Well, I am off to the American Bar Association Midyear meeting in Boston. The ABA Midyear meeting is much smaller (and more committee and board work oriented) than the ABA Annual Meeting. I have a couple of days on my calendar with almost the entire day scheduled starting with breakfast meetings at 8 a.m. and ending at 10 p.m. or so. There will be some hard work and some fun, including the evening Nerino Petro and I have three receptions to hit in just over four hours.

But the most exciting event is when I am scheduled to speak at the first ABA TECHSHOW Roadshow for the Massachusetts Bar Association. It features a very good selection of popular TECHSHOW programs, although not all will be given by the original presenters. Check out the schedule of programs here. This should be an informative program and maybe it will encourage some of the attendees to register for the full ABA TECHSHOW 2009, April 2 -4 in Chicago before prices go up with the expiration of the Feb 28th Early Bird Deadline.  (Oklahoma Bar members can e-mail or call my office or check OBA-NET for our Event Promoters Discount Code to save some more money when registering.)

This will be a great chance to hear some of the top legal technologists in the country at a very reasonable price. Hmmm…… in fact it is such a good idea that I should bring the concept to Oklahoma. Yeah. maybe in September…….

The practice of law is stressful. Lighten up a bit from time to time by visiting the Courtoons site from David Mills. He features a daily legal cartoon. There are some wickedly funny Courtoons there. Today someone forwarded me a recent one on How lawyers use technology to make life easier. It reminded me of some people I know. Also, be sure and check out the Normal person's revised Blue Book. Keep up the good work, David!

Ron Baker is a true expert on the billing methods and profitability of professional services firms. He's written numerous books on alternative billing and is a speaker in high demand. Every single lawyer in private practice should read his recent essay on Recession-proofing Your Firm. Stories of law firm layoffs are in the legal press every day now. But coping with a recession is more than cutting costs or cutting staff. Read Ron's suggestions for positive proactive change. You don't have to attend a conference or pay Ron a consulting fee for these ideas. Just click on the link and read.

This post was prompted by reading today of a controversy between the Florida Bar and some of its members over selling the member's e-mail addresses. (I don't have a comment on that specific situation.) I've now worked for the OOklahoma Bar Association for over 11 years. Even though we have paid staff, a lot of our efforts depend on lawyers volunteering to serve on committees and do other types of volunteer work. These lawyers receive a lot in return, they tell me. They meet many different lawyers and develop friendships. But they also receive tangible business benefits, such as referrals from other lawyers they have encountered in their bar work. More than a few are now practicing in firms with other lawyers they originally met through volunteer bar work.

There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing a project you have shepherded come to reality, whether it helps other lawyers or helps other in our community. Some bar associations report difficulty with getting "brand new" lawyers to participate. All of us seem to have more to do than the time permits and I am sure that they feel the same way. But I would encourage new lawyers to get involved with the Young Lawyers Division and their state and local bar associations. You may make contacts and friendships there that will last a lifetime! You also have the chance to impact decisions that your bar association makes.

Over the last several years we have announced several member benefits from the Oklahoma Bar Association that are law practice management oriented. These include a subscription to the Factcase legal research service that is free to members as a part of their bar dues, discounts on Corevault online backup service for data protection and the OBA Law Firm Merchant Account to provide a system for lawyers to process credit card payments to the office and trust accounts. Just think what great things your bar association might do over the next few years with your input and time.

I've been meaning to note the JAllenLawTek blog since it debuted last year. I've known Jeff Allen for quite a few years now and have been a co-panelist with him on several occasions. He stays up to speed on most aspects of law office, including mobile phones and other types of gadgets. He is also a long-time user of Apple computers and a "go to" source for information in that area. Jeff has kept up a steady stream of posts, so I think you will enjoy JAllenLawTek, my Website of the Week.

When You Go To Heaven, Will Your Practice Go to Hell? is an eye-catching title for a nice article on a very serious topic. It was written by Courtney Kennaday, PMA for the South Carolina Bar, and Reid Trautz, PMA for the Association of Immigration Lawyers of America. Sever other blogs have already noted this great new article on Law Practice Today.  Great work, Reid and Courtney. (In case you still don't know what a PMA is, go here.)

If I am doing a CLE program, I'll generally try to submit written materials and not just print the PowerPoint slides for my materials. (There are exceptions.) But if I have submitted written materials in advance that are not the same as my PowerPoint slides, I would often be interrupted at the beginning of the presentation with "I don't have the slides here in the materials! Where can I get slides? Will you send me the slides?"

So here's the solution. The day before the program (or the hour before if I'm being bad,) I print the PowerPoint slides to a PDF file; 2 or 3 slides per page depending on the images used. Then I use YouSendIt to "send" that file to my assistant or another of my e-mail accounts. I then copy the URL on the YouSendit download page and run it through Tinyurl.com to make it smaller. Then I go back to my original PowerPoint and paste that tiny URL into the second page of the presentation in a very big font. It takes less than five minutes and now the second page of thePowerPointsays "Don't get writer's cramp. Download a PDF of this PowerPoint at http:TinyUrlWhatever." (Remember a big font on the URL.) 

Without becoming a paying subscriber, YouSendIt only allows 100 downloads, so if it is a really big audience, a simple workaround is do the above twice and have two links on the slide, with one link for last names  A – L and one for M – Z. But realistically only 10% will ever download it anyway. Of course I also have to warn them that the link will only be active for 30 days, but I actually think there are more downloads of the file when there is a deadline. Most importantly, when I finish the presentation, I don't have an assignment afterwards to e-mail something to an attendee.

I participated in the podcast panel discussion "It's the Economy, Stupid" with a stellar group of co-presenters including Mark Powers (President of Atticus), Mark Chinn, William C. Cobb, Professor Kamran Dadkhah and Thomas J. Ahrens. Typically the Atticus coaching firm makes these podcasts available to its graduates. But, given the problems in the economy that we all see, Atticus has made this one is availlable to all. Listen to this podcast for free at this link. You can read the biographies of the panelists there as well. The discussion is about an hour in length. Thanks to Atticus for sharing their information with us all.

Sometiomes I try to do some end-of-the-year law office technology roundups. But lately I've been more focused on issues relating to practicing law in a "tough" economy. So, while it is not law-related, here's quite a collection from LifeHacker in its Best of 2008 feature. Among the offerings are Most Popular Free Downloads for Mac, Windows and Linux, Most Popular How-To Features,  Most Popular Do-It-Yourself Projects of 2008 (and All Time),  Most Underhyped Apps of 2008, Best New and Improved Software of 2008 and others. Go geek out!