As courts move more toward e-filing and greater use of digital documents, lawyers will want to be able to use electronic exhibit stamps instead of more cumbersome methods. Rick Borstein of Adobe Systems Incoporated has created some nice exhibits stamps for you to download and use in Adobe Acrobat. They are really easy to use. Earlier this year he provided the simple exhibit stamps here and just a couple of weeks ago he provided these fancy two-line exhibit stamps here for those states that require a case style on the exhibit stamp (or lawyers who just think that looks better.) There are detailed explanations at the links above.003_exhibit_stamp_000

Once you download and install both sets of stamps from the links in the posts noted above, then you just use the stamp feature of Adobe to place them on a document and you are prompted for the exhibit number (and case style on the two line version.)

If you've never done this type of download before, the download actually opens in a browser window with the instructions on where to save it and you use "File – Save as" to save it in the right place on your system. If you cannot see said "right place," you may have to go to Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) to make all folder settings visible, including those that Microsoft says by default most mere mortals should not see.

Thanks, Rick Borstein, for this free tool. And, let me note again that the law firm that wants to better use Adobe Acrobat in the office should make use of Rick's free Adobe Acrobat training videos focused on law office operations.

When Law Technology News decided to let Bob Ambrogi go on vacation, they let me guest author his Web Watch column, which is a bit intimidating since Bob is knowledgeable and well respected in his field. I decided to take a new look at an old topic: Internet search. The result is Sea of Possibilities, where i came to the perhaps not-so-startling conclusion that even basic Internet searching has evolved quite a bit the last year or so.

The ABA Journal has a story about Brooklyn Law School professor Anita Bernstein's Cornell Law Review article discussing the various potential pitfalls of law practice that she argues should be presented to law students. It is a great topic and I commend the professor for making sure it was widely available online. Lawyers know that the media depictions of a lawyer's life can give aspiring lawyers an unrealistic view of the day-to-day work in our profession.

Law reviews have an important place in our profession. I was very proud to have been named to the Oklahoma Law Review many years ago. However, as someone who doesn't regularly read law review articles anymore, I was struck by the dense academic prose which made it hard for me to read an article on a topic that was of interest to me. I suppose that the language of academia still has its place, but I remain a supporter of the plain English writing style. The target audience for this article is obviously other law professors. I am reminded that lawyers should consider their target audience when they write and correspondence to clients shouldn't read like law review articles.

2009-ABA-TECHSHOW-Road-Show

On September 24, 2009, the Oklahoma Bar Association is providing a Technology Fair for its members, featuring the ABA TECHSHOW Road Show. We are very excited to have a host of experts who will be joining me speaking to our members, including Debbie Foster (chair of ABA TECHSHOW 2010), Tom Mighell and Adriana Linares.

We have a great lineup of educational presentations and vendor presentations. We are also going to help our members build profiles on our social networking service, Oklahoma Bar Circle, even taking a picture for then to post on their profile.

We plan on having a great day. Thanks to our speakers for participating. This is a great time to remind everyone to mark the date for ABA TECHSHOW 2010 on their calendar. It will be be March 25-27, 2010 at the Chicago Hilton.

When you are an Oklahoma law blogger, you are almost obligated to blog about it when something silly happens in the Texas legal system.

According to this story in the Austin Statesman, when it was time for the ceremony to break ground for the new $100 million dollar federal courthouse in Austin, one of the ground breakers apparently wasn't on the official invitation list. But 31-year-old George Lobb showed up and managed to break ground along with all of the federal judges, Congressmen and other officials. He even posed with all of the invited dignitaries for the official photo and reportedly left with an official gold shovel. (Officers are said to have retrieved that.)

This reminds me when, in the pre 9/11 days, I realized as a young lawyer that a nice suit, a briefcase or armload of files, a confident air and a brisk pace could get you about anywhere in any government building. Hopefully everyone will ultimately see the humor in this and Mr. Lobb will have a great story to tell in the courthouse snackbar for years to come.

As a former family law attorney myself, I really liked this collection of Ten Best Websites for Family Court Attorneys from Ben Stevens on his South Carolina Family Law Blog. Several of these, particularly the first one, will be useful to lawyers who never practice family law. Who knew there was a site to help you figure out how to meet halfway for visitation and other exchanges?

"Get Your Hand Out of My Pocket" is the title of a great  blog post on law firm financial controls by the Alabama Bar's Laura Calloway. As many of you know, Laura was the Chair of ABA TECHSHOW 2009. Too many small law firm lawyers feel that they know and trust each other so well that they do not need strict financial controls. As a former U.S. President once said, "Trust, but verify."

The new issue of Law Practice Today has a Paperless Law Practice theme. It qualifies as a "must read."  Over the years I have watched as this concept evolved from futuristic to mainstream.  Now I am to the point where I believe that the paperless (or as I prefer "digital") law practice is to the point were it is necessary and not optional. To that end, my contribution to this issue is "The Paperless Office as a Risk Management Enterprise," which was also published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal this month.

On a personal note, I've been involved for the last year in an effort to revitalize Law Practice Today under the able leadership of Wendy L. Werner. Wendy has worked tirelessly as the unpaid volunteer Editor in Chief of Law Practice Today. She has done a great job. I know from my bar association work that most lawyers do not know of or appreciate the thousands of hours that volunteers put in to improve and sustain our legal profession. If you've noticed the improvement of Law Practice Today over the last year, feel free to drop Wendy a note of thanks. The new leaderhip of the ABA Law Practice Management Section has decided to replace most of the LPT board, including Wendy. I think the new volunteers will find that they have the proverbial tough act to follow.