Go Paperless
Like it or not, the law is going paperless. Fortunately for you, some of our contributors were on the leading edge of the move from hard copies to digital copies, and have been writing about the hardware, software, tips, and tricks you need to go paperless for years.
Not sure where to start? If you aren’t ready to commit to going paperless, yet, Deborah has a great post on things you can do before you go paperless. Ready to get started? Check out Sam’s posts on getting started, designing your workflow, and organizing digital client files.
Or just browse the archives …
In a paperless practice, screen size is critical. Don’t skimp on the screen real estate. You have two choices: jumbo monitors or multi-monitor setups. I’ve opted for the jumbo monitor. Here’s why:
Multi-monitors are great for segregating programs to different screens. They look very cool. But if you are reading this, you are an attorney, not a day-trader. You will spend the majority of your time at your computer doing two things: reading and writing. Most of what you do falls in one of those two categories. And for those purposes, jumbo monitors excel. Keep Reading ⇒
Never, I mean ever, send a Word file as “correspondence.” In a paperless office a word processing file is not a document. PDFs are documents. Word files are drafts. And sending a draft that includes your digital letterhead and signature to anyone is just plain stupid. Here’s why:
Keep Reading ⇒
Why “Top 5 iOs Apps I Can’t Live Without” and not “Top 10 iOS Apps I Can’t Live Without”? 5 reasons.
- 10 is too many. You can always come up with 6 or 7, but more than that and you are padding.
- 5 forces you to think about it and actually leave one or two you really like off the list.
- Duh! All the lists in High Fidelity were Top 5.
- Actually, I can only think of 3 reasons.
So here are the five iOS apps that I use day in, day out, multiple times a day. Keep Reading ⇒
Disasters can occur on a community and a personal level. They can be big or they can be small. It is a stretch to call what happened to me a “disaster,” but it made me realize just how critical a paperless/digital/mobile practice is to surviving disasters, big and small.
A paperless practice, whether as part of a brick and mortar office or a true virtual practice, will allow you the flexibility to respond in the event disaster strikes.
Keep Reading ⇒
See our Law Technology Buyer's Guide for our top technology recommendations.
Voir dire is one of the more difficult aspects of trial, and it isn’t easy to do well. While the purpose and process of voir dire has evolved over the years, the mechanics are stuck in the last century.
We have a number of good apps to help trial lawyers present evidence and depositions to a jury (TrialPad, ExhibitView, Exhibit A), but most trial lawyers still use some combination of a legal pad and sticky notes or index cards for voir dire.
Surely someone, somewhere, has come up with a whiz-bang app that will let you focus on your questions and the jurors’ responses rather than the mechanics of getting your notes down so you can intelligently exercise challenges for cause and peremptory challenges, right?
Keep Reading ⇒
Going paperless is a continuing process. Once you’ve got what you need and have developed your workflow, going paperless is about finding the additional tools and implementing tips and tricks to streamline as many processes as possible. So here are a few tips and tricks in Adobe Acrobat I’ve picked up since I’ve gone paperless.
The most important tip? As I’ve said before, don’t try to skimp on your .pdf program. In a paperless office you’ll spend nearly as much time using your .pdf program as you will your word processor. So don’t skimp—Adobe Acrobat Pro will give you more features than you will probably ever use. But the features you do need will be there.
Keep Reading ⇒
Going paperless shouldn’t be about just scanning in the paper that comes into your office. To take full advantage of going paperless, establish a paperless workflow to increase your efficiency.
The first two considerations are establishing a workflow for incoming paper and one for outgoing paper. The goal is to minimize the steps required to deal with the paper and optimize your ability to access your digital file later. Also, by creating pre-populated file and form templates that you can simply duplicate whenever you establish a new client or matter, you can further leverage going paperless.
Keep Reading ⇒
See our Law Technology Buyer's Guide for our top technology recommendations.
The ScanSnap iX500 once again proves Fujitsu knows how to do desktop scanners better than everyone else. The iX500 improves the best features of its predecessor, and adds some killer new ones, like the ability to scan to any mobile device straight from the scanner, with no computer required.
The ScanSnap iX500 keeps Fujitsu at the top of our top picks for scanners. Here’s why.
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Making the move to a paperless practice can seem daunting. After all, you’ve spent your entire academic and professional career, however long that is, working with paper: books, legal pads, memos, pleadings, files. Paperless? How can you possibly do that? Well, the reality is, you can’t. Not really. You are going to need to deal with and produce paper, at least for the foreseeable future. But you can establish a paperless practice that has a digital file at its core. Here’s how.
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See our Law Technology Buyer's Guide for our top technology recommendations.
The Epson WorkForce Pro GT-S55 is almost identical to its predecessor, the WorkForce Pro GT-S50. In fact, according to Epson’s own spec sheet (pdf), there is only one difference: ultrasonic double-feed detection.
Otherwise, the GT-S55 and GT-S50 are the same scanner. So, instead of doing a full review of the GT-S55, let’s just decide whether ultrasonic double-feed detection is worth $170, because that is the approximate difference in price between the two scanners on Amazon.
Correction: As far as I can tell, there is actually no difference between the GT-S50 and the GT-S55 on specs. I misread the above-linked spec sheet, which actually compares the GT-S50 to the GT-S80. If you want ultrasonic double-feed detection, you will need to get the GT-S80.
Keep Reading ⇒
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