Category Archives: Software

Can Your Mac Run Mac OS X Yosemite?

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mac os x yosemiteAs you are no doubt aware, Mac OS X Yosemite is now available, and many have already made the switch to take advantages of its new features (and it’s free). However, if you haven’t yet made the move, do you know if your Mac is actually able to run Yosemite?

The easy answer is that if your Mac is running Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9), it is able to run Yosemite, as they both have the same system requirements. To make it easy, here’s Apple’s list of Macs that will support Yosemite:

  • iMac (Mid-2007 or later)
  • MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)
  • MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
  • Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
  • Xserve (Early 2009)

If you need help determining whether your Mac has the required 2GB of RAM or 8GB of available storage space for the installation, click here for Macworld’s step-by-step guide. As for me, I haven’t downloaded Yosemite yet (because I have been unusually busy at work), but I plan to do so in the next week or so.

Source: “Which Macs can run OS X Yosemite?” by Leah Yamshon, published at Macworld.com.

Rocket Matter Releases iPad Edition

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Rocket MatterRocket Matter created the first cloud practice management software for the legal community in 2008, and since then it has become the premier total law firm management software in the cloud. My law firm has used Rocket Matter since the day it launched, and we couldn’t be happier with it.

However, the folks at Rocket Matter are not ones to rest on their laurels, as evidenced by the numerous new features and refinements rolled out in recent years. Now, they have released their new iPad edition, and they are once again leading the way with the first and only tablet platform for today’s busy, mobile lawyers.

portriat-1This release (shown at right) heralds a new era of legal practice management software with a dedicated tablet platform that’s fast, easy-to-use, and accessible both online and offline. Lawyers can now enjoy legal iPad software that delivers incredible productivity gains and at the same time has the beauty and the simple elegance of the iPad itself.

Larry Port, Rocket Matter’s CEO, says

We’re excited to announce today our evolved platform and sleek new look. The Rocket Matter iPad Edition is not just a mere ‘app’ – it’s an entire tablet-based solution that ties into Rocket Matter’s cloud data storage. We’ve carefully watched how lawyers, law firms, and bar associations have all eagerly embraced the practical advantages that tablets can provide. We took these observations, combined them with direct suggestions from our lawyer partners, and did what we do best: built software that is simply unmatched in legal practice management.

You can learn much more about Rocket Matter’s iPad edition and see a video of it in action here. Lawyers with Rocket Matter subscriptions will be able to download the iPad Edition from the Apple iTunes store starting today.

How Lawyers Can Use Circus Ponies NoteBook in Trial

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Circus Ponies NoteBook is a unique productivity tool that can be used in many different ways.  My good friend, Kern Lewis, a trial attorney in Grapevine, TX, has used this program for several years to help organize his cases and present them at trial.

Kern recent conducted an hour long webinar to demonstrate his techniques, and he was kind enough to record it and allow me to share it with my readers.  I have uploaded the video to YouTube, which you can view here or below.

Kern has also been generous enough to share his NoteBook template referenced in the video.  You can get your own copy of Kern’s sample template by emailing me and asking for it.

I want to extend my heartiest thanks to Kern for his time and effort in producing this video and also for his willingness to allow me to share it with my readers.  If you are interested in learning more about Kern’s practice, I encourage you to visit his firm’s website WarriorsForJustice.com.

Keep Your Computer Awake With Caffeine for Mac

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caffeineCaffeine comes in handy sometimes. No, not the kind in your cup o’ joe, but the free app for the Mac. If you aren’t familiar with Caffeine, it is an app that enables you to keep your computer awake for a specified length of time. In other words, it prevents your screen from dimming, your screensaver from activating, and/or your computer from going to sleep for a set period of time.

When you install Caffeine for Mac, it puts a little coffee cup icon in your menu bar, and you activate it by simply clicking on the cup. You can choose your default length of time, from five minutes to five hours to indefinitely. To turn it off, simply click the coffee cup again. This can come in very handy when you are transferring large files or even when viewing Netflix.

Again, Lighthead Software offers this app for free, and it’s available here. I first mentioned Caffeine in a blog post six years ago, and I’ve used it ever since. If you don’t have it, check it out, and I’m sure you’ll find it to be useful, like I do.

