Virtual Law Office

Macs in Law Offices (MILO) Forum Now Over 900 Members Strong

October 31, 2008 By Grant Griffiths

Ben Stevens over at The Mac Lawyer just posted the following announcement. I am pasting it here for the readers of Home Office Lawyer. And thanks to all of you who are members of Macs in Law Office (MILO).

Just a few short weeks ago, I announced that the Macs In Law Offices (MILO) forum had surpassed 800 members in its roughly 18 months of existence. In the seven weeks since that post, we have now had over a hundred more people join, increasing our membership to over 900 members.

I believe that MILO is the premier online forum for attorneys who want to maximize the use of Macs in their law practices, and my co-founder Grant Griffiths and I are thrilled that apparently so many others agree. If you want to find out more about MILO and/or wish to join (it’s free), click HERE.

Source for Post The Mac Lawyer.

Filed Under: Virtual Law Office

"Free" PDF to Word Convertor

October 22, 2008 By Long Duong

PDFUndo appears to be on to something. Comments from the lifehacker post imply that there’s an asterisk to the “free” version, but it still seems to be a useful tool nevertheless.

Though I’m not so wowed but the service itself, I do think it’s a good peek at useful “one-shot” web tools/apps we may see in the future – web based solutions for our offline activities. I’ll keep an eye out for future products.

Hope this helped some of you!

Filed Under: Virtual Law Office Tagged With: pdf to word

Going green in the home office.

October 22, 2008 By Long Duong

I don’t know much about going green, but this seems to be a great starting point. (Incidentally, I’m not actually out of my “office office” yet, so I have some time to procrastinate. This is of course from one of my favorite blogs, Lifehacker – “Green your Home Office”

Filed Under: Virtual Law Office Tagged With: going green

Using Evernote in your Law Practice

September 29, 2008 By Jay Fleischman

Evernote is one of those tools I would not be without now that I have been using it for awhile. If you have a paperless law office, are a habitual saver of tidbits of information or just want to be able to ditch those scraps of paper around the office, then Evernote deserves a careful look.

First, an explanation. Evernote is a service “in the cloud” that lets you store notes, documents, photos, and tweets for future access from any computer with Internet access. Take some notes, scribble out a password for a hosting account, login for a listserv, research for a brief, whatever. Just enter it into Evernote and it’s automatically saved and in sync.

Evernote rocks for taking notes because you can search the system with a full-text search or tags. Let’s say you speak to a witness named Bob and jot down some notes in Evernote. Can’t remember anything more than Bob’s first name? No worries – just type in “Bob” and Evernote will deliver it up for you. Thanks Bob!

I also use Evernote for pictures of things I need to remember – like the license plate for my rental car when I travel, or where I park when I’m out. Using my iPhone, I click the picture and save it to Evernote. No more lost cars for me!

Evernote provides a unique email address to send stuff to your account. So if you get a document by email and want to be sure not to lose it, just email it to your Evernote account!

For legal bloggers, Evernote is invaluable. When I read an article that would be great for one of my blogs, I use the Evernote web clipper to review and use later. No more lost URLs for me!

A final terrific use of Evernote in my law practice is dictation. The Evernote iPhone application lets me record my thoughts and then upload it to my account. I give my virtual legal assistant access to the account, so she can pull down the information and commit my thoughts to paper.

This article was originally published on Aug 11, 2008 by Grant Griffiths. It has been significantly updated for republication.

Filed Under: Virtual Law Office Tagged With: Evernote

The Mac Lawyer Upgrades to Rocket Matter

September 12, 2008 By Grant Griffiths

This just in from Rocket Matter. And if you have doubts about RocketMatter, this should put many of them to rest. I personally know Ben Stevens and I know for a fact, he has spent a lot of time exploring his options when it comes to case management software. And if Ben decided on RocketMatter, it was a decision well researched and thought out.

Attorney Ben Stevens, author of The Mac Lawyer blog, has switched his legal practice management and time and billing software over to Rocket Matter. We’re very excited to have Ben on board!

Ben is a very knowledgeable guy, and in addition to his popular blog, is the co-founder of the Macs in Law Offices Google Group, authored the ABA Journal’s Mac v PC cover story, and is a host on the MILO podcast.

You can follow his experiences, including using Rocket Matter on his new 3G iPhone, and his initial thoughts concerning his Rocket Matter switch.

Thanks for the kind words, Ben!

Source for Post Rocket Matter.

Filed Under: Virtual Law Office

Moving Home: I'm really going to do it . . . I think.

September 2, 2008 By Long Duong

The last few months have been pretty interesting and a bit stressful. As some of you know, I own the building that I work from and lately, I’ve just been wondering why. The type of work that I doesn’t really require a brick-and-mortar office and being a landlord is becoming a bit tiresome. It’s not so much that my tenants are bad, they’re actually pretty good, but the excess paperwork, bookkeeping and day-to-day concerns of maintaining the building are bit more than I care to deal with and sometimes prove to be a distraction I can’t recover from.

I’ve also found that because 100% of my marketing efforts are targeted towards the Internet, and less than 2% of my clients ever actually meet me in person, my client base could care less where I work from. “The presentation” is losing its appeal rapidly.

Since I started this blog, I’ve managed to become quite proficient at streamlining my business processes and our overall office efficiency. This translates into happy clients and happy personnel.

My commute is nothing to complain about: a mere 10 Minute Drive door-to-door. But sometimes I feel like I’m driving their only because that’s where all my files are and I don’t think it has really been worth it.

Every minute that I sit idly at my office wondering if anybody’s going to ask the walk to the door randomly off the street I quickly recoil and realize how silly it is for someone to expect an attorney to drop everything and start working on an initial consultation. Let’s face it even personal injury attorneys don’t get that kind of walk in traffic without an appointment.

So about three weeks ago, I hired a realtor and listed my building for sale. Ever since the day I have felt a little bit lighter on my feet and I’m excited to start planning the new layout for my home office. I’ve only owned the building for about two years, but the investment should pay off.

Now, just because my building is about to be sold does not mean I haven’t considered renting office space. Silly I know, but I still got just a few reservations rational or otherwise, that keep me from completely going home.

Stay tuned, more to come.