Dan Hull, on his What About Clients?™ blog, featured a Rod Stewart video with his post Hot Legs: Great–and Enduring–Customer Service Sites. I am honored that he included my blog in a fairly long list of blogs that "feature useful models, ideas, best practices and tips on effective customer service" in Dan's words. Check out these blogs, which include many of my "must read" blogs.

This morning a number of new Oklahoma lawyers are being sworn in as new lawyers. Some of them have jobs, but too many still do not. On the next two Tuesdays, some of them attend a program called Opening Your Law Practice, which is provided as a free service from the Oklahoma Bar Association. One of the messages that they will hear from me is about providing great client service. Most lawyers do their jobs well. One of the distinguishing factors between lawyers is superior client service. Whether your clients will refer others to you, "dis" you or just forget about you after their matter is over depends more on their perception of how they were treated than on any other factor. Doing great legal work in the mimimum requirement. But for you to succeed with your future plans and goals, all of your clients should receive courteous, timely service. They should clearly understand what is happening with their matter as free of legal jargon as possible. They should be regularly informed of the status of their matter. And they should know that you care about them and their matter.

I read a couple of great articles on Law Technology News online today. One was titled Once and Again Solo. In it, Marc Dobin, a lawyer from Jupiter, Florida told his story of setting up a solo practice once and then doing it again a few years later with a focus on good, low cost technology. From reserving a domain name to website hosting to e-postage to paperless practice, he outlines what choices he made and why he made them. Everyone may not make the same choices, but is a great outline.

The other article was Personal Injury Practice Bonds With Technology, also from LTN. It discussed how litigation firms are making use of document management software, including one case involved 10 million documents. It is hard to see how anyone could manage that amount of documents without document management software.

I have no financial interest in the publication, but I note that U.S. lawyers can subscribe to the print edition of Law Technology News at no cost by completing a brief survey.

Since Twitter was hacked today, it seems like a good time to post my September 2010 Oklahoma Bar Journal article "Is the World Wide Web Too Much Like the Wild Wild West?" Download Calloway Wild Wild Web in PDF format.

The article begins: "The World Wide Web sometimes seems more like the Wild Wild West these days. The digital equivalents of robbers and gunslingers seem to be hiding around every corner." I identify many of the risks and point to some solutions.

I didn't go into password security in this particular piece, but your attention is directed to this article on Lifehacker: How I'd Hack Your Weak Passwords. Some will no doubt be surprised to see their passwords in the author's top ten list.

"The ins and outs of metadata mining" is an article published this week in the Canadian edition of Lawyers Weekly.  I was quoted in the article, along with Canadian legal technology experts like Dominic Jaar and Dan Pinnington.

September's Digital Edge: Lawyers and Technology podcast was titled Metadata – What You Can't See Can Hurt You. My podcast teammate, Sharon Nelson, and I discussed metadata. Sharon, as a principal of a computer forensics firm, has practical insights on this topic. I discussed the ethical issues of metadata mining. We hope you find this podcast enjoyable and informative.

Last month I did an Oklahoma Bar CLE webinar on Legal Ethics and Metadata. The archived version of this can be purchased and viewed for MCLE ethics credit, depending on your jurisdiction's MCLE rules, of course.

The Lawyer's Weekly article notes some metadata mining techniques and contains a lot of useful information. Some lawyers remain uniformed about the significance of metadata, but with online resources like the three listed about, there's really no reason for that.

I have just had the Samson Go Mic USB Microphone for a couple of weeks, but I like it a lot. It works for speech recognition as well as recording my podcast. It is inexpensive and compact. But before I got around to reviewing it, Diane L. Ebersole, PMRC Advisor for the State Bar of Michigan, reviewed it for the PMA Tip of the Week. If you would like to see the rest of the PMA Tips of the Week or subscribe to the feed for future tips, go here. So on to Diane's review:

The Samson Go Mic Compact USB Microphone is a Plug n’ Play microphone that takes
dictation using Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking, Vista Voice or Windows Speech
Recognition in Windows 7 to a whole new level.  This tidy little microphone can
be clipped to the top of your laptop screen, set on your desk or held in your
hand.  For my testing purposes I clipped it to my laptop screen which was about
28 inches from my face. The plug n’ play installation was faultless on both a
Windows 7 and XP machines.  I created a new user in Dragon, did the set up
reading and began to dictate.  Amazingly, with this setup, I achieved greater
accuracy that ever before, even when using a high quality headset (which I
despise wearing.)  Having originally bought the mike for another family member,
today I ordered a second one.  If you have struggled with Dragon, a high quality
microphone might be the solution.  This microphone in combination with MacSpeak
from Nuance will also work for those using a Mac.  The Go Mic comes with a hard
shell carrying case and a combination clip/stand.  The clip will not go over the
top of a regular flat screen monitor but some sticky backed Velcro could solve
that problem. Buying the Samson Go Mic from Amazon will cost you around $50
depending on your shipping options.

Unbundling legal services is a term we lawyers have attached to the idea of assisting consumers by providing, by agreement, less than the typical traditional "turn key" legal service. This might involve drafting documents for a pro se litigant to take to court themselves or giving a client a training session on how to represent themselves effectively in small claims court.

