Lawyers take notes. Lots of notes. Client notes, research notes, brainstorming, checklists, ideas, reminders and the list goes on. Taking notes on paper is comfortable and efficient, but extremely limited. Handwritten notes on paper cannot be searched or repurposed. They are difficult to share or use for collaboration. Paper notebooks begin to proliferate like bunnies. In our multimedia world paper…
You may have heard someone refer to your “tech stack” in your law office or legal department. In software development a tech stack is the set of technologies used to develop an application. However, the phrase has taken on a wider meaning, describing, and defining what technology tools you use in your office. Why document your tech stack? It will…
Actually doodling, or scribbling, is good for your mental health. However, using the free Doodle poll tool may have the opposite effect on recipients. What is a Doodle poll? Doodle is a web-based service that helps you find a mutual time for a meeting with multiple participants. So, what is wrong with the free Doodle poll tool? Doodle has a…
There are many problems with using an existing word processing document and opening it to use as a “template”. For one, if you are syncing with online file storage and you forget to rename the document with “save as” you will overwrite the old file. Further, you may fail to remove or edit confidential information from the previous file.
A recent Reddit thread posed the question “what are some examples of best practices you employ in your daily routine or have learned from more senior attorneys?”. The following is a summary of the responses, edited for repetition and some negative advice removed. In some cases, more senior attorneys submitted their thoughts. These are helpful suggestions whether you are a…
If you spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen you might experience some physical discomfort including tired or watery eyes, blurred vision, headache, neck/back/shoulder pain, and other symptoms associated with sitting in one place staring at a fixed spot. There are a number of things you can do to make your screen time a little easier…
The Star Trek series featured the curmudgeon physician, beginning with Leonard McCoy, aka Bones. He frequently reminded Admiral James T. Kirk that he was a doctor and not an anything-else-Kirk-asked-him-to-do. If you are asked to do some light design work, whether a newsletter layout, an ad, finding an image, social media posts, or creating a graphic you too might find…
By Catherine Sanders Reach and Ben Schorr For many years the promise of knowledge management in law firms was poised to take off, but the technology and the results proved expensive, illusive or both. Effective knowledge management puts content at the fingertips of those who develop and provide your products and services. Knowledge management helps shorten development cycles for new…
Brian Oten and Peter Bolac provided their annual update on what is happening at the North Carolina State Bar during their recent Expert Series CLE. In addition to topics such as legal deserts, changes to CLE rules, the new random audit selection process, and much more, they discussed two recently adopted ethics opinions related to billing and handling of aged…
Every week subscribers receive the ICYMI enewsletter from the NCBA Center for Practice Management. The newsletter highlights tips, tools, trends, and techniques to help your law practice. The following are a few popular links from the past issues of the newsletter. How to Create a Fillable Form in Microsoft Word (9/8/2023) If you haven’t embraced document assembly tools but would like to…