how to start up or start over … in the cloud and on the ground

Authored By Barron K. Henley, Esq. [email protected] Presented By Paul J. Unger, Esq. [email protected] Affinity Consulting Group 1550 Old Henderson Rd., Suite S150 Columbus, OH 43220 614.340.3444 - phone www.affinityconsulting.com ©2019 Affinity Consulting Group LLC

How to Start Up or Start Over … in the Cloud and on the Ground

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Table of Contents Page 1

Start Up or Start Over

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Prologue .................................................................................................................................. 1

II. Common Problems Experienced By New Lawyers .................................................................... 1

A. No Training .......................................................................................................................... 1

B. Missing Technology You Need ............................................................................................ 1 1. Your Firm Is Unaware of What Is Out there .......................................................... 1 2. Working With "Technologically Challenged" Lawyers ........................................... 1

C. Stuck With Inadequate Technology .................................................................................... 2 1. Accounting Examples ............................................................................................. 2

a. Word Processor ≠ Billing System .............................................................. 2 b. Using Manual Systems .............................................................................. 2 c. Mixing Electronic and Manual .................................................................. 2 d. Using Multiple Programs for the Accounting Function ............................ 2 e. Failure to Use Accounting System for Functions Other Than Billing ........ 2

2. Calendaring and Docketing Examples .................................................................... 3 a. Sole Reliance Upon Paper Calendars ........................................................ 3 b. Maintaining Paper and Electronic Calendars ............................................ 3 c. Reliance Upon Outlook ............................................................................. 3

3. Drowning In Paper ................................................................................................. 3 4. No Electronic Document Management Tools ........................................................ 4 5. Using Old, Unsupported Software ......................................................................... 4

D. Operating With Clearly Inefficient Processes ..................................................................... 4

E. No Templates or Forms Library .......................................................................................... 4

F. Electronic Files Are a Mess ................................................................................................. 4

G. General Disorganization and Task Management Struggles ................................................ 4

H. Procedures Not Written Down Anywhere .......................................................................... 5

I. Word Processor Frustration ................................................................................................ 5

J. Tracking Time Is A Nightmare ............................................................................................. 5

III. Broader List of Common Law Firm Issues ................................................................................. 5

IV. Technologies and Services You Should Be Aware Of ................................................................. 5

A. Document and Email Management Software .................................................................... 5

B. Document Assembly or Automation Software ................................................................... 6 1. Document Assembly Defined ................................................................................ 6 2. How It Works - Big Picture ..................................................................................... 7 3. Document Assembly Players .................................................................................. 8


C. Legal-Specific Accounting Software .................................................................................... 8

D. Case or Matter Management Systems ("MMS") ................................................................ 8

E. Scanners and Paper Reduction Technology ........................................................................ 8

F. PDF Creation and Manipulation Software .......................................................................... 8

G. Trial Presentation Software ................................................................................................ 8

H. Cloud Technology................................................................................................................ 8 1. SaaS or Software As A Service ............................................................................... 8 2. IaaS or Infrastructure as a Service ......................................................................... 9 3. Client Portal ........................................................................................................... 9

V. Law Firm Hierarchy of Needs ................................................................................................. 10

A. Hardware .......................................................................................................................... 10

B. Accounting ........................................................................................................................ 10

C. Document And Email Management .................................................................................. 10

D. Word Processor/Drafting Efficiency and Document Automation .................................... 10

E. Matter/Case Management ............................................................................................... 10

F. Trial Preparation and Presentation ................................................................................... 10

G. Practice Area Specific Automation Software .................................................................... 10

VI. Recommendations For New Lawyers Regarding Practice Management .................................. 10

A. Master The Core Production Tools ................................................................................... 10

B. Make Time Tracking A Habit ............................................................................................. 11

C. Intentionally Collect and Organize Forms ......................................................................... 11

D. Deal With As Little Paper As Possible ............................................................................... 11

E. Be a Sponge ...................................................................................................................... 11

F. Save Client Compliments .................................................................................................. 12

G. If You Can’t Multitask, Then Stop Trying .......................................................................... 12

H. Be Extra Nice To Administrative People You Deal With ................................................... 12

I. Develop a Task Management System That Works for You ............................................... 12

J. Schedule Time On Your Calendar For Tasks ..................................................................... 12

VII. Strategies for Learning Unfamiliar Technology ....................................................................... 12

A. Generational Differences .................................................................................................. 12 1. Baby Boomers ...................................................................................................... 12 2. Generation X ........................................................................................................ 12 3. Millennials & Generation Y .................................................................................. 12

B. Defining the Legal Tech Generational Divide .................................................................... 13


C. Using Technology Doesn't Teach You All You Need To Know About It ............................ 13

D. If You Want To Learn Something, Real a Manual or Take A Class .................................... 13 1. So Where Are The Manuals? ............................................................................... 13

a. Manufacturer Web Sites ......................................................................... 13 b. Explanatory Web Sites ............................................................................ 13 c. Third Party Manuals ................................................................................ 13

2. Take A Class ......................................................................................................... 14

E. Action Plans for Getting Comfortable With Unfamiliar Technology ................................ 14 1. If You're Not Tech Savvy, Stop Accepting Your Own Tech Ignorance .................. 14 2. Baby Steps ............................................................................................................ 14 3. Read The Manual! ................................................................................................ 15 4. Be a User .............................................................................................................. 15 5. Get Training ......................................................................................................... 15

VIII. How To Accumulate Substantive Know-How.......................................................................... 15

A. Seek It Out......................................................................................................................... 15

B. Find a Mentor ................................................................................................................... 16

C. Find a Good CLE ................................................................................................................ 16

D. Capture What You Learn ................................................................................................... 16

IX. Process Mapping ................................................................................................................... 17

A. Never Accept "that's the way we've always done it” ....................................................... 17

B. Read and Apply The Checklist Manifesto ......................................................................... 17

C. Start Documenting Processes ........................................................................................... 18 1. What You Can Use to Document ......................................................................... 18 2. Example - Open a Probate Estate ........................................................................ 18

a. Client Contacts Us ................................................................................... 18 b. Creation of Paper and Electronic File ..................................................... 18 c. Initial Client Communication .................................................................. 18 d. Prepare Engagement Agreement ........................................................... 18 e. Initial Meeting with Fiduciary ................................................................. 18 f. Probate Forms Completed ...................................................................... 19 g. Open The Estate At Probate Court ......................................................... 19 h. Return Pleadings to Client ...................................................................... 19

3. What Could Be Improved About The Foregoing Process? ................................... 19 4. Benefits of Written Processes .............................................................................. 20

X. Where Did The Time Go? ....................................................................................................... 20

A. Importance of Efficient Time Tracking .............................................................................. 20

B. Time Tracking Applications ............................................................................................... 20 1. Chrometa ............................................................................................................. 20 2. Smart Time ........................................................................................................... 20 3. iTimeKeep ............................................................................................................ 21


C. Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Phone Systems ........................................................ 21

XI. Task Management ................................................................................................................. 21

A. Definitions ......................................................................................................................... 21 1. Task Management ............................................................................................... 21 2. Time Management ............................................................................................... 21

B. Great Books On This Subject ............................................................................................. 21 1. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity ................................... 21 2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change . 22 3. First Things First ................................................................................................... 22 4. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in

Less Time .............................................................................................................. 22 5. 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done

............................................................................................................................. 22

C. Task and Time Management Philosophies ....................................................................... 22 1. GTD Technique ..................................................................................................... 22 2. Pomodoro Technique .......................................................................................... 22 3. 18 Minutes Technique ......................................................................................... 22

D. Recommended Approach ................................................................................................. 23 1. Starting Point – Gathering Everything ................................................................. 23 2. Record Everything – the Master Task List ............................................................ 23 3. Daily Task List ....................................................................................................... 23 4. Make Appointments for Some Tasks and Larger Project Work ........................... 23

E. Recommended Technology Tools ..................................................................................... 24 1. Microsoft ToDo .................................................................................................... 24 2. Evernote ............................................................................................................... 24 3. Todoist ................................................................................................................. 24 4. Trello .................................................................................................................... 24 5. Remember the Milk ............................................................................................. 24 6. Outlook Tasks ....................................................................................................... 24 7. FollowUpThen ...................................................................................................... 24

XII. Stop Trying to Multitask ........................................................................................................ 24

A. Multitasking Defined ......................................................................................................... 24

B. The Multitasking Problem ................................................................................................. 24

C. Comments from Experts About Multitasking ................................................................... 25

D. Reading Material on Multitasking .................................................................................... 25

E. Strategies for Avoiding the Multitasking Trap .................................................................. 26 1. Turn Off Notifications .......................................................................................... 26 2. Try Batch Processing ............................................................................................ 26 3. Track All of Your Time - Even the Non-Billable Time ........................................... 26 4. Leave Blank Spaces .............................................................................................. 26 5. Silence is Golden .................................................................................................. 27 6. Carve Out Time and Set Your Phone to Do Not Disturb ...................................... 27


7. Shut Down Social Media While You're Working .................................................. 27 8. Try Solitude .......................................................................................................... 27 9. Noise Pollution Solution ...................................................................................... 27 10. Have "Laptopless" Meetings ................................................................................ 27

XIII. Paper Reduction, Document and Email Management ............................................................ 27

A. The Paperless Law Office .................................................................................................. 27

B. Buying Scanners Doesn't Solve the Problem .................................................................... 27

C. The Typical Two File Approach ......................................................................................... 28 1. Paper File = Primary File ...................................................................................... 28 2. Electronic File = Secondary File ........................................................................... 28

D. Legal File Management and Tracking Problems ............................................................... 28 1. The Volume of Communication We Have To Manage Has Increased

Exponentially ....................................................................................................... 28 2. Digital Records Are Being Forced on Lawyers ..................................................... 28 3. Hunting for Files Is Expensive .............................................................................. 29 4. Paper Files Can Only Be In One Place at a Time .................................................. 29 5. Paper Files Are Not Sharable ............................................................................... 29 6. If You Can’t Share, You Can’t Collaborate............................................................ 29 7. Finding the Document Once You've Found the File ............................................ 29 8. Paper Files Are Not Searchable ............................................................................ 29 9. Accessing Data on Paper Is Slow .......................................................................... 30 10. Files Are Not Updated in a Timely Manner ......................................................... 30

a. Most Hated Task ..................................................................................... 30 b. The Filing Dead Zone .............................................................................. 30 c. Example .................................................................................................. 30

11. More Paper Means Higher Operating Costs ........................................................ 30 12. More Paper Means Limited Lawyer Mobility ...................................................... 30 13. Expensive Storage ................................................................................................ 31

E. Refocus On the Digital File and Digital Paper ................................................................... 31

F. KEY POINT - Make Your Digital File Contain Everything In Your Paper File ...................... 31

G. Implementation Steps For A Successful Paper Reduction System ................................... 31

H. One Big Fast Scanner In the Copy Room v. Multiple Smaller Scanners ............................ 32 1. High Speed Copier Which Also Scans ................................................................... 32 2. Small Desktop Scanners ....................................................................................... 32

I. Key Features for Small Desktop Scanners ......................................................................... 32

J. Recommended Scanners for a Law Office ........................................................................ 33 1. Basic Scanners Types ........................................................................................... 33

a. Flatbed Scanners ..................................................................................... 33 b. Sheet-Fed Scanners ................................................................................ 33

2. Recommended Flatbed Scanners ........................................................................ 33 a. Xerox DocuMate 3220 ............................................................................ 33 b. Fujitsu Fi-7260 Scanner ........................................................................... 34


c. Fujitsu Fi-7280 Scanner ........................................................................... 34 3. Recommended Sheet-Fed Scanners .................................................................... 34

a. Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Sheet-Fed Scanner ............................................ 34 b. Fujitsu Fi-7160 Sheet-Fed Scanner ......................................................... 34 c. Fujitsu fi-7180 Sheet-Fed Scanner .......................................................... 34

K. Types of PDFs .................................................................................................................... 34 1. Image Only PDFs .................................................................................................. 34 2. Searchable PDFs ................................................................................................... 34

L. Programs You Can Use ...................................................................................................... 35 1. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro ........................................................................................... 35 2. Adobe Acrobat XI Standard ................................................................................. 35 3. Foxit PhantomPDF Business ................................................................................. 35 4. Nuance Power PDF Advanced .............................................................................. 35 5. Nitro Pro ............................................................................................................... 35 6. OmniPage Standard ............................................................................................. 35 7. OmniPage Professional ........................................................................................ 35

M. Search Utilities .................................................................................................................. 35 1. Windows Options ................................................................................................ 35

a. Copernic Desktop Search ........................................................................ 35 b. dtSearch .................................................................................................. 36 c. Filehand .................................................................................................. 36 d. Windows Instant Search ......................................................................... 36

2. Apple/Mac Search Program Options ................................................................... 36 a. Spotlight Search ...................................................................................... 36 b. EasyFind .................................................................................................. 36 c. HoudahSpot ............................................................................................ 36

N. Consolidate Folder Structure ............................................................................................ 36 1. Saving By Practice Area ........................................................................................ 37 2. Saving By Client .................................................................................................... 37 3. File Structures To Avoid ....................................................................................... 38

O. Establish File Naming Conventions ................................................................................... 38 1. The Old Way ......................................................................................................... 38 2. The New Way ....................................................................................................... 38 3. Acceptable Characters ......................................................................................... 38 4. Unacceptable Characters ..................................................................................... 38 5. Recommended Protocol ...................................................................................... 38

P. Document Management System ("DMS") Options .......................................................... 39 1. Worldox GX .......................................................................................................... 39 2. iManage WorkSite ............................................................................................... 39 3. NetDocuments ..................................................................................................... 39 4. Laserfiche ............................................................................................................. 39

Q. Digitize Incoming Documents ........................................................................................... 39

R. Store Email Outside Of Your Email Application ................................................................ 39 1. Problems Caused By Storing Email Only in Webmail or Email Application ......... 40


2. Stop Printing Email ............................................................................................... 40 3. Create Files from Your Email ............................................................................... 40

a. Webmail .................................................................................................. 40 b. Save Outlook Email As MSG Files ............................................................ 41 c. Save Outlook Email As PDF Files ............................................................. 42 d. Save Outlook Email By Dragging Into a Folder ....................................... 42

S. Additional Recommendations .......................................................................................... 43 1. Make Your Electronic File Mirror Your Paper File and Run Them Parallel To One

Another ................................................................................................................ 43 2. When Possible, Destroy The Items You Scan ....................................................... 43 3. Pick A Date By Which You Will Stop Saving Every Piece of Paper ....................... 44 4. Stop Injecting Paper Into Your Workflow ............................................................ 44 5. Stop Making Copies of Everything You Send Out and Putting Them In The Paper

File ........................................................................................................................ 44 6. Buy Monitors That Rotate to Portrait .................................................................. 44 7. Buy Dual Monitors ............................................................................................... 45 8. Don't Shred - Recycle Instead .............................................................................. 45 9. Scan Non Client Related Items First ..................................................................... 45 10. Consider a Press Release or Marketing Materials About What You've Done ..... 46

XIV. Building Form Sets and Templates ......................................................................................... 46

A. Problems With How Documents Are Most Commonly Drafted ....................................... 46 1. High Margin for Error ........................................................................................... 46 2. Slow ...................................................................................................................... 46 3. Errors of Omission ............................................................................................... 46 4. Errors of Inclusion ................................................................................................ 46 5. Compromised Documents ................................................................................... 46

B. Superior Drafting Approach - Gold Standard Templates and Forms ................................ 46

C. Rules for Creating Gold Standard Templates .................................................................... 46 1. One Document Per Instrument ........................................................................... 46 2. Finding Your Documents ...................................................................................... 48 3. Ascertaining Differences Between Documents ................................................... 48 4. Annotating Your Master ...................................................................................... 49

a. Chunking It Out ....................................................................................... 49 b. Blending It ............................................................................................... 49

5. Create Drafting Checklists for Complex Documents ............................................ 50 6. Create "Real" Templates ...................................................................................... 50

D. Why This Is a Perfect Exercise for a New Attorney ........................................................... 51

E. Document Assembly ......................................................................................................... 51

XV. Maximize The Tools You Have and Find The Tools You Need .................................................. 51

A. Take An Inventory of Existing Technology ........................................................................ 51 1. Computers ........................................................................................................... 51 2. Printers, Copiers & Scanners ............................................................................... 52 3. Servers ................................................................................................................. 52


4. Network Equipment ............................................................................................. 52 5. Software ............................................................................................................... 53

B. Determine Current Versions of Software ......................................................................... 54

C. Action Plan For Improvement ........................................................................................... 54 1. Determine What Could Be Improved .................................................................. 54

a. Underutilized Technology ....................................................................... 54 b. Technologies Not Being Used At All ....................................................... 54 c. Software That Should Be Upgraded ....................................................... 54 d. Hardware That Should Be Replaced ....................................................... 54

2. Determine What You're Missing .......................................................................... 55 a. Conduct research .................................................................................... 55 b. Technologies You Should Learn About ................................................... 55

3. Prioritize Issues and Compile Solutions ............................................................... 55 4. Training ................................................................................................................ 56

a. Seek Training ........................................................................................... 56 b. Insufficient Training Will Wreck Any Project .......................................... 56 c. Follow Up Training .................................................................................. 56

5. Be the Tech Advocate for Your Firm .................................................................... 56 6. Educate Your Colleagues ..................................................................................... 56 7. Be A Skilled User Yourself .................................................................................... 56

XVI. Knowing Your Blind Spots ...................................................................................................... 57

XVII. Building Support for Change .................................................................................................. 57

A. Involve Everyone In The Process ...................................................................................... 57

B. Make Sure Everyone Understands the Problem............................................................... 57

XVIII. Return On Investment ("ROI") Analysis .................................................................................. 58

A. What Is The Return On Investment of The Purchase? ...................................................... 58 1. Number of people helped .................................................................................... 58 2. Frequency of use .................................................................................................. 58 3. Cost of production ............................................................................................... 58 4. Potential to re-use ............................................................................................... 58 5. Communication efficiencies ................................................................................ 58 6. Increased accuracy............................................................................................... 58

B. Other Factors Affecting ROI .............................................................................................. 58 1. Will The New Technology Increase The Competence Of Your Staff And Make The

Office More Efficient? .......................................................................................... 58 2. Will The New Hardware/Software Allow You To Do Something You Couldn't Do

Before? ................................................................................................................. 59 3. Will The Quality Of Your Services Be Improved? ................................................. 59

C. Calculating Cost Savings .................................................................................................... 59

D. Payback Period .................................................................................................................. 59

E. How To Calculate the Labor Costs Of Your Processes ...................................................... 59


F. Sample Analysis ................................................................................................................ 60

XIX. Starting Your Own Firm? ........................................................................................................ 60

A. Write a Business Plan ........................................................................................................ 60 1. Estimating Start-up Costs ..................................................................................... 60 2. Operating Budget ................................................................................................. 60 3. Revenue ............................................................................................................... 60 4. Financing for a New Firm ..................................................................................... 60 5. Financing for an Existing Firm .............................................................................. 61 6. Protecting Your Investment ................................................................................. 61 7. Defining Objectives .............................................................................................. 61 8. Business Description ............................................................................................ 61 9. Marketing Plan ..................................................................................................... 61 10. Fixing Problems .................................................................................................... 61

B. Components of a Business Plan ........................................................................................ 61 1. Executive Summary .............................................................................................. 61 2. Business Description ............................................................................................ 61 3. Management Summary (if applicable) ................................................................ 62 4. Products and Services .......................................................................................... 62 5. Market Analysis.................................................................................................... 62 6. Marketing Plan ..................................................................................................... 62 7. Strategy and Implementation .............................................................................. 62 8. Financial Plan ....................................................................................................... 62

C. Options for Writing a Business Plan.................................................................................. 62 1. Write it Yourself ................................................................................................... 62 2. Hire a Professional ............................................................................................... 62 3. Use Business Plan Software ................................................................................. 62

D. Build A Budget .................................................................................................................. 62 1. Hardware ............................................................................................................. 63 2. Software ............................................................................................................... 63 3. Security ................................................................................................................ 63 4. Services ................................................................................................................ 64 5. Other .................................................................................................................... 64

Start Up or Start Over

I. PROLOGUE: When it comes to managing clients, conflict, documents, email, deadlines, or a law practice in general, most law schools seem to assume you'll learn those things on the job. The reality is that it's difficult to find guidance with these issues and on-the-job training often feels like nothing more than trial and error. Whether you're working for a firm or started your own, this seminar is designed to help you deal with those challenges, take charge of your practice and improve things at your firm.

