ABA National Solo & Small Firm Conference 2009 Recap – Technology

This post is the third in a series of posts about this year’s ABA National Solo and Small Firm Conference held this month in Los Angeles. This post is a recap of the technology sessions.

Ross Kodner, one of the founders of the National Solo and Small Firm Conference, presented about technology in back to back sessions at this year’s conference. As usual, Ross has so much information and so much material to present that he couldn’t cover it all in the time allotted. But even though he didn’t get to everything, Ross did give a lot of information. Here are some of the tips he shared at the conference.

First, Ross reminded the group that even if you’re a ‘tightwad,’ you can use your current technology more effectively.

On the subject of the Word vs. WordPerfect debate, Ross noted that since most documents are exchanged in pdf format, WordPerfect has experienced a resurgence. However, there are still occasions when you may need to convert a WordPerfect document into Word. According to Kodner, the best program for converting WordPerfect to Word is WordPerfect itself. There’s no need for a third party conversion program (good news, indeed, if you’re a tightwad!)

Word has no good redaction capability, but Kodner likes WordPerfect X4’s secure redaction capability. He has good things to say about Word 2007 as well, although he cautions that if you’re coming from a WordPerfect background, you must stop using Word as if it’s WordPerfect and use the built in functionality of Word instead. 

Use Styles to make the use of Word more successful. In Word 2007, Styles are collections of formatting functions rolled into a single click. The fastest way to change text format in Word 2007 is to highlight any chunk of text and then click the style you want to change it to. To create your own styles with your own customized formatting, highlight text formatted the way you want and save as a new Quick Style with its own name.

Use the Paste Special command in Word to get control of the formatting of text copied from elsewhere – especially when copying text from the internet. 

Increase your productivity by creating ‘building blocks’ in Word 2007 for often used items in your documents, like contract clauses, graphics, etc. Select any chunk of text – or even a logo – go to Quick Parts (under the insert menu in Word 2007), name and save as a ‘building block.’ You can insert those building blocks anywhere in your document. Creating a ‘clause library’ is just one suggestion for this technique.

Archive Outlook messages using Acrobat 7,8 or 9 – create a package of emails and their attachments. Or use Acrobat 8 or 9 to create electronic 3 ring binders by using “packaging;” create single pdf from multiple files. Go to the Combine Files screen in Acrobat and select the files you want to include in the package. Once added to a package, items can be re-ordered. The package will be indexed and fully searchable.  

Kodner began his presentation about the “Paper-LESS” (TM) office by noting that, “Technology has screwed us up” and asking, “How many different places are your client files (including emails and their attachments) fragmented into?” He then asked, “When you want to work with a hard copy, do you go to the paper file and make a copy or do you search for the file electronically and print it?”  Kodner suggests that lawyers need a fundamental shift in their thinking – the electronic file should be primary, and the paper file should be secondary.

A legal document management system is ‘mission critical’ for law firms of ALL sizes. Kodner recommends these systems for all firms, although many still do not use them. The document manager allows you to open files in different formats – you don’t need to go to separate programs to open your documents. Some document management software also integrates with Outlook to connect emails to electronic case file. The document manager will pop up when you send an email to remind you to connect the email to the case file.

Sometimes, lawyers complicate things unnecessarily. For example, when setting up your electronic files, Kodner recommends that you think about what you would have done 50 years ago when the only file was the paper file – then use same methods to file electronic documents. An advantage to using this system: everyone ‘gets it.’

Most law firms maintain some electronic documents and some paper documents. Kodner asks, “Is a critical document sitting in your partner’s sent items in Outlook on his individual system?” You must have a plan for your electronic files. Plan how you organize, name and scan documents, and when. It’s easier to be organized electronically than with paper files.

According to Kodner, scanning is nothing more than turning paper into digital paper, with PDF as the default file format. There’s no need to OCR every scanned document. You may have invested in one large scanner and even dedicated a part time worker to scan everything — but where do those electronic documents get saved?  

Use plain English to name documents. Be logical and consistent. Cryptic doesn’t work. You should be able to look at list of documents and tell at a glance what they are without needing to open them. Why have two separate systems for paper and electronic documents? The documents are exactly the same – they should be handled the same way in the paper file and th electronic file. 

Kodner also suggests some smart scanning tips: when you have large amounts of documents to scan an assistant or paralegal who works on file should be the one who scans the documents on a large scanner. But for smaller, faster scanning projects, Kodner recommends that you get individualized desktop scanners so that people who KNOW the files (including the lawyers) can do the scanning and do it fast as they encounter the paper.

What is it costing you to search for documents and files? For most lawyers, thousands per year! According to Kodner, the cost of implementing an e-file system, a document management program, scanner and even consulting are LESS than what you lose now if DON’T implement these systems. 

Finally, Kodner cautions that some states now require lawyers to have knowledge of technology as part of ethics rules, and that this will likely spread to more states, so lawyers would be well advised to keep up with the latest technology.