"I cannot open that document you sent me." We used to hear that a lot on the early days of law office computing as several word processors competed for market share. Well, we are starting to hear it a lot more this year.

As many of you know the primary programs in Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) now have a new and improved file format, which is XML compliant. This can be noticed from the different file name extension; .docx instead of .doc and .pptx instead of .ppt. It can also be noticed when you try to open one of these "new" documents with the older version of the same software and they will not open. Luckily the "fix" for this is pretty simple, just go and download the Microsoft Compatability Pack to allow your Office 2003 version to read Office 2007 files.

When I got Office 2007 at the first of the year, I would try to remember to use "Save as" to save in the old format when I was sending something out by e-mail to make sure I didn’t hear back with the "couldn’t open" problem. That is surprisingly hard to rememebr. After about the third "can’t open" message back, I gave up and set my default to save as the older format. I figured a year from now everyone will have either upgraded or installed the patch. Then I’ll change to the new format and, meanwhile, if I need some power hidden in the new format I can always "save as" for that file.

Well, that worked for me and a few days later I was speaking to the Cleveland County Bar in Norman, Oklahoma, and mentioned that as an idea or tips of sorts.

Afterwards I was approached by Hank Ryan, a Norman lawyer and legal technology consultant. Hank smiled and made the comment that I had told them wrong about e-mail the Word files. "Oh?" I said and, since Hank is a high level tech guy, I assumed he was going to inform me about the numerous benefits of the XML file format.

"You’re supposed to tell them not to e-mail Word files out at all, not teach them how!" he said. Hank and I shared a chuckle over that one, of course. He’s correct. Due to metadata concerns, most lawyers would be much better served by sending files out in PDF format rather than Word. I’d been sending documents that were being jointly drafted to a co-author and had no choice.

But remember Hank’s advice, not mine. Avoid e-mailing Word documents out when PDF will do. And have a metadata scrubber to use first when you have to e-mail out Word documents.

But if you are going to stick with the 2003 version of MS Office for a while, go ahead and download the Compatability pack and install it–because other people will be sending you Word documents.

Attorney Brad Smith, of the Barkley Law Firm of Tulsa, asked me to let all of you know about his new site LegalWikiPro. He would love for this to become a comprehensive substantive law wiki for lawyers. Since he is just getting started, he has focused on developing a category of Oklahoma law at first. He has put a fair amount of time into this. Check out the entry for Death in Oklahoma.

Here’s an opportunity for someone to take their state or their favorite subject matter and develop a part of an Internet site with your wisdom and experience. If a lot of people join in, this could become an important resource.

Copying text from one document to another without also capturing unwanted formatting is something most of us do daily. As a veteran presenter of many "50 Tips" or "60 Tips" programs, I have often discussed with my colleagues that using Edit-Paste Special-Unformatted text to paste into a document has been sort of the "Ultimate Tip" for lawyers. No matter how many times we publicized this technique, there were always two or three people who lighted up in the back of the room when they heard this tip. It was not uncommon to get an e-mail after a seminar that said "Thank you. Learning about paste special was worth the entire price of the seminar."

Well I got that same feeling today when I read a Lifehacker post about removing the formatting in Word documents. The problem with using Paste Special is that it involves clicking on several pull down menus with the mouse, which slows things down. Even if you put a "Paste Special" button on your toolbar, you still have to click on it and then click "unformatted text." You can also use the right click.

But, try this one today. When you have copied some text to your clipboard and want to paste it without formatting into a blank document, use these three keystroke combinations in quick succession: Ctrl + V, Ctrl + A and Ctrl + Spacebar. All done before you can reach for a mouse!

Ctrl + V inserts the copied text (as you all know.) Ctrl + A highlights all text on a page. Ctrl + Spacebar removes all formatting from selected text. Zoom, zoom, zoom.

Now if you are pasting into a document with formatting you don’t want to destroy, you cannot use Ctrl + A and have to select the text to be "unformatted" another way. But there’s a keyboard shortcut to do this too. Paste the text. Then, while holding down the Shift and Ctrl keys, (conveniently located next to each other) use the Up arrow key to select the text you have just pasted in paragraph by paragraph. So if you just pasted in three paragraphs, you will hit it three times. Then hit Ctrl + Spacebar.

Try this a few times. It is easier to do than to explain. Finally, if you want to know more go to the Lifehacker post. Read the comments. One person says holding down the Alt Key and pressing E, S, U and Enter is even quicker. Another has posted a macro to do this in one keystroke. These tips truly are "the next generation" of Paste Special. We probably all need to create the macro and assign it to a key combination. But for today, I’m just happy to do this more quickly than I did it yesterday.