II. COMMON PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED BY NEW LAWYERS: The following is a short list of the problems I intend to address in this seminar:

A. No Training: This is usually the biggest complaint of new lawyers. The attorney for whom they work either didn't have time to provide training or simply avoided it. As a result, new lawyers often have to fend for themselves while trying to figure out what they need to know in order to actually practice law.

B. Missing Technology You Need: Many lawyers join a firm and quickly determine that some of the tools the firm needs are simply missing. For example, inadequate scanning equipment, no accounting program, no tool to create, annotate and secure PDFs, etc. Typical causes of this are:

1. Your Firm Is Unaware of What Is Out there: For many law firms, the extent of their technology is a few computers, a word processor, Outlook and a billing program. This is the equivalent of equipping a professional chef with nothing more than salt, pepper and a frying pan. However, that's all many firms have ever had and they do not see why they need anything more than that.

2. Working With "Technologically Challenged" Lawyers:

a. What Is a "Technologically Challenged" Lawyer? There are a lot of lawyers out there who are not very tech savvy. They tend not to use common office technology and often overtly avoid it. The reality is that computers and technology have an uncanny ability to make people feel stupid and frustrated simultaneously. This is the primary reason that many who didn't grow up with computers simply never acquire the skill set necessary to use them effectively. They try to figure them out, but for a variety of reasons are often thwarted. Over time, they tend to adopt a dim view of technology. They don't really use it themselves and often feel like it's just a waste of money. Keep in mind that if a lawyer is age 47 or older, it is likely that they never encountered or used personal computers in undergrad or law school. So they're from a different generation than you are and lack the tech frame of reference that you take for granted.

b. Problem This Presents: You are very likely to find yourself working directly for or with a technologically challenged lawyer or such persons will be the primary decision makers or partners in the firm you work for.

Of course, people who don't use technology are the least qualified to make decisions about it. However, in law firms across the country, lawyers who have no clue about technology make all of the important decisions about it because they're the owners. In firms like this, the technology being utilized is almost always old, inadequate and/or under-utilized. This can cause great frustration for young associate attorneys who understand technology and appreciate what it could be doing for them.

C. Stuck With Inadequate Technology: Sometimes you have tools, but the tools are inadequate.

1. Accounting Examples:

a. Word Processor ≠ Billing System: The word processor is not a billing system and trying to use it as such is slow, inefficient and the clear utilization of the wrong tool.

b. Using Manual Systems: For example, making a mistake with your trust accounting is an easy way to commit malpractice. Trying to track money in an active trust account with manual ledgers is a great way to have no idea how much is actually in your trust account or who the money belongs to.

c. Mixing Electronic and Manual: It makes no sense to use software for only the billing function and handle all other accounting functions manually. That is equivalent to using electronic legal research to find every case and statute you need for your brief in 10 minutes; and then wasting hours typing the brief on an old manual typewriter.

d. Using Multiple Programs for the Accounting Function: It is a waste of time to use one software program for billing and another (different) software program for all other accounting functions (general ledger, accounts payable, checking, trust accounting, etc.). If the programs do not exchange information, then you're simply doing everything twice. Every new client, check written, etc. is entered into both programs manually. In spite of the obvious inefficiencies of such an approach, an enormous number of firms use Timeslips for billing and another program like QuickBooks or Peachtree for the rest of the accounting function.

e. Failure to Use Accounting System for Functions Other Than Billing: For example, your accounting software should give you financial reports, productivity reports and client related reports. All legal accounting software packages can provide you with more reports than you care to read in all three areas. How can you formulate a budget for technology next year when you have no idea what you spent on it last year? How can you tell if an attorney in your office is profitable when you have no

way of ascertaining what they billed or comparing what they billed against what was collected?

2. Calendaring and Docketing Examples:

a. Sole Reliance Upon Paper Calendars: Electronic calendars (software plus synchronization with a smartphone) are superior in every measurable respect to paper calendars. All arguments to the contrary are fairly easily addressed. Paper calendars can't be backed up, can't be shared, can't be searched, can't be easily modified, and can't share information with any other programs you're using. Your docketing system should have redundancy (multiple calendars), security (off-site calendars in the event of a fire or disaster), tracking features (who made an entry), cross-checking features (comparison between master and backup calendars to catch errors), and reporting capabilities. In order for paper calendars to be redundant, you’ll have a lot of writing to do. A paper calendar is only as secure as where ever you left it. Manual cross-checks have a high margin for error and of course, you cannot run reports from a Day-Timer.

b. Maintaining Paper and Electronic Calendars: Maintaining an electronic calendar and a paper calendar just requires that everything is double entered. Keep the calendar electronic and if you really need to touch it, you can always print your calendar whenever you want.

c. Reliance Upon Outlook: I would wager that the majority of lawyers rely on Microsoft Outlook for calendaring. While Outlook and programs like it do a fine job of managing a calendar, tasks and phone numbers, they're generic and not designed specifically for a lawyer. For example, Outlook would be as useful to a maître d' or school teacher as it would to a lawyer because it has no special features which would specifically benefit any of them. The key failures of Outlook as a law firm calendaring system are:

i. Outlook has no concept of a matter or case and cannot organize information in that manner. Therefore, Outlook cannot produce a report of all appointments and tasks related to a particular matter across every user in your office; and you cannot determine which of your Outlook contacts are related to a particular matter.

ii. Outlook has no concept of billable time and cannot communicate with most accounting systems.

The important point here is that the foregoing inadequacies do not have to be tolerated because case/matter management programs directly address them.

3. Drowning In Paper: If you or others in your firm complain every day about how huge your paper files are and how difficult they are to find when needed, then

your firm is wasting money every day you fail to incorporate scanners into your practice and start relying on an electronic file.

4. No Electronic Document Management Tools: If you or colleagues have difficulty trying to locate old word processing files, then you would benefit immediately from search technology and/or a document management system.

5. Using Old, Unsupported Software: If you're using a version of any software program that you haven't updated in six years or more, then you're wasting time and money.

D. Operating With Clearly Inefficient Processes: For example, we worked with a firm that instructed all of their lawyers to write down their time on paper time-sheets which were given to a billing clerk who then re-typed the time into the billing system. Some of the lawyers actually dictated their time with a voice recorder, their secretary would transcribe it, print it and give it to the billing clerk who would then type it again into the billing system. Even though many of the lawyers could type and would be perfectly willing to enter their own time directly into the billing system, "that isn't how we do it here," was the response from the billing clerk. That approach was obviously a waste of time and frustrating to the lawyers who could much more quickly type their time directly into the billing system rather than write it down long-hand on paper. As a new lawyer, there are right ways and wrong ways to approach things like this if you want to implement positive change.

E. No Templates or Forms Library: It's extremely frustrating when you have a drafting assignment but have no idea what to start with. Of course, you'd prefer not to start from a blank page, but finding a good starting point form is often impossible. If there are forms somewhere, they tend to be personal to each lawyer. If there are 3 lawyers in a firm, the most common scenario is that each of them has compiled their own forms collection. They never take the time to collaborate among themselves, share the forms or develop them better. Further, their forms are typically not real templates. They're just old documents from past transactions or cases. As such, changeable and optional text has not been identified in them and they're hard to use. Finally, since almost no legal users understand how to control advance formatting in the word processor, it's likely that the forms are difficult to use from a word processor perspective.

F. Electronic Files Are a Mess: In most firms, each user (lawyers and staff) maintains their own electronic filing system. Of course, the paper files aren't managed that way - there's almost always a single paper file that everyone works out of. However, electronically, that's rarely the case. As a new employee of the firm, this makes it really difficult to find any particular electronic document because most often you have to know who worked on a file before you have any chance of finding the document you're looking for.

G. General Disorganization and Task Management Struggles: They don't teach you in law school how to manage tasks even though it's a primary skill you must acquire once you start practicing law. Unfortunately, there's no magic bullet for task management because what works perfectly for one person may not work at all for the next person. Most new lawyers find it difficult to keep up with the juggling act required to track and monitor

tasks. It's extremely rare for law firms to provide any training in this regard so new lawyers usually have to figure it out themselves. I have personally seen this difficulty result in malpractice claims against new lawyers and in one case, it resulted in the lawyer's termination from the firm.

H. Procedures Not Written Down Anywhere: A considerable percentage of learning how to be a lawyer is learning the procedures and protocols you have to follow in any particular area of practice. For example, I may know that Ohio Revised Code §2113.031 authorizes a Release from Administration for a probate estate. However, I may have no idea what procedures I must follow with the Probate Court in order to complete such a transaction. In most firms, this kind of thing simply isn't written down anywhere. Lawyers and staff store this kind of information in their heads and checklists or roadmaps are never reduced to writing. As a new lawyer, this makes learning the procedures even more difficult since learning them usually requires a lot of otherwise unnecessary research and/or interviewing people who already know how to do a particular thing.

I. Word Processor Frustration: When I started practicing law, I spent an extremely high percentage of my time every day working in the word processor drafting various documents, pleadings and memos. I frankly had no idea how much drafting I would be doing and many new lawyers experience this same surprise. The problem is that you never actually learn how to use the word processor in law school. Further, Word and WordPerfect are sufficiently complex that the mere act of using them doesn't reveal to users what they actually need to know in order to control complex formatting commonly present in legal instruments. For example, typical problem areas include setting up multi-level, automatic paragraph numbered outlines; creating auto-updating tables of contents or tables of authority; automatic updating paragraph cross-references; and advance page numbering (switching from Romanettes to Arabic, turning off or starting page numbering in the middle of a document, starting over at 1 in the middle of the document, etc.). The underlying problem all of this creates is that you end up spending too much time wresting with formatting and not enough time creating content.

J. Tracking Time Is A Nightmare: This is typically the most unpleasant task associated with practicing law although arguably the most important. Many new (and experienced) lawyers struggle with tracking and entering their time into a billing system timely and with consistency. I'll give you some strategies and tools to help with this below.

III. BROADER LIST OF COMMON LAW FIRM ISSUES: We've been helping law firms improve efficiency and profitability for 18 years. We have seen literally everything. For a more comprehensive list of law firm issues we commonly encounter, see Exhibit A on page 65.

IV. TECHNOLOGIES AND SERVICES YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF: Practice management technologies that should be on every new lawyer's radar.

A. Document and Email Management Software: A Document Management System ("DMS") is a combination of software and hardware tools which streamlines and automates the process of document management (open, close, save and retrieve documents). Since DMSs only manage electronic documents and email, paper documents must be converted (scanned) so that they can be managed by the DMS. In simple terms,

your paper "Files" are just collections of paper documents related to a particular matter. Once all of that paper is in digital form, a DMS can organize it by matter just as your paper files are currently organized. Further, documents and email can be found by almost any criteria you can think of. The big players in this area are NetDocuments, Worldox, and iManage Work.

B. Document Assembly or Automation Software:

1. Document Assembly Defined: Most document assembly programs integrate with your word processor and enable you to create sophisticated templates. Those templates typically generate an interview (series of questions) presented to the user. Upon answering the questions, a customized document is instantly generated. In addition to simply filling in blanks, document assembly programs support conditional logic (i.e., include the guardianship paragraph if the client has minor children or adult disabled children), infinite lists, and the ability to calculate text, numbers and dates.

The on-screen interview is quite powerful because the template designer can control everything about the sequence and content of the interview. With practice, you can reproduce your entire decision tree in the template and build in safe-guards that walk even novice users through the assembly process. An example of how an interview looks is shown below:

2. How It Works - Big Picture: Using HotDocs1 as an example, the program allows users to replace changeable text with variables (i.e., «Testator Name», «Testator Street Address»), make the inclusion of text (words, sentences, paragraphs, etc.) conditional, gather (infinite) lists, and automatically calculate dates, text and numbers.

By “lists”, I mean that the template can gather and process multiple records. This is particularly important with legal documents because there are almost always parties and you never know how many there will be. For example, in a deed, you have grantors and grantees. There could be more than 1 of each. In estate planning documents, there may be multiple children listed, executors/personal representatives, beneficiaries, guardians, or trustees. All of those things are lists. Good document assembly software lets you enter as many parties as necessary and based upon how many you enter, the template will produce correct language. For example, depending upon what the user enters into a list of children in a Will, the document may say:

“Barron Henley has no children.” or

“Barron Henley has one child, Ariel, age 23.” or

“Barron Henley has two children, Ariel, age 23 and Alexis, age 21.” or

“Barron Henley has three children, Ariel, age 23, Alexis, age 21 and Rylee, age 19.”

The point is that whatever the user enters, the template produces the correct language and verb conjugation; and it doesn’t matter how many there are.

With each new variable, you create a corresponding question (prompt) which is presented to the user during the assembly process. Generating a new document is a simple matter of answering the questions presented by the template. After the questions are answered, the completed document appears on the screen (in Word or WordPerfect), ready edit, save, print, etc.

After a document is assembled, HotDocs allows users to save the answers entered for one document so that they can be used to assemble other documents which use the same information. In this manner, users simultaneously decrease the margin for error while eliminating time wasted on redundant data entry. The document produced by HotDocs is a plain word processor document and can be edited and stored like any other document.

1 HotDocs is the leading document assembly program in the world. See www.hotdocs.com for more information or a 30 day free trial.

3. Document Assembly Players: The big players in this area include HotDocs, TheFormTool (Doxserá and Doxserá DB), Contract Express, XpressDox and Pathagoras.

C. Legal-Specific Accounting Software: There are generic accounting programs like QuickBooks and there are legal-specific accounting programs like PCLaw and Tabs3. Legal-specific options cater only to lawyers and do things that generic programs don't offer. For example, legal-specific programs would offer things like productivity reporting by timekeeper; allocating payments to expenses, fees or specific timekeepers; split or consolidated billing; electronic billing; the ability to automatically show trust account balances at the bottom of invoices, etc. There are also excellent web-based case management systems that offer full accounting functionality like Centerbase, ActionStep and CosmoLex.

D. Case or Matter Management Systems ("MMS"): To appreciate what a MMS can do for you, imagine that all information about your client matters was centrally located, and just a mouse click away. That would include all of your contact names, addresses and phone numbers, all the calendar items related to that matter on anyone's calendar in your office, all the to-do list items, all the notes of phone calls, theories, meetings, the documents and emails related to the case, and even time, billing, and account receivable information. To view a document, you don't have to open a separate program and navigate your way to the document. Just click on it in the MMS, and it automatically opens the application and the document. Talking to the client on the phone and need to give them a quick status report? First, log the call which simultaneously starts a timer so you can one-click bill the call when it's over. Now click the mouse to check case notes or status report screen. While you're at it, check the accounts receivable with another click; and make sure you ask when a check will be forthcoming before you hang up. Add a narrative to the phone log and click the "do a time entry" button at the bottom of the dialog. The timer stops, the client ID and matter ID are already selected, your narrative from the phone call log is already entered as the time entry description and the length of the phone call is already documented. With one click of the OK button, a phone call is logged into the client's file and contact card, and a time entry is sent to your billing system.

E. Scanners and Paper Reduction Technology: There is fantastic, off-the-shelf technology for reducing paper in your office - both hardware and software.

F. PDF Creation and Manipulation Software: PDFs are the standard file format for trading documents, electronic case filing and many other purposes. Every law firm needs a program for creating, annotating, manipulating and securing or encrypting PDFs.

G. Trial Presentation Software: There are many good options for software that helps you get ready for trial and if the trial goes forward, for presenting your case.

H. Cloud Technology: There are several ways to incorporate the cloud into your practice. For example:

1. SaaS or Software As A Service: Rather than purchasing and installing software on a computer or server, SaaS is simply accessed via a web browser. Your data is stored in the vendor's servers in a data center rather than in your office. There

are a ridiculous number of definitions of SaaS, but I think this one sums it up succinctly without using 15 more acronyms requiring definitions:

“Generally speaking, it’s software that’s developed and hosted by the SaaS vendor and which the end user customer accesses over the Internet. Unlike traditional packaged applications that users install on their computers or servers, the SaaS vendor owns the software and runs it on computers in its data center. The customer does not own the software but effectively rents it, usually for a monthly fee. SaaS is sometimes also known as hosted software or by its more marketing-friendly cousin, ‘on-demand.’”2

To be clear, this means that you do not have the software installed on your computer - it is accessible only via a browser on the Internet. Further, your data and/or documents are located on the vendor’s servers and not on your computer or server.

2. IaaS or Infrastructure as a Service: In most cases, this means renting access to a server located in a data center. The server provides processing power and electronic storage, both of which are accessed via the Internet. The server is available on-demand and the provider is usually responsible for maintaining the server, providing backup and technical support. A good example of this is ProCirrus (www.ProCirrus.com).

3. Client Portal: I know Wikipedia is not a reliable source for everything, but its definition of Client Portal is accurate and well-stated:

"A client portal is an electronic gateway to a collection of digital files, services, and information, accessible over the Internet through a web browser. The term is most often applied to a sharing mechanism between an organization and its clients. The organization provides a secure entry point, typically via a website, that lets its clients log into an area where they can view, download, and upload private information."3

So you are using a client portal when you book a flight or hotel online, when you log into your bank's website or even when you use Facebook. Law firms are using portals to do everything from share documents with clients (see www.dropbox.com for example) to render services via the web (see www.directlaw.com for example).

