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Archive for the ‘Misc.’ Category

I would not be where I am today if it weren’t for ABA TECHSHOW.  Years ago, when I was an associate in a law firm, getting more interested in law office technology and less interested in practicing law, I attended TECHSHOW in Chicago. It was the early 1990’s and so much was happening in the legal/tech world. The atmosphere was electric, and I met other lawyers from around the country – all enjoying a truly unique experience. No other so-called legal conference has the same focus on “real” lawyers.

That first TECHSHOW, I met a kind, generous lawyer who encouraged me and introduced me to people instrumental in putting on the conference. His name was Jim Keane, and his legacy as a pioneer and amazingly nice guy lives on, even though he passed away too young from cancer.  In his honor, TECHSHOW awards the annual James I. Keane Memorial Award for Excellence in eLawyering.

Chicago seemed really distant to me back in those days and it was a big step to get on the plane and go there by myself. But looking back now, 17 years later, it was one of the best steps I ever took. This year, TECHSHOW is March 25-27, at the Hilton Chicago. If you’re interested in taking the leap, please take advantage now of the Early Bird pricing and special SC Bar discount. Just enter discount code EP1001 when you register. I hope I see you there!

What if you need to arrange a conference call among a group of lawyers – but don’t have a fancy phone system or service? One solution is to use one of a number of services on the Internet that offer “free” conference calls. These services either provide free conference calling by using a toll number (i.e. not an 800) number that the attendees dial or you can get toll free number for a reasonable price.  Some to try: FreeConferenceCall.com®, Free Conference.com®, or Totally Free Conference Calls. You could also try Skype. For web conferencing with up to 20 people, take a look at DimDim.

Occasionally I get calls from lawyers, both new and not so new, with a legal question. Fortunately for me (and them) I can give them the same answer every time. Use the Lawyer-to-Lawyer Directory. It’s part of the Lawyers Desk Book every year. It’s a list of lawyers who have experience in a practice area who have agreed to provide brief telephone consultations (up to ten minutes each) without charge to other Bar members.

You can find the Directory near the end of the lawyer listings and listed in the Table of Contents. It is meant to encourage and facilitate lawyer to lawyer consultations, referrals and associations. (You might want to check the Solo & Small Firm Practice Area Directory for referral lawyers too.)

Lawyer-to-Lawyer is a great idea. Professors in law school always told us to call on an experienced lawyer when we have questions. Knowing that someone volunteered to be “bothered” with our question makes it a lot easier to pick up the phone and call for help.

This blog uses WordPress, but since I wanted to create my own theme instead of using someone else’s, I needed a theme editor. (My choice was to either find a wysiwyg editor or learn CSS, which I didn’t have time for.) Luckily, I found  Artisteer 2 which is $49.95 for home and academic use and $129.95 standard edition. There is a free trial version and I urge you to try it first before you purchase it, since there’s no refund.

Artisteer not only generates WordPress themes, it can generate Joomