What People Are Reading: ICYMI Roundup (January – April 2020)
The CPM ICYMI enewsletter brings a brief weekly wrap-up of legal tech and practice management tips, breaking news and useful information. Here are the articles that captured the attention of the readers by top click each week in January – April 2020:
Our Top 5 Tips and Cheats for Outlook Calendar on Windows 10
The OnMSFT blog provides some helpful tips to help make the Outlook Calendar easier to use and more productive, like viewing an event in multiple time zones or peaking at events in your calendar without opening it.
How to Delete Your Personal Data from Public Record Websites
Have you ever searched for your name on the Internet? Scroll past the results for your social media activity, blog posts, website and directory listings and you will start to see many disturbing results that expose you personal details, like previous addresses, relatives, phone numbers including your cell phone and way more. This article helps you get started on where to go to request the information be taken down.
Best Dictation Software and Text to Speech Software
Gone are the days of dictation devices that require a human to type up the notes while operating a foot pedal. There are LOTS of options for dictation apps to help compose memos, emails, and document drafting. The real strength lies in the fact that these new dictation apps include voice-to-text, so your dictation flows directly to the document. Read this article for some tips to make voice recognition work more effectively.
10 Truly Helpful Windows 10 Tools You Might Not Know About
For long-time Windows 10 users or those new to the operating system, this article explores some great features you may be missing. Timeline, cloud clipboard, and file history are just a few of the tools you should know about.
How to Use, Modify, And Create Templates in Word
This excellent tutorial describes how to create templates in Word, as well as custom interactive templates and custom stylesheets.
Ransomware Attacks Hit Three Law Firms in Last 24 Hours
Ransomware is evolving. This new attack is about stealing data and exposing it, rather than encrypting data so you can’t access it. All the backup in the world won’t help thwart this type of attack. It is a data breach. It is imperative that law firms focus on reducing the threat at the “meatware” level, as end-user awareness and training are key to foiling the bad guys.
Zapier Zaps for Lawyers
Zapier is a popular workflow automation tool. This article by attorney Jason Gershenson is a nice overview of Zapier for lawyers, including what it is, how to use it, security concerns, ideas and pricing.
How To Paste Text Without Formatting In Word For Office 365
While there are menu options (click click click) to paste text without formatting, this tip describes how to add a keyboard shortcut to paste as plain text into a Word document with Ctrl+Shift+V. This is especially useful when you have copied and pasted from another source and are adding it to a document. You can also set up a keyboard shortcut for pasting to match the document’s formatting if you are using a template with Styles.
The Advantages of Automation
This article brings together four lawyers who have experimented with automation in their practices for real world perspective about the advantages of automating your practice.
Two Major Reasons Why Law Firm Websites Underperform
Lack of useful content and lack of emotional connection are the two reasons. Read the article to find out more about how to fix those issues. Also, make sure your blog posts (or other contents) are written for the intended audience, and make them more readable.
Coronavirus Communication for Your Team
The COVID-19 virus has had a large and lasting impact, one of which is cyber threats. This SANS bulletin helps provide some narrative points for your team to help them keep the firm’s data safe (and their own.)
Courts
To keep up with what is happening in the NC Courts, the NCBA is compiling updates as they happen. For links to COVID-19 information by state this Google Doc lists links to each state’s court updates page.
Protect your Meetings from Zoom Bombers
Law firms, businesses, schools, and many others are hosting video conferences on the popular platform Zoom. With all these people using the product it was inevitable that we would see some misuse, including the recent “Zoom Bomb” issues. Craig Ball, who also wrote a good “cheat sheet” tutorial on getting started with Zoom, details settings that can keep your meetings safe from bad actors.
How To Look Your Best On a Video Call
As many of us are using video conferencing daily, this article provides some tips on how to look your best. This is not merely vanity – it can help if you are preparing to appear in an online hearing or coaching a client for an online deposition. And certainly, start with getting dressed.
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