Using Checklists in your Law Practice is the title of my Lawyers USA column that was just posted to the Web. I'm sure everyone reading this uses checklists in many different ways. But I hope my column on this very important topic will give you some new ideas. One idea that I recommend to every single lawyer is to get a copy of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande and read it! The book is not very expensive and may be the book that shows you the way to a more successful practice. You can also "check out" his online checklist for checklists to help evaluate your personal checklists.



Thinking about your future can bring forth many emotions, especially if the future looks challenging and uncertain. That's why it may be easy for time-challenged lawyers to avoid the exercise. If you are going to retire in the next few years, skip this blog post. Otherwise, invest thirty minutes this week reading the articles I have linked here. If you need inspiration to think about this, just start with the following feature story from the July 2011 ABA Journal Law Job Stagnation May Have Started Before the Recession—And It May Be a Sign of Lasting Change. Quite a few observers of the legal industry have drawn some of the same conclusions. Just to make certain you click on the link to the story, here's the "money quote" from the article:

  • "For most lawyers, survival will depend upon their ability to harness technology to deliver greater value to clients at a cost that declines—yes, declines—over time. The biggest challenge for law firms will be transitioning away from internal firm metrics that reward billable hours and discourage or prohibit the crucial trial-and-error experimentation needed to create, refine and market more innovative work processes that do more with less." Id.

So go read the article to see how the authors reached that conclusion.

But the future brings promise as well as challenges. Maybe none of us will see that future where one can make a living as a "Space Lawyer," but it is not hard to see new and emerging areas of law practice.Space_lawyer

But a good opportunity to chart your future appears this month in another ABA publication, the "Careers" issue of Law Practice magazine (July/August 2011.) The Time to Take a Leap feature begins with an important story by a good friend of mine. Lawyers Join the Free Agent Nation by Stephen P. Gallagher charts how career paths have changed for lawyers just as the idea of life-long employment with a single company has changed for the majority of the American work force. The is followed by 10 Steps to Prepare Yourself for a Graceful Launch by John H. Snyder. Although this is written for a hypothetical associate about to leave the big firm, it is good reading for anyone taking stock of your career. The feature then focuses on several lawyers and their successful career changes.

But, wait, you might say, "I really am my law practice at  this point and there's really nowhere to leap." (Joke in poor taste omitted.)  It is certainly true that for many lawyers, from solo/small firm lawyers to partners in larger law frims that they could change their address or their partners, but the clients that they serve are their law practice. Absent taking a salaried job and shuttering a private practice, they may feel  certain that they are not looking at career change.

As suggested by the ABA Journal article on stagnation, you may have the choice of reinventing your practice or watching while others reinvent it for you. So continue your tour of the Careers edition of Law Practice magazine by reading Make the Right Move: Career Assessment Tools by Wendy L. Werner for some ideas on learning about yourself, Optimizing Your Online Shingle: On-Page and Off-Page Best Practices by Bob Ambrogi and Steve Matthews and enjoy the fun of Sharon Nelson and John Simek discussing using an iPad in your law practice. In the Ask Bill column, Bill Gibson talks with me and Tom Mighell about social media for lawyers.

Whether you are a new lawyer or law student entering the job market, who should read the entire Careers edition of Law Practice magazine or you want to pick and choose, there's a lot in Law Practice magazine, this month and every month and I'd say that even if I wasn't on the magazine's editorial board.

Well, to celebrate the holiday weekend a little early, I have prepared a “Great Reading” list that wanders a bit from my usual fare. Thanks to all of the people who sent these my way, largely through Twitter.

David Pogue: We Have To Fix E-mail http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/we-have-to-fix-e-mail/?ref=personaltechemail&nl=technology&emc=cta1

Trying to figure out how to improve your website content? Read the Ultimate 8-Point Checklist for Remarkable Content http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/18476/The-Ultimate-8-Point-Checklist-for-Remarkable-Content.aspx

I’m sure many lawyers already assist their clients with organizing their personal information, but this is a great article and the Master Information Kit Template, a shared public Google Document linked in the article, is very nice. How to Create an In-Case-of-Emergency Everything Document to Keep Your Loved Ones Informed if Worst Comes to Worst http://lifehacker.com/5817021/in-case-of-emergency-how-to-organize-your-important-records-in-a-master-information-kit 

Google+ was launched this week to a lucky few beta testers. It will soon by coming to everyone. It looks to have a lot of potential. Here’s a pretty good outline of Google+ and a link to the announcement video from Google. http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/28/google-plus/  Watching the group chat video on this next post may convince you that it is time to buy a webcam: Google+ Hangouts Is the Best Free Group Video Chat We’ve Seen http://lifehacker.com/5816722/google%252B-hangout-is-the-best-free-group-video-chat-weve-seen

