The November issue of the Oklahoma Bar Journal was a special Management and Technology-themed issue and I was the guest editor. As events unfolded, I ended up writing a lot of it myself.

A Lawyer’s Guide to Mobile Computer Security was co-authored by Ellen Freedman, Reid Trautz and myself. Did you know that a personal computer is lost or stolen every 12 seconds? We cover some important points about protecting sensitive client information in these days when so many lawyers are carrying laptop computers or USB flash drives containing client information. This article will also be published (maybe with some additions) in the Pennsylvania Lawyer and American Immigration Lawyers Association magazine. I regret that we didn’t have time to review some interesting security tools that I received. Maybe we will do a follow up or update in the future. But for the present, feel free to pass along this link (or the permalink to this blog post) to laptop-packing lawyers you know.

E-Discovery: The New Federal Rules by Jerry Green and Susan K. Carns covers the all of the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure relating to electronically stored information (ESI) that go into effective December 1, 2006. Even lawyers who never handle litigation or venture inside a courtroom should be aware of these changes. It is critical information for those who advise businesses.

Maximizing Your E-Potential is by Jacob Williams. I believe this is his first article published in the Bar Journal and I predict you will hear more from him. He notes, "Three of the Internet’s resources offered for free that I adopted were RSS feeds, electronic monitoring (e-monitoring) and electronic alerts (e-alerts). They have now established themselves as the wave of the future. If you do not employ them in your practice, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage."

He outlines how Oklahoma lawyers whose case dockets are online with the OCIS docketing system can set up a system so that they are immediately notified every time a document is filed or a docket entry made. This only costs $20 a year by using WatchThatPage.com. He does note a needed tweak to do for each of these pages so that you don’t get a notice every day as the date changes.

My article, Conflict Checking Systems from A to Z, turned out to be much longer and more comprehensive than I originally anticipated. Although I think the time for paper-based conflict check systems has passed us by, outlining implementation of a paper-based system seemed to be the best way to go through all of the requirements before moving on to software applications. So I’ll immodestly suggest that every lawyer should read this one, whether they use computers or file cards and ledgers.

Motivating Law Firm Staff is a brief Top Ten List from me for small firm lawyers who have to serve as their own Director of Human Relations. But lawyers who work in larger firms can read it, too.

Websites Worth a Visit was the title of my regular Law Practice Tips column in the Oklahoma Bar Journal. I think that is self-explanatory. Some of you will be familiar with most of these. (By now, my colleagues may have figured out why I was complaining about being so overloaded this fall.)

Addiction and the Law: How Dependency Issues Continue to Affect the Legal Profession is a condensed version of an article By Cliff Collins which was originally published in the August/September 2006 issue of the Oregon State Bar Bulletin. We don’t normally do reprints, but this is an important issue.

You can download the entire copy of this Bar Journal in PDF format from this link. That might be a better option if you want to print several of these articles to stick in your briefcase. The above link is for the current Oklahoma Bar Journal issue. When the December Bar Journal is posted, this issue will be archived here, which is not a valid link until then.