2 Software as a Service (SaaS) Definition and Solutions, by Meridith Levinson on May 15, 2007, www.cio.com, see http://tinyurl.com/24cofbx for full article. 3 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_portal

V. LAW FIRM HIERARCHY OF NEEDS: I think it's useful to lay out the general ranking of technology issues for most law firms as a reference. This helps establish a priority for the things a law office should address.

A. Hardware: Computers & servers are paramount because they're foundational for everything else. If this is weak, everything else suffers or simply doesn't work. Built into this issue is remote access, security, portability and technical support, among other things. The appropriate hardware for any firm is heavily driven by the software chosen. If the applications aren't considered when the hardware is purchased, it's pretty easy to buy more or less than you actually need.

B. Accounting: Accounting & billing efficiency are next in line because accounting is the most important administrative function in any law firm and nearly everyone in the firm interfaces with it to some extent. A good accounting system should also provide much of the data on which sound business decisions can be made. Finally, if the accounting process is inefficient, it can be incredibly expensive.

C. Document And Email Management: This also includes paper reduction and remote access to documents and data. The larger the number of users, the more important it becomes to address this issue.

D. Word Processor/Drafting Efficiency and Document Automation: Particularly in practice areas involving complex instruments, this is an area where efficiency (and profitability) can typically be improved.

E. Matter/Case Management: In firms that handle a high volume of active matters (hundreds contemporaneously) or which handle matters involving a lot of steps or deadlines, matter management can be moved up and ranked as high as #3 behind accounting.

F. Trial Preparation and Presentation: For litigation departments, systems to assist with trial preparation and presentation are very important.

G. Practice Area Specific Automation Software: For example, if you do a lot of divorce work, then you would want to consider FinPlan Divorce Planner from Thomson Reuters. If you handle consumer bankruptcy then Best Case is pretty valuable.

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEW LAWYERS REGARDING PRACTICE MANAGEMENT: These are just a few recommendations

A. Master The Core Production Tools: I’m referring here to the word processor, email application, spreadsheet and PDF program. For most people those things are doing to take the form of Word, Outlook, Excel and Acrobat (or possible Power PDF or Nitro Pro). In any event, if you get training on those programs and really learn how to take advantage of what they can do for you, that knowledge will never stop paying for itself. Word, in particular, is incredibly valuable to master.

Keep in mind that simply clicking around with the aforementioned programs isn’t likely to teach you all you need to know (this is definitely true with Word). Either read a legal-specific manual on the programs or find training on it.

TIP: If you have a Columbus Library Card, you can get free access to all of the videos on Lynda.com which is an extremely valuable resource. See https://tinyurl.com/yddnb4tu.

B. Make Time Tracking A Habit: No one likes to track time, but if you can become efficient at it and have the discipline to do it every day, you’ll simply make more money over the course of your career. For help with this, see Chapter X. below; and consider the following:

1. "When a firm's most precious commodity, billable time, is not promptly and accurately recorded, the costs from lost revenue can be staggering. According to a recent study by Altman Weil, one tenth of a fee earner's time is lost if not recorded until the end of the day; four hours are lost if time is not recorded until the end of the week, and 15 hours are lost if time is not recorded until the end of the month. At a minimum, these omissions can result in an additional 170 to 200 hours per year, PER ATTORNEY, lost forever if not recorded promptly."4

2. "Wise lawyers know that contemporaneous timekeeping is essential to the success of any fee arrangement—and to the overall financial success of your law firm. Lawyers who reconstruct their time weekly tend to lose 25 to 30 percent of their time, and those who enter time on a monthly basis can lose as much as 55 to 70 percent."5

3. "The financial success of your law practice begins with a good system of time record keeping. … [L]awyers who always keep contemporaneous time records enjoy a 25 to 40 percent higher income than those who do not."6

C. Intentionally Collect and Organize Forms: In other words, spend time working on a forms bank. As a young lawyer, I had no idea how important that would be later in my career and I wish someone had encouraged me to start working on it earlier. For more information on this subject, see Chapter XIV below.

D. Deal With As Little Paper As Possible: You’ll be able find things easier and grant yourself better remote access if you have as little dependence upon paper as possible. See Chapter XIII for more information on this.

E. Be a Sponge: Make it a goal to never ask someone the same question twice because you forgot how to do something that had already been explained to you. Take notes in a

4 It's About Time: Maximizing Law Firm Revenue Through Automated Billable Time Capture, LexisNexis® Law Firm Practice Management White Paper Series, see http://tinyurl.com/lw55e5o, emphasis added. 5 Make the Timekeeping Honor Role by Frederick J. Esposito Jr., June 14, 2013, AttorneyAtWork, see http://tinyurl.com/ly2r2lo. 6 Timekeeping - or the Joy of Timekeeping! by Gisela B. Bradley, see http://tinyurl.com/mq4fa5s.

https://tinyurl.com/yddnb4tu

http://tinyurl.com/lw55e5o

http://tinyurl.com/ly2r2lo

http://tinyurl.com/mq4fa5s

manner that they’re searchable in the future. There are many ways to preserve that kind of knowledge and some ideas are shown under Chapter VIII. below.

F. Save Client Compliments: Being a lawyer can beat you down. When clients compliment you, keep copies of them. Then if you feel bad about practicing law, you can go back and read the kind comments and remember why you’re here. They’re also handy for annual reviews.

G. If You Can’t Multitask, Then Stop Trying: There are plenty of tests on the web that you can take to determine if you’re one of the gifted ones who can do this. I find that most people believe they can multitask even though 98% of people actually can’t. If you find out that you (like me) cannot multitask, then you should work on focusing solely on one thing at a time. Stop flipping back and forth between things.

H. Be Extra Nice To Administrative People You Deal With: Clerks, bailiffs and anyone you come into contact with behind a counter/desk might be able to save your butt someday. Treat them the same way you’d treat a judge and they’ll want to help you. It’s difficult but also recommended to record any pieces of personal information you learn about people you come into contact with regularly so you can ask them about it later.

I. Develop a Task Management System That Works for You: We unfortunately get no advice on this subject in law school and it’s a constant source of frustration for most lawyers. I’ve described this in greater detail in Chapter XI. below. You may have to try several methods until you find something you like and which works for you.

J. Schedule Time On Your Calendar For Tasks: We often think we’re going to get something done during the “blank spots” on our calendar. As I’m sure you know, that doesn’t always work out very well. To combat this problem, try calendaring time which you dedicate to the task you’re trying to finish.

VII. STRATEGIES FOR LEARNING UNFAMILIAR TECHNOLOGY:

A. Generational Differences:

1. Baby Boomers were born from 1946 - 1964. Most Baby Boomers never saw a computer in undergrad or law school. Stereotypically, they have little to do with technology and are not very savvy users of it. They are probably running most of the law firms and legal departments in the US.

2. Generation X members were born from 1965 - 1979. Early Generation X members also didn't encounter anything resembling a modern computer while they were in school. Late Generate Xers have had technology most of their lives. Generation Xers are all over the map in terms of tech savviness, but they are generally aware of what they know and don't know.

3. Millennials & Generation Y members were born from 1980 to 1999. They have known modern technology their entire lives. They're not necessarily tech savvy, but generally feel comfortable with technology and definitely aren't afraid of it.

However, they are not likely to read a manual or take a class on technology and are sometimes unaware of their blind spots.

B. Defining the Legal Tech Generational Divide: While the foregoing is useful for broad classification purposes, the real dividing line seems to be lawyers born prior to 1965 (the first year of Generation X). For those individuals, the great technological revolution occurred after they were already practicing law and had little time to learn how to use these new tools. As a result of these and other factors, attorneys born before 1966 tend to be less tech savvy than those younger than them. The older you go in age, the worst the problems becomes (generally speaking, of course). I'm stereotyping and you might not fit these classifications so please don't be offended if you don't.

C. Using Technology Doesn't Teach You All You Need To Know About It: The fact is that with most modern technology, using it doesn't make you better at it. You might learn some general rules but to really take advantage of what something does, you'll need to go further. For example, using Microsoft Word does not make you better at it. Most of what you need to know to control complex formatting in long documents is simply concealed. Unless you take a class or read a very lengthy manual, you're as good with Word in week 8 as you are in week 780 (15 years).

D. If You Want To Learn Something, Real a Manual or Take A Class:

1. So Where Are The Manuals? Generally, manuals are not included with new technology or they're woefully inadequate. Here's a few ideas for getting something to read:

a. Manufacturer Web Sites: For example, if you buy a new Droid smartphone, you're going to get a 3 x 4 inch booklet with the phone which contains about one sentence per page and fails to provide any useful help. However, if you go to the manufacturer's website, you can download a 150+ page manual with a huge table of contents and full-size pages. Why doesn't it come with the phone itself? Probably because they felt it was too expensive to print it.

b. Explanatory Web Sites: For example, my upgrade to Adobe Acrobat XI came with no manual at all. However, I can find instructions for just about anything imaginable on the Acrobat for Legal Professionals7 web site.

c. Third Party Manuals: Let say I upgraded to Outlook 2013 and need help. I could always buy Outlook 2013 Inside Out8 and find answers to all of my questions. However, it's 824 pages and it might be painful to read all of that.

7 See http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/ 8 Microsoft Outlook Inside Out by James Boyce, Microsoft Press, 1st edition (July 25, 2013).

2. Take A Class: You can find classes online and less frequently, in person. Unless you live in a major metropolitan area, it may be impossible to find a live, instructor-led class. Therefore, your best bet is to find something online. Such classes can be live webinars (which we offer) or recorded videos. The benefits of live webinars is that they're interactive, you can ask questions and can often control the content. Recorded videos tend to be less expensive and of course, you can watch them whenever you want. Personally, I prefer classes because I have what seems like 1,000 things I need to read which I never get to. I can schedule a webinar and absorb in a very short time what would have taken me many more hours to read.

E. Action Plans for Getting Comfortable With Unfamiliar Technology: Obviously, these are applicable regardless of your age or generation.

1. If You're Not Tech Savvy, Stop Accepting Your Own Tech Ignorance: Many lawyers describe themselves as technologically deficient, techno-luddites, even tech adverse. They'll tell me things like "I'm easily the least tech savvy person in this office" with a tone of indifferent resignation. I always ask why they don't try to learn more about the technology used by others in their office, and I've heard the following responses:

• "I didn't grow up with that stuff and it's too late to learn it now."

• "I don't need to know that stuff - I hire people to do it for me."

• "I don't have time to learn it."

• "Whatever - I'm going to retire in a couple of years anyway."

• "I'm totally not interested in trying to sit down and figure out some techno thing. If I wanted to be a computer jockey, I would have taken a totally different track with my career!"

The reality is that age and/or a lack of prior experience does not destroy one's ability to learn something new about technology. If you want to stop relying on others, learn to be more self-reliant and increase your efficiency, then you need to engage in ongoing learning.

2. Baby Steps: Many of the technology pieces we have access to are capable of many, many things and they seem a bit overwhelming. You attack these things one little bite at a time. For example, let's say you have a case management program like ActionStep9. It offers a dizzying array of functionality, but focus on one thing at a time. For example, you could go to the HELP menu, open the USER GUIDE, click FEATURES and focus on the CALENDAR. Just decide to spend 10 minutes browsing through the calendar functionality and reading about what all it can do. For example, you might discover that you can control the default

9 See http://www.actionstep.com/

http://www.actionstep.com/

calendar view to "week" rather than "day" and that was something you were really annoyed with previously. You can also add a second time zone so it's easier to schedule meetings with a big client which happens to be located 3 time zones away from you.

Every little discovery you make allows you to be a more efficient user of your technology. It doesn't take long and it isn't difficult. But the point is that you have to carve out the time to do this on a regular basis.

3. Read The Manual! Here's the deal - people who think they can master every piece of technology by just playing around with it are dead wrong. Even seemingly simple technology like an iPad is loaded with latent complexity. For example, see 40+ Super Secret iPad Features and Shortcuts10 by Joel Bankhead (2/7/2012) or Hidden iPad Features That Could Improve Your Life11 by Richard Gray (8/12/2013). Even the most tech-savvy 25 year old lawyer is never going to figure out everything they need to know about how to control complex formatting in Microsoft Word by simply using it. An important step in mastering any technology is to read instructional manuals. Doing so actually creates a distinct competitive advantage over those who refuse to read manuals because you'll have a much better understanding of what your technology can do for you. What technology is theoretically capable of is irrelevant in the real world. The only technological features and functions that matter are the ones you know how to use.

4. Be a User: Most people learn by doing. You'll never pick up anything new about technology by ignoring it. So dig in and see what you can learn through actual use.

5. Get Training: Of course, there are classroom training options for most technology, but there is unquestionably video, web-based or on-demand training available. For example, if you use Time Matters matter management software, all you have to do is google how to use time matters video and you'll see that there are many options available to you.

VIII. HOW TO ACCUMULATE SUBSTANTIVE KNOW-HOW.

A. Seek It Out: Don't expect anyone to schedule training for you. If there are substantive areas you need to master or know more about, start studying on your own (law library, online, etc.), and ask a subject matter expert in your firm to meet with you so you can start asking questions and learning. I completely recognize that this seems like an intuitively obvious step to take but hardly anyone takes it. You should never be embarrassed to ask; and there are no stupid questions unless you engaged in absolutely no prior research and are asking things that would have been revealed by the barest independent investigation.

10 See http://tinyurl.com/85dwnbw 11 See http://tinyurl.com/mq487fm

http://tinyurl.com/85dwnbw

http://tinyurl.com/mq487fm

B. Find a Mentor: The first time I had to help a client navigate qualifying for Medicaid, I was admittedly clueless. I read everything I could about it but still felt like I was going to miss something. Unfortunately, there was no one else in my firm to ask. So I asked my firm if I could pay another lawyer who as a Medicaid expert to help me. They thankfully agreed. So I contacted Richard T. Taps, a man to whom, 21 years later, I am still thankful. He graciously agreed to accept a discounted rate and helped me immensely with the process and understanding the law. My client probably still thought I was a clueless rookie, but at least I didn't make any mistakes thanks to Mr. Taps. It's not blood competition out there and there are many lawyers as charitable as Mr. Taps who are willing to help if you ask. The most important thing is that the client gets the right answer and the best service. If you make little or no profit on the service, you still learned something and that is arguably more valuable.

C. Find a Good CLE: When I started practicing law, you had to wait for the continuing legal education classes you wanted to take. They were scheduled, live, and you had no control over that. Today, that's not the case. Most jurisdictions allow for "study at home" CLE and you can find and take an on-point CLE class almost anytime you want. The OSBA, for example, has an extensive library of on-demand CLE classes you can sign up for at your convenience.

D. Capture What You Learn: Let me give you an example. One of my practice areas was probate. As you probably know, probate is heavily procedural. You have to know the law, but you're useless if you don't know the procedures that go along with the execution. I did a simple thing to capture what I learned. I went everywhere with a legal pad and I painstakingly wrote down everything as I did it and then re-recorded it into a Word document I creatively called "How To Do Stuff.doc." For example, let's say I was going to do my first release from administration. I'd read everything I could about it and then I'd call the court and see if what I thought I needed matched what they knew I needed. I'd then go to court with my notepad and dutifully record each person I spoke to, the forms I filed, how much the filing fees were, etc. Upon my return to the office, I would create a new heading in my long Word document and type up the steps I took and any notes I thought were relevant to the process. The next time I had to do a release from administration, I likely would have remembered little from my experience I had months prior. However, I could always go to How To Do Stuff.doc, locate my previous notes, print them and magically appear to know what I was doing. This is an easy and inexpensive practice for recording what you learn. It also empowered me NOT to ask questions I had previously asked which I knew my superiors found to be extremely annoying.

In addition to using a simple Word document for this type of thing, you could also use a wiki12 or something like Microsoft OneNote13 which is free or even Microsoft SharePoint14 which is very inexpensive. There are many free wiki options including the

12 A wiki is a Web site that allows visitors to make changes, contributions, or corrections - see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wiki 13 See http://www.onenote.com 14 See http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pages/Default.aspx.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wiki

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wiki

http://www.onenote.com/

http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/Pages/Default.aspx

following. If you want tech support and better service, there are lots of pay options that are not very expensive.

1. Orain: https://meta.orain.org/wiki/Main_Page

2. Our Project: http://ourproject.org/

3. ShoutWiki: http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

4. Wikia: http://www.wikia.com/Wikia

5. WikiDot: http://www.wikidot.com/

IX. PROCESS MAPPING:

A. Never Accept "that's the way we've always done it”: I still hear this as the most common justification for policies, procedures and protocols that are irrational, inefficient, or make no logical sense. Of course, you're not likely to make any points by telling your office manager that the way something is done at your firm is the dumbest thing you've ever heard of. Furthermore, don't engage in behavior that could get you labeled a whiner. Propose solutions, do the research before you bring it up and always stay focused on ways to gain efficiency and better serve clients. It's difficult to argue with anything that serves those objectives.

B. Read and Apply The Checklist Manifesto: There is a best-selling book called The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right by Atul Gawande15 ($12.30 on www.amazon.com). The book illustrates the critical importance of checklists in many professional fields but doesn't spend much time talking about the legal applications. However, there's an excellent Law Review Article from Jennifer Murphy Romig at Emory University School of Law which discusses the application of the ideas within The Checklist Manifesto to the practice of law. You can read it here (http://tinyurl.com/qztlxrf) and I would highly recommend it. As I'm sure you'll agree if you read The Checklist Manifesto or the aforementioned law review article, there is high value in compiling checklists for all significant practice areas you're involved with. Checklists and written protocols are important for business continuity and as part of your business succession plan. They also allow you reduce errors, ramp up new employees more quickly, and to delegate tasks to support staff that you may have otherwise had reservations about delegating.

Ideally, checklists should be used for every process. By "used," I mean that the items on the checklist are actually checked off (on paper or electronically) as they are completed; and someone actually verifies or certifies that all steps were followed at the end of the process. This could be a simple paper checklist which someone follows and it is then

15 Atul Gawande is a surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and is Director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation. He is Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

signed and dated at the end. At that point, it could be scanned into the file if you're trying to reduce paper.

C. Start Documenting Processes: The steps involved in any particular legal process cannot (safely) only reside in someone's head. This doesn't have to be terribly complicated. The idea is to write down the steps involved in the main work-flows which occur in your office. You want to note what tools are used in each step (software or hardware or whether steps are completed manually), who performs it, and very importantly, how long each step typically takes. You also want to know how often the process occurs each month.

1. What You Can Use to Document: Most people do this in the word processor by simply numbering and describing the steps involved in any particular process. If you want to graphically represent the process, then you could use programs like SmartDraw16 or Microsoft Visio17.

