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Legal Technology Seminar in South Carolina

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Ben Stevens Posted in Offline Resources, Presentations, Technology Leave a comment
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The South Carolina Bar is sponsoring a “Technology for Small Firms” seminar in Columbia, SC this Friday, September 23, 2011, as part of its 2011 Solo & Small Firm CLE and Annual Meeting.  The technology topics and speakers are listed below:

  • How Not to Commit Malpractice with Your Computer
    • Laura A. Calloway – Alabama State Bar
    • Courtney G. Kennaday – South Carolina Bar
    • Barbara M. Seymour – Office of Disciplinary Counsel
  • Essential Technology for Small Firms: What Every Lawyer Needs
    • William E. Booth III – Booth Law Firm, LLC
    • Shawn M. French – The French Law Firm, LLC
  • The Attainable Paperless Office
    • Natalie Kelly – State Bar of Georgia
    • David A. Maxfield – Trotter & Maxfield, Attorneys
  • Product Demos from Real Lawyers
    • Introduction to MindMap – David A. Maxfield – Trotter & Maxfield, Attorneys
    • Introduction to DropBox – J. Benjamin Stevens – The Stevens Firm, PA Family Law Center
    • Using the iPad in Litigation – William H. Latham – Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP
  • Take to the Cloud: Virtual Law Offices and Cloud Computing
    • Stephanie L. Kimbro – Kimbro Legal Services, LLC
    • J. Benjamin Stevens – The Stevens Firm, P.A. Family Law Center
  • 60 Tips for Small Firm Lawyers in 60 Minutes
    • Laura Calloway – Alabama State Bar
    • Natalie Kelly – State Bar of Georgia
    • Courtney G. Kennaday – South Carolina Bar
    • Stephanie L. Kimbro – Kimbro Legal Services, LLC

As you might notice, several speakers (including me) frequently speak at the ABA TECHSHOW, and numerous outstanding vendors will also be present, including Rocket Matter, EasySoft, Clio, Tabs3-PracticeMaster, West, and CaseLode. I hope to see you there. To register or get more information, click here.

ABA TECHSHOW (Featuring the Mac Track) Opens Next Monday

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Ben Stevens Posted in Offline Resources, Presentations, Switching to Macs, Technology 2 Comments
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Where will you be next Monday? The 25th edition of ABA TECHSHOW will begin on April 11, 2011, in Chicago.  I am pleased to again be a part of the outstanding faculty for the fourth year of the "Mac Track".  The lineup for this full day of Mac-focused education is listed below:   

  • Going Beyond Microsoft Word on the Mac :: Focuses on the tools available on the Mac that give you the most power over text and composition. Victor Medina practices in New Jersey and is the tireless organizer of MILOfest. David Sparks (MacSparky) practices in California and just finished a most helpful tome entitled “Macs at Work.”
  • How Do You Manage Your Practice on a Mac? :: Covers the practice management options for Mac-using lawyers presented by Victor Media and Ben Stevens who practices in South Carolina and is the indomitable author of The Mac Lawyer blog.
  • Managing Your Documents on a Mac :: Provides a ton of tips and options for managing your documents on a Mac. Mark Metzger practices in the Chicago suburbs. Finis Price practices in Louisville, KY and also provides trial consulting through TechnoESQ.
  • Mac Power Users :: The last session where Finis Price, Ben Stevens, and myself (Brett Burney) will cover a slew of “power user” tips that will help you go beyond the basics of using your Mac.

As if those are enough good reasons to attend, there will be additional sessions covering the iPhone and iPad.  Many of the premier Mac-related software vendors (including Rocket Matter, Clio, and Daylite) will be exhibiting and will be glad to discuss their products with you in person.  This year’s keynote speaker is, who is a huge Mac fan and uses Keynote very effectively in his talks.  I hope to see you in Chicago next week.  If you are there and see me, please stop and say hello.

Thanks to Brett Burney for his work on the TECHSHOW planning board and for his post (and the session descriptions above) on this topic.

