virtual lawyer — Legal Practice Pro

Virtual Lawyer And The Kindle – Paperless Goes Mobile

I got my Amazon Kindle eReader when I landed home from my recent trip out to Oklahoma City, where I had the privilege and honor to speak at the Oklahoma Bar Association. I enjoyed the trip and meeting awesome people including Jim Calloway, but I was itching to open the box when I got home.

My Kindle review wouldn’t add much except to say it’s as cool as they say it is. But I did something that has already changed my practice.

First, take a step back. I’ve got a bunch of bankruptcy books on my shelf, and they take up a lot of room. Books that I refer to every single week, stuff that’s critical to my base of knowledge. But I’m not near those books that often.

So I embarked on a massive scanning operation, digitizing all of the massive tomes. I began with my NCLC bankruptcy manual and moved on from there. The books went into a big box and got transferred to my closet.

Now that I got my Kindle I wondered if I could copy those books to my new portable reading device.

Yes I could!

So my Kindle now contains my entire bookshelf of professional books as well as the binders of NCLC Reports that I lovingly read on arrival. No matter where I am, I have with me all of the books that were previously on a bookshelf.

How A Virtual Lawyer Sends Non-Virtual Mail

snailmailr

Everything’s online these days. My email’s here, my files are scanned and accessible here, even my faxes come to me by email. The circle, however, is incomplete.

Some days you need to send out a piece of paper through the old-fashioned US Postal Service.

Well, maybe not. There’s this cool service called SnailMailr.com. The premise is so gloriously simple I nearly broke out into cheers when I heard about it. You type in a return address, then type in your recipient’s address. Once done you can either type a message for inclusion or (glory glory!) upload a PDF for them to print in 4-color (that’s full color, folks). Pay $0.99 for up to two pages (including the postage stamp) via Amazon’s payment mechanism and you’re all set.

This isn’t a substitute for serving litigation-related documents (but you already use CertificateOfService.com, right? RIGHT?), nor is it a really good idea for mass mailing needs. But for the times when paper mail is the only option, this may be a winner.

For example, you’re on vacation and speak with a new client. You need to get out a retainer agreement but the client doesn’t have email – or doesn’t have a printer so he or she can sign the document. With SnailMailr you just upload the PDF and it gets mailed. You go back to drinks with umbrellas on the beach, client gets the retainer for signature, and the world is good.

Sure it’s $0.99 to send out two pages, but it includes all the grunt work involved with sending out mail (print it, fold it, lick the envelope, affix the stamp, get to the mailbox) and it’s full color. Not a bad price overall, I think.

Have you used it? What do you think about it? Sound off in the comments below!