Home Office Lawyer

A mobile lawyer is a paperless lawyer - Connected Lawyer

This is a great post from PDF for Lawyers. I usually don't copy and paste a post. But, with all the talk about being mobile and paperless, this one needs to be read. If you aren't subscribed to PDF for Lawyers, subscribe.

Whenever I talk to lawyers about switching to a digital workflow system I always get the same question: what's the best way to switch? The answer: all at once. Next question. What's the second best way?

Ah, excellent question. And the answer is: just work on becoming a mobile lawyer. The more mobile you are the less dependent on paper you'll become (after all you aren't going to be very mobile if you have to drag tons of paper around with you). I was pretty mobile before Katrina pushed me into that extreme form of mobility known as nomadism. But Katrina was good because it forced me to think more deeply about how to diminish my reliance on paper, and anything else that would keep me tethered to a specific location.

One thing that is hard to escape from is your physical mailing address. You pretty much have to have one, and that means your mail will go to that location. And then you have to figure out how to retrieve it from a distant place. Wouldn't it be nice if you could have your mail sent to a place that scanned it and sent it to you by email? Well, turns out there is such a place. It's called Earth Class Mail.

You have to choose to have mail delivered to one of 18 regional P.O. centers. For about $10 per month they'll scan up to 35 envelopes and email you the image. You then decide if you want them to shred the envelope and its contents, or open it and scan the paper. You get up to 50 pages scanned for the $10 monthly fee and then pay .25 per page after that. There is a corporate package, and soon they will be adding the ability to electronically cash checks.

Obviously, this is not worthwhile for the average person. But if you are on a long trip, or if you don't plan to spend time in any one place for very long this is the way to get your paper mail.

Source for Post PDF for Lawyers.

Death By Email Blog: Senate OKs 7 Years of No Email Tax

Good news from the Futurelawyer.

Roger Matus reports today that the Senate has passed a bill delaying any taxation of the Internet and email for 7 years. Email has become a preferred method of communication for many lawyers and clients; it avoids the stamp tax of the Postal Service. Of course, email has many disadvantages; not the least of which is the ephemeral, find me if you can, nature of electronic communication. The feeling of informality in email communication has lured more than one communicator into an embarrassing or legally risky error. I suspect that the first Egyptian Pharaoh who put pen to paper immediately sensed the permanency provided by such communication. However, I don't think the Pharaoh had the problem of hordes of hungry lawyers seeking discovery of his scrolls.

My own postage expense is less than half of what it use to be. I use email to exchange documents with my clients and opposing counsel on most cases. In fact, if my clients have a computer and an email account, I require them to use it to communicate with me. Best of all, there is that paper trail.

Go Paper - ‘Less’

Susan Cartier Liebel recently asked me to do another guest post for her wonderful blog, Build a Solo Practice, LLC. Well I could not refuse such a gracious request. So, go to Susan’s blog and read You Want to Be Competitive? Go Paper - ‘Less’.

While you are there, post any comments you might have. And check out all the other great stuff Susan has on her blog. And if you don't have it in your RSS reader, you should.

Connected Lawyer: Faxing with MacBook and Razr

This is way cool. I have been trying to find a way that I can actually fax documents I receive via PageSender by email from my home office Mac Mini. Well, I have an answer. I set up my MotoRazr V3m and my MacBook to do just that. The MotoRazr V3m acts as a dial-up modem. I just sent myself a fax while sitting in my favorite coffee shop.

Now, when I am working out of the home office with my virtual office I can send reply faxes with only my MacBook and my MotoRazr V3m cell phone. How cool is that?

This is great news for me since one of the problems living where I do, I can't get a local number for services like eFax.

Fujitsu announces ScanSnap S500M

If you don't have a scanner, get one and get this one. I have been using a ScanSnap now for almost two years. I use it everyday and it works great.

Fujitsu today introduced an enhanced model of its ScanSnap scanning solution: the S500M offers with 20 percent faster scanning speeds, improved automatic paper size detection and a new design that complements the design of Mac computers, according to the company. The single-pass duplex ADF scanner offers a 50-sheet auto-document feeder along with a space saving compact design (only 6.2x11.2x6.2 inches), which is smaller than a laptop computer or keyboard. The USB 2.0 scanner offers dual 600dpi color CCD optical array for scanning both sides of a page as well as automatic color detection and automatic blank page detection and deletion. Additionally, Fujitsu is offering customers the ability to incorporate optical character recognition (OCR) and business card reader functionality into their ScanSnap S500M applications with a mail-in rebate to receive free copies of Readiris Pro v11 software and Cardiris 3.5 software from I.R.I.S. Group ($250 value).