Five SEO Tips for Lawyers

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Ben Stevens Posted in Guest Posts, Online Resources, Presentations, Technology 1 Comment
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The following Guest Post is from Lior Levin:

Most lawyers and law firms are aware of the need to have a website. It gives them an Internet presence and makes it easier for potential new clients to find them. Unfortunately, the vast majority of lawyers don’t quite grasp the importance of search engine optimization, or SEO, and how it can affect your site’s visibility.

Think about when you type something into a search engine. You want to see results that match your search term, so you check out the sites shown to you on that front page of the results.

How many times have you actually clicked onto the second or third page of results to find what you’re looking for? Chances are you probably ended up typing a more refined search phrase into the search engine and tried again.

Now think about where your website appears in those search engine results for your own keywords and phrases. If clients are searching for a lawyer, are they going to find your website or your competitor’s site?

Understanding Keywords

Before you rush off to a convenient search engine to check where your site appears, do you even know what keywords a visitor needs to search for in order to find you?

Most visitors won’t begin a search using your firm’s name. It’s more likely they’ll begin by searching for a specific type of lawyer in their area. For example, they might type in “estate planning lawyer in Los Angeles” or “divorce lawyer in Salt Lake City”. Or they might look for a specific service like E2 visa in our case.

If you can get your website to rank well in the search engines for terms that match your firm’s specialty and location, imagine the number of free leads you could end up with.

Start a Blog

A blog isn’t exactly the professionally designed website you’d expect to see for a lawyer or a law firm. However, it’s not intended to replace your professional business website.

Rather, it’s intended to help boost your search engine rankings. Blogs tend to rank very well on Google and blogging platforms like WordPress usually take care of most SEO work behind the scenes for you.

Your blog needs to contain content that includes and relates to the keywords you want to rank for. Each post you add to the blog should contain a link back to your firm’s business website to encourage visitors to the blog to seek more information about the firm. 

Continue reading→

Why You Should Attend ABA TECHSHOW 2011

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Ben Stevens Posted in Presentations, Technology Leave a comment
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Are you going to TECHSHOW this year?  If yes, then I look forward to seeing you there.  If not, why not?  The "Mac Track" looks to be great this year, and the scheduled speakers there include a who’s who of legal Mac luminaries: Brett Burney, David Sparks, Finis Price, Victor Medina, Mark Metzger, and me.  If you’re still on the fence about whether to attend, read the following post from Reid Trautz to help convince yourself to go:

The countdown to ABA TECHSHOW 2011 is on! 

If you are unsure if ABA TECHSHOW is for you, download the conference brochure to see everything that is taking place or watch a video explaining why you can’t afford to miss ABA TECHSHOW. It has something for attorneys in all practice settings and all level of technical skills. Most of all, it is presented by attorneys for attorneys (and their staff) to become more effective, efficient, and profitable.

ABA TECHSHOW is excited to welcome keynote speaker: Professor Larry Lessig. Professor Lessig is the Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Don’t miss his highly-anticipated presentation titled, Code Is Law.

IMPORTANT DEADLINES:

  • Registration — the early bird deadline is February 25, 2011 and is the best deal going. Click here to see the rates and register!
  • Housing — the hotel reservation deadline is March 10, 2011. Make your reservation before all the rooms at the landmark Chicago Hilton are gone!
  • Airfare — Book early for best pricing. I like Kayak.com to find and track the best prices. Don’t forget Southwest Airlines for low prices. SWA doesn’t participate on airfare aggragation sites, but often has great on-line deals.

Technology changes fast — it’s important for attorneys to know the best technology applications and trends that will help them practice better — and that’s why ABA TECHSHOW exists!

Source:  "Why Should You Attend ABA TECHSHOW 2011?" by Reid Trautz, published at Reid My Blog!