2. Example - Open a Probate Estate: Let's say a firm opens new estates approximately 3 times per week. Here are the steps:

a. Client Contacts Us: We normally receive a call from a loved one of the decedent and it is typically a spouse or child who will be appointed the fiduciary of the estate. The initial calls can last anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes depending upon how many questions they have. We schedule an initial meeting during this call normally for 2 weeks out. The call is always handled by one of the attorneys (Robert, Sarah or Paul).

b. Creation of Paper and Electronic File: Amy fills out a new file form and submits it to accounting (Michelle) electronically so that the matter will be created in the accounting system. Once Michelle emails Amy the client and matter ID, Amy creates the paper file (red rope with sub folders), labels the file with decedent name, client & matter ID. This entire process normally takes 45 minutes to complete.

c. Initial Client Communication: Print initial fiduciary questionnaire, cover letter and list of items to bring to the initial meeting and mail to fiduciary. Process completed by Amy and normally takes 20 minutes.

d. Prepare Engagement Agreement: This is handled by Amy with instruction from the attorney in advance of the initial meeting and the printed engagement agreement is added to the file. This usually takes 20 minutes.

e. Initial Meeting with Fiduciary: These usually last one hour and one of the attorneys handles it. The attorney goes over the information provided by the Fiduciary, creates a list of any additional items needed

16 See www.smartdraw.com 17 See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/

and has the fiduciary sign the engagement agreement. Amy makes a copy of the agreement for the client and we keep the original.

f. Probate Forms Completed: Amy completes the following forms using the fillable PDF forms available from the Probate Court. This is slightly inefficient because the same information has to be re-entered in each form; and some of the forms don't have enough space to type everything so must be printed and finished in a typewriter.

• Form 1.0 - Surviving Spouse/Next of Kin

• Form 2.0 - Application to Probate Will

• Form 2.1 - Waiver of Notice of Probate of Will (if required)

• Form 2.2 - Notice of Probate of Will (if required)

• Form 2.4 - Certificate of Service of Notice of Probate of Will (if required)

• Form 3.0 - Appointment of Appraisers (if required)

• Form 4.0 - Application for Authority to Administer Estate

• Form 4.5 - Entry Appointing Fiduciary - Letters of Authority

The foregoing forms are printed and signed by the attorney where applicable. Amy then drafts a cover letter to the fiduciary, a postage-paid return envelope and mails the forms and letter to the fiduciary to sign and return. This entire process takes about an 2 hours.

g. Open The Estate At Probate Court: Once the forms have come back signed, Amy fills out a check request form for the deposit necessary to open the estate and obtains the check from Michelle. She also makes two copies of each form and puts them in the file. The attorney then takes the entire file to the Probate Court, deposits the initial fee, files all of the original forms, obtains time-stamped copies of the copies, obtains the certified Letters of Authority and returns to the office. This process takes 2 hours on average.

h. Return Pleadings to Client: Amy takes one set of the time-stamped pleadings, drafts a cover letter and sends them to the fiduciary. This process takes 15 minutes on average.

3. What Could Be Improved About The Foregoing Process? A lot of little things could be done to improve the foregoing. For example:

a. A pamphlet could be created which is sent to new clients explaining the probate process. If this could be sent to the client, it would cut down on the time involved in the initial client phone conference and initial client meeting.

b. The file could be maintained exclusively electronically rather than both paper and electronic.

c. Many clients may be happy to receive an emailed PDF copy of pleadings and filings. This would save on sending out hard copies and drafting correspondence.

d. Templates could be created for all of the standard correspondence which would speed it up; and those templates could be linked to Outlook or a case management program which automatically pulls in the client's information so that it doesn't have to be entered again into every letter.

e. A program could be used to generate the probate pleadings which would be much faster than using the court's PDF forms. Information would only have to be entered once and it would transfer from form to form.

4. Benefits of Written Processes: Writing down what is supposed to happen at each step and who is responsible for it creates accountability. It also significantly reduces the possibility that a step will be omitted; and it makes it much easier to train new employees. If you're the one putting the written process together by gather the relevant information, then it's a great way to learn.

X. WHERE DID THE TIME GO? Tracking time is possibly the worst thing about practicing law. You have to think about it all the time and recording it is an ongoing interruption. However, one of the smartest things a new lawyer can do is develop good time keeping habits from day 1.

A. Importance of Efficient Time Tracking: Yes, it's annoying, but it's also the key to billing more and earning more. The most important thing you can do in that regard is to record your time and tasks as you go. It is estimated that individuals who wait until the end of the month to enter their time (you know who you are) end up losing up to 25% of it. I frequently look back at my month and see records of tasks or time that I have little or no recollection of. The fact is, many of us are in practice areas which force us to change gears constantly all day, hopping from one project to another. That's why it is imperative that the time and tasks are recorded along the way.

B. Time Tracking Applications:

1. Chrometa: While running in the background while you work, Chrometa captures all of your time and allows you to categorize it for easy billing. See www.chrometa.com.

2. Smart Time: www.smart-webparts.com - remote time entry for lawyers.

3. iTimeKeep: www.itimekeep.com - this app runs on iOS or Android devices, links with many popular accounting programs and lets you enter time from anywhere.

C. Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Phone Systems: Surprisingly, VoIP phone systems can help you bill more because every system will provide you with a full log of all calls made and received each day along with caller ID and duration of the call. At the end of the day, it makes it easy to see everyone you need to bill.

XI. TASK MANAGEMENT: They teach you nothing about task management in law school in spite of the fact that it is arguably the most important skill a lawyer possesses. Unfortunately, no task management approach works for everyone; but that doesn't minimize the need for a system or approach.

A. Definitions:

1. Task Management: This is the process of capturing/recording tasks and executing them in an efficient manner.

2. Time Management: This is how you utilize your time to execute the tasks on your plate. Although quite related to task management, they are also quite different.

At one end of the extreme, there are people who know exactly the 250 items on their task list, but sometimes can’t accomplish one of those tasks on a given day because he/she cannot focus and execute. These folks tend to be over-thinkers. They cannot execute because they get so tripped up on thinking through every scenario to the point of mental exhaustion.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who are excellent at executing tasks that they do, but other tasks slip between the cracks because they are terrible capturers/recorders.

Most of us are poor at both because we simply have too much to do in a given day. The reality is that urgency is a fact of life in a law office or legal department. I have visited thousands of lawyers over my career, and I have yet to meet a law office that doesn’t operate in that environment! Now, layer in technology, and most of us are even worse because we have let technology dazzle us to the point that we have lost most of our common sense. I am talking primarily about email, but it extends to social media and internet use.

In the middle we have those of us who simply do not get to items 100-225 because we do not have enough time. While technology can be blinding us of the solution, the beautiful thing about technology is that it can solve the capturing/recording, and at the same time make us more efficient to do more in less time.

B. Great Books On This Subject: All of the following are excellent books written by thought leaders on this subject.

1. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (2002).

2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey (2013).

3. First Things First by Stephen R. Covey (1996).

4. Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy (2007).

5. 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done by Peter Bregman (2012).

C. Task and Time Management Philosophies: There are many, but here are just a few.

1. GTD Technique: GTD stands for Getting Things Done and it's a productivity method developed by David Allen who authored a famous book by the same name. "Put simply, GTD is a method for organizing your to-dos, priorities, and your schedule in a way that makes them all manageable. One of GTD's biggest benefits is that it makes it easy to see what you have on your plate and choose what to work on next. It also has a strong emphasis on getting your to-dos out of your head and into a system you can refer to. This clears your mind of any mental distractions that will keep you from working efficiently."18

2. Pomodoro Technique: This is succinctly explained by one of my favorite websites - www.lifehack.org. Besides the article referenced below, also see http://pomodorotechnique.com/ and the book The Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo (January 2, 2013).

"The Pomodoro Technique is a time management philosophy that aims to provide the user with maximum focus and creative freshness, thereby allowing them to complete projects faster with less mental fatigue. The process is simple. For every project throughout the day, you budget your time into short increments and take breaks periodically. You work for 25 minutes, then take break for five minutes. Each 25-minute work period is called a pomodoro, named after the Italian word for tomato. Francesco Cirillo used a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato as his personal timer, and thus the method’s name. After four pomodoros have passed, (100 minutes of work time with 15 minutes of break time) you then take a 15-20 minute break. Every time you finish a pomodoro, you mark your progress with an X, and note the number of times you had the impulse to procrastinate or switch gears to work on another task for each 25-minute chunk of time."19

3. 18 Minutes Technique: This is an approach developed by Peter Bregman who wrote 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things

18 Productivity 101: A Primer to the Getting Things Done (GTD) Philosophy by Alan Henry, March 26, 2014 - see http://tinyurl.com/mpunrp4. 19 The Pomodoro Technique: Is It Right For You? by Tucker Cummings - see http://tinyurl.com/dybf7ml.

http://pomodorotechnique.com/

http://tinyurl.com/mpunrp4

http://tinyurl.com/dybf7ml

Done. Bregman works from the premise that the best way to combat constant and distracting interruptions is to create productive distractions of one's own. Based upon a series of short bite-sized chapters, his approach allows us to safely navigate through the constant chatter of emails, text messages, phone calls, and endless meetings that prevent us from focusing our time on those things that are truly important to us. Mixing first-person insights along with unique case studies, Bregman sprinkles his charming book with pathways which help guide us -- pathways that can get us on the right trail in 18 minutes or less.

D. Recommended Approach:

1. Starting Point – Gathering Everything: The starting point to effective time management is carving out the time to gather all your tasks, goals and “random neural firings”. This includes everything from the post-it notes on your desk and in your car, to loose papers, to new lists and old lists of unresolved items and issues. At this point, do not worry about whether you should gather it or not … just do it and err on the side of gathering it.

2. Record Everything – the Master Task List: Many time management experts develop elaborate and separate task lists. In my belief, these techniques fail because they are too complicated and there are too many lists in too many places. For task management to work, it must be simple and convenient. It cannot take you 6 months to learn and master the system! Start entering everything into the Master Task List. For this, I strongly recommend Outlook or a legal specific Practice Management program.

3. Daily Task List: Once you complete your master task list, you are ready to start developing a Daily Task List from the master task list. This can be accomplished many ways. Here are some of the ways. Review the master task list each morning when planning the day, and:

a. Flag items to do today; or

b. Use category/color to designate items to work on today; or

c. Print and simply highlight those items to work on today; or

d. Identify those tasks to work on today and make appointments for yourself to complete the desired work.

4. Make Appointments for Some Tasks and Larger Project Work: Many time management experts recommend this technique. I do like this, but it can be abused and can set you up for failure if you start ignoring the appointments or cannot get to them because the schedule is unrealistic. Use the calendar for larger project work that typically involves the need to have larger blocks of time (typically an hour or more), such as drafting a response to a motion or returning phone calls. Be sure to also add the task to your task list.

E. Recommended Technology Tools: The following are some technology tools to consider using to help you track and manage your tasks.

1. Microsoft ToDo: Just go here: https://todo.microsoft.com

2. Evernote: Evernote is as much note taking and data gathering as it is task management. It is probably the most popular program out there for task management. I just felt it was a little over-complicated for my simple needs. See https://evernote.com/ for more information.

3. Todoist: See https://todoist.com/

4. Trello: Trello uses a kanban board20 approach and is also an excellent collaborative online workspace for managing projects or cases. See https://trello.com/

5. Remember the Milk: This is another extremely popular task management system. See http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ for more information.

6. Outlook Tasks: Outlook's task management system is pretty impressive and convenient if you're already using Outlook for email or other functions.

7. FollowUpThen: This is an extremely simple email reminder system, but some use it very successfully. See https://www.followupthen.com/.

XII. STOP TRYING TO MULTITASK:

A. Multitasking Defined: It can mean performing two or more tasks simultaneously, or it can also involve switching back and forth from one thing to another. Multitasking can also involve performing a number of tasks in rapid succession.21

B. The Multitasking Problem: The research on this subject clearly indicates that most human beings are fairly terrible at paying attention to more than one thing at a time. Of course, there are a tiny few "supertaskers" among us who can actually do this, but they are very rare.22 In most cases, the old proverb holds true - If you chase two rabbits, both will escape. The big problem here is focus. We are constantly interrupted due to technology (such as email) and technology is also a terribly tempting thing (such as the Internet) when you're trying to complete a task involving something you don't really like. So I view multitasking as a trap. Intellectually, I know I'm terrible at trying to do two things at once; and yet I'm constantly tempted to do it. Sometimes, I unwittingly get sucked into it, have to reel it back in an get re-focused on what I was really trying to accomplish.

20 See https://www.planview.com/resources/articles/what-is-kanban-board/ for more information on this. 21 "The Cognitive Costs of Multitasking" by Kendra Cherry - see http://tinyurl.com/y4ycm69 22 For more information on supertaskers, see Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability by Jason M. Watson and David L. Strayer, University of Utah, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2010, 17 (4), 479-485.

https://todo.microsoft.com/

https://evernote.com/

https://todoist.com/

https://trello.com/

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

https://www.followupthen.com/

https://www.planview.com/resources/articles/what-is-kanban-board/

C. Comments from Experts About Multitasking: Here are some good quotes on the subject.

1. "Yet, the research demonstrates that when someone multi-tasks work actually takes longer and the quality is inferior. A 2005 study by Hewlett-Packard found that workers who were continually distracted by e-mail and phone calls showed an effective drop in IQ equal to twice that of those using marijuana."23

2. "Studies have shown time and again, that working on a single task in isolation yields vastly better results and in a shorter time frame when frequent context switches are avoided. This can be further optimized by training in concentration techniques, such as breath meditation, autogenic training or muscle relaxation."24

3. "There has been a lot of research on task switching. Here's what we know from the research:

• It takes more time to get tasks completed if you switch between them than if you do them one at a time.

• You make more errors when you switch than if you do one task at a time.

• If the tasks are complex then these time and error penalties increase.

• Each task switch might waste only 1/10th of a second, but if you do a lot of switching in a day it can add up to a loss of 40% of your productivity."25

4. "If you’re one of the 50 percent of people who listen to music at work, you probably think it helps you focus. But if you strapped yourself up to a brain scanner, you’d find just the opposite. Music is designed to engage your body and mind through your limbic system: 'the part of your brain that is always on the lookout for danger, food, sex, or shiny things,' explains FocusAtWill26. It engages your emotions and urges you to dance, siphoning away mental resources."

D. Reading Material on Multitasking: I don't expect you to take my word for it so if you're interested, here are some things to read on your own:

1. The Myth of Multi-Tasking by Rich Largman, February 22, 2011 - see http://tinyurl.com/cxv9rep (this is really good and summarizes the problem of technology and multi-tasking).

23 "The Myth of Multi-Tasking" by Rich Largman, February 22, 2011 - see http://tinyurl.com/cxv9rep 24 "Human Multitasking" by Tim Janik - see http://tinyurl.com/6567c2m 25 "The True Cost of Multi-Tasking" by Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., September 18, 2012, published in Brain Wise - see http://tinyurl.com/8ajprhr 26 See https://www.focusatwill.com/

https://www.focusatwill.com/

2. The Power of Prime - The Cluttered Mind Uncluttered, by Jim Taylor, Ph.D., March 30, 2011 - see http://tinyurl.com/3enenqs from Psychology Today.

3. The True Cost Of Multi-Tasking, published on September 18, 2012 by Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. in Brain Wise - see http://tinyurl.com/8ajprhr.

4. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, by John Medina, February 26, 2008.

5. The Myth of Multitasking: How "Doing It All" Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw, August 18, 2008.

E. Strategies for Avoiding the Multitasking Trap:

1. Turn Off Notifications: Email is a huge distraction. Whatever email application you use, try turning off all notifications of incoming email so you're not tempted to stop what you're working on to read it. Set times during the day when you check email that don't conflict with other commitments or tasks. If you have a smartphone, turn off notifications for email on it as well. There's no reason for your phone to be vibrating incessantly all day every time an email comes in.

2. Try Batch Processing: If email is a huge distraction for you like it is me, try carving out a specific chunk of time to attack the pile of unread email. Spend 30 minutes and then leave it alone for several hours. Knock out as much as you possibly can during that time and don't extend it. Afterwards, go back to more productive pursuits.

3. Track All of Your Time - Even the Non-Billable Time: If you become aware of how long it actually takes you to deal with distractions like cleaning out your inbox, it can help you focus on those tasks and complete them more efficiently.

4. Leave Blank Spaces: "The research on creativity tells us that it is the pre-frontal cortex that puts ideas together. But the pre-frontal cortex can only work on one thing at a time. When you are multi-tasking you are taxing your pre-frontal cortex. You will never solve problems if your pre-frontal cortex doesn't get quiet time to work on integrating information. This may sound paradoxical, but if you STOP thinking about a problem or particular topic you will then be able to solve it! This means you have to make time for blank spaces in your day. You need to have time in your day when you are doing "nothing" as far as your brain is concerned. Not talking, not reading, not writing. You can go for a walk, get exercise, listen to music, or stare into space. The more blank space the more work you will get done! Multi-tasking is the enemy of blank space."27

27 "The True Cost of Multi-Tasking" by Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., September 18, 2012, published in Brain Wise - see http://tinyurl.com/8ajprhr

5. Silence is Golden: There is a lot of research indicating that listening to music (particularly popular music with lyrics) interferes with cognitive tasks and reading comprehension. Turn it off to help your focus.

6. Carve Out Time and Set Your Phone to Do Not Disturb: If you have something you need to get done, it's a good idea to make an appointment on your calendar for it and dedicate that time solely to the task at hand. Turn off your phone and instruct others to leave you alone while you work. Success with this depends upon you setting boundaries with others and exercising self-discipline.

7. Shut Down Social Media While You're Working: This may seem obvious, but there are lots of lawyers who monitor Twitter and other social media while they're "working." Don't think this isn't distracting you and impacting your productivity.

8. Try Solitude: When I need get serious work done, I isolate myself outside of the office. Usually, that means I work from home in the den with doors closed. No phone, email not even running, and no music. I feel I can get more done on a single task in one hour of isolation than I do in 5 hours at the office.

9. Noise Pollution Solution: If you're in an environment with high ambient noise, consider sound-blocking headphones. They block the ambient noise and the only thing you hear is the music you're piping in. Keep in mind the warning above about when listening to music can impair your performance. In the alternative, try www.simplynoise.com or http://rain.simplynoise.com (I personally LOVE these sites).

10. Have "Laptopless" Meetings: This means that laptops (as well as other mobile devices like tablets and smartphones) are banned. Let me tell you, this works!

XIII. PAPER REDUCTION, DOCUMENT AND EMAIL MANAGEMENT: Most lawyers complain about not being able to find the existing electronic documents they need. Below is a road map you can follow to engage in better document management for yourself; and a way it could be improved for the entire firm.

A. The Paperless Law Office: For most law firms and departments, a truly paperless office is just not achievable. Sometimes you just need the paper and there's no stopping the flow of paper that others send you. However, every office can reduce the paper it manages significantly and not only is this achievable, the benefits are dramatic. With common-sense techniques and basic hardware and software combinations, the mountains of paper will shrink. You'll waste less time searching for paper, profitability will improve, you'll enjoy your practice more and be able to provide better client service.

