Marketing a Start-Up Solo Practice

Findlaw just published a nice little first person piece on Marketing a Start-Up Solo Practice by Burman E. Berger.

Client Development: Keep 'Em Coming Back for More with Technology

Law Practice Today posted the materials on "Client Development: Keep 'Em Coming Back for More with Technology" that Nancy Roberts Linder and I did for our ABA TECHSHOW 2007 presentation. Nancy and I have done marketing presentations together previously. My section focuses a little more on client satisfaction and development, while she focuses on content of materials and websites. I will immodestly suggest that it is worth your time.

The ABA TECHSHOW website reminds us that today, January 31, 2008, is the last day to register for ABA TECHSHOW 2008 and receive and early bird discount. (I heard a rumor that the early bird deadline might be extended, but it's time to register anyway if you are planning to attend.)

Choosing Your Cordless Mouse

I was a bit late to change to change to using a cordless mouse. The cord didn't really bother me all that much. Of course, like so many things in life, once you try the upgrade, you're hooked. When I started using a laptop fulltime, I found that I would often leave the wired mouse at the office when I traveled. It was just too big a hassle to unplug the cord from the docking station, wind it up and put it in my laptop bag. When I got a cordless mouse, I still had to remember to get the mouse transmitter unplugged from the USB, but it was a much more easily used travel companion. Of course the main reason to use a cordless mouse is that it is much more comfortable to use in most daily working situations.

When my last cordless mouse gave up the the ghost, I shopped a bit and found reviews of a really nice wireless mouse, the Logitech VX Nano. It is great for the road warrior because the USB transmitter is so tiny you can just leave it in the computer all of the time. Mine even fits in a USB port on my laptop within a half an inch of the docking station that I couldn't use for anything anyway. It came with a nice traveling case.

Of course as soon as you buy something a newer or better product comes out. In my case it was Jeff Beard, who published "What's New in Cordless Mice?" on his Law Tech Guru blog in December. Well thankfully for my piece of mind, Jeff liked my new mouse well enough, although it was not his favorite. Read Jeff's blog post and you will be able to impress all of your friends with your knowledge of the cordless mouse landscape. Well, OK, you may not want to brag about it at cocktail parties, but at least you'll have a good idea of which cordless mouse you'd like to own. (And, who knows, if I read Jeff's review often enough I may decide to become a dual cordless mouse owner.)

Site of the Week: Wikipedia

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit, is without a doubt one of the largest, if not the largest, free online reference resource. The fact that anyone can edit it, along with a couple of well-publicized Wikipedia hoaxes, have led many lawyers to classify Wikipedia as unreliable when nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, the vast number of Wikipedia users mean that the resource is self-correcting. While someone might edit an entry in a way most of us would view as untrue, it is likely that it would be edited again by another Wikipedia user within seconds. But primarily I want to warn you that avoiding Wikipedia would mean avoiding of the Web's best places to get your questions answered quickly.

Use Wikipedia as a quick reference resource. For high tech terms or popular culture items, there may be no better quick reference resource. If you want to see every song that made number one each week on the Billboard 100 for a given year or a recap of the 2000 NCAA football season, Wikipedia should be your first stop. And even though you might still understandably feel uncomfortable citing Wikipedia in a brief since the cited entry could change, many court opinions have included citations to Wikipedia. (See this January, 2007 New York Times article on that topic.)

Site of the Week: 100 Milestone Documents

Today's Website of the Week may not help you solve a client's problem. But 100 Milestone Documents is a nice collection of links to the most important documents in our nation's history, as compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration. Whether you just want to be able to quickly locate an important historical document or have been asked to give a guest lecture in your child's civics class, it is handy to have quick access to this set of documents dating from 1776 to 1965.

Time to register for ABA TECHSHOW 2008

If you haven't done so already, it is time to enroll for ABA TECHSHOW 2008 which will be held March 13-15 in a new location, the Chicago Hilton. As most of you know, ABA TECHSHOW provides cutting-edge technology information applicable for law firms of all sizes, including small and medium-sized firms. If your bar association is listed here, then you should contact them for special member discounts for registration. But, it is important that you register before the Early Bird deadline of February 1, 2008 to obtain additional savings. Here's the ABA TECHSHOW registration page. The main ABA TECHSHOW web page features much more information, including the downloadable 12 page brochure with all of the sessions and speakers listed. Solo and small firm lawyers on a budget should note the special rate for Solo and Small Firm Day on Friday.

Podcast on the Legal Technology Year in Review 2007

Sharon Nelson and I decided that the  Legal Technology Year in Review for 2007 would be a good topic for our last podcast of the year. As most of you know, we started the Digital Edge: Lawyers and Technology podcast series in the summer of 2007 and we have been most gratified by the fact that so many of you are listening to it. Here is the link to the podcast archives. Special kudos go out to Sharon's husband, John W. Simek, for handling the technical aspects of the podcast allowing us to concentrate on the the substance and the talk.

2007 in Law Office Management and Technology

At the end of each year I do a presentation called Recent Developments in Law Office Management and Technology as a part of an overall recent developments seminar in December. This year I decided use part of the material from that presentation for my December Bar Journal column, which my editors titled Year’s Best in Law Office Management and Technology. This is a very short column highlighting some of the big developments of 2007, at least from the perspective of one Oklahoma lawyer.