This question sounds a bit clandestine. But in an age of mobile phone and spam phone calls, many of us are concerned about widely sharing our mobile phone numbers.

Several months ago I wrote a column for the Oklahoma Bar Journal Text Messaging for Lawyers. In it, I mentioned ZipWhip, an enterprise texting service that allows one to use their app to send and receive text messages on a mobile phone without revealing the phone number. There are other similar services.

But, there is a free method that allows you to block your number from being displayed when you place a call. Simply dial *67 before you dial the number. The recipient’s caller ID will display your call as “Private” or “Blocked.” Of course, today that means many will not answer the call and you will have to decide whether to leave a call back number or not.

For more ideas along this line, including setting up your phone to not share your number on any calls, read 5 ways to block or hide your number when making calls by Kim Komando in USA TODAY.

Zoom became extraordinarily popular this year. When people were locked down and working from home, what was not to like about a free videoconferencing service that was simple and easy to use? We then got to hear a lot about Zoom’s shortcomings from bloggers and reviewers. I always suspected Microsoft was encouraging that line of attack. But some critiques were valid and Zoom did a remarkable job this summer plugging security holes and changing other features to increase security.

But as Microsoft 365 continues its march to become THE business platform, many Office users may find themselves tending to favor Microsoft 365 tools because they integrate with other Microsoft 365 tools they are using.

But for those like me who find themselves bouncing between videoconferencing tools will be interested in the things Teams does that Zoom doesn’t. Read 6 Microsoft Teams features Zoom doesn’t have. Blurred backgrounds, meeting notes, and better chat features are among the differences

Calendly now integrates with Teams, Zoom, and GoToMeeting and the integration is done through its basic free plan. See Calendly Announces Integration with Microsoft Teams, Makes All Video Conferencing Free For Users.

If you don’t know what Calendly does, you haven’t been to a legal technology conference in a while because “let me send you a Calendly invite” is often overheard in these venues. Lawyers, particularly those serving individual consumers, should consider using a tool like Calendly that lets prospective clients (and all clients) schedule their appointment at a time that is best for them. They pick from times that you have identified as available in Calendly. Many professionals now say, “Let me send you a link so you can schedule when you want to come in.” It is a more “user friendly” approach. And once they pick their time, everything happens automatically to place in on your calendar and give them email notification.

The integration with videoconferencing tools means when a client uses Calendly to schedule a Zoom or Teams video conference, the setup for the meeting links is handled by software. This is a great way to save a little time, often non-billed time.

There are other tools that do the similar things, like Microsoft 365 FindTime. But this service is becoming very common very quickly and I predict the law firm that doesn’t have online scheduling will soon be in the minority.

From today’s Attorney@Work, Beware the Four Most Dangerous Outlook Features, written by by Deborah Savadra. I’ve cited both sources for tips earlier this year. I have to note that if I had been asked to guess the most dangerous outlook features, I would have likely come up with the same four. This is a quick and easy read.

Microsoft Outlook - Wikipedia

Lawyers often must handle emotionally taxing matters. Sexual assault and/or child sexual abuse litigation are challenging for the lawyer because the subject matter is often the trauma the client has suffered. Trauma-Informed legal advocacy by Texas lawyer Cornelia Brandfield-Harvey draws on her years of experience in this area to share some wisdom.

Her advice is thoughtful and compassionate. Any lawyer who works with individual clients would be well served to read this post. It might assist you in identifying someone as a trauma victim who might not clearly present themselves as one.

The ABA 2020 Legal Technology Survey Report is out and the ABA has published the statistics related to Technology Basics and Security.

Sharon Nelson, President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc., breaks down the results in her post Cybersecurity Stats are in for the ABA’s 2020 Legal Technology Survey Report.

Sharon Nelson
   Sharon Nelson

The responses indicate there are still improvements that  can be made with some powerful security tools not in widespread use by law firms. Some examples include two-factor authentication (used by 39% of respondents), intrusion prevention (29%), intrusion detection (29%) and remote device management and wiping (28%). Many law firms do not have cyber insurance. The report and Sharon’s post contain valuable information. Your law firm may not be using all the available tools now, but you certainly want to understand what tools are available.

 

To be honest, one of the last things I’d ever want to write a law practice technology tip about is Jeffery Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s deposition. But after a federal court recently released a redacted copy of her 2016 depositions, the cyber sleuths went to work.

Lawyers, if you ever relied redaction of a deposition to protect a client’s confidential information, you had best read Slate magazine’s We Cracked the Redactions in the Ghislaine Maxwell Deposition.

First of all, it turns out the deposition index can become a virtual Rosetta Stone to unlocking some redactions within the deposition.

Here’s one now-obvious example.

The redacted word in the index begins with letter c and it falls alphabetically between clients and color. It also looks like it is a seven-letter word.

But before doing searches for most commonly used seven-letter words beginning with C and L, one can use the index to check every time it appears to see if human intelligence can figure it out from context with the first two letters C and L.

But then you find on page 135 one entry has not been properly redacted and you can discover the important person’s name. The index now allows you to decode this redaction every tine it is used.

Slate demonstrates more entertaining ways to reveal redactions in this article.

I imagine we will see some Motions to Exclude Index from Release based on this document deconstruction. Without the index, the single redaction error wouldn’t “unlock” all of the other redactions of the same word..

Hat tip to Professor Gabe Teninbaum’s Lawtomatic Newsletter, Issue #109. If you are interested in his “content about legal innovation, technology, and the changing business of law,” you can subscribe here.

Do you find you don’t print many photos even though later you would like to have more prints? You may be great at determining which photos to use as exhibits in court, but not so good a picking which family gathering picture or nature scene to print. For $6.99 a month, Google Photos will use artificial intelligence to automatically select your 10 best photos and mail the prints to you. It should be entertaining to see what AL selects as your top ten each month.

For more information on this new service read For $6.99 a month, Google will send you prints of your 10 best photos, as picked by AI on The Verge.

Lawyers can benefit from automated document drafting of routine documents. The challenge is investing the time and money to automate document this process. OBA members have another option: OBA Intellidrafts. This subscription offering includes about 175 forms/templates, including the computation for Oklahoma Child Support Guidelines. We wanted something like the old OBA Formbook, but automated. These templates are intelligent, providing drafting guidance and commentary in context as you use them.

OBA Practice Management Advisor Julie Bays and OBA Intellidrafts creator (and Oklahoma attorney) Gabe Bass put together this video demonstration.

Free trial for OBA members. Sign up using your credit card. If you cancel within less than 30 days your card will not be charged. This is a subscription service from the Oklahoma Bar Association available to Oklahoma-licensed lawyers only.

 

I know an Oklahoma lawyer who doesn’t understand why so many lawyers use high-powered computers. He and his staff use Chromebooks. That just wouldn’t work for me. I’m a heavy multitasker that uses speech recognition and other resource hogging tools.

But for law firms who need to send staff to work from home, it is a wise and security conscious decision to send them home with a law firm laptop rather than having them use a home computer and if finances are tight, Chromebooks are very inexpensive. But before you make that decision, you need to understand what Chromebooks are and what they are not.

Therefore unless you are very familiar with Chromebooks, your attention is directed to 5 Pros and Cons of Using a Chromebook.