B. Buying Scanners Doesn't Solve the Problem: I teach a class on paper reduction in multiple states and provinces. I always begin by asking the audience how many of them have scanners. Every single hand goes up. In spite of that, they all still feel buried in paper. So the point is that scanners alone don't solve any problems. The solution lies in how you use the technology. Scanners are just the hardware piece. Just as important is

the software you're using to scan and search; the protocols/processes you're following; and the training provided.

C. The Typical Two File Approach: Most law firms and legal departments maintain two files for every matter or case they handle. One is paper-based; the other is electronic.

1. Paper File = Primary File: At most firms, the paper file is the reservoir of all information related to that particular matter and therefore, it's the primary file. Paper files normally contain every document that was received by the firm (mail, faxes, etc.) plus copies of everything they've sent out. Emails are often printed and dropped into the file, and any hand-written notes often end up in the file as well.

2. Electronic File = Secondary File: The electronic file is comprised of documents stored under a client/matter ID in a Document Management System ("DMS") or documents stored in a folder structure on someone's computer or on a server. The electronic file typically contains only the electronic versions of documents generated internally (Word or WordPerfect files). Therefore, the electronic file is usually missing documents you received from your client, anything that came from opposing counsel, faxes and the like. Since it contains only a small subset of the information in the paper file, the electronic file is usually of limited use and is therefore the secondary file.

Keep these terms (primary and secondary files) and the difference between them in mind as they will become important as this discussion progresses.

D. Legal File Management and Tracking Problems: We often conduct personal interviews of a firm's attorneys and support staff to learn more about that firm's work-flow, and day-to-day problems people are struggling with. Almost without exception, paper overflow, file management and tracking reveals itself as one of the biggest problem areas (if not the biggest). Some of the problems firms experience are as follows:

1. The Volume of Communication We Have To Manage Has Increased Exponentially: We machine gun one another with electronic communications resulting in many more pieces of correspondence to keep track of. When I started practicing law 22 years ago, we received an occasional fax and no email. Most correspondence came in the form of letters received via USPS or FedEx. I might have received 3 to 5 pieces of mail a day related to cases I was working on. Today, it's not uncommon for a lawyer to receive 200 emails a day related to their practice, some with attachments and most of which requiring an affirmative response. Voice mails are often emailed as sound files and faxes are also often received as emailed PDF files. As a result of this, the volume has exploded and paper-based systems break down as volume goes up.

2. Digital Records Are Being Forced on Lawyers: Much of what we do as lawyers is already digital whether we like it or not. Many (most) courts have gone to electronic filing, governmental entities we deal with are electronic, documents are traded between attorneys and clients electronically, and more and more evidence and discovery is electronic. Lawyers who insist on living in an

analog/paper world will have to keep printing more and more electronic documents in order to maintain a complete paper file and that is incredibly expensive.

3. Hunting for Files Is Expensive: Law firms spend a huge amount of non-billable, administrative time looking for paper files and they're rarely easy to find. For example, files might be in a lawyer's office (on the desk, under the desk, on the floor, in a cabinet or on a shelf), in a secretary or paralegal's cube or office, on a counter in a hallway, on a ledge somewhere in the office, in a filing cabinet (imagine that!), in the wrong filing cabinet, in someone's car, at someone's home or in someone's briefcase or bag. That's a lot of places to look.

The cost associated with finding files can be very high. Let’s say you’ve got 5 attorneys and they each spend 15 non-billable minutes a day each looking for files which they could otherwise bill at $250/hour. This translates into 6.25 hours per week and at $250/hour, that’s $1,562.50/week, $6,250 per month or $75,000 per year.

4. Paper Files Can Only Be In One Place at a Time: We all know this, but it creates problems. If I find the paper file I've been looking for, then I've "captured" it and no one else can look at it. In other words, the act of removing a file to work on it causes that file to be lost again to everyone else in my office because they don't know where it is. There may have been a few people in the office who actually knew where the file was when I found it. Now that I've taken it, they may be running around the office asking, "who took my file??" By finding and taking the file, I have unwittingly annoyed and stressed those who knew where it was when I found it and are expecting it to still be there when they go looking for it.

5. Paper Files Are Not Sharable: You can share a paper file no more easily than you can share a book you're reading. When was the last time you tried to do that?

6. If You Can’t Share, You Can’t Collaborate: We need to collaborate with clients, experts, courts and co-counsel. If you’re all paper and you want to share your file, you’re spending money on lots of copies, shipping boxes and the whole process is slow.

7. Finding the Document Once You've Found the File: Once you locate the paper file, now you begin the second search - finding the individual piece of paper within that file.

8. Paper Files Are Not Searchable: If a paper files were "searchable," you would be able to instantly locate every document from any file in your office which contains certain words (e.g., "force majeure" or "liquidated damages") or has certain characteristics (e.g., it is an appellate brief or a Will containing a special needs trust). You obviously can't do that with your paper files. Further, paper files do not contain a table of contents and although they may be have separate sub-parts for correspondence, pleadings and the like, that doesn't mean that people who deposit paper into the file have actually utilized that organizational structure. It also doesn't mean that things are actually clipped into the file, nor that the items

in the file are in any kind of chronological order. In other words, the file may be (and often is) a mess. That being the case, now you have to find that ONE piece of paper you're looking for among hundreds, maybe thousands of pages, possibly in no particular order. Depending on the size and organization of the file, you may be faced with a bigger search than finding the file in the first place.

9. Accessing Data on Paper Is Slow: We’re in the age of instant information. We need it and our clients expect it. If your data and case information is locked up in a paper file, you’re at a significant speed disadvantage.

10. Files Are Not Updated in a Timely Manner:

a. Most Hated Task: Almost every piece of mail that comes into a firm ends up in a paper file somewhere. Of course, those files must be found first, updated, then re-filed into a cabinet (or more likely stacked on someone’s desk or the floor of someone’s office). Anyone who has ever been saddled with the task of filing a pile of documents/mail/pleadings into paper files knows how unpleasant it is. If you've never done it yourself, just ask your support staff which aspect of their jobs they find the most mind-numbing, frustrating and distasteful. "Filing" is probably the answer you'll get.

b. The Filing Dead Zone: Human nature dictates that if you give someone a task they detest, they will put it off as long as possible. That is usually what happens with filing. At any given time, the person responsible for filing in your office probably has a nice stack of unfiled documents sitting around somewhere. The time gap between receipt of a document and its ultimate insertion into a file in your office can create problems. During that time, those unfilled documents are effectively lost.

c. Example: Assume you need to determine whether a particular item was received that you were expecting from a client. You find the file and the document isn't in it. So you call the client and ask them to please send in the item you need. "I mailed that 2 weeks ago," they reply as your face reddens. "Um, okay, let me check to see if it's around here someplace; and if I can't find it I'll call you back." You've successfully created the impression of disorganization and wasted both yours and the client's time with an unnecessary phone call. Has this ever happened to you?

11. More Paper Means Higher Operating Costs: Efficiency is the key to maximizing a firm's profitability. Managing fat paper files is labor intensive and reduces a firm’s efficiency on all fronts.

12. More Paper Means Limited Lawyer Mobility: If you have 4 files to take with you somewhere and they're reasonably thick, you're going to need a bag or a cart or a box. This is unwieldy, annoying and difficult.

13. Expensive Storage: Large paper files occupy a lot of space and filing cabinets are expensive and bulky. If you rent office space by the square foot, you’re paying for your filing cabinets every month. More importantly, storage for closed files is VERY expensive. Closed storage is also typically off-site and disorganized. This means that finding and pulling old files is also expensive in terms of time spent.

E. Refocus On the Digital File and Digital Paper: Short of a global position tracking device affixed to every file in your office, there may be no perfect way to track them. Since you can't look over everyone's shoulder when they're working on a file, there is probably no way to enforce organizational protocols. But all of those approaches are focusing on the paper file. We frankly feel it's pointless trying to figure out a magical way to organize, store and retrieve paper files because of their inherent, unavoidable shortcomings outlined above.

We also accept the proposition that banker's boxes and paper file folders are not the future of file management in 21st century law firms. Since we cannot change the nature of a paper file, we propose focusing on the electronic or digital file discussed earlier (see Paragraph C. above). Recall that the paper file is the primary file because it contains everything (incoming and outgoing) while the electronic file typically contains only outgoing materials.

F. KEY POINT - Make Your Digital File Contain Everything In Your Paper File: The key idea is to elevate the status of your electronic file from secondary to primary by adding everything from your paper file to the digital file using a scanner.

G. Implementation Steps For A Successful Paper Reduction System: The approach here is to use a scanner to add incoming documents to your digital file. What you want is an accurate representation of what the original document looked like. However, you also want the scanned documents to be full text searchable. This does not mean that you want to convert your scanned documents into Word or WordPerfect files. You simply want to scan for archival purposes. HOWEVER, you need to be able to find those documents again in the future. The following steps are discussed in greater detail below, but here's the general road-map. Note that the approach below does not contemplate a document management system in favor of the lowest cost method of addressing these issues.

1. Ensure You Have Redundant Backup Systems and Security

2. Acquire Scanners

3. Acquire Scanner Software That Creates Searchable PDFs

4. Acquire Search Program or Document Management System ("DMS")

5. If no DMS, Consolidate Folder Structure and Establish File Naming Conventions

6. Digitize Incoming Documents

7. Store Email Outside of Your Email Application

8. Portable hardware (notebook, tablet or hybrid)

9. Collaborative technology

10. Write Down Your Scanning Protocols

11. Provide Training for all Lawyers and Staff

H. One Big Fast Scanner In the Copy Room v. Multiple Smaller Scanners:

1. High Speed Copier Which Also Scans: There are two schools of thought regarding the best way to incorporate imaging into a law office. One method is to buy one really fast scanner, connect it to the network, put it in the copy-room and let everyone use it for scanning. Copier sales/leasing companies are pushing copiers that are also network scanners and printers. Having a copier that is also a printer makes a ton of sense; and I've frankly never understood why all copiers aren't also printers. Although high speed copiers that also scan are pretty nice and can be extremely fast, there are drawbacks.

In our experience, offices with one, big, fast scanner (and no small desktop scanners) are much less likely to get everyone on board. The fact is, law offices are busy places and time-consuming processes are avoided, generally speaking. A copier/scanner requires that users get up out of their chairs, walk down the hall, stand at a copier, designate where they want the scanned documents to go on the network in advance, scan the documents in, then walk back to their offices and locate the images on the server. If someone is already copying or printing, then the whole annoying process gets delayed and maybe never done. Make someone jump through a lot of hoops to scan, and I guarantee you that the annoyance factor will quickly nullify any previous enthusiasm the individual may have had for scanning.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, if you can add scanning capability to your copier and it fits within your budget and business plan, then by all means, do it. In fact, it may be a good, inexpensive (relatively speaking) option to add to your copier and it's certainly handy for the big documents you need to scan.

2. Small Desktop Scanners: The alternative method is to put less expensive, slower scanners on the desks of everyone who will be scanning. If I can sit at my desk, drop a document in a scanner's document feeder on my credenza and direct exactly where the document is going to go with one click, I'll do it and so will most people. Therefore, we recommend desktop (or credenza) scanners within arm's reach for everyone who will be scanning. This is not to say that a big, fast scanner doesn't have a place in your office. Of course, you can also use desktop scanners in addition to a large copier/scanner.

I. Key Features for Small Desktop Scanners:

1. Consider a flatbed if you scan odd-sized or bound items (books or magazines), otherwise a sheet-fed scanner is the best option;

2. It must have an automatic document feeder which holds 25 pages or more;

3. It must be fairly quiet (users should be able to conduct phone conversations without yelling over the scanner);

4. We recommend that a scanner be TWAIN compliant unless it comes with all of the software you need like a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 scanner;

5. We recommend a USB 2.0 or 3.0 connection to your computer;

6. It must be able to scan black & white, gray-scale & color;

7. It must be able to scan legal and letter sized documents; and

8. It must be fairly fast (recommend 20 – 35 pages per minute).

J. Recommended Scanners for a Law Office: If the scanner you’re considering has the right driver to work with your PDF software or if the scanner comes with the software necessary to create PDFs, then you’re probably fine. However, here are a few scanners we particularly like.

1. Basic Scanners Types:

a. Flatbed Scanners: A flatbed scanner consists of a flat surface on which you lay documents to be scanned. They're very similar to a copier in appearance and they're particularly effective for bound documents. You can buy flatbed scanners with or without an automatic document feeder ("ADF"). However, buying one without an ADF is a complete waste of money as it will take an inordinately long time to scan any multi-page document. No one will like it and no one will use it. A flatbed scanner with an ADF will allow you to scan regular cut sheets of paper or bound materials. However, they’re generally slower and more expensive than their sheet-fed counterparts (see below).

b. Sheet-Fed Scanners: Sheet-fed scanners lack the flat glass surface for scanning bound materials; and they only have an automatic document feeder. However, sheet-fed scanners are generally faster and less expensive than flatbed scanners. Of course, if the only type of scanner you have is a sheet-fed scanner and you need to scan bound materials, you could always copy the appropriate pages and then scan them.

2. Recommended Flatbed Scanners:

a. Xerox DocuMate 3220: Scans 23 ppm, has a 50 sheet ADF and will scan color, b&w, and gray scale. $272 from www.pcnation.com - Mnfg. Part #XDM32205M-WU.

b. Fujitsu Fi-7260 Scanner: Scans b&w one-sided (simplex) at 60 pages per minute or double-sided (duplex) at 120 pages per minute. Also capable of color scanning; and handles letter or legal sized paper. Part number PA03670-B555, $1,284 from www.pcnation.com.

c. Fujitsu Fi-7280 Scanner: Scans b&w one-sided (simplex) at 80 pages per minute or double-sided (duplex) at 160 pages per minute. Also capable of color scanning; and handles letter or legal sized paper. Part number PA03670-B505, $1,920 from www.pcnation.com.

3. Recommended Sheet-Fed Scanners:

a. Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Sheet-Fed Scanner: Sheet-fed, scans 25 ppm simplex, 50 ppm duplex, no TWAIN driver, but comes with Adobe Acrobat X Standard and works fine with it. The US mnfg. part number is PA03656-B005 and it costs $420 from www.pcnation.com. This scanner is both Windows and Mac compatible.

b. Fujitsu Fi-7160 Sheet-Fed Scanner: Up to 60 ppm/120 ppm duplex black and white or grayscale. Rapid power up time in less than 4 seconds; large capacity 80 page feeder; plastic and embossed credit card scanning; long document support up to 18.3 feet; scan sticky notes, taped receipts, and labels while securing against multifeeds; innovative acoustic paper protection; Interactive, Multi-Line LCD Panel; Auto rotation, Auto size, Blank page removal, Auto color detection, and Assisted scanning features; TWAIN and ISIS drivers The US part number is PA03670-B055, and it's $875 from www.amazon.com.

c. Fujitsu fi-7180 Sheet-Fed Scanner: Up to 80 ppm/160 ppm duplex black and white or grayscale. Rapid power up time in less than 4 seconds; large capacity 80 page feeder; plastic and embossed credit card scanning; long document support up to 18.3 feet; scan sticky notes, taped receipts, and labels while securing against multifeeds; innovative acoustic paper protection; Interactive, Multi-Line LCD Panel; Auto rotation, Auto size, Blank page removal, Auto color detection, and Assisted scanning features; TWAIN and ISIS drivers The US part number is PA03670-B005, and it's $1,514 from www.amazon.com.

K. Types of PDFs: There are two basic types of PDFs – Image Only and Searchable.

1. Image Only PDFs: This type of PDF is visually an exact replica of the original document (whether the original document was electronic or paper-based), but it contains no text which could be searched by Acrobat or any other program. This is usually the type of PDF that you get when you scan a document using a copier, scanner or multifunction machine.

2. Searchable PDFs: This type of PDF is also an exact replica of the original document, but it also contains a hidden layer of text so that you can search for any word on any page. PDFs created from other computer programs

electronically are searchable by default. In other words, if I create a PDF from a Word or WordPerfect document, an Excel workbook or an email, they are always searchable. PDFs created by scanners can be, but are usually not searchable. The software you’re using to scan will determine whether you can create searchable PDFs. So that you can easily find the PDF documents you’re looking for, you want to make sure that anything you scan is not just a PDF but a searchable PDF.

L. Programs You Can Use: Having tried all of the following, I would recommend Adobe Acrobat although Foxit PhantomPDF and Nitro Pro are very strong contenders.

1. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro: Mnfg. part # 65195200 - $433 at www.amazon.com

2. Adobe Acrobat XI Standard: Mnfg. part # 65196809 - $299 at www.buy.com

3. Foxit PhantomPDF Business: This program is really outstanding and at $129 is a fantastic deal compared to Acrobat Professional. It has almost all of the functionality of Acrobat Pro for hundreds of dollars less. See www.foxitsoftware.com for more information. If you only need the functionality of Acrobat Standard, then consider Foxit PhantomPDF Standard for $89.

4. Nuance Power PDF Advanced: This is a functional alternative to Acrobat Professional and costs $150. If you only need the functionality of Acrobat Standard, then consider Power PDF Standard for $100.

5. Nitro Pro: Another great alternative to Acrobat Professional at $160, you can read more about it at www.nitropdf.com.

6. OmniPage Standard: By Nuance - Mnfg. part #2889A-G00-18.0 - $99 at www.amazon.com - read more about the program at www.nuance.com.

7. OmniPage Professional: By Nuance - Mnfg. part #E709A-G00-18.0 - $394 at www.amazon.com.

M. Search Utilities: If you don't buy or have a DMS, then you need a search utility. Briefly, search utilities read through all of the documents you've created in a word processor or scanned, and they build an index of the text contained therein. Once the index is built, you can search through all of those documents by either file-name OR the words contained inside them. When searching for words contained inside the documents, you can use the standard Boolean logic (and, or, not, etc.).

1. Windows Options: Even if you've created a good file naming convention, you'll still need help finding some documents. Now that you've created searchable PDFs, you can search through all of them at once, quickly, by searching for particular words. Here is a survey of your options:

a. Copernic Desktop Search: RECOMMENDED - See www.copernic.com. There are two versions of Copernic, Lite (FREE) and Full ($49.95); and you need the Full version. You can try the free home version, but one of the limitations of the free version is that it does not search network drives.

So unless you're keeping all of your files on the C:\ of the computer you're using (I certainly hope you're not doing this), the Home version will not help you very much. Copernic will search all of your files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, HTML, WordPerfect, text and another 150 types of files). It will also search Outlook or Outlook Express email and any attachments to email.

b. dtSearch: RECOMMENDED: See www.dtSearch.com - $199 - one of the most sophisticated and fast search engines I've ever seen. It provides the most search options and file types that it can recognize. If you need industrial strength search capability involving enormous numbers of documents, this is your program.

c. Filehand: See www.filehand.com - FREE. Instantly search for files on your computer, by content. See the extracts of the files you found, even for PDF files. Scroll through the extracts so you can quickly find the information you're looking for. Find the file you are looking for, even when many files match, because Filehand Search sorts the results by relevance. Do complex Boolean searches and searches by phrase. Use it all the time because it is so simple to use!

d. Windows Instant Search (Windows Vista, 7, 8 & 10): This is included in all modern versions of Windows.