The Mac Lawyer Speaking in Nashville Today

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Ben Stevens Posted in Presentations 1 Comment
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Tomorrow, I will have the pleasure of giviving two presentations in Nashville at the 
Tennessee Bar Association‘s Tech Conference 2011.  My seminars this year are on two of my favorite topics:

  • "In the Clouds" – Running Your Law Office Using Web-Based Technology
  • Intro to Using Macs In Your Law Practice (with Finis Price)

If any of my readers are in the area, I hope that you will stop by and say hello.  This will mark the fourth year in a row that I have spoken at this conference, and I would like to thank the TBA for having me back again.

More Thoughts About MILOfest 2010

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Ben Stevens Posted in Presentations Leave a comment
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I would like to conclude my series about MILOfest 2010 with the following post from my friend, Randy Juip, about his thoughts on this year’s program:

As a busy, practicing attorney, any time away from the office means fewer dollars in your pocket (and likely, a pile of emails waiting for your return!) The decision to leave your practice to attend a conference is one not taken lightly. In exchange for our time and dollars, we all hope to pick up a tip or two to open our eyes to new possibilities, make us more efficient, or to serve our clients better. In grand tradition, MILOfest 2010 did all of this and more.

The quality, depth, and subject matter of the presentations exceeded any rational expectation, and was beyond anything available elsewhere. There was something for everyone — even Mac veterans learned something about OS X from Victor Medina (the black dot inside the red close button, anyone?). Mark Metzger‘s outstanding presentation on incorporating the full power of Adobe Acrobat in legal practice was as enlightening as it was thorough. I know that many attorneys left that day (and MILOfest in general) wondering how quickly they could implement many of the things learned there.

The second day was as strong as the first, with Ben Stevens (the Mac Lawyer and MILO founder) teaching the group about Circus Ponies Notebook and Evernote and Clio‘s Jack Newton and Rocket Matter‘s Larry Port and Ariel Jatib introducing us to the inevitable future of cloud-based computing. More than a few of us were considering jobs in the local D.A.’s office after seeing, firsthand, what Ron Elkins (the Wise County, VA district attorney) was able to do with some clever programming and a few iPads. And, Larry Staton‘s talk on using AppleScript to increase efficiency and ease work flow was well-received; there were few attorneys in the room not working at their full intellectual capacity to keep up with Larry, and I can only assume that Larry’s inbox is full of messages asking for a second bite of his brain.

On day three, Larry Port from Rocket Matter blew the conference away with one of the most philosophically deep — and immediately relevant — talks I’ve ever attended about the nature of our internet dependency and the dangers (and benefits) of connectivity. I have found myself trying to explain Larry’s thesis to friends and co-workers, only to be stymied at the part about Justin Bieber and the open manhole. To close the weekend, Brett Burney, from Burney Consultants, taught all of us not only about intelligent calendaring (via BusyCal), but also about how to put on a presentation — his absolute mastery of Keynote, the presenter tools he used, and his delivery were incredible!

The true value of MILOfest is always more than the presentations and the tips, though. It is rare, indeed, to have the opportunity to work so closely with such a selfless, capable, and intelligent group of attorneys as were in attendance. The chances to compare notes and practices, to discuss what works in the real world and what does not, to learn from others and to drink in their experiences, and simply, to just enjoy each other’s company in a beautiful location was as valuable as anything else (with the possible exception of having Larry Staton script your entire practice and/or watching Gwynne Monaghan (a/k/a @econwriter5) flip 40,000 tweets).

Steven Covey was fond of admonishing busy professionals to take time out of their work to "Sharpen the Saw." Communally, MILOfest gave back to its attendees much more than the cost of any single admission. Now if I could only find the time…

Randall A. Juip, Esq.
The Juip Richtarcik Law Firm
Detroit, Michigan

Thoughts About MILOfest 2010

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Ben Stevens Posted in Presentations 3 Comments
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As my readers are aware, MILOfest 2010 took place last week in Orlando, Florida.  For the benefit of those who were not present, I asked some of the attendees to email me their thoughts about this outstanding conference:

  • "MILOFest is the closest thing I’ve seen to a TED Conference in the legal world. The speakers are phenomenal, thought provoking, and on the outermost cutting edge of technology. The attendees range from the most sophisticated attorney power users I’ve come across to newbies to the Mac platform. Too often legal technology centers around discussions of EDD, which is not of interest to a lot of lawyers in their day-to-day lives. At MILOFest, prepare to learn the basics more thoroughly than you’ve ever seen the basics, and prepare to go deep into the nuts and bolts of legal technology." – Larry Port, Founding Partner and Chief Software Architect, Rocket Matter, LLC
  • "As was the case last year, the most valuable part of MILOfest this year was the opportunity to establish or build relationships with other Mac-using attorneys and to learn from conversations with them what works for them and what doesn’t. This year, Mark Merenda of SmartMarketing and Victor Medina led a great discussion on key concepts that make or break success in the practice of law. it wasn’t much to do with tech, but incredibly useful, thought-provoking information about making our businesses successful. Brett Burney did a fabulous presentation on BusyCal, but it wasn’t the content (which was quite good) that made it fabulous, it was the expert packaging of the material. Brett chose to use a MacBreak Video interview with the BusyCal developer that was conducted by Merlin Mann. Brett broke the video into discrete, topic-driven chunks, played that segment of the video in a masked part of a Keynote slide, and then emphasized and expanded upon the points made there in explaining what that meant for this program in a law office. In short, Brett’s presentation was a lesson not just in BusyCal, but a master course in effective content presentation." – Mark C. Metzger, Attorney, Naperville, Illinois
  • "For two years in a row MILOfest has been my favorite learning event. It combines business benefit, CLE credit in my State, seeing friends, meeting new people with common interests — and is all about something I find fun. Humbly I must admit that some of it whooshed over my head this year but only a few times. However, the presenters are always willing to spend one-on-one time or provide contact information if clarification is needed. Add to all of that the ‘after-hours’ fun for the young and the young at heart at the Disney World Parks. Much gratitude to Victor, Tiffany and all who helped make it happen." – C. Stephen Weaver, Attorney, Nashville, TN
  • "Each time I attend a conference I try to summarize key points of interest to our firm. Google Apps with IMAP and the ability to sync with Clio was presented by Jack Newton of Clio. I learned others are using Instapaper on the iPhone/iPad to read articles of interest later at my convenience. While I have the app, I had not been using it; now I have the ‘read later’ button in my Safari browser. Larry Port, of RocketMatter, gave an excellent talk on the value of unplugging from our connected devices. He discussed the book, The Shallows, and the affects of the internet on our brains and our ability to concentrate. Amin, of Daylite, showed us how to make better builds and transitions in Keynote. Victor and Mark referenced a book, Predictably Irrational by Dan Arielly, that I started reading on the airplane. I downloaded a trial of OmniOutliner Pro that Mark Metzger demonstrated.  I enjoyed Ben Stevens‘ Circus Ponies Notebook and Evernote presentations as well. It is always good to see the workflows others use.  There were many other excellent presentations, but these are a few that I plan to investigate further. Overall, it was a very worthwhile conference. As always, the networking is as valuable as the presentations. The most frequently spoken word at the conference? The WORD : Dropbox.  The Clio cocktail meet-up was a lot of fun too!" – Julie N. Kiernan, Business Manager & Paralegal, Buffalo, MN
  • "MILOfest this year could be deemed an even bigger success than last year. Attendance was up, and conference had a greater overall breadth of content. We had more introductory-level talks on Mac basics, which really benefited the new Mac users in the crowd. There was some very advanced content, such as Larry Staton‘s AppleScript tutorial, for the technophiles in room as well.  There was lots of great content inbetween the "beginner" and "advanced" ends of the spectrum as well, such as Brett Burney’s fantastic presentation on BusyCal. My presentation on "Putting Your Practice in the Cloud" hopefully cleared up some confusion on what exactly "cloud computing" is and how it can benefit a law office, and highlighted how tools such as Google Apps, Dropbox, Evernote, Rocket Matter and Clio can help a law office be more professional, cost-effective, and efficient.  The crowd was definitely very interested in the results of our Apple in Law Offices survey, and I think the survey provided us a lot of useful data points for future comparison.  We also hosted a "Clio Meetup" on Friday night, something we’ll plan on doing at MILOfests down the road as well. It was a great social get-together for attendees.  Another great conference for Mac-loving lawyers, and one that will hopefully grow substantially again in 2011." – Jack Newton, President and Co-founder, Themis Solutions Inc., Vancouver, Canada 
  • "Most important to me at MILOfest: listening to lawyers who use software programs in the trenches and say, ‘Here’s how I do it.’ Second most important: getting to meet – not only representatives of legal-software companies – but the guys who write the code and make the decisions about the software programs! Victor also provided us a lot of time to network with each other. There’s no better way to learn than ask, ‘Oh, you use this program in your practice. How do you like it?’" – Mark A. Cowan, Attorney, Morristown, TN