Note: I follow Lifehacker, but will note that I got this today because Technolawyer dropped it into my inbox with its free Thursday Answers to Questions e-mail. 

Those fine folks at the Washoe County Bar (Reno, NV) are cutting edge kind of people. (They have hosted a link to this blog on their website for a long time, certainly a positive "cutting edge" thing in my books!) But they have recently unveiled a great website entitled Nowthatyouare18.org, which is a survival guide for teens and young adults. This is a great service. Let’s face it. There’s no complete guidebook for the many ways the world changes on one’s 18th birthday.

Many bar associations have done something like this. The Oklahoma Bar Association has the online publication: You’re 18 Now — It’s Your Responsibility!

The Washoe County Bar earns kudos for creating a great domain name and creating a catchy modern design for their page. But now their challenge is the same as in Oklahoma or in the home state of everyone reading this. How do we get a teen to read this? If you are in Reno, NV or Oklahoma, and know (or have) a teen or know a high school teacher, e-mail them the link. If you are elsewhere, see if your state has a similar resource. Our OBA Law-Related Education Department works to get the word out about this resource, but they can always use more help. There’s a new crop of 18 year olds each month. So spend a few minutes and see if you can so something to help inform some of them of their rights–and responsibilities.

I just got my copy of Ben Schorr’s new book, The Lawyer’s Guide to Microsoft® Outlook 2007, and have only spent a few moments with it. I’m excited about this book personally. I trust Ben’s judgment. I was a co-presenter with him on a couple of law practice management panels at the ABA meeting in his home state of Hawaii a couple of years ago. (Yeah, tough duty, I know.) Ben’s a law office technology consultant and IT guy who has a talent for explaining things where everyone can understand them. As much as I hate Vista, I think there are a lot of positive things about Microsoft Office 2007. I really like Outlook 2007. We all use e-mail every day now and there are so many Outlook features that most lawyers ignore like flags, tasks and mail merges. If you upgrade to Outlook 2007, someone in your office needs to read this book.

Since I have not read the book yet, I will defer to Laura Calloway’s detailed review here. But after reading her review, I’m sure you will want to take a look at this publication if you are an Outlook 2007 user. Oklahoma Bar members who are not ABA Law Practice Management section members can contact my assistant, Sharon Dotson, for discounted pricing on this book.

A snappy, short and informative title can really help sell a book. According to that index, I must jokingly note that my friends Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy scored one out of three with The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together. However, what they have scored is a timely and important book released at just the right time. OK, great content can sell a book, too. This book could be quite valuable to knowledge workers outside of the legal profession. It is bargain-priced and you really shouldn’t miss it.

Right now most of you reading this blog post probably make scant use of online collaborative technology. Most of you would never dream of doing something as basic as sharing your desktop with opposing counsel over the Internet to speed review of a document you are negotiating. (And, of course, few of you know how.) Here’s my bold prediction. By the end of next year, many, if not most, of you will be making using of this type of technology and some of the other tools noted in Dennis and Tom’s book. Collaborative project management software is ideal for large legal projects with several team members. For just a taste, read Dennis’ American Bar Association Journal column for June, 2008 SharePoint: A Killer Legal App.

So even if you think opposing counsel will never access any part of your computer absent an order from the U.S. Supreme Court or hiring a team of seasoned hackers, you may want to purchase this book just to see what everyone else may be doing. (And, remember most of collaborative technology is about working with your own team members and clients anyway.)

If you want to read still more about the book, Jordan Furlong concurs with my views.

Flooding is still impacting a good bit of the midsection of the U.S. Last week I spoke (via videoconference) to a group of lawyers from the Linn County Bar Association (Cedar Rapids, IA) about disaster recovery. The seminar was put together rather quickly, but they had no lack of offers of assistance. For those who are curious, here is the final agenda.

The short version of what I told them is that if you have Internet access, there are lots of ways to get up and running quickly from paying $50 per employee for Google Apps to downloading the 30 day free trials of various applications. The challenge is restoring your data and business operations. Several vendors offered help and, depending upon the need, there may be follow-up programs.

But as I looked out over that crowd of displaced lawyers, I thought of something that each of you should ponder today. Within that group, there were probably several who lost their entire computer system. Among those, there were probably some who had a complete off-site data backup, done very recently. There were some who had off-site backups that were several days or weeks old. And, sadly, there were probably some who had little or no data backed up outside of their office.

Which category are you in today?