2. Apple/Mac Search Program Options:

a. Spotlight Search (Mac OSX): This is included with the Mac OSX operating system. For more information, see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2531.

b. EasyFind: Free - see http://tinyurl.com/d6se856

c. HoudahSpot: $24 - see http://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/

N. Consolidate Folder Structure: If you don't have a DMS, it is critical that documents are saved by client/matter, not by user. Saving documents by user can create lots of problems, such as:

• Docs for one client in more than one folder

• Revision conflicts

• Losing things permanently if staff turns over

Saving documents on users' C:\ drives is a big no-no. Saving documents by client or matter in one central location is a better option. You can create a logical directory layout, find documents easier, it makes backing up your documents simpler, and you can use Windows security to limit access for users. Two main options for file structure:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2531

http://tinyurl.com/d6se856

http://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/

1. Saving By Practice Area: If S:\ is your server drive, you'd create a folder called S:\Documents, and sub-folders for each practice area thereunder:

• S:\Documents\Corporations

• S:\Documents\Estate Planning

• S:\Documents\Miscellaneous

• S:\Documents\Probate

• S:\Documents\Real Estate

Under each practice-area folder, you’ll create additional sub-folders for each client name such as:

• S:\Documents\Real Estate\Smith, John

• S:\Documents\Real Estate\Rosedale, Meredith

If you conduct multiple transactions for a single client in the same area (i.e., you represent an individual in the sale of one house and the purchase of another), you might want to create separate sub-folders for each deal such as:

• S:\Documents\Real Estate\Smith, John\Sale of 123 Maple St

• S:\Documents\Real Estate\Smith, John\Purchase of 400 E Main St

The documents created for each transaction would then be located under the appropriate sub-folder. For example, the path and file-name for the deed might be:

• S:\Documents\Real Estate\Smith, John\Sale of 123 Maple St\2004-09-21 - General Warranty Deed.doc

2. Saving By Client: If S:\ is your server drive, you'd create a folder called S:\Documents, and sub-folders for each client thereunder:

• S:\Documents\Smith, John

• S:\Documents\Rosedale, Meredith

If you conduct multiple transactions for a single client in the same area (i.e., you represent an individual in the sale of one house and the purchase of another), you might want to create separate sub-folders for each deal such as:

• S:\Documents\Smith, John\Real Estate - Sale of 123 Maple St

• S:\Documents\Smith, John\Real Estate - Purchase of 400 E Main St

The documents created for each transaction would then be located under the appropriate sub-folder. For example, the path and file-name for the deed might be:

• S:\Documents\Smith, John\Real Estate - Sale of 123 Maple St\2004-09-21 - General Warranty Deed.doc

3. File Structures To Avoid:

• S:\Jim\Smith, John\Sale of 123 Maple St

• S:\HRK\Smith, J\Real Est - Sale of House

• S:\Sally\Smith\Real Estate - Sale on 3-4-2002

The foregoing folders are all for the same matter which is being worked on by 3 different people in the same firm. They each have created their own folders for it with different naming conventions and all of them are under the employee's name or initials. This is a very common scenario and the reason that law firms waste so much time trying to find things.

O. Establish File Naming Conventions: If you don't have a DMS, then you need to establish the rules by which files will be saved and named.

1. The Old Way: File naming has become more intuitive since Windows 3.1 (we used to be limited to 8 characters). Document extensions used to identify the type of document (.ltr, .fax, .dep, .pld, .cor, etc.)

2. The New Way: You now have 255 characters to name a file or folder in Windows. Therefore:

• Then: wjcpc01.dep

• Now: 2004-10-30 - James Smith Perjury Case Deposition 01.doc

3. Acceptable Characters: A file name may contain any of the following characters: ^ & ' @ { } [ ] , $ = ! - # ( ) % . + ~ _

4. Unacceptable Characters: A file name may not contain any of the following characters: \ / : * ? " < > |

5. Recommended Protocol: If you would like everything sorted by date (which is what most lawyers like), simply precede every file name with a date, year first. If you enter the date month/day/year, then all of the January files (for all years) are lumped together, all of the February files are together, etc. Our file naming convention:

2004-10-30 - Letter to Bill Biviano re billing system.doc

The date indicates the date the document was mailed out if it's a letter; and the longer description makes it clear what this document contains without even opening it. If you are scanning a document you received, then the date should be the date the particular document was received.

P. Document Management System ("DMS") Options: As described above, a DMS is a hardware/software system that automates the process of storing, classifying, searching, sharing, and retrieving electronic documents. A DMS also provides an organization with the tools to create, manage, control, and distribute electronic documents. The main players are:

1. Worldox GX: WORLDOX's unique SQL-free software is installed in more than 2300 companies worldwide, 2000+ of which are law firms and legal departments. It is a “SQL-free” document management system. For the law firm, the total cost of ownership, especially over the long haul, is considerably less. For more information, go to www.worldox.com.

2. iManage WorkSite: Autonomy WorkSite™ is a SQL based integrated application suite that combines document management, collaboration, portal access, knowledge management, workflow and business process automation in a single solution on a highly scalable and secure Internet platform. From an end-user’s perspective (ease of use), this is, by far, the best program available on the market today. Its integration with Microsoft Outlook is fantastic. See http://www.interwoven.com. Interwoven does not disclose pricing information on their web site.

3. NetDocuments: NetDocuments provides a document management via the web, so you store your documents on their server and basically pay a monthly fee for the utility of the software. Since you pay by the user, this solution can work for a single lawyer up to thousands of users. For more information, go to www.netdocuments.com.

4. Laserfiche: Although not terribly common in the legal world, Laserfiche is a legitimate offering and contains all of the functionality you would want in a document management system. See https://www.laserfiche.com/.

Q. Digitize Incoming Documents: Some law offices scan all incoming mail which is then forwarded via inter-office email to the recipient (except for obvious things like magazines, etc.). The recipient can then view the mail, save it into the appropriate electronic file, or discard it. The person who scans the mail into the computer system retains the originals for one week and if they're not requested by the recipient, they are shredded. In the alternative, let everyone scan in their own mail and that way time won't be wasted scanning things that would have been thrown away anyway. If everyone has a desktop scanner, this is easy.

R. Store Email Outside Of Your Email Application:

http://www.worldox.com/

https://www.laserfiche.com/

1. Problems Caused By Storing Email Only in Webmail or Email Application: A significant problem most law firms struggle with (if they do not own a document management system) is saving and finding matter-specific email. Why? Because people (1) keep them in their individual inboxes (which no one else can see), or (2) save them in subfolders within their own inbox (which no one else has access to), or (3) delete the email altogether. Email is valuable correspondence that in most circumstances should be saved. However, in a law firm or legal department, it should not be saved exclusively within one's own individual inbox.

2. Stop Printing Email: Because people understand that email sitting in their inbox is difficult for anyone else to find, they start printing it. However, stuffing your paper files with printed email accomplishes little, if anything, useful. It makes your files fatter and makes it even more difficult to locate the particular documents you’re looking for once you find the file. Instead, you need to capture email electronically by creating files from them.

3. Create Files from Your Email: Because an email is just a record in a database (not a file like an MS Word file) and can't easily be shared or found by anyone else in your office, it is necessary to create files from those emails. The files created should be stored with all other documents related to a matter. They can be segregated out into an email folder under each matter or many people prefer to lump them in with all correspondence. Here are some of your options:

a. Webmail: If you access your email exclusively via a website (like Gmail), then your options are limited to creating a PDF from your email one at a time. Of course, you'll need a program which allows you to create PDFs in the first place such as Acrobat (not free) or Foxit Reader28 (free).

As a side note, we strongly recommend that you get an email application to store and organize your email rather than relying on a website like Gmail or Yahoo. In our opinion, webmail is not a good idea for lawyers because it is often hacked29, it's not accessible when you're offline, it doesn't integrate with other programs, it can't be saved as a file (only printed to PDF) and it is difficult to organize by matter. If you don't want to use Microsoft Outlook, then consider a free email application like Mozilla Thunderbird30 which will run on a Windows or Mac PC. Email programs like Outlook or Thunderbird can easily be set up to routinely download the email from your webmail account and you typically have the option of leaving the downloaded email on the web or deleting it as soon as it is downloaded. It is not difficult to set up an email program like Outlook to work with your existing webmail account. Most email providers have the instructions right on their website. For example, if you use Gmail, then just see this: http://tinyurl.com/d96lc6k. If you have

28 See https://www.foxitsoftware.com/products/pdf-reader/ 29 Just conduct an Internet search on the terms "gmail hacked" and you'll see what I mean. 30 See http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ for more information.

https://www.foxitsoftware.com/products/pdf-reader/

an option between POP and IMAP as email connection methods, choose IMAP. Gmail allows you to pull its email into an email program for free. Some webmail providers charge you for this privilege such as Yahoo. With Yahoo, you have to upgrade your free account to a paid one ($19.99/year for Mail Plus) and then you can pull it into an email program.

b. Save Outlook Email As MSG Files: You can save email much like you save a Microsoft Word document clicking the File menu Save As (Outlook 2003, 2010 & 2013) OR Office Button Save As (Outlook 2007). We recommend that you save as Outlook Message Format - Unicode (*.msg). If you’re using Outlook 2003, it will default to HTML but you can switch to MSG. If you’re using Outlook 2007 or 2010, it will default to MSG.

A huge benefit to saving MSG files is that it also captures the attachments to the email you're saving inside the MSG file. So if you forgot to separately save the attachments, it won't matter because when you open an MSG file, they're right there. Furthermore, MSG files are still email files (even though they're no longer stored in Outlook) so you can open one you saved previously and forward it, reply to it or anything else you could do with an email you open in Outlook.

You may notice that you have a choice of Outlook Message Format and Outlook Message Format - Unicode. The Unicode format is the current standard for Outlook and holds support for international characters. The non-Unicode one saves msg-files in the ANSI format. The ANSI format is the only format that Outlook 2002 and previous can read. Outlook 2003 and later can read ANSI formatted and Unicode formatted msg-files. Dragging and dropping messages out of Outlook into an Explorer folder will by default save it in the Unicode format.

You can also save email as Text Only although you'll lose any formatting that was in the email. Saving as an MSG file will retain the original formatting, look and feel of the email.

c. Save Outlook Email As PDF Files: This is made infinitely easier if you use a PDF program which has integration with Outlook. Acrobat Standard or Pro and take advantage of the integration between Outlook and Acrobat. By using the ribbon shown below, you can make PDFs of single email, multiple emails at once or even entire folders at once. You can also set up Automatic Archival so any email that ends up in a particular folder is automatically archived into a PDF without you doing anything.

Using the Acrobat integration also captures attachments inside the PDFs you create from email automatically (same as MSG files). The functionality is also available with Foxit Phantom and Nuance Power PDF. Another benefit of creating PDF files from your email is that PDFs are viewable on just about any device. MSG files, on the other hand, can only be viewed in Outlook, Thunderbird and a few other programs. So from a future-file-access perspective, PDF is much safer than MSG.

In addition to the foregoing, Acrobat also allows you to add a button to the Outlook Quick Access Toolbar called Convert to Adobe PDF so that you can open any email and click a single button within the email to convert it to PDF. This method also saves the attachments inside the PDF just like using the ribbon mentioned above. Below is a screenshot of my Quick Access Toolbar in Outlook 2013 with my PDF button highlighted.

d. Save Outlook Email By Dragging Into a Folder: You can clean out your inbox or subfolders under your inbox by cascading the windows and simply dragging and dropping all of them into the desired folder. This will

COPY the emails over into that folder, saving them automatically as MSG files, which preserves the metadata and all attachments.

S. Additional Recommendations:

1. Make Your Electronic File Mirror Your Paper File and Run Them Parallel To One Another: The documents you’ve created in-house are probably already in your electronic file. We propose that you simply add everything else in your paper file to it as well. In other words, if you receive a fax, scan it into your electronic file and put the hard copy of the fax in your paper file (like you’ve always done). If you receive a document in the mail from opposing counsel, scan it into the electronic file and deposit the original in the paper file. If you aren't happy only retaining the original Word or WordPerfect files, then after the letters are printed and signed, scan copies of them before you put them in the envelope. You can continue at this stage for as long as you’d like. This way, the paper addicts in your office will be appeased, but you’ll still reap a lot of the benefits of an electronic file. When you’re ready, move to the next step.

2. When Possible, Destroy The Items You Scan: We're not talking about the elimination of the paper file. Instead, we're suggesting that you could store a lot of your paper in digital form only and there is no penalty. For example, if someone sends you a fax, do you need to retain the original fax? Since a paper fax is not evidence of anything other than the death of a tree and could be modified imperceptibly with a cheap scanner and software, it's unlikely that you need to keep it in paper form. Therefore, faxes are great candidates for scanning and shredding. If you ever need to print the fax, of course you can do so from the scanned image. By starting this policy, you’ll see that your paper files start

becoming a lot thinner, easier to search and easier to manage. If you are paranoid about losing your paper file, then you can certainly keep stuffing it with everything that comes in or goes out; but I'd respectfully submit that you're missing out on an enormous benefit of going digital.

3. Pick A Date By Which You Will Stop Saving Every Piece of Paper: Most law offices initially keep all of the paper just like they always did. However, if you're scanning AND filing all of the paper into paper files, then you're actually creating extra work for yourself. If you follow the roadmap I've laid out, you'll realize at some point that keeping all of the paper isn't serving any useful purpose. However, in my experience, that doesn't mean you'll stop keeping all of the paper. People tend to keep doing what they've always done even when intellectually, it no longer makes sense. So that you don't fall into this trap, pick a date in the future - say six (6) months after you start scanning in earnest - and decide that if everything is going well, you're going to stop keeping every single piece of paper after it is scanned.

4. Stop Injecting Paper Into Your Workflow: This is something you need to start thinking about all the time (and reminding others of). People habitually print things and make copies so it can be difficult to break the habit.

5. Stop Making Copies of Everything You Send Out and Putting Them In The Paper File: There are unquestionably a lot of paper documents in your files that you don't actually need in paper form if electronic copies of them are on your server. Out of paranoia, lawyers like to “paper the file” and create “paper trails” of everything they do so their work is “well documented.” Those terms, as they relate to paper, were used in the practice of law 100 years ago and frankly, they're losing their relevance today. The objectives those terms represent can all be accomplished electronically and much more efficiently. Furthermore, a paper copy of something is no longer evidence of anything since anyone can alter a paper copy with a $50 scanner and make the alteration undetectable. Since most firms only keep paper copies of documents they send out so they can easily determine WHEN they were sent out, simply include the date in the name of the file (i.e., 2003-01-04 - Doe, John letter.doc).

6. Buy Monitors That Rotate to Portrait: Many lawyers print documents in order to review them because they find it difficult to review documents on a computer screen. This difficult typically arises out of the fact that when viewing a document on a typical monitor, one can only see a few paragraphs of each page because the monitor is landscape (wide) and the document is portrait (tall). To remedy this problem, we recommend buying monitors that rotate to portrait (see screen shot below). Monitors with this capability usually only cost a few dollars more than those without it and it is completely worth the extra money. As you can see below, a standard 22” monitor rotated to portrait not only allows a user to see an entire page of text at once, but it makes it nearly twice as big as it would appear if you printed it on 8.5 x 11” paper.

7. Buy Dual Monitors: This concept simply allows you to spread out and not spend so much time minimizing and maximizing applications you’re working with in order to switch between them. The reason you’d want to go with two monitors rather than one larger one is that it is far less expensive to do so. For example, two 23” monitors can easily cost $400 for both ($200 each); however, a 30” monitor can easily cost $1,200 for one of them. New desktop computers can be configured to include two monitor ports for this purpose. Many laptops also come with two monitor ports on the docking stations (Dell Latitude laptops, for example). If you have an existing desktop computer, you can buy upgraded video adapters which provide dual video output ports. Finally, you can buy USB to VGA adapters which are designed to allow you to add additional monitors via the USB port on your computer.

8. Don't Shred - Recycle Instead: Shredders are expensive, noisy, make a mess and jam. You're much better off finding a recycling company to pick up your paper and destroy it confidentially for you. Companies providing this service are easy to find. For example, if I google "paper shredding Columbus Ohio," I get a long list of companies that offer this service locally. Obviously, you want to choose a company that guarantees that the paper will be confidentially destroyed. We use a company called Iron Mountain which has offices all over the U.S.

9. Scan Non Client Related Items First: For example, you probably have a lot accounting records stuffing filing cabinets (bills paid, bank statements, etc.) that

would be excellent candidates for scanning. Try those first as they are great candidates.

10. Consider a Press Release or Marketing Materials About What You've Done: By reducing paper, you're reducing your firm's carbon footprint, reducing landfill waste, helping the environment and saving money. This is something to crow about. Many firms incorporate these facts into marketing materials, their web site, etc.

XIV. BUILDING FORM SETS AND TEMPLATES:

A. Problems With How Documents Are Most Commonly Drafted: Most lawyers draft new documents by using existing ones in some manner or another. Most often, an old document is located which is pretty similar to the next one a lawyer has to draft, it is saved as a new file name and modified as appropriate. While it's a common methodology, there are many problems with this approach:

1. High Margin for Error: The margin for error (and therefore malpractice risk) arises from the fact that Find, Rename and Modify is unstructured, relies on memory, assumes the word processor will "catch" all of the items in need of replacement and requires many steps. Memories fail, word processors don't catch everything and more steps create more mistakes and slower drafting.

2. Slow: Transcribing voice recordings or hand written notes and cobbling together provisions from other documents makes the process slow.

3. Errors of Omission: It's easy to leave something out you should have added to the starting point document.

4. Errors of Inclusion: It's easy to leave something in that you should have taken out.

5. Compromised Documents: In adversarial areas of practice, it's likely that the last document you drafted of a particular type was compromised during the negotiation process. Unless you have a photographic memory and can recall every single change that was made, the document you're starting with is fundamentally flawed.

B. Superior Drafting Approach - Gold Standard Templates and Forms: These documents represent the best of what a firm knows and are the consistent starting point when drafting new documents. They identify changeable text and optional text, they're annotated with drafting notes and sometimes are accompanied by a drafting guide.