Even more thoughts and some video interviews are currently posted at Tomasz Stasuik‘s Planet 10 Tech blog.

MILOfest 2010 in Orlando, FL

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Ben Stevens Posted in Presentations Leave a comment
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MILOfest 2010 is taking place today through Saturday, November 13, at the Disney World Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, FL.   I have the privilege of presenting on "Using Circus Ponies Notebook & Evernote for File Management" on Friday morning.  Other presenters include Brett Burney, Larry Port, Jack Newton, Finis Price, and Mark Merenda.  Thanks to VIctor Medina for planning such an outstanding conference and for inviting me again to speak.

 

Using Macs in a Law Office Live in New York City

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Ben Stevens Posted in Presentations 1 Comment
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For those of you who are interested in learning more about using Macs in a law firm or are thinking about switching, join Ariel Jatib and Larry Port from Rocket Matter® for a free LIVE session at the Apple Soho store in New York City on October 27th.

WHAT: Using Macs in a Law Office.
WHEN: October 27th, 6:00PM.
WHERE: Apple Store, Soho in New York City.

Live the dream – run your law practice completely on Apple equipment!  Scanners, software, and printers facilitate the practice of law on Macs, and the iPhone and iPad are now powerful business tools. Most attorneys who run Apple products at home are excited to find out they can use Microsoft Office on their Macs, run a paperless practice, manage their client trust accounts, and not skip a single beat when it comes to running a law firm. The ABA Techshow even has a dedicated session track completely catering to Mac-loving lawyers.

You may end up discovering a secret: running a Mac office may even supply some serious advantages over opposing counsel running PC’s!

Program:

  1. Microsoft Office Capabilities on the Mac (Demo: Word, Excel, Pages, Keynote).
  2. Email Communication (Demo: Mail.app, iPhone, iPad).
  3. Using scanners and maintaining a paperless office (Demo: Fujitsu ScanSnap and Acrobat Professional).
  4. Practice Management and Time and Billing options for the Mac Attorney (Demo: Rocket Matter).
  5. Trust Account Management on a Mac. (Demo: Rocket Matter Trust Accounting).
  6. Specialized App Overview: BeeDocs Timeline 3D. (Demo: BeeDocs).
  7. Mac Attorney Community: Blogs, ListServes, Conferences.

The Mac Lawyer Gives Presentation for SC Bar Family Law Section

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Ben Stevens Posted in Presentations Leave a comment
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As my readers know, I frequently give presentation on substantive law topics in addition to my technology presentations.  Today, I spoke at the South Carolina Bar‘s annual "Hot Tips From the Coolest Domestic Law Practitioners" seminar.  This seminar typically features outstanding presentations from the best and brightest Family Court litigators all across South Carolina.

My presentation was on "Proper Subpoena Process" and I was able to discuss many of the problems that attorneys encounter in this area, provide examples of the forms that my firm uses in this area, and suggest other remedies that should be helpful to the Bar.  It is always an honor to be in such esteemed company, and I want to thank the Bar for once againasking me to speak at this year’s Hot Tips seminar.

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