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Legal Technology Trends – Solutions Today

by Walter & Andrea Turner

Dennis Kennedy, a leading analyst on technology for the legal profession, wrote an article in February, 2008 regarding this years technology trends.  (See the article here:  http://www.llrx.com/features/techtrends2008.htm)  We would like to address some of those trends and the technology solutions that we see today that will help your firm within the trend areas - specifically trends #3, #4, #5, #6, and #8.

Security
Security is usually an afterthought.  To be effective, security begins BEFORE software is built or selected.  Good security also consists of policies and procedures and personnel training.  Good security is a mind set of a firm’s employees.

Encrypting documents or hard drives is part of a good security solution.  If you plan on carrying a laptop around with sensitive documents, you should consider one with a biometric fingerprint reader for login and hard drive encryption.  For links back to your office, use software based VPN (virtual private network) for traveling and a hardwired VPN from your home office.  All traffic over the VPN is encrypted at the levels used by online banking.

Email
Email at CWC was becoming a burden.  Project Managers could not keep up with responses or even filing/sorting the emails correctly while being productive.  We switched to open source project management software available over the web and emails between team members dropped by over 50%.  We are currently developing our own project management software that will cut emails even further.  Our team members will be able to live in the world of assigned tasks with all information about the task attached to the task for easy perusal as well as client billing integration.

Project management does more than cut the number of emails, it also helps you get the project completed on time which greatly increases customer satisfaction.

Mobile
Going mobile requires the proper equipment, software, and work ethic.  Accessories like a car 12V to 120V converter, laptop powered reading light, laptop desk, power conditioner, extra laptop battery, travel mouse, cables, rolling laptop bag, online file storage, remote desktop PC access and satellite Internet access soon become a necessity for productivity.

Connectivity on the road is another matter but many franchises are offering low-cost or free Wi-Fi spots.  Wi-Fi being simply a way to connect to the Internet from your laptop.  McDonalds, Atlanta Bread, and Denny’s, among others, offer Wi-Fi service.  If you spend time in airports, Boingo Mobile at www.boingo.com offers over 100,000 Wi-Fi spots where you can access the Internet for a low monthly fee. 

Audio/Video Channels
We use YouTube for posting company videos.  The videos link back to our channel which points the viewer to our website.  The videos can also be integrated into your website by pasting in a free code snippet that YouTube generates for you.  So, the video lives on the YouTube site and is viewable there but also on your website and is displayed from the YouTube site when clicked on from your website.  Try putting out some legal information to lead viewers back to your site for more.

Collaboration Tools
Collaborative tools allow one or more members of your firm to work together over the web on a common project.  We recommend Yakkle at http://www.yakkle.com or Skype at http://www.skype.com for free collaboration.  Yakkle IS a collaboration tool while Skype is a Internet phone service with chat, audio and video conferencing AND collaboration add-ons.  Google Apps http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/index.html is another good collaboration tools that allow you to share spreadsheets, word-processing forms and slide shows with other Google accounts you select.  Best of all, they are free.

GoToMeeting at www.gotomeeting.com provides the ability to meet with up to 15 clients online for a low flat monthly fee.  A perfect way to meet with remote clients or even those across town.  Or how about putting on public interest meetings on legal topics?