C. Rules for Creating Gold Standard Templates:

1. One Document Per Instrument: Let's say you have multiple model documents you rely on for Wills which are supposed to be the same but for some fact pattern variation. For example, you might have a dispositive will, a pour-over will, a married person will, a single person will, a married with kids will, a will that

contains a special needs trust, etc. Unless you're assigned someone to the specific job of template maintenance and this individual has obsessive attention to detail, I can promise you that the documents contain unintended differences. In my professional experience, it's impossible to maintain a set of documents over time with perfect consistency except for the provisions that are supposed to be different. The way to avoid this is to create one template per type of instrument. Going back to the Will example, you want a single Word document which contains every single provision that could occur in a Will, in the order it would occur. You then identify changeable text and annotate the document so anyone using the template knows when an option starts and ends. For example, consider the following example of an annotated Will:

For another example:

2. Finding Your Documents: You may have read the foregoing point and thought to yourself, "that would be great if I could FIND all of the past work!" This is where search utilities can help you out. Search utilities are software applications that will allow you to search though all of the documents (Word, WordPerfect, etc.) that you've ever created and locate specific ones based upon the words they CONTAIN rather than what you called them or what folder they're stored in. For example, let's say you need to draft an Oklahoma Discretionary and Special Needs Trust but you can't remember the last client for whom you drafted one. You may remember that such trusts are authorized by 60 O.S. §§175.81 - 174.92 and that 60 O.S. §175.82 is mentioned in the text of the trust. You could do a search for "60 O.S. §175.82" and instantly find every single document you've ever created which contains that phrase. For recommended search utilities and a more detailed explanation, see paragraph XIII.M. on page 35 above.

3. Ascertaining Differences Between Documents: The only way to do this accurately is to compare versions of documents using your word processor to produce a redline. If you need help with this, just send me an email.

4. Annotating Your Master: You can use one of two approaches for this. We call them "chunking it out" or "blending." Don't ask how we came up with those terms, particularly the first one.

a. Chunking It Out: Chunking it out means that you show entire paragraphs in your gold standard as they would look under changing fact patterns. This is easy to follow but makes your templates take up a lot more pages (sometimes 4 times as many). Here's what it looks like:

ARTICLE XI APPOINTMENT OF GUARDIAN OF MINOR CHILDREN

[if sole initial guardian] A. ____________ . [if married client]If my spouse is deceased and I am survived by minor children, [END IF]I nominate [Guardian Relationship to Testator], _____________, of _______, _______, to serve as the Guardian of the Person of my minor children. [otherwise if co-guardians who can serve alone] A. _________ and ____________. [if married client]If my spouse is deceased and I am survived by minor children, [END IF]I nominate [Guardian Relationship to Testator], _____________, of _______, _______, and [Guardian Relationship to Testator], _____________, of _______, _______, to serve as the Guardian/Co-Guardians of the Person of my minor children. If either ________ or ________ is unable or unwilling to act as Co-Guardian of the Person of my minor children, then the one who is able to serve shall serve as the sole Guardian of the Person of my minor children. [otherwise if co-guardians who cannot serve alone] A. _________ and ____________. [if married client]If my spouse is deceased and I am survived by minor children, [END IF]I nominate [Guardian Relationship to Testator], _____________, of _______, _______, and [Guardian Relationship to Testator], _____________, of _______, _______, to serve as the Guardian/Co-Guardians of the Person of my minor children. It is my intention that these nominees act as Guardian of the Person of my minor children only if they are able to act together. [end options]

b. Blending It: As you can see below, blending it takes up much less space and the idea is to combine the language where possible and annotate so you can see where the differences lie. This is a much better approach, but requires that you break down your language in a more granular manner.

ARTICLE XI APPOINTMENT OF GUARDIAN OF MINOR CHILDREN

A. [Guardian name]_________ and ____________ [if co-guardians]. [if married client]If my spouse is deceased and I am survived by minor children, [END IF]I nominate [Guardian Relationship to Testator], _____________, of _______, _______, [could be co-guardians] to serve as the Guardian/Co-Guardians of the Person of my minor children. [if Co-Guardians and remaining guardian may serve alone]If either ________ or ________ is unable or unwilling to act as Co-Guardian of the Person of my minor children, then the one who is able to serve shall serve as the sole Guardian of the Person of my minor children. [end of option][if Co-Guardians and remaining guardian may NOT serve alone]It is my intention

that these nominees act as Guardian of the Person of my minor children only if they are able to act together.[end of option]

5. Create Drafting Checklists for Complex Documents: This is part of documenting processes, building in malpractice avoidance into the way you work, and improving accuracy. For example, see below:

6. Create "Real" Templates: Word processor templates have a different suffix (.wpt in WordPerfect and .dotx in Word) and they're typically stored in a special folder for templates. They can be made read-only so that users don't accidentally over-write them with changes. More importantly, they can be shared across your office so that everyone is using the same template every time. This also makes updating easier since there's only one template to deal with.

D. Why This Is a Perfect Exercise for a New Attorney: If you want to learn how documents are crafted at your firm, then pulling this kind of information together is incredibly educational.

E. Document Assembly: Your Gold Standards are the starting point for document assembly. Once you have them built, you will be able to automate them using the tools built into Word (if the automation is simple) or using a sophisticated document assembly application like HotDocs31.

XV. MAXIMIZE THE TOOLS YOU HAVE AND FIND THE TOOLS YOU NEED: The biggest problem in legal technology is underutilization of technology a firm already owns. Unfortunately, simply using the technology often yields no additional gains in terms of skill. The following are ways you can systematically improve your skills and the technological situation in the office as a whole. You may read this chapter and think you're being encouraged to become a law firm technology consultant. That's not really the case, but technology impacts just about every facet of the practice of law. Today, no lawyer can afford to remain willfully ignorant of the technology and tools available to them. Most law firms have been meaning to improve the technology and increase efficiency forever. However, they usually don't actually do something about it until everything starts breaking down or someone internally decides to drive the process. Good lawyers are often so focused on doing the work that they find it difficult to allocate time to things like this. However, that doesn't mean that initiatives like this don't need to be undertaken. If you want to improve things, you're going to have to take the bull by the horns.

A. Take An Inventory of Existing Technology: You're probably thinking, "why is this my job?!" Of course, technically, it isn't your job but someone has to do it. If an inventory hasn't already been compiled, that's a pretty clear indication that no one else at the firm thinks it's their job either. Ultimately, you can't start improving things until you know what already exists; and the reality is that most law offices don't know exactly what they have. Compiling an inventory is also a good idea from an insurance perspective and most importantly, it also helps identify things that should be replaced or upgraded. This is most easily handled with a spreadsheet. You want to have the following information about every piece of hardware and software in your office. Here's what you want in the inventory:

1. Computers: If you aren't sure of the specifications of your computers, you can use services like www.lookinmypc.com or http://tinyurl.com/5w6o to get the details.

a. Serial number, make & model

b. Laptop or desktop

c. Processor/CPU

d. Amount of RAM

31 See http://www.hotdocs.com/.

http://www.lookinmypc.com/

http://tinyurl.com/5w6o

http://www.hotdocs.com/

e. Size of hard drive

f. Date they were put into service

g. Size of monitor if there is one, whether there are single or dual monitors and the serial number, make & model of each

h. Version of Windows or Mac operating system

i. Main software applications loaded on it (i.e., version of MS Office or Corel WP)

j. Name of user, logon & password

2. Printers, Copiers & Scanners: Brand, model, serial number, date of purchase and if they're personal to someone, whose desk they're on. If you're leasing a copier, the commencement date and term of the lease should be recorded along with the monthly payment and any other ongoing costs associated with it. For example, many offices have a lease payment for the copier but also pay a certain amount per number of copies made.

3. Servers:

a. Serial number, make & model

b. Processor/CPU

c. Amount of RAM

d. Size of hard drive

e. Date they were put into service

f. Size of monitor if there is one and the serial number, make & model

g. Network operating system and version

h. Uninterruptible power supply (brand & model)

i. Antivirus/anti-malware software being used (name & version)

j. What applications are running on each server/what they're used for

k. Admin logon and password

l. Description of, method & frequency of backup

4. Network Equipment: You want the models, manufacturer and serial number for each device.

a. Switch/router/hub

b. Firewall

c. Spam appliance (if applicable)

5. Software:

a. Types:

i. Accounting software

ii. Case/matter management software

iii. Document assembly software

iv. Document management software

v. Email application. Is Microsoft Exchange involved (either in-house or hosted)? Is Google Apps involved?

vi. Word processor and office suite in use (all programs and versions)

vii. Practice-area specific software such as probate pleading preparation, tax preparation, estate planning drafting software, etc.

viii. Trial presentation software

b. Name of application, version & manufacturer and how many licenses of each (i.e., Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2013, 6 licenses)

c. Whose computer each license is installed on.

d. Ideally, you'd also collect the license keys. License keys are the unlock or serial numbers you have to enter into many programs before they'll work. These are typically printed on the sleeve of the CD for the program or on the software box; and they're often lost along the way. Unfortunately, if you ever want to re-install the programs, you're going to need those keys. If you don't know what they are and want to compile a list, you can try:

i. Belarc Advisor (www.belarc.com/free_download.html)

ii. Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder (http://tinyurl.com/3hvvge)

iii. Recover Keys (http://recover-keys.com/en/bussiness.html)

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

http://tinyurl.com/3hvvge

http://recover-keys.com/en/bussiness.html

B. Determine Current Versions of Software: Now you need to do a little research and determine the current version of each software application in use. I would also want to know if the current version is still supported by the manufacturer.

For example, I recently spoke to a lawyer to complained about the matter/case management program she was using. Specifically, she was dissatisfied with how it handled email and a few other functional issues. Her problem wasn't actually the software, it was that she hadn't kept it up to date. The 6 year old version of the software she was using was no longer supported by the manufacturer and the specific functional issues she was complaining about had been eliminated or alleviated by upgrades released in the subsequent 6 years. She wanted to switch to something else, but she actually only needed to upgrade what she already owned.

C. Action Plan For Improvement:

1. Determine What Could Be Improved: Here are some examples.

a. Underutilized Technology: Let's say your firm owns Adobe Acrobat Standard. It's fairly easy to go to www.adobe.com and find a features matrix which shows what that program is capable of. Is your firm using it for all it could be using it for? If your firm uses Microsoft Word, I can assure you that no one is using it for all it can do for them. Compile a list of things your software could be doing for you that it isn't being used for.

b. Technologies Not Being Used At All: For example, I recently worked with a firm that had a very expensive, high-powered scanner (it cost over $5,000) and no one was using it at all. The firm was using it to scan closed files but the lawyers got tired of reviewing closed files to tell the person doing the scanning what should be scanned and what should be discarded. I've talked to many firms just in the last 12 months who purchased software (accounting software, for example) and then never even installed it.

c. Software That Should Be Upgraded: Remember that software years are dog years. So Microsoft Office 2003 is actually 84 years old and way past retirement age. Compile a list of software in use that is either a) no longer supported by the manufacturer due to its age32 or b) that is at least two versions behind the current version. Further, for each program, it's a good idea to pull together a list of new and improved features introduced since the version your firm is using. Of course, this will help you build a case for upgrading.

d. Hardware That Should Be Replaced: Law firms tend to use hardware until it dies which is the most expensive and inefficient way to upgrade technology. If a computer crashes, the firm has no time to research,

32 When software is no longer supported, it simply means that you cannot receive technical support for it in the event something goes wrong.

negotiate a better price or wait for something to be shipped to them. In most cases, if a computer stops working, its user also stops working (which is why this is so expensive). Further, slow or problematic computers, printers or scanners increase stress and contribute to overall slowness and inefficiency. Therefore, you also want to compile a list of old or problematic hardware that could or should be replaced. Almost any computer over 3 years old is a good candidate and if a computer is 4 years old or older, it should be replaced as soon as possible. With 4 year old computers, anything that goes wrong will cost far more to fix than the entire computer is worth.

2. Determine What You're Missing: When I started practicing law, I knew what was causing me frustration (managing case information, keeping track of deadlines, efficiently communicating with clients, trying to find old documents, etc.), but didn't know what was out there to help me. Here's what you can do to educate yourself:

a. Conduct research:

i. Subscribe to Law Technology News (www.lawtechnews.com).

ii. Read the site or better yet, join the American Bar Association's Law Practice Division (which will get you a subscription to their Law Practice magazine - lots of tech) - the URL is http://tinyurl.com/lvehk3x

iii. Subscribe to www.technolawyer.com

iv. Talk to your colleagues in other firms and find out what they're using from a tech perspective

v. Email us - if you have specific questions, the answers are free. You can call us at 614.340.3444 or email me at [email protected].

b. Technologies You Should Learn About: See paragraph IV. on page 5 above for a full discussion.

3. Prioritize Issues and Compile Solutions: This is effectively compiling a technology plan for the firm. When a firm doesn't plan, one very obvious thing happens. Technology is managed by crisis. Spending is not pro-active, but reactive. If someone's printer breaks, we run to Best Buy and buy a new one. We don't have time to stop and consider whether it might save money if we purchased a network printer that everyone could use rather than little personal printers that die every 2-3 years and must be replaced. Instead, we buy the same type of device which will likely result in another breakdown 2-3 years from now and which is more expensive to operate than a business-class, network printer.

http://tinyurl.com/lvehk3x

Just like a business plan, every firm should have a technology plan. A good technology plan will include a budget based on goals and needs. Before you can have a plan, it is important to document your needs, goals, what is working, what is not working, what you could be doing better, what frustrates you (and others) the most, etc.

4. Training: If you don't factor this into everything you propose or undertake, then you'll have an extremely high chance of failure.

a. Seek Training. Many lawyers assume that one can figure out technology by "clicking" around or just playing with it. Of course, this assumes that every software feature is obvious on the surface and that people actually have time to play around and experiment. Neither assumption is valid. In fact, most technology cannot ever be mastered by simply trying to use it.

b. Insufficient Training Will Wreck Any Project: It's really quite simple - if you can't afford the training, then you can't afford the technology. If you skimp on training, you will end up with technology that is underutilized or inefficiently used, only leading to frustration, and ultimately, a waste of money.

c. Follow Up Training: You've heard the saying about making time to sharpen your saw. That is exactly why you should schedule annual tech training to keep yourself and your colleagues up to speed. For example, if you're using a case management program, schedule re-fresh training for the existing users and complete training for employees you may have added since the last training session. Most law firms only utilize 10% of what their word processor is capable of. Therefore, this is another area that is perfect for annual training.

5. Be the Tech Advocate for Your Firm: Many firms have been coaxed into upgrading their technology by persistent, tech savvy lawyers. It definitely can be done and it happens regularly.

6. Educate Your Colleagues: It's up to you to educate the lawyers who don't understand what they're missing on the technology front. Break it down into small pieces. Ask for an opportunity to have potential new technology demonstrated for the firm to consider at staff meetings or similar gathering. Demonstrations can often be conducted for free by a product expert so this certainly isn't something you have to do yourself. Be selective and demonstrate how the technology will address an issue or fix a problem. If you're overzealous, you'll lose credibility because the partners will think you just want to buy every gadget and gizmo regardless of what it is.

7. Be A Skilled User Yourself: It doesn't matter what the technology can do, the only thing that matters is what you can do with the technology. Set a good example, master what you've already got and demonstrate what is possible. Read manuals, take online training and experiment with the technology you have

so you can learn how to extract its maximum benefit. Find out who is the most technologically adept users are in your office and ask them to show you how they're managing clients and where they're incorporating technology into what they're doing. Here are some other ideas:

a. Draft your own documents and learn more about the functionality of your word processor. If you can't type and want to learn how to, there are many ways to do it from buying a program like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing33 to using web sites like www.learn2type.com or www.typingweb.com. If you are physically unable to type or just don't want to learn, then you can get Dragon NaturallySpeaking, speak to your computer and it will type what you say.

b. Look up your own information. If you need information that resides in a system in your office, learn how to look it up yourself rather than asking someone else to do it for you.

c. If you have a case management program that you barely touch, start using it more, ask existing users to give you a little instruction and take it in steps. For example, you might start with the calendar first - get comfortable with entering appointments and tasks yourself. Then move to contacts. Set up a new contact in the system and learn how to search for existing contacts.

XVI. KNOWING YOUR BLIND SPOTS: Younger lawyers are naturally more tech savvy than older lawyers because they grew up with it. However, complex technologies cannot be mastered by merely using them. For example, I'm a really good cook. My friends and relatives tell me I'm a great cook. I'm completely comfortable in the kitchen, and I've been cooking seriously for over 20 years. However, compared to probably any graduate from the Culinary Institute of America34, I know nothing. The point is, there's always more to learn and feeling comfortable with something doesn't mean you've mastered it.

XVII. BUILDING SUPPORT FOR CHANGE: Generally speaking, people don't like change and you can't ignore this fact and expect that everyone will get in line behind your ideas for changing the way things are done. Here are some ideas to build support:

A. Involve Everyone In The Process: For example, if you're going to have a vendor conduct a demonstration of a particular technology you think your firm would benefit from, then invite everyone from the office who may use it in the future. For example, many times lawyers don't involve support staff in these kinds of considerations even though it may be support staff who will end up using the technology the most. The more people in your office who see what you see in terms of demonstrations, the better off you'll be.

B. Make Sure Everyone Understands the Problem: If an office has been engaging in a particular protocol for a long time, those involved may see nothing wrong with it even

33 See http://tinyurl.com/75zw6d5 for more information. 34 See http://www.ciachef.edu/

http://www.ciachef.edu/

though it's very inefficient and/or expensive. Use the methodology described in paragraph XVIII.E. on page 59 below to explain the human resource costs. Calculate the hard costs. Explain how time can be saved and costs reduced.

XVIII. RETURN ON INVESTMENT ("ROI") ANALYSIS: Many times, a law firm or legal department will reject a technology or process upgrade based solely on the price tag. However, the cost alone shouldn't be the basis of accepting or rejecting any investment in one's practice. Instead, an ROI analysis should be conducted to confirm or deny whether a project is worth doing. Many times, a project that sounds too expensive will pay for itself in 2 to 3 months. Therefore, it is essential to go through the ROI analysis before deciding yes or no on any particular project.

A. What Is The Return On Investment of The Purchase? Technically, ROI is an estimate of the financial benefit (the "return") on money spent (the "investment") for a particular project. When calculating your cost, only include direct costs and expenses that are driven by the proposed project. Your calculation of return should include tangible benefits (bottom-line revenue increases or cost savings) and intangible benefits. When evaluating benefits, consider the following criteria:

1. Number of people helped: The higher the number of people helped by the proposed project, the higher the ROI. In this case, everyone in your office could use the system.

2. Frequency of use: The more frequently an application will be used, the higher the ROI.

3. Cost of production: The higher your internal cost to deliver the service or product, the greater the benefit from automation or technical assistance.

4. Potential to re-use: The greater your potential to re-use the data or information in the proposed new system, the higher the ROI.

5. Communication efficiencies: The easier the proposed project makes it for your firm to communicate with clients or your employees to collaborate and communicate with one another, the higher the ROI.

6. Increased accuracy: The more a product or service increases accuracy, the higher the ROI.

B. Other Factors Affecting ROI:

1. Will The New Technology Increase The Competence Of Your Staff And Make The Office More Efficient? The best technology initiative will fail if your colleagues and staff refuse to use it or don't understand it sufficiently to use it. You have to think about this issue in advance. We recommend bringing the staff into the technology decision-making process early. This is essential if they are the ones who will be working with the new hardware or software. While they cannot dictate what you buy, their ideas can improve it, and their participation is essential if the system is to work. Without this participation and "buy-in," it can be an uphill battle.

