2006 November

Travelers Beware: Border Searches of Laptops and Other Electronic Gear

November 30, 2006 By Grant Griffiths

Recently on a list I am on, there was a thread on searches of laptops at airports. In order to answer questions about this, and since it is beyond my area of practice, I asked Bonnie Stern Wasser to provide a guest post about it. Bonnie went above and beyond my expectation. Bonnie practices immigration and nationality law in Seattle, Washington. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and currently serves as Chair of the Washington Chapter’s Congressional Liaison Committee.. Thanks Bonnie for such a great guest post. While the post is long, it contains a complete look at the subject.

During this busy holiday travel season, travelers need to be aware of search and seizure laws when traveling internationally with laptops, PDAs, cell phones, iPods/mp3 players, portable hard drives and other kinds of electronic gear containing sensitive personal or confidential business data. Increasingly, border officials are searching and confiscating electronic gear to exclude immigrants from entry to the USA or to bring criminal charges against US citizens and immigrants traveling in and out of the USA. Several recent cases address the legal limits of laptop and electronic data searches. Because US border search authority is very broad, travelers should operate under the assumption that their gadgets could be searched and that nothing contained therein will be deemed private unless one is prepared to litigate the issue. While this is a prime area of law to test the legal bounds of privacy issues, litigation can be expensive and confiscation of equipment can be disruptive to jobs and business. Therefore, the better course of action is to leave your gear at home or limit the data you carry in it. Keep in mind that business cards and address books as well as books and papers among other items can also be searched, scanned and confiscated. This article, however, focuses on electronic data issues.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

Billings 2 Review

November 29, 2006 By Grant Griffiths

I have been spending some time reviewing Billings 2 from Marketcircle, the makers of my favorite calendar, contact and case management program, Daylite 3.

I have to say that I am impressed and like Billings 2 a lot. It was very easy to get up and running with the program. It has a seamless import feature included. This enables you to import information directly from Daylite.

Billings 2 is an easy-to-use time and expense billing application for the Mac. With Billings 2, you can create and send great looking invoices or estimates in less than 5 minutes. Billings 2′s timesaving features include Address Book integration, fully customizable PDF estimates and invoices, and automated tax calculations for 120 regions globally.

“Create invoices, track time and expenses with ease. Free yourself from slow, mundane tasks and say goodbye to being held captive by expense spreadsheets and unappealing Word or HTML based invoices. The simple design and speed-tuned performance of Billings 2 gives you the power to create professional looking invoices from eye-catching templates, which can be fully customised to match your image. Use template slips to streamline regular item invoicing. Billings 2 is designed to save you time and help you prosper straight away.”

I was able to set up custom categories to fit my own law practice. This enabled me to have the information in an invoice that explains in simple terms the task I did for the client. And it is convenient. You can track time while in any application using the Billings menubar timer, with instant access to all active slips.

I like this program so much that I have officially started to use it for my billing program. My only concern is the fact the data base is not accessible over a network. Not an issue for myself as I am the only one using it. But, for those small firms who have more than one time keeper, it will be an issue. I hope that Marketcircle will consider this in a future update.

Filed Under: Law Office Management, Untethered Lawyer

Disposable EMail Addresses? Not As Stupid As You Think.

November 29, 2006 By Jay Fleischman

10 Minute Mail provides you a temporary email address for 10 minutes only. Any e-mails sent to that address will show up automatically on the web page. You can read them, click on links, and even reply to them till the email address expires after 10 minutes.

Why the heck would you want or need a temporary email address? Let’s say you register as a user on one of those web sites run by creditors or collection industry folks. You want to get into the system to check out the goodies, but you don’t want to divulge your read email address. Use 10 Minute Mail, get the new address and plug it in – you’ll have the address for long enough to get your confirmation link to activate your password, then the address is gone forever.

Nifty, huh?

Filed Under: Office Technology

There's A Difference Between A Good TV Ad And Pure Insanity

November 29, 2006 By Jay Fleischman

I was on the phone with a friend of mine who does personal injury work. He’s a good guy, a good lawyer, and we lived together in law school. When he was plotting this enormous TV ad buy I remember telling him not to do it. I thought it was a terrible idea, and one that would cost him tons and tons of cash.