Document Tagging 101

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document taggingThe folks at CHL Software know a thing or two about document management. Their product, Doc Moto, is one of the leading document and email management programs for Macs. They published the following article about document tagging, which they have allowed me to share with my readers: 

FIND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR USING ACCURATE DOCUMENT TAGGING — A NEW INNOVATION IN DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

Remember that U2 hit, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For“? The song isn’t actually about document management in law firms, but read the lyrics and it very well could be.

The inclusion of full-text searching in the Mac and Windows operating systems has actually set document management back. The problem with these tools is that they find too much. Accordingly, purely searching the content of your documents doesn’t help find the specific matter and specific document you’re looking for.

That’s why document tagging is so important. What’s document tagging? Continue reading because it’s a major innovation for legal document management.

Just about a year ago we received a support question from one of our biggest law firm clients that really surprised us. “Does DocMoto support file content searching?” Well of course it does, but the firm didn’t see the feature because of a setting in their system. Shockingly, they had been using DocMoto for over a year and had never noticed they didn’t have content search available. So we asked them why. The answer, “Content searching doesn’t help that much since all our matters are very similar. That’s why we use tagging.”

DOCUMENT TAGGING 101

In DocMoto parlance a tag is a label. Lawyers and their staff apply (or stick) tags to documents to effectively categorize their documents (including email). A document can have as many tags (or labels) as necessary.

The Problem With Simple Keywords

I know what you’re thinking. Mac-based firms have a number of tools that support tagging. Even Apple’s own Finder does in OS X Mavericks. But the problem with almost all of these tools is that the tags are really just lists of keywords. Allowing users to add totally free format lists of keywords might work in a true solo practice (one lawyer), but as soon as more users exist you need much more control.

Give a Tag a Type

The first step to improving the power of a tag is to give it a “type.” DocMoto supports three basic types — “text”, “numbers” and “dates.”

When a tag has a type searching becomes so much more powerful. For example if a tag is a date, and is a “review date” it is a simple task to find “All Contracts for Review This Month,” or “All Contracts Overdue.”

Choose Your Tag Values From a List

The second step to improving the quality of tagging is to make sure users can only choose values from a predefined list. This guarantees that only tags with known values are in DocMoto. It ensures consistency throughout the practice and removes any problems with spelling, abbreviation or other inconsistences.

There Is Still Room for the Free-Format Tag

Of course there are always some tags that really must be free format. A “Comments” tag for example. Naturally DocMoto supports these as well, but they are your last resort for miscellanea, not your sole tool.

Collecting Tag Data From Your Users

It’s one thing to set up some powerful and consistent tags, but how can you ensure your users complete them? DocMoto takes a very simple but powerful approach — it asks users to enter tag information at the point of adding or checking back a document. DocMoto doesn’t want to overburden busy users, so tags can be marked as mandatory or optional, and the tag set required can be varied easily from one folder to another.

NOW YOU CAN FIND YOUR DOCUMENTS

What does your firm get from tagging. Well you can find documents very fast (e.g., while you’re on the phone with a client or in court). For law firms that matters. It improves efficiency and can even help you win a case!

DocMoto is a professional level document management system designed for law firms using Mac or that want to switch to Mac.

Tagging is just one of many features that attracts law firms to DocMoto. You can learn more about the features and benefits of this program at the following links:

Free Webinar: How Lawyers Can Use Adobe Acrobat Like a Pro

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adobe acrobatAll attorneys need to know how to use and work with PDF documents. In the practice of family law, this is a must. Adobe Acrobat is the dominant player in the PDF arena, and it is therefore the one that most lawyers will use.

There is a free webinar available to help lawyers learn how to get the most out of and use Adobe Acrobat like a pro – Adobe Acrobat: The Paperless Secret Weapon, presented by Catherine Sanders Reach, Chicago Bar Association’s Director of Law Practice Management and Technology.

Catherine is an expert in this area, and you can access this free webinar by clicking here.

A Presentation on Presentations, or How to Avoid Death by PowerPoint

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how to avoid death by powerpoint

Randy Juip‘s one hour master class on presentations dazzled crowds at TECHSHOW in Chicago and MILOfest in Orlando over the last several months. I’m thrilled to announce that I have managed to get Randy to come give an expanded two hour version of “A Presentation on Presentations, or How to Avoid Death by PowerPoint” at the South Carolina Association for Justice Annual Convention in Hilton Head, SC on August 7, 2014.

