. Oginski has created over 100 educational video tips on medical malpractice and personal injury law in New York using only his iMac and iMovie ’06. He posts them on his website, and uploads them to video sharing sites such as YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo and AOL.

Benefits of Video For The Practicing Attorney

Millions of viewers go online every day to watch video clips about every topic imaginable. From ‘how-to’ videos where you can learn to build a house, to bizarre videos of no-talent singers pretending to be Tom Cruise in their dining room. From sports to politics to technology, there’s a video online to steal a few moments of your time.

Video allows the attorney not only to convey their marketing message, but allows viewers to see, hear, and determine whether the lawyer inspires confidence and knows what he is talking about. Video allows for more than a 30 second commercial that screams at you. Online video gives lawyers the opportunity to explain to viewers how they are different from every other lawyer who is competing with them.

Video Is The Key To Show You Are Different

How does video distinguish you from everyone else? By creating a personal bond with your viewer. Admittedly, it’s a one-way conversation, but it allows the viewer to see you, hear you, and judge for themselves whether you sound confident and intelligent enough to want to call you.

So far, the biggest users of online video for law firms have been personal injury and medical malpractice lawyers. These attorneys have gotten in on the ground floor and are just now learning how to optimize their videos so that the major search engines identify the videos and improve their search engine ranking for their website. That’s the golden key that every attorney who advertises online appears to strive for. To be able to say that “Out of 4 million websites, Google thinks my site is #1 in their organic search rankings,” is indeed, a feat to strive for and emulate.

Why a Potential Client Would Call You

If a potential client is searching for a lawyer online, what would make them choose one lawyer over another with the same credentials? You each have a website. You each have similar experience. You each charge basically the same for similar services. So, how are you different, and how can you communicate that to a nameless, faceless visitor to your website?

A video that tells a visitor who you are and welcomes them, has already gained brownie points. What should you talk about? If you talk about how great you are and how amazing your credentials are, does the viewer really care? Or is the viewer more interested in how you can solve their pressing legal problem? If you can answer their unasked question through a video, not only will you have scored all the points, you can bet that person will call you and not your colleague down the street.

Generating Half The Calls To His Office

Oginski says “These educational videos, together with my informative website have caused my phone to ring. In fact, they generate half of all the calls to my office.” He explains that this is a dramatic increase from the previous year when he only had his website online.” Using a Mac is the key to creating, producing, editing and uploading my videos. Once you learn how to use iMovie, making educational videos is simple. I wouldn’t use anything else to edit my videos.”

Virginia Personal Injury Trial Lawyer Ben Glass, who teaches marketing to lawyers all over the country says that after viewing Oginski’s website and the videos he created, agrees that “It’s no longer good enough to just have a message that you ‘shout’ out to consumers via the Yellow Pages, TV, Radio or the Internet. The informational videos that Gerry Oginski has created uses cutting-edge marketing ideas and combines them with the latest technology in order to ‘start a conversation’ with potential clients. That’s the key to getting a website visitor to call.”

What happens to those lawyers who choose not to use online video? Oginski believes that “those lawyers will lose the chance to get excellent placement on the video search engines. Those same lawyers lose the ability to improve their search engine rankings, because video clearly helps improve their website rankings. Lawyers who fail to create useful videos lose the opportunity to connect with their website visitors and distinguish themselves from all the other lawyers out there competing for the same business. Those lawyers lose the advantage of letting a viewer get to know them and trust them before they ever walk into their office.”

About Gerry Oginski, Esq.

Gerry Oginski is an experienced medical malpractice & personal injury trial lawyer practicing law in New York since 1988. He has created, produced and uploaded over 100 educational videos online about New York medical malpractice, wrongful death and personal injury law. Gerry’s popular website (www.oginski-law.com) consistently comes up #1 in the organic search results when you do a Google search for “New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer.” Gerry’s video blog can be seen at medicalmalpracticetutorial.blogspot.com.

Guest Post :: Four Reasons for Archiving Email Correspondence

Posted on August 27, 2008 by Ben Stevens Posted in Guest Posts, Office Management, Security 1 Comment

The following Guest Post is from Jesmond Darmanin, a Web Marketer with GFI Software, and it explains the "Four Reasons for Archiving Email Correspondence":

Email is a primary source of documentation for many organizations and it has taken on an increasingly critical role in corporate court proceedings, regulatory compliance and legal discovery. Companies are realizing the importance of archiving their email correspondence, since being in a position to retrieve an old email could save them thousands of dollars in legal fees and fines, as well as their credibility.

The following are four legal reasons why companies need to archive their email correspondence:

The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the ‘1934 Act’) :: requires various entities to maintain records for five years and more. Failure to do so can result in severe fines.
The Commodity Futures Training Commission (CFTC) :: requires futures commission merchants to keep records for five years. Failure to comply can result in hefty fines.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (‘Sarbanes Oxley’) :: accountants must keep all audit or review workpapers for a minimum of five years. Violation of this rule can lead to a fine and imprisonment.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) (formerly the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD)) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) :: members are required to preserve records for no less than six years or they can be imposed with a civil fine.

Email archiving can help companies to abide by all four requirements mentioned above, because emails are archived at server level, so no matter if a copy is deleted by the end-user from his/her computer terminal, once an archive exists with all correspondence entered into by the company then the emails are searchable and retrievable and can be presented in court or as requested. Moreover, one is also able to offer the assurance that the email was not tampered with or altered in any way, thus making it a legal and binding document that could save a company or organization a lot of money in a legal situation. Companies that are unable to provide email documentation that is requested by the courts or other legal body could be subject to hefty fines, as they would be in breach of legal requirements.

A more in depth article on e-mail archiving can be found HERE.

Jesmond Darmanin :: Web Marketer :: GFI Software

GFI is a leading software developer that provides a single source for network administrators to address their network security, content security and messaging needs. With award-winning technology and a strong focus on small-to-medium sized businesses, GFI is able to satisfy the need for business continuity and productivity encountered by organizations on a global scale.