This week I was a guest speaker at the Mississippi Bar Technology Conference. While they have had technology conferences in the past, this one was a little different as it was a part of the ongoing efforts of the ABA Law Practice Management Section and others to help Gulf Coast lawyers recover from Katrina.
With lots of corporate sponsorships behind the conference, the registration fee was nominal and every attendee received a flash drive and free software worth many times the registration fee, including a free copy of Corel’s WordPerfect Office X3. Plus there were many giveaways, including a tablet PC. The roster of speakers contained many notables, including "Ernie the Attorney" Svenson (see his post about the conference), Ross Kodner (see his post too), Tom Mighell, Natalie Kelly from the Georgia Bar, Adobe’s Rick Borstein, LPM Section’s Larry Smith, and Adriana Linares. Thanks to LEDI’s Tom O’Connor and Gayle O’Conner for their organizational work setting up this program. Mississippi Bar Executive Director Larry Houchins and his team were great hosts.
I met Jim Province, the principal of TabletLawyer, there for the first time. He is certainly an evangelist for the idea that more lawyers should be using tablet PC’s and a very humerous guy as well.
I want to acknowledge again the support my employer, the Oklahoma Bar Association, has given to lawyers impacted by Katrina and Rita. In addition to significant cash donations from OBA members, every time I was asked to participate in an effort, OBA leadership instantly said "GO!"