Sadly, he didn’t listen. He ran some of the most tasteful lawyer ads I’ve seen in a long time, filled with smiling people and neighborhood scenes. And by his estimates, his failure to listen cost him about $600,000 over the past year.

He did, however, listen when I told him to get back in touch with all of his old clients and ask for referrals. By his estimates, those stamps and envelopes made him about $500,000.

After I got off the phone with my friend, I stumbled across this lawyer TV ad. Once I stopped laughing I wondered if this would have paid off better for my friend than the tasteful ads he ran?

Filed Under: Legal Marketing

Using Google Alerts To Stay Ahead Of The Competition

November 29, 2006 By Jay Fleischman

Last month I wrote about Google Alerts, and how using this amazing little bit of technology can help you gather information automatically. Now, Digital Inspiration has this post on using Google Alerts to stay ahead of the competition.

Google Alerts is probably one the most powerful Google service for people (especially bloggers) who want to stay ahead of their competition. With Google Alerts, you get an instant email notification whenever something happens in your niche or topics that matter to you. Beyond the basics, the post goes into the wonderful features packed inside Google Alerts to help you harness its complete power.

Filed Under: Office Technology Tagged With: competition, Google

Ads Inappropriate on Blogs

November 28, 2006 By Grant Griffiths

Kevin O’Keefe has a post today called “Ads inappropriate on blogs marketing professional service or products.” That may be true when it comes to those kind of blogs. And I don’t run ads on my Kansas Family Law Blog.

However, I do run ads on this blog and plan to continue. I am not marketing professional services or products on this blog. The reason I do run the ads is to provide links to those products I use in my own home office.

If any of you have a problem with the ads, please let me know. And we can discuss it further in the comment section of this post.

Filed Under: Blogging For Lawyers

Daylite 3 as Case Management

November 28, 2006 By Grant Griffiths

Ben Stevens, best know for his wonderful blog, the South Carolina Family Law Blog has a great post today on The Mac Lawyer called Using Daylite as Case Management Software.

Like Ben, I have been using Daylite now for my own Case Management Software and I have posted about it before too. I find that Daylite does a great job and works just like Ben describes. In fact, I like it so much, I provided the testimony below to the vendor. Check out Ben’s post and download the Free Trial.

Filed Under: Law Office Management

11 Rules For Testing Direct Marketing Creatives

November 28, 2006 By Jay Fleischman

Most direct marketers face limited funding and time for testing creative strategies and executions. It’s crucial to the long-term success of your direct marketing strategies for you to structure creative tests very carefully. Here are eleven rules from direct marketing consultant and copywriter Lee Marc Stein.

In a new product launch, always test two very different concepts (and not tactics). If you test only one and it doesn’t work, you have no idea what to do next.

Similarly, when you are far from meeting budget, you must test radically against your control.

Never mix apples and oranges: the wording of the offer in your test must be exactly the same as in your control.

Similarly, don’t mix concept/creative strategy testing with format testing. If you need a quantum leap in response, go with concept and creative strategy testing first.

Test the big ideas. These would include vertical and/or horizontal positioning of your product/service; what customers call it, how they use it, and what they tell their friends about it; and how the package leverages societal trends.

Consider creative segmentation. It’s not a big idea, but it can provide the same kind of lift in response if you harness database technology and digital printing properly.

Next to testing big ideas, envelope testing is most important. You have to decide if you’re going with a one-to-one correspondence strategy vs. envelope as store window. In B2B mail to executives, one-to-one almost always wins. Promotional envelopes haven’t worked for most mailers for some time.

Letters are still the prime selling vehicle in most direct mail. (The latest trend, in fact, is to insert letters into self-mailers.) Key parts of letters to test are the headline or Johnson box, opening two paragraphs, P.S. and cross-heads or sub-heads.

If your control package is working fairly well, you may want to engage in component testing – new letter, new brochure, lift note, or even response form.

Go with your best effort first, then see what you can do to cut costs. Try eliminating the brochure first. You can also look at eliminating the response form and BRE, particularly if you are driving people online to order.

Learn from your competitors. Don’t bother testing what they haven’t been able to make work.

Test on a plan, not on a whim. You need to be strategic about improving your performance.