Here’s information on another tool from Google: Me On The Web: Google's Tool For Online Reputation Management http://www.lawmarketingmonitor.com/professional-reputation/me-on-the-web-googles-tool-for-online-reputation-management/

I think I will invest $3.99 in the Great Backyard Grilling iPad App. The legal technology consultant who reviewed it seems to like it. http://trial-technology.blogspot.com/2011/06/great-backyard-grilling-ipad-app.html

101 Gadgets That Changed The World http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/101-gadgets-that-changed-the-world

There are some really nice law firm web pages on this feature 25 of the Best Law Firm Website Designs http://www.visualswirl.com/inspiration/best-law-firm-website-designs/  However, the design firm that selected the sites having a large Google AdWord placement saying Advertise Here that you must scroll past on their site to get to the nice designs is a bit ironic.

A Manager’s Primer on Asking Better Questions http://creativitycentral.squarespace.com/creativity-central/2011/6/22/a-managers-primer-on-asking-better-questions.html

GoDropBox Gives Google Docs a Drop Box Where Anyone Can Upload http://lifehacker.com/5816864/godropbox-gives-google-docs-a-drop-box-where-anyone-can-upload No relation to Dropbox.com, but an interesting idea if you need many people to share documents with you.

And let’s end with a real “downer” from my podcast partner Sharon Nelson: Your Chance of Being Hacked in Twelve Months Now a "Statistical Certainty" http://ridethelightning.senseient.com/2011/06/your-chance-of-being-hacked-in-twelve-months-now-a-statistical-certainty.html

 Happy Independence Day!

TrialPad 2.0 for the iPad is so good, this isn't even a review. It is an unabashed fan letter. Even non-litigators can benefit from this great app, especially if you have an iPad 1 that you won't be trading in for a while. First of all, I have been referred to as thrifty (well, OK, maybe even a tightwad.)  A few searches will find my byline attached to features like High-Tech Penny Pinching for the GPSolo magazine. So when I first blogged about TrialPad right after ABA TECHSHOW 2011, I noted that I was initially a bit put off by the $89.99 price tag. Apps are supposed to cost 99 cents, right? Or at the very most $4.99! After seeing TrialPad 1 demonstrated, however, I could see that it could be worth that price.

Recently released TrialPad 2.0 for the iPad, however, renders the value proposition a moot question. TrialPad 2.0 for the iPad is not competing with 99 cent apps. It is a legitimate competitor to trial presentation software costing tens of thousands of dollars in purchase and training costs. Best of all, you don't have to go through days of training. Anyone who managed to complete law school can figure out the basics of TrialPad in an hour or so. TrialPad.com has FAQ's and some short videos to help.

The more expensive trial presentation software packages certainly have more features, but they also have more complexity. TrialPad 2.0 can be used in ways you would never use the traditional presentation products. If you are going to a wired courtroom with a projector, it just takes a few minutes to load seven or eight documents into TrialPad, making it useful for a short evidentiary hearing or an argument on a motion.  Carrying your own projector and screen obviously takes a little more time for setup. For a jury trial, it probably makes sense for another lawyer or assistant to run TrialPad when lead counsel does the trial. But at least it is possible to do both with a single lawyer.

Any lawyer who might want to display images from an iPad on a screen and projector can benefit from this tool. I see this being used for mediations, settlement discussions, planning, training and most any time you want several people to see a display using a screen and projector.

What's new in TrialPad 2? You can see the new features here. The most-awaited was the ability to do call-outs so that a paragraph can expand out of a dcoument for easier viewing by a jury. There's a new white board feature that could be useful in all sorts of settings. Now it can import all sorts of file formats besides PDF, including JPG, PowerPoint, Word and multi-page TIF's. (I haven't tried this yet, but I note that Oklahoma State Courts Network site displays filed pleadings in multi-page TIF's.) It can play videos and create short clips from longer videos!

TrialPad 2.0 can even partially make up for the display limitations of your iPad 1. As manof you know, external display is greatly improved with the iPad 2, although depending on the app, it is far from perfect. But if you want to use TrialPad to display the image from your iPad 1 through a projector, it is now this easy: Click the Power button on the top right corner of your iPad, and while holding it down, click the iPad Button on the front of the iPad. You will see the screen flash white and hear the camera shutter sound. Now open the Photos app on your iPad. A JPG of that screen shot will be your most recent photo, click on it to open it and use the arrow key to send it to TrialPad. Then you can use TrialPad 2.0 to display that with the projector. After you have done this a few times, it takes far less time to do than reading these instructions. And it is easy because TrialPad 2.0 now accepts JPG images.