2. Will The New Hardware/Software Allow You To Do Something You Couldn't Do Before? For example, if you currently refer to outside counsel all transactions of a particular type, then a new piece of technology may allow you to pull that work back inside your office

3. Will The Quality Of Your Services Be Improved? Any technology that enables you to provide more comprehensive, faster, more accurate or less expensive service to your clients should be given special consideration. This also applies to technology that allows you to communicate better with your clients.

C. Calculating Cost Savings: Before you can figure out savings, you must first figure out what your costs are. Therefore, you'll need to conduct a workflow analysis. Determine what steps are involved, how long each step takes and the costs associated with each step. After you've got that down, figure out how many of those transactions you average per week, month and year. This will help you determine your true costs so you can figure out what your savings might be. While you're doing this, you should consider which steps, if any, can be eliminated. The overall processes should also be scrutinized because it won't help to automate a bad process.

D. Payback Period: This is the time it takes for the return to equal the investment. With technology projects, most experts agree that you should look for payback periods of one year or less. Furthermore, once a project is past its payback period, you should not be afraid to discard it for something better.

E. How To Calculate the Labor Costs Of Your Processes: Let's use a common example of lawyers who dictate their time entries. In that case, every time entry must be transcribed by a support staff person and entered into the billing system. Why would a firm re-enter every time entry two or three times before it gets into a billing system? For one, it may be convenient for the lawyers not to have to type anything or write anything down. They may have been doing it that way for a long time and they like it. However, it's likely that lawyers engaged in this practice never really think about the cost of having those dictated entries transcribed and then re-typed again.

Of course, each support staff person costs the firm some dollar amount per hour that they're present. To calculate that amount, take someone's annual salary and multiply by 1.4 to factor in the costs of taxes, overhead and benefits. If the individual does not receive benefits, the reduce that multiple to 1.15 to factor in only taxes and overhead. Now divide that amount by 2,080 work hours per year to arrive at a rough idea of the hourly cost for that person. Let's say the amount is $35/hour. If you have someone in your office unnecessarily blowing 3 hours a week transcribing time entries because it's convenient for the lawyer, you can now tag that convenience with a cost of $105/week plus the annoyance to the support staff person of having to listen to and type someone else's time entries. Now multiply that by the number of lawyers engaging in the process. You can see how this can add up to a lot of money over the course of a year. In fact, if 5 lawyers engaged in this practice at the same costs, it would cost $27,300/year to the firm. These facts might be sufficient inspiration to find a more efficient way to enter time. What are the options? First, the lawyers could type their own time entries directly into the system. Second, they could use Dragon NaturallySpeaking and dictate their time into the system

without requiring someone else to transcribe it for them. Third, they could use a tablet/smartphone app like iTimeKeep to enter time remotely and they could use the voice recognition system built into their phones to simply speak the entries. All of these options cost far less than $27,300 per year.

F. Sample Analysis: In my professional experience, lawyers have a difficult time ascertaining their hard and soft costs associated with rendering a particular service. For example, a solo estate planning lawyer might be presented with an option of buying an estate planning document assembly system. Let’s say the cost is $12,000. Many lawyers will dismiss that cost immediately as too expensive and not give it a second thought. However, the return on investment analysis might have worked out like this:

1. Lawyer handles 4 plans per week @ $750 each (flat fee).

2. Average wage + benefits = $30/hr (internal costs); and the typical transaction takes 8 hours from start to finish

3. Therefore, the current profit per plan = $510 or $97,920/yr

4. Automated estate planning system cost = $12,000

5. Using the proposed system, the lawyer’s total time to complete a plan drops from 8 hours to 1.5 hours

6. Profit per plan goes to $705 or $135,360/yr

7. Therefore, revenue would increase by $37,440 in the first year and the system would have paid for itself by the 4th month of use. Most experts on this subject say that if the payoff is 12 months or less, then it is a good idea to pull the trigger.

XIX. STARTING YOUR OWN FIRM?

A. Write a Business Plan: What Is a Business Plan? Generally, a business plan describes the business and details the past, present and future of the company. Very importantly, it is all reduced to writing in a plan document.

1. Estimating Start-up Costs: For new firms, it provides a framework for organizing estimates of your start-up costs, and how much you’ll need to invest yourself or obtain from other sources.

2. Operating Budget: Your business plan will contain a budget, which forces you write down and analyze your operating expenses. This also helps you formulate revenue targets.

3. Revenue: The plan provides a means of estimating revenue.

4. Financing for a New Firm: If you’re seeking outside funding for a new practice, a business plan is often required by lending institutions for new enterprises. Of course, lenders require a business plan because they want evidence that the

business will generate enough income to pay back the loan. It is certainly possible for a lawyer to have a lot of clients and still fail to make a profit. Lenders want to see that you’ve planned for success. In a down economy, a business plan is essential to obtain financing.

5. Financing for an Existing Firm: If you’re seeking outside financing for an existing firm, a business plan helps convince lending institutions to invest in your business (even if a business plan isn’t specifically requested).

6. Protecting Your Investment: If you’re funding your firm with your own assets, you need a business plan for the same reasons a lender requires one: you do not want to waste your own investment in the business.

7. Defining Objectives: A plan helps you to define your objectives (business, personal and financial) and the means of achieving them.

8. Business Description: A plan should include a business description that clarifies your practice, specialties, services you offer presently, services you’d like to offer in the future and profitability (or profit potential). Core purpose and mission statements should also be included.

9. Marketing Plan: A marketing plan helps your firm make money from the outset by forcing you to devise an effective marketing strategy and means of "getting the word out."

10. Fixing Problems: For existing firms, developing a business plan provides a way to examine what is working and what isn’t, identify areas that can be improved upon and less satisfactory aspects of your practice. Once negatives are identified, you can plan the remedies, solutions and corrective actions.

B. Components of a Business Plan:

1. Executive Summary: This is particularly helpful if your business plan is going to be designed for public consumption (lenders, etc.). The executive summary summarizes the highlights and key points of your plan in one or two pages.

2. Business Description: There are three aspects of this: what happened in the past, what is going on now, and what you aspire to do in the future. Write a factual description of your firm, its ownership and history. As for the future, write down your vision, your dream of what your business would be in the perfect world. What will you be doing, who are your clients? What will make your business successful? What distinguishes you from all of the other lawyers? For guidance on defining your firm’s core purpose and mission, see The Harvard Business Review’s article entitled “Building Your Company’s Vision”35.

35 See http://tinyurl.com/yecxmas

3. Management Summary (if applicable): Consider developing a management summary to provide background on management team members, their experiences and key accomplishments.

4. Products and Services: Describe your practice areas and the specific products and related services offered. Also describe how your products and services stand out or can be differentiated from those offered by other firms.

5. Market Analysis: Put together a summary of your typical clients within each practice area, and describe the competitive landscape, market size and expected growth of that market.

6. Marketing Plan: How do you market yourself and your business? For example, how will you solicit referrals from other lawyers? Should you sign up for any lawyer referral services? How will you establish yourself in your community and make potential clients aware of you and the services you provide? Will you advertise? Will you have a Web site? Related to this is an analysis of what makes you unique, what you believe is your competitive advantage and, what the market is lacking (that you can provide).

7. Strategy and Implementation: Describe how you will execute your plan, what steps you’ll take to put it into action. This is also where you’ll establish milestones and set deadlines by which certain things will be done.

8. Financial Plan: This contains key financials including revenue, cash flow, profits and expenses.

C. Options for Writing a Business Plan:

1. Write it Yourself: This can be a little intimidating, but it is certainly do-able. Create an outline of the points you want to address and start filling it in. If you just google sample business plan, you'll see there are many free templates to start with on the Internet.

2. Hire a Professional: There are business consultants and "lawyer coaches" who can help you write a business plan.

3. Use Business Plan Software: There are many options for this, including applications like Business Plan Pro or LivePlan36, or Biz-Plan37 and others.

D. Build A Budget: The most important thing in launching a new firm is avoiding expensive surprises. The best way to do that is to put together a detailed budget. If you'd like a

36 Both are from http://www.paloalto.com/ 37 See http://www.planware.org/

sample budget Excel spreadsheet, just send me an email ([email protected]). Here's what should be on your radar:

1. Hardware:

a. Computer(s)

b. Monitor(s)

c. Network cables in the walls of your office

d. Network patch cables

e. Office phone system

f. Printer or multifunction

g. Toner for your printer

h. Scanner (if you don't get a multifunction)

i. Surge suppressors for all other devices that plug into the wall

j. Switch/hardware firewall

k. Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for computer and switch/firewall

l. USB printer cable

2. Software:

a. Accounting and billing software

b. Adobe Acrobat or other PDF creation/manipulation software

c. Case management software

d. Microsoft Office (or equivalent)

e. Search software

f. Speech recognition software

3. Security:

a. Antispam software or service

b. Antispyware software

c. Antivirus software

d. Computer backup system

e. Backup Software

f. Software firewall

4. Services:

a. Cell phone

b. Electronic version of your letterhead in Word or WordPerfect

c. Hosted Microsoft Exchange

d. Internet fax service (if you don't have a multifunction machine)

e. Logo, letterhead & business card design

f. Online backup service

g. Remote Access

h. Reserve a domain name (i.e., www.henleylaw.com)

i. Web Meeting Service

j. Website

5. Other:

a. Cases of copy paper

b. High speed internet

c. Office supplies

d. Training for Whatever You Buy

By Barron K. Henley, Esq. AFFINITY CONSULTING GROUP 1550 Old Henderson Road, Suite S150 Columbus, OH 43220 Phone: 614.340.3444 Fax: 614.340.3443 www.affinityconsulting.com © 2019 Affinity Consulting Group LLC

Exhibit A

ISSUES LIST

The following are red flags and issues that we commonly encounter in law firms. Note that this is just a list of issues, not potential solutions (as that would take another 500 pages). The objective here is to help you spot issues within your office that should be on your radar and areas where efficiency can be improved. I. Software Issues:

A. Accounting:

1. Only using a program for billing (not the rest of the accounting function)

2. Using 2 programs that don't share information (QuickBooks & Timeslips, for example)

3. Using a non-legal accounting program like QuickBooks rather than a legal-specific one like PCLaw or Tabs3

4. Doing payroll in-house (liability & time consuming) or outsourcing it to CPA firm (expensive compared to payroll service)

5. Time tracking issues:

a. Not tracking time just because they have flat or contingent fee cases

b. Lawyer's time entries entered by staff

c. Time not entered contemporaneously

6. Trust account manually tracked (rather than using software)

7. Too many employees involved in the accounting function relative to the number of timekeepers or complexity of accounting

8. Decentralized billing - making support staff responsible for each lawyer's billing (under-employs skilled support staff, wastes time and no one is centrally driving the process)

9. No commitment to the billing process (time entry deadlines, prebill review deadlines, etc.)

10. No collection process, resulting in excess write-offs and stale AR on the books

11. No internal controls in place for fraud (and mistake) prevention

12. Not tracking source of business or origination

13. Not tracking type of work for data driven marketing

B. Case/Matter Management Software ("CMS"):

1. No CMS although:

a. High volume practice area

b. Disorganization

c. Internal communication breakdowns

d. Practice areas with lots of steps for each case/engagement

2. Have CMS:

a. CMS doesn't share information with accounting program

b. If using Outlook as well, CMS doesn't sync with it

c. Underutilized CMS - functional areas which may not be utilized:

i. Contacts

ii. Personal calendars for users

iii. Files - key information, parties, matter-specific info

iv. Docketing - public calendars for deadlines

v. Tasks

vi. Document & email management

vii. Reporting

viii. Document assembly

ix. Time entry - possibly full accounting

d. Not everyone has been trained

e. Not customized for firm's practice areas

f. Not everyone in the firm using it

C. Document & Email Management:

1. No document management system ("DMS"):

a. Should consider one because:

i. high volume of documents & email

ii. over 10 users

iii. disorganization of electronic files

iv. paper problem

b. Electronic files stored first by user rather than by practice area or client

c. Inconsistent file naming conventions

d. No search utility

e. Email management issues:

i. Email being printed

ii. Email not being shared electronically in a public filing system

iii. Bad email management practices by users - lack of timely response

f. No way to share files with others in the office; or way to share files but everyone has created their own local filing systems

2. Have DMS:

a. Everyone not using it because it's not mandatory b. Too many document types

c. No training

d. User dissatisfaction with functionality

e. Poor choice for DMS - lacking functionality

3. Email issues:

a. Cannot get access to all email accounts on computer, tablet and phone

b. Can get access, but email not synchronized across devices - i.e., if you download an email on your phone first, it never shows up on your computer.

c. Lacking Exchange or Google Apps for business

d. Leaving attachments to email in email application and not separately saving them

e. Using uncommon program that doesn’t integrate with anything like Thunderbird

f. Not using software - email access exclusively via website

g. Using Gmail

h. Old version of email software no longer supported

i. Using personal email address for business because firm doesn't have a domain name

j. Excessive copying of others on emails because of lack of centralized email management

D. Paper Reduction:

1. Users claiming to feel buried in paper

2. Not relying upon an electronic file for active matters

3. Relying exclusively upon copiers for scanning rather than desktop scanners

4. Printing email

5. Scanned documents being stored in a separate system than word processing files and email

6. Maintaining paper files even though they also have a complete electronic file

7. Significant number of closed paper files that are in storage

8. No method for taking electronic files to court, out of the office (tablet, notebook, tec.)

9. No or inadequate remote access to electronic files

10. Users hoarding active paper files in their office and never filing them in a cabinet or file room

11. Paper filing stacking up/behind in filing

12. Lost paper

13. Paper cannot be shared - it is by nature one at a time

E. PDF Software:

1. PDF software will only allow one to view files (not create them)

2. Can create PDF files, but lack software that would allow one to:

a. annotate

b. lock down PDFs

c. redact

d. bates number

e. create searchable PDFs

f. add/delete pages, combine PDFs

3. Using old version of Acrobat - it's cheaper to buy new copies of Foxit Phantom, Nuance Power PDF or Nitro Professional than to upgrade an old version of Acrobat

F. Calendaring/Docketing:

1. Paper calendars in use

2. Inability to share electronic calendar

3. Inability to remotely access electronic calendar

4. Inability for users to view/add/change appointments on other people’s calendars where appropriate

G. Document Generation:

1. No document assembly although firm engages in areas of practice requiring generation of complex, long documents; or practice areas in which a document is the deliverable

2. Drafting methods which raise red flags:

3. Create new documents by finding existing documents, saving them as a new file name and making changes

a. Dictation & manual transcription, particularly if cassettes are being used

b. Print existing document and mark it up with pen/pencil

4. Own document assembly software but are not using it

5. No templates for commonly drafted documents

6. Own CMS but aren't using document assembly functionality in it

H. Word processor issues:

1. Using both Word and WP in same office

2. Using anything other than Word or WP like OpenOffice or Google Docs

3. Users don't understand how to control complex formatting

4. No one has had training in the word processor

5. Using old versions of the word processor (older than 7 yrs)

6. Firm uses different versions of Word (2007, 2010 & 2013)

7. Not using O365

I. Contact Management:

1. No firm-wide database of contacts that everyone relies upon

2. Paper rolodexes in use

3. No way to pull together lists for client communication, marketing, etc.

J. Communications:

1. Land lines instead of VoIP

2. No extranet or client portal for sharing documents/data

K. Practice-Area Specific Software: Lacking it when good options exist (i.e., software for preparing bankruptcy schedules, systems for drafting estate planning documents, FinPlan for a family law practice, tax prep software, etc.).

L. Trial Presentation/Prep Software: High volume of litigation but no software for these things.

M. Speech Recognition Software:

1. Dictation being manually transcribed

2. Staff entering time or drafting email for lawyers because they are poor typists

3. User has disability that prevents efficient keyboarding

N. Training: No training provided on primary programs used by the office.

II. Hardware Issues:

A. Server & Network Issues:

1. Have one but probably don't need one

2. Time to replace server:

a. Does firm really need one?

b. Hosted server v in-house server (owned or leased)

3. Only have a server because of Exchange (when they could instead get hosted Exchange)

4. Not able to verify backups occur daily; or ability to verify but no one does

5. Server older than 5 years old

6. No off-site backup (assumes that there's at least an on-site backup)

7. Managed Services:

a. Firm is paying an IT company a flat monthly fee for server monitoring but they always have to be notified by the firm when something is wrong

b. Bad current arrangement doesn't mean firm should not consider managed services

c. Firm has in-house server but it isn't being actively monitored by any outside IT company

8. Too many physical servers for the number of users or programs in use requiring a server

9. Users report slowness, downtime, interruptions in server access

10. No or unsatisfactory remote access

11. No physical security - server in open access area, not properly secured

12. Relying solely on wireless connection when a database program is in use (can cause data corruption)

13. Wireless security not set up properly or can't verify

B. Personal Computer Issues:

1. Mixed environment of Windows & Mac (expensive to maintain & compatibility issues)

2. Using unsupported versions of Widows

3. Unreliability of computers

4. Using laptops or desktops that are 4 years old or older

5. Users who would benefit from mobility being stuck with desktops

6. Policy of waiting for computers to die before they're replaced

C. Print/Copy/Scan/Fax:

1. Still using an old-fashioned physical fax machine rather than an internet fax service

2. Personal printers everywhere (distributed rather than centralized printing) - business-class, network printers much less expensive way to print

3. Copier only means of scanning (centralized rather than distributed scanning)

4. Inexpensive multifunctions distributed around the office (sub $500 multifunctions typically unreliable)

5. Too many copiers for the number of users - law firms can function without copiers at all and save a ton of money (relying on network printers and scanners).

D. Bring Your Own Device: If this policy is followed, what is being done to protect client data?

E. Wireless Phone Headsets: Not in use

III. Security:

A. Mobile devices containing client data not encrypted; no way to remotely wipe.

B. Notebooks/tablets containing client data not encrypted.

C. No means to send encrypted email

D. No firewall for mobile users

E. No way to centrally administer or verify installation of antivirus/anti-malware software

F. No policy to log off or shut down computers at night

IV. Firm Management, Office & Administrative Issues:

A. There is a full-time, in-house IT person when it's not justified; or lacking one when one is needed. IT typically becomes a full-time job when a firm reaches 35 - 40 users.

B. Not making sure that internal IT is given the opportunity to stay current on new software/features/technology

C. Multiple offices not on same network or inadequate remote access

D. Slow internet (5 mbps up & down or slower)

E. Unreliable power or internet

F. High ratio of support staff to lawyers in a practice area that doesn't justify it because lawyers are not self-reliant in production of work product

G. No written protocols for workflow, process documentation or “firm cookbook”

H. No proactive technology plan - just waiting for something to break

I. No leadership/management training

J. No metrics – no way to measure success

K. No succession planning

L. No employee review process, or opportunity to give or receive feedback

M. Team health issues – creating a positive work environment, trust among people, poor perception of firm leadership