In my view, for a variety of reasons, there will be more of this type of service provided by lawyers in the future. One obvious reason is that this method can be much more afforable than the lawyer going to the courthouse, as in the above examples. Some aspects of this practice have been controversial, with opponents complaining it is unfair for a litigant to appear to be "on their own" when they have had assistance. But there are a lot of reasons why this practice will grow and not all of the reasons are economic, but that is for another blog post. To me then the question is will these services be provided by lawyers with competence, training and ethical standards or by anonymous websites or shady characters operating in gray areas with no accountability, rules or regulations? (I do recognize California and some other jurisdictions have somewhat different systems.)

Today your attention is directed to Unbundling in the 21st Century: How to Reduce Malpractice Exposure While Meeting Client Needs in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin, authored by the extremely competent Beverly Michaelis. This is an emerging issue and a good read. 

Often soon after you make an electronics purchase, you see a new tool that is cheaper, better or just more shiny. So just a few days after I blogged about my new Sprint Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile HotSpot, when New York Times Personal Tech columnist David Pogue wrote about the Virgin Mobile Novatel MiFi, I was a bit worried that I might be disappointed. I have to say that for many readers the Virgin Mobile MiFi will be a Virginmifi preferred product. It is cheaper at $40 per month and, amazingly, you can pay for a month, then skip a month as needed. So check out Pogue's review and the follow-up comments. Oh, and I forget to mention in my last post that the Droid X will also create a wireless cloud that other devices can use. I guess we may all be our own wireless clouds some day soon. Generating a wireless cloud is nice for your friends and colleagues and also lets one have the WiFi iPad instead of the 3G. Besides, if Sprint gets on the ball with 4G in Oklahoma City, I can have that advantage for a while.

Recently I was in a hotel room checking something online with my laptop when my teenaged son noted the unfairness of the situation. We had two laptops (one PC and one Mac) plus an iTouch and iPad in the room. (Yes, I know that sounds like Geek Family Vacation!) But because the hotel charged for in-room Internet access, I was the only one with Internet access via my Sprint mobile broadband card. "Yes, son life is unfair, and, no, you cannot use Dad's business computer to surf the web."Sprint Overdrive

Soon after I went to a meeting with some of the members of the American Bar Association Law Practice Management Section. The meeting room had no Internet access, but I did with my Sprint card. Then Tom Mighell pulled out his MyFi device and began granting Internet access to others in the room. The MyFi generates a small wireless cloud so up to five people can use the device for online access. I'd been lusting after this device ever since David Pogue's original mention of the device last year. Fresh from hotel room discussions with my son about what a cheapskate I was, I mentioned to Tom that I just might have to switch providers and get a MyFi. Tom said that Sprint had a similar device now.

So, of course, when I returned home I contacted my local Sprint store. The gentleman there informed me of the Sprint Overdrive 3G/4G Mobile HotSpot. Sprint doesn't have 4G in Oklahoma City yet, but still I could upgrade from the card that plugged into my USB port for Internet access to generating my own personal wireless cloud for up to five users. Since the iPad doesn't have a USB port, it is WiFi only. 

There are lots of business uses for this. Lawyers could use this to set up Internet access for a litigation "war room" on the road and, assuming it is not a problem with the judge, you could have Internet access for your team in the courtroom. Not all WiFi clouds are created equal. With mine, I am confident of security.

The prices online varied around the mid-$300 to mid-$400 range. I steeled myself as the Sprint rep looked up my account information. If I would sign a new two year contract with Sprint, the price (on my business account) would be—-free! For other accounts, it would have been a bit more expensive, but affordable. So now I'm a cheapskate with a portable WiFi cloud! The monthly charges are the same and I am waiting for 4G service to come here.

There are some trade-offs. The device gets a bit warm for carrying around in your pocket in the summer and when you charge the battery, it yields several hours of life rather than days. But since it generates a cloud, you can plug it into a wall outlet across the room to charge as you use it, or into your computer's USB port.

The Website of the Week this week is Unsuckit.com. The site's function is "What terrible business jargon do you need unsucked?" But it may work for legal jargon, too. Some examples:

Low-Hanging Fruit e.g.  Our budget’s tight on this one, so we need to go for the low-hanging fruit first. Unsucked: Easy goal.

White Paper, Whitepaper e.g. We need to publish a white paper describing our latest technology. Unsucked: Report or guide.

Hat tip to Matt Homann for the link.

Editorial Note: I haven't done a Website of the Week in a while. I started out featuring a website every week and soon redefined that to doing a Website of the Week when I found a good one. Then at the end of 2009, I stopped entirely. I'm certainly not going back to weekly, but I'll try to do more as new or interesting ones come to my attention.

Words rarely fail me, but I cannot say enough good things about the July/August 2010 ABA GPSolo Magazine with a theme of "How To." Every lawyer should look over this edition of the magazine and all of the articles are online right here. Even though the publication is targeted at small firm lawyers, there is a lot for lawyers in many practice settings.

Among the many articles are How to Evaluate a Case in 15 Minutes, How to Decide Whether to Give Free Consultations, How to Kill the Billable Hour in Ten Easy Steps, How to Handle Foreclosures, How to Talk to the Media, How to Succeed with Staff and How to Cope When Opposing Counsel is a Jerk. There are many others.

Check out this great theme issue of GPSolo.