Several days ago I received an e-mail from Patrick J. McKenna about the release of his free new e-book, First 100 Days: Transitioning a New Managing Partner. You can read the brief book online in an interesting format from NXTBook at this location (loading will take a minute) or print or download it. Patrick McKenna is a true expert in the law firm management field, having co-authored several books in  the field, including First Among Equals. The book contains about a dozen pages of McKenna’s thoughts and another dozen of quotes from established law firm leaders. You may find that the NXTBook format is a little distracting. It should have offered more than the two zoom settings provided to find the right combination of my eyes and my screen resolution. But it is visually interesting and you can always hit "Print."

For re-enforcement and amplification of the lessons contained in the e-book, also read Bruce MacEwen’s summary of and commentary on the e-book at his Adam Smith, Esg. blog. I recognize probably few of my readers are managing partners at major law firms, but there’s a lot of value for the lawyer with one partner and two staff members as well. You would have to pay quite handsomely if you retained either of these gentlemen for advice, so take advantage of the fact that they are willing to give it away.

The ABA GP Solo and Small Firm Division put on some nice programming at the ABA Annual Meeting. (And I’m not saying that just because they asked me to speak.)  I participated in two 90 minute programs called Perfecting Your Practice and Protecting Your Practice. I joined Uber-consultant Ross Kodner, Catherine Sanders-Reach from the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center and Hawaiian legal technologist Ben Schorr for what we hope was a thought-provoking exchange of information.

The materials for those sessions have been placed for download online, along with some other materials. Let me focus on two sets of the materials, although all are worthy of your attention.

Perfecting Your Practice is about creating and maintaining good client relations. We talk about listening to your clients (as many of you know, this is one of my favorite topics,) setting expectations, client communications during the representation and handling the matter effectively. The materials available for download are brief and can be reviewed in a few minutes, but the concepts are a life’s work.

The Sweet Spot: Buying Law Office Technology is a program Ross did for the OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference in late June, but you can also download it here. It gives advice on buying laptops, desktops, phones, cameras and more. You don’t want to miss this one.

Sadly, hardware buying this year may be more difficult as there are now signs that Microsoft won’t be able to ship its new operating system Vista by year’s end. It sure is a lot more simple to buy a computer with the OS installed than to upgrade. We’ll just have to wait and see at this point. But if you do buy a new computer make sure it is at least Vista Capable and probably Vista Premium Ready. See all of the specs here. 2006 is not the year to cut corners when buying computers. There are many new features of Vista that you will want sooner rather than later.

All of the materials I mentioned above, including Protecting Your Practice, can be downloaded here. There is a ton of great material at the link. Have fun reading and feel free to e-mail me any comments or suggestions.

Now why would I feature a web page that most all of you have already visited as my Website of the Week? And one from Microsoft at that?

Microsoft Office Online features things that you would assume it should: tips and helps for using Microsoft Word,  patches and fixes (including the "Remove Hidden Data" add-on) and useful online training. But unless you’ve looked closely you may have missed the fact that there are great free downloads. In fact some may be useful even if you are an Open Office die hard using a Linux box. There is lots of royalty-free downloadable clip art. Search for the word "justice" or "law" just to get an idea of what might be useful for you. J0336381There are also sounds and animations. Try a few searchs and liven up your web page, personal stationery or CLE papers. Every year I write several CLE papers for presentations. I’ve decided that I’m going to liven them up a bit this year with a few clipart images inserted every few pages. You wouldn’t want to go overboard with this idea. But there’s no law that says CLE papers have to be dull, featureless pages of nothing but text either. Experiment a little!

If you haven’t been paying attention lately, you may not have noticed that online storage space is getting cheap. I’ve been researching lately into the various potential uses of online storage space for lawyers, from online backup to file sharing to virtual drives for day-to-day work. You have probably noted that there is a lot of free online storage space available for certain kinds of file sharing services, like YouTube and flickr. Some preliminary thoughts on this topic are contained in my Oklahoma Bar Journal column this month, Online Filing Cabinets.

The August issue of Law Practice Today has just been published online. Among its many features is "Blawg: Marketing Your Practice with a Weblog" by myself and Tom Mighell. I’d encourage all of you to check this out even if you have no plans whatsoever to ever start a blog. This is a "Best of ABA TECHSHOW" feature and is a reprint of most of the materials Tom and I submitted for our TECHSHOW presentation on this topic. It contains lots of information, statistics and links. I’m proud that Law Practice Today selected it for a feature. There was a lot of effort put into this (mostly by Tom) and I’m glad it will have a greater audience than the TECHSHOW materials on CD.

Tom Mighell also writes The Strongest Links column for LPT and his Strongest Links for Road Warriors this month is worth a read. Also of note this month are a piece by former ABA Law Practice Management Section Chair Carl Roberts on the 2006 Discovery Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (impacting E-discovery) and Ellen Freedman’s Preparing to Say Goodbye to the Baby Boomers.

I don’t always mention every new Law Practice Today issue here. I assume that most of my readers have subscribed to it by now. A subscription means you get one e-mail per month telling you when the new issue is posted with links to the issue. Go here to subscribe if you haven’t already done so.

It’s really a great thing that so many print magazines publish so much of their content online for free. One knows that there have been a lot of heated discussions with editorial staff and publishers about that idea. PC World magazine has lots of great reviews, news items, public forums and other features on its comprehensive website. I rely on this publication and suggest that you should check it out, if you have not done so already. No chance I’ll be cancelling my print subscription any time soon either. Sometime you just want to read a magazine in its printed form.