If you missed the earlier discussion about using an iPad and Google Maps during depositions, you can review that here.

For a detailed review of TrialPad 2.0, Finis Price has a nice one here at TechnoEsq. There are more reviews here at TrialPad's website. TrialPad has a blog and Twitter feed as well. I have done several presentations on using iPads in the Courtroom in the last few months, two with my friend Tom Mighell (http://ipad4lawyers.squarespace.com/), and most recently to the Oklahoma Association of Defense Counsel. I always save TrialPad until near the end so I can end with a big finish. The trial lawyers have always been very impressed — and that was just TrialPad 1.5 ! For many lawyers, this will be $89.99 very well spent and it will make you love your iPad even more.



 

What Oklahoma event featured football legends Barry Switzer and Billy Sims, along with rock stars Tina Turner and Mick Jagger? The surprising answer is the 2011 OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. The football legends both attended in person, while the rock stars were there via homages from our outstanding musical entertainment, New Odyssey.

Solo and small firm lawyers wear many hats. They are management and labor. They are professional service providers who also have all of the roles of any small business owner. On any given day, they may serve as chief marketing officer, chief information officer, budget director and custodian.

Juggling all of these various roles while serving clients can be challenging. The OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference is designed to help these lawyers with information about managing their practices and updates on substantive law. Read the rest of this story at http://www.okbar.org/news/front/2011/06/21-solo-success.htm. 

Check out the photos from the conference at http://albums.okbar.org/2011/SSF-2011 Our photographers did a great job of capturing the conference this year. There are photos of many of the attendees and speakers, as well as our special guest presenters, Tom Mighell and Sarah J. Read.

After 13 years of running his law practice, Jay Shepherd is taking his career in another direction.

You will find the rules for success in his blog post Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Reflections on Thirteen Years to be very valuable. He has 13 rules for his thirteen years. The first 12 rules are great and the last one humorous. I am presumptuous enough to clarify his rule #8 Pay yourself first. I know for certain he doesn't mean pay yourself before you pay your staff. As an employer, paying your staff on time is a business and ethical duty. They have to be paid on payday. With automatic debits, even a day late could be a disaster. But I do agree with the point Jay was making. A law practice can appear very viable when it is not if you do not include paying the lawyer. I assume any business can look great if you do not pay the workers.

But Jay has great rules that reflect the reality of today's environment. That reality is very different today than when many of us first started practicing law. I wish every lawyer starting a law practice could read them. In fact, every lawyer in private practice should.

Next week many of us will be at the Oklahoma Bar Association Solo & Small Firm Conference at the Downsteam Resort near Quapaw, Oklahoma.

We have more choice in sessions than in the last several years. One of our guests will be Tom Mighell, longer time blogger and author of the new book iPad in One Hour for Lawyers. He will discuss several technology topics and even share the podium with me for some of them.

Another special guest is Sarah Read, who will be discussing client communications issues. While this will be my first time learning from her, she comes highly reccomended.

But we have a lot of great sessions and social events planned. Check out the CLE programming here and other event details here. it will be a great event.

Since I did a presentation at ABA TECHSHOW 2010 with Erik Mazzone called Supercharge Your Browser: Add-Ons, Extensions and Tweaks, I've been thinking about how many lawyers use Microsoft Internet Explorer as their browser just because it is handy and they always have used it.

But one trend I noticed pretty clearly at ABA TECHSHOW 2011 is the number of people who are very smart about technology who use Google Chrome as their primary browser. Yes, it wasn't that long ago that the "Alternative to IE" crowd was all about Firefox. But now they seem to be moving quickly to Chrome. Lifehacker noted this trend last year in How and Why Chrome Is Overtaking Firefox Among Power Users. This would be a good starting place for anyone wondering why anyone would even care to change their browser.

The reason is that it is all about the plugins—browser plug-ins that is.  

Erik Mazzone gave us his favorites for Chrome in SmallLaw: Browser Bliss: My 14 Favorite Chrome Apps and Extensions at the Technolawyer blog.

Last week HuffPost Tech weighed in with Google Chrome Extensions: The 11 Best Add-Ons For The Busiest Browser.

David Whelan recently published a nice chart of research browser plug-ins for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. There are more for IE than you might imagine.

If you are interested in trying out Chrome, it is a free download. So there's little risk in becoming familiar with what many now say is the best of the browsers.