We are definitely into the 2008 summer reading season now and so I am going to feature some great summer reading materials over the next few weeks–all in the law practice arena.

I can almost hear some of you chuckling now. Reading about law practice ideas in your summer recreation time probably sounds very unappealing. I’d agree for the most part, but for the solo or small firm lawyer or the lawyer who is seriously contemplating a move in that direction, I will suggest one book that you might consider dropping in the beach bag (next to the trashy novel or thriller, of course!) The book is Solo by Choice by Carolyn Elefant and it may contain more great advice, inspiration and common sense per page than any other book a small firm lawyer can locate. At three hundred pages, you will find that you actually can read it from beginning to end. The $45 price is affordable to even the most cash-strapped beginning lawyer.

In fact, I have to confess that I’ve been negligent in not mentioning this book, which came out near the first of the year, before now. Many of you should know Carolyn Elefant from her ground-breaking blog, My Shingle, with its numerous resources for small firm lawyers. If you have looked at Carolyn’s blog output, you know that she could easily pen a 300, 500 or 1000 page book entirely on her own. But Carolyn made the decision to include many other voices and opinions in the book, from familiar experts to practicing lawyers from across the country. This makes Solo by Choice a very rich and easy-to-read information source indeed.

I could say more. But in the months that this book has been available, it has received detailed reviews from Inspired Solo Sheryl Sisk Schelin,  Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice and, quite recently, from Al Nye the Lawyer Guy. The reviews are all raves. If you are considering a jump to solo practice, buy this book. If you are a solo or small firm lawyer and could use ideas, inspiration or affirmation, buy this book. If you are very thrifty, then buy this book from Amazon instead of the official site linked above. Just buy it. Congratulations, Carolyn. We appreciate the hard work that led to Solo by Choice.

At our 2008 OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference, Judge Gary Dean of Prior, OK (who was chair of the 1st OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference before rising to the bench) stumped our panel of experts with this inquiry: " I am seeking a reasonably simple (and inexpensive) device to be able to download and print cell phone messages and call logs. Hopefully something simple enough for a law enforcement officer with reasonable computer skills to use. In domestic violence and protective order cases which I handle, I am seeing an ever increasing volume of threats and harassment by cell text messages. In domestic protective order cases the messages have been kept and are frequently shown to me. The problem is preservation for possible later court use."

As a veteran of many Q & A panels as a so-called expert, I’ve had to do this drill a couple of times. You have no idea whatsoever and you look hopefully at your co-panelists, only to see them looking hopefully back at you. Then the lawyer training for candor kicks in (especially since a judge asked) and you hear "I have no clue" escaping from your lips. The good judge is undeterred, however, and wonders if we can find out.

The problem with using Internet research for such a query is that many products promise but do not deliver and, generally speaking, the terms "inexpensive" and "electronic evidence preservation" don’t even go on the same piece of paper, much less in the same sentence.

So I decided to look for the answer, frankly expecting that the answer would be "Sure, the ACME Phone Slurper 4000 will do a great job on this for only $11,995 and six month’s training to certify the operator."

I queried my friend John Simek, figuring he could give me a list of devices costing five figures that would get the judge off my back. John, as many readers know, is the vice-president of Sensei Enterprises, Inc., a computer forensics firm. He has a list of credentials a mile long.

With his permission, I am passing along his response to my readers.

"There is really only one ‘sure fire’ way to document text messages, call logs, etc. from ALL cell phones," John says. "That way is to take pictures of the actual screen of the phone while the user accesses the various functions. We use a device called Project-a-Phone that is available from Paraben. It only costs $295, which is a bargain for documenting cell phone contents. We also have several multi-thousand dollar software/hardware combinations to get the cell phone data. However, no single solution gets all of the data from EVERY cell phone."

"To compound the problem, we have several hardware kits that contain hundreds of data cables to connect to the cell phone. Sometimes a particular model phone is not supported by one vendor so we have to try another one of our kits to see if we have the data cable and ability to extract information. The beauty of the Project-a-Phone is that you don’t need any data cables, which means it works with every phone. You are just taking a picture of the screen. This means that you are only capturing (documenting) the logical data and cannot retrieve any deleted information that may exist. As with anybody taking crime scene photos, there needs to be a chain of custody and, perhaps, a statement from the examiner that they are the ones who retrieved the data on a particular date while observing cell phone model XXX and serial number YYY-ZZZ. I think you get the picture! (bad pun)."

That was all probably elementary to a computer forensics professional, but I found it fascinating! I hope you found it interesting.