OK, as a less than speedy typist, I’ve yearned for voice recognition. I’ve tried it before and the results were impressive, but not enough to incorporate it into my daily life. A local lawyer demonstrated Dragon Dictate NaturallySpeaking Preferred version 8 for me and I purchased it to try this product once again.  But before I could do so, the new version of Dragon Dictate NaturallySpeaking Preferred (Version 9) was released. So, of course, I upgraded. After using the software for only one day, I can tell this is going to be a major part of my professional life.

Here’s my formula for success in case anyone is interested:

  1. I purchased the Preferred Edition because of the price ($199).  I am told that the more expensive Legal Edition is not particularly worth the extra cost.  I have had those I respect say that the Professional Edition is worth the extra cost, but frankly I can’t see how at this moment.
  2. A lot of memory is very important.  Before I took this step I upgraded my computer’s memory to 1.25 GB.  One of my colleagues tells me that 2 GB would be better.
  3. Get a good USB microphone, not one that plugs into the computer’s soundcard.  I was unable to find the quality of microphone that I desired shopping in Oklahoma City yesterday.  So I ended up buying a $29.95 microphone from Staples.  It seems to work quite well. But I’ll probably want to get a wireless headset at some point.
  4. Do the training even though it says you don’t have to train.  Then go to the trouble of using the software to make any corrections so that it learns about your voice and your dictation style.

I recognize that this is not for everyone. If you are a speedy typist is probably not worth the effort.  However, for many lawyers who are already dictating lots of material or for lawyers who are typing at a less than adequate speed, this may be the most important software application of 2006.

You don’t just have to rely on me for the recommendation.  It was featured on National Public Radio this morning and profiled by David Pogue in the New York Times last week.

And, in case you were wondering, yes, I dictated this blog post using the software with a very few corrections.

Well, we had 120 or so for the "Overcoming E-mail Overload" seminar Thursday. That’s a lot larger than average crowd. So if you are struggling with the problem, you can see that you are not alone. Here’s one more thought along this line.

Try this technique. Get one project completed in the morning before you even open your e-mail client. Time management experts tell us that we should try to get the most important thing we have to do that day done first. So complete your most important job before you open your e-mail, even if you are like me and a lot of your "real work" is done via e-mail. This is not an original thought by any means. I’d encourage all of you to read "Geek to Live: Control Your Workday" by LifeHacker’s Gina Trapani. But this makes so much sense because reading your e-mail puts you in the reactive mode. Getting an accomplishment under your belt first thing may make the day go better.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of adhering to this practice is that you will hopefully never again find yourself working after 5 p.m. (with your family holding dinner for you) on what should have been a short project when you’ve known all day that it had to be completed today. At first I thought this was a good idea that wouldn’t work for me because always check my e-mail from home before I leave for work in case I want to contemplate anything on the commute. But then I thought that is why it should really work for me once I arrive.

One of my "30 Tech Tips in 30 Minutes" given to the Cleveland County Bar Association Meeting in Norman last week was about the benefits of using two monitors. Law practice technology consultant Hank Ryan was in the audience and he actually gave the best quote, "It’s like power windows. Once you use dual monitors, you’ll never go back."

Two monitors are an incredible productivity tool. Don’t just take my word for it, read this New York Times article on the topic. Windows XP is programmed to accept more than one monitor. Copying and pasting between two documents goes much more quickly when you can have one document on one screen and one on another. Leaving Outlook open on one monitor allows you to glance up to check while waiting on an important e-mail while doing document drafting on the other. There are lots of other benefits.

If you’ve converted to a laptop for your main computer like me, setup is a breeze. Just plug a monitor into the video outlet on the back of the computer (or hopefully the docking station you are glad you purchased) and go to Control Panel, Display to set it up.  If you have a desktop computer then you either need to install a second video card or a sophisticated video card with two connectors. Well, that’s what I thought until recently, anyway.

Edmond, Oklahoma lawyer Dana L. Murphy contacted me after hearing this tip at the OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. She asked if I had ever heard of the Tritton See2 USB 2.0 SVGA Adapter, which I hadn’t. It is an SGVA adaptor that plugs into a USB port. Well, she decided to risk the $89.95 and, after installing the accompanying software, it worked like a charm for her. She noted "I am not a techno-nerd and I figure if I can get it to work, anyone can."

So for all of you who wanted dual monitors, but recoiled at taking a screwdriver to your computer or installing a card, here you are. Try it, you’ll like it.

Oh, and speaking of Norman, Oklahoma, my home town was named #40 in Money Magazine’s Best 100 Places to Live

This might first appear to be a law-related Website, since the address is http://jd.typepad.com/, but New Media Musings is about how, as a young Bob Dylan might say, the times (online) are a-changing. Even if you decide not to add this one to your RSS reader, visit it and scroll down through a diverse collection of observations and news items.

A writer for Typepad said about this blog: "A few years back, journalist J.D. Lasica decided to focus his considerable talents and energies on citizens media and the personal media revolution.’ … If you have an interest in the trends that will define personal and public media in the years to come, check out Lasica’s point of view, which not only includes posts and commentary, but an amazing array of photographs and video.”

Some might consider this "off topic," but the wise lawyer should pay attention to major changes and trends in the world, including the online world.