Best of all, the Fujitsu ScanSnap S500M, which supports Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, offers scan speeds of up to 18 pages per minute (ppm) for single-sided documents and 36 images per minute (ipm) for double-sided documents.

READ MORE at macnn

New Acrobat has tools for lawyers

Brett Burney reports in Law.com on the new Acrobat 8.0, concluding that it has some great tools for lawyers.' Among them, a true redaction tool and built-in Bates numbering.

Source for Post PDF for Lawyers.

Going to Paperless Office

There has been some great stuff recently about the PaperLESS law office.

Dave Swanner of the South Carolina Trial Law Blog and who I would like to meet in person someday has a great post about the PaperLESS Office. Dave's source for his post is John Powers. Good stuff!!!!

One of my favorite blogs, Stark County Law LIbrary Blog has a post titled, Whatever Happen to the PaperLESS Law Office. Tom Collins points out some problems some firms are even having in allowing electronic documents to remain just that.

And than a week or so ago I received an email from Richard Keyt about his paperLESS office called A Simple Inexpensive way to Create a Paperless Law Office.

If any of you have your own stories about your paperLESS office, please post a comment here and we can keep the conversation going.

Managing an electronic case file

Ernest Svenson has a great post today at PDF for Lawyers about his paperless approach to his case files. He also includes a link to a PDF of a talk he did from the perspective of a litigator.

Ernie's approach is very similar to my own. I encourage you to take a look at his and give it some thought. I have been using this method for some time and it works great. It is an approach anyone that uses a home office must look at. When working from a home office, we have limited space available and this is one way to control that problem.

GAL's Paperless Office

One of my favorite blogs is The Great American Lawyer.

Recently he posted a response to a comment of mine where I requested he provide information about his move to a paperless office. Instead of butchering it I decided to paste the entire post here and provide a link to it also here. This is just an awesome story of how a solo firm is providing great service to his clients by taking advantage of technology that is available to all of us. Thanks to the GAL for providing this response to one of my comments.

We implemented our paperless office using the technology listed here:

HP MFP (Scanner, Fax, Copier), Airspace Secure Wireless, Networks, MS Office, Copernic Desktop Search, Adobe Professional Software, Nitro Professional Software & Leap File.

We don't use a database tool between our scanner and our file server such as Worldox. We experimented with some products similar to Worldox but found that we simply didn't need that piece to the puzzle right now. We scan the documents in, mostly as images in order to reduce file size. We use a document routing coversheet in order to identify each and every activity that has to occur with that file (I'll post the coversheet in an upcoming post). That document routing coversheet indicates where the document gets filed, what calendaring activities need to occur with it, whether it gets uploaded into the extranet, every person the file gets disseminated to by email, mail or fax, and all to-do items associated with that piece of paper. Essentially, we really work the paper at the front door. Instead of just simply shifting it from one in box to another out box, we find out everything that is important about that piece of paper, capture that information and make sure that piece of paper gets everywhere it needs to go. All to-do items flowing out of that piece of paper are captured at this first critical stage.

Certified Email?

Here is a question I posted today on the Kansas Family & Divorce Lawyer. I am cross-posting it here as I would love to get your comments and viewpoint on this topic. Is this something we might see and would it work? How would we actually certify the person receiving the "certified email" is actually the person it is meant for?

There has been a lot of talk lately about charging senders of bulk email fees to guarantee preferred delivery of their messages. Including this article at the LocalTechWire.com.

Here's my question. If there is such a thing as a program called, email e-stamp. Would it be possible or even feasible to send certified emails like we send certified snail mail? Might it be possible to serve divorce papers via certified emails?

Think about it. We send an envelop in the mail. All we do is put document within another piece of paper, lick the flap, put a stamp on it and place that little green card on it. Stick it in a metal box and wait for a reply to come back saying the other party received it. Again, if we have the email e-stamp program, why not stick an email in our out-box, attach a document to it, send it via our email e-stamp and ask that a return receipt be sent.

Certified email? Seems like its day is coming.

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