It Is Time to Start Re-Planning Your Future (April 29, 2020)

My suggestions for those who want to start re-planning their future now include creating a location to save your research and then to start by reading 7 Ways The Pandemic Will Forever Change Law Practice by Robert Ambrogi at Above the Law. You may disagree with some of his predictions. But Bob is as qualified as anyone on the planet to make predictions about the future of law. Agreeing with everything you read is not the point. Making some notes to chart your own future is.

Listen to Clio CEO Jack Newton and Robert Ambrogi on Episode #26 of Clio’s Daily Matters podcast as they discuss our present and our future. “Lawyers have an opportunity to experiment,” Bob says.

 

Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway offer guidance for weathering COVID-19 and its economic impacts on the legal profession. Podcasts seem to be continuing their resurgence. Jim Calloway and Sharon Nelson have been podcasting for years. This month’s podcast marks their 148th monthly podcast. We decided to omit having a guest this episode so we can focus on what we have seen about COVID19’s impact on the legal profession from the CARES Act Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to the rapid adoption of videoconferencing to E-signatures and digital contracts to contactless law office procedures.

For lunch or later

Read How-To-Geek’s How to Get Started Listening to Podcasts https://www.howtogeek.com/345845/how-to-get-started-listening-to-podcasts/

Many podcasts of interest to lawyers can be found at The Legal Talk Network https://legaltalknetwork.com/

I think it is very important to re-examine our processes in light of the new reality.

This tip costs nothing to implement and takes only a minute. It may only be used rarely but if it reduces a client’s anxiety or moves communications along, then it is well worth the minor change. Plus you can change it anytime.

Phone tag just seems like even more of a time-waster these days.

Change Cell Phone Quick Responses to Reflect Today’s Reality (April 27, 2020)

New Ways to Unwind and Relax This Weekend is subject as my guest Tom Mighell and I delve into some online tools and toys that may help you relax and connect with friends and loved ones in some different ways. Tom has just rebooted his blog with a focus on technology tools for lawyers that are not legal specific. He is a former ABA TECHSHOW chair and an experienced legal technologist. Visit his blog and sign up for his email newsletter. But first watch our (hopefully) fun video and find something new to try out or share with someone.

New Ways to Unwind and Relax This Weekend (April 24, 2020)

 

Did you ever think how much worse lawyers current situation would be if all of our research tools were on bookshelves in closed law libraries instead of online? Many lawyers practicing today still recall those days.

OBA legal research member benefit Fastcase is a great tool. But if you did your only Fastcase training years ago (or didn’t do it at all), now is a good time to invest in your future by watching our tips video, exploring Fastcase 7 and then signing up for some additional free training with Fastcase. You may be unaware of the cool features of Fastcase 7.

Improve Your Legal Research with Fastcase Tips from Ed Walters (April 22, 2020)

Part of crisis management in law firms today involves more lawyers spending more time editing their Word documents. Whether resulting from layoffs, work from home delays or people having different assignments, it is sometimes not as easy today to have a co-worker “clean up the formatting of a document” quickly.

These quick “unformatting” tips will help you speed through the sometimes frustrating task of dealing with formatting mysteries in Word Documents.

Removing Formatting from Word Documents (April 17, 2020)

 

As working from home increased, Zoom videoconferencing exploded as well. People who couldn’t set up a two-person conference call with their phone could arrange a video conference call with 20 participants across the country that also provided an alternative phone line for those without microphones or other equipment issues.

The attention focused  on Zoom as a result of that revealed some weaknesses in the platform and more importantly, some of the settings became very important in the wake of zoombombing attacks on meetings that were not protected by passwords and other issues. Zoom has responded with security upgrades and changes. I am so pleased I got to sit down with Catherine Sanders Reach, Director of the Center for Practice Management for the North Carolina Bar Association to discuss Zoom and its use, as well as alternatives to Zoom for videoconferencing. Our video is about 25 minutes in length. There are links to lots of material as well, including Catherine’s great blog post on the topic earlier this week.

https://www.okbar.org/lpt_articles/zooming-in-on-zoom/