Anyone giving presentations in this day and age – whether to clients, groups, judges, or juries – have to live up to high standards. Today’s media-savvy clients, judges, and juries expect clean, coherent, and logical presentations.  Unfortunately many attorneys return, time and time again, to a “Death by Powerpoint” style of presentation, replete with 12-point font, bullet point after bullet point, and text-dense incoherence.  This presentation will explore the art of slide design, the science of proper presentation, and the mechanics of giving your audiences the slick, professional, and visceral presentations they crave.

This seminar will obviously be a tremendous benefit to trial lawyers, as it will give them practical tips and techniques they can immediately implement in their practices. However, having already seen this presentation myself, I am confident that every attorney in all practice areas will benefit from seeing it, because whether we realize it or not, lawyers give presentations every day. All communication involves some sort of “presentation” and knowing what works (and what doesn’t) can be a very helpful tool and provide you with a working advantage.

If you want to find out more or register for the South Carolina Association for Justice Annual Convention, you can click here or call (803) 799-5097. Trust me, you do not want to miss Randy’s presentation, so make plans now to attend. I look forward to seeing you there.

Rocket Matter Now Features Evergreen Retainers

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Rocket MatterRocket Matter has long been the best case management software for attorneys (bar none), but today, it released a new feature which takes things to an entirely new level – Evergreen Retainers. This feature will enable attorneys who do hourly billing (like me) to be exponentially more productive and efficient.  I have used evergreen retainers in my family law practice for years, and having this process automated is literally a dream come true.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, evergreen retainers are an amount that a client is required to maintain in the attorney’s trust account until the case is concluded. Invoices are generated each month and paid from the trust account, with the client then replenishing the amount disbursed whenever the trust balance dips below the mutually agreed upon amount.

This enables the attorney to maintain a source of working funds to ensure payment for the services rendered, and it significantly decreases the headaches of unpaid bills, collections, and write offs. Without a doubt, I believe that requiring evergreen retainers in my family court cases was one of the best things I ever did for my practice (along with beginning to use Rocket Matter over six years ago).

“Law firm realization rates have been declining, and Evergreen Retainers are another tool for attorneys to minimize their economic risk,” says Larry Port, CEO of Rocket Matter. “Our clients asked for the flexibility to set up Evergreen Retainers, so we worked with them to design a system that would accomplish their objectives.”

This new release also features two new analytics reports and numerous behind the scenes optimizations, which have resulted in a speed increase of over 60% across the program. If you want to learn more about these new features, you can view the short video below or visit Rocket Matter’s website.

 

Rocket Matter Evergreen Retainer from Rocket Matter on Vimeo.

How to Work With PTX Files on a Mac

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If you work with PTX transcript files, you already know that it can be frustrating doing so on a Mac. One of my readers, Nathan Chaney, a patent attorney in Arkadelphia, AR, developed a solution for working with PTX files on a Mac, and he has graciously agreed to share it with my readers. His guest post includes an installation guide for installing the PTX viewer on Wine and then installing a PDF printer that will work to convert the PTX files to PDF. Thanks so much to Nathan for his work in developing this solution and for sharing it with my readers.

Many colleagues know I have an IT background, so I field lots of Mac-In-Law-Office questions. I recently fielded a question about PTX transcript files, and I learned that Clarity Legal’s online .ptx conversion tool, which has been featured on Ben’s blog before, has been shuttered.

I use the emulation program Wine to run the Windows PTX viewer from the Mac. This is a how-to guide for installing the programs necessary to (1) run the E-Transcript Viewer, and (2) save the transcripts as PDF files. It’s a little bit involved, and requires some use of the command line.

First, install XCode from the App Store. Next, we’ll need to install some command line tools. If you are running OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), open a Terminal windows (/Applications/Terminal) and run the following command:

xcode-select –install

Run the following command to agree to the XCode license (you’ll need to be an administrator of the computer and enter your password for the sudo command several times throughout this process):

sudo xcodebuild -license

If you’re running an earlier version of OS X, open the XCode application, find the “Downloads” pane, and download and install the Command Line Tools from that pane.

Next, you’ll need the Macports package installation manager, available here. Choose the version that corresponds to your operating system, and install the package. When it’s finished, run the following command to update Macports to the latest release:

sudo port -v selfupdate

We’re going to use MacPorts to install a package called CUPS-PDF. This is very similar to the “Save as PDF” feature already on your Mac. Open up the Terminal application and run this command to install CUPS-PDF:

sudo port install cups-pdf

The output of this command will give you some instructions to run upon initial setup. They are:

ln -s /opt/local/var/spool/cups-pdf/$USER ~/Desktop/cups-pdf

/opt/local/libexec/cups-pdf_links.sh

sudo killall -1 cupsd

The first command creates a shortcut to the CUPS-PDF output folder on your Desktop. You canmove this shortcut into whichever folder you prefer. The second command will require you to be an administrator and type in your password (it uses the sudo command).

image1The next thing to do is install the CUPS-PDF printer on your Mac. Go to System Preferences > Printers & Scanners, and click the ‘+’ below the printer list (see image at right). CUPS-PDF should appear in the ‘Default’ list.

Simply highlight CUPS-PDF, click ‘Add’, and you should have a CUPS-PDF printer in your printer list. (This will work for printing other things to PDF too — for instance, if you want to change options in the print dialog, but Save to PDF won’t let you, the CUPS-PDF printer is a good solution).

Next, we’ll use Macports to install Wine, along with a couple of packages needed to compile Wine:

sudo port install apple-gcc42 git-core wine-devel

This will likely take a while. Take an opportunity to quench the thirst all this talk about wine and port created. The next step is to install the transcript viewer, available here. Download the file, then type the following commands into your Terminal:

cd ~/Downloads

wine E-Transcript_Bundle_Viewer-6.1.1.exe

Of course, use the version number of the file you downloaded on the last command. This will open an E-Transcript Viewer installation window. Wine may need to install a few packages to make this all work; just follow the prompts to install them if so. Use the default values for installation of the E-Transcript Viewer, and complete the installation.

Finally, we’ll need to create a shortcut to the installed E-Transcript Viewer application, which is hidden. Open the TextEdit application, and click New Document. Copy and paste the following lines into the document:

#!/bin/sh

wine “/Users/nathan/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/RealLegal/E-Bundle Viewer/EBundleViewer.exe”

Click Format > Make Plain Text. Save the file in the Applications Folder as “E-Transcript Viewer.command”. Finally, go back to the Terminal window and enter the following commands so that the script we just created can be executed:

cd /Applications

chmod +x E-Transcript\ Viewer.command

Now, you should be able to double-click the ‘E-Transcript Viewer.command’ file in the Applications folder any time you need to open a .ptx file. Here’s the result:

image2

You should be able to select CUPS-PDF in the print dialog of the E-Tran viewer, like so:

image3

After a few seconds, a brand-new PDF containing your transcript will appear in the folder that’s linked to your Desktop.

Resource for Attorneys Considering Using Macs for Business

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Standing Out in a PC World - Using a Mac in the OfficeIf you are an attorney who is still on the fence about whether to use a Mac in your law practice, you are in luck. The March-April 2014 (TECHSHOW) edition of Law Practice magazine features an in-depth exploration of this topic by three of the most knowledgable folks on the planet (at least two of them are, and I’m rounding up to include myself).

A tremendous amount of hard work went into this article (mainly by Randy and Larry), as we wanted to provide a comprehensive study at this subject, as it’s one that comes up over and over. The topics covered in this 2,500 word article include:

  • iPhone and iPad integration
  • Ease of use and workflow
  • Using Your Mac in a PC world
  • Software (compatible, virtualization, and remote desktop)
  • Resources for Mac-Using attorneys

If you are questioning whether you should take the plunge, this article should be a huge first step in helping you analyze the factors to consider.  If you know someone else who is thinking about using Macs for business (even if they are not a lawyer), be sure to share it with them.

Source: “Standing Out in a PC World: Using a Mac in the Office” by Randall A. Juip, Larry Port & Ben Stevens, published in the ABA’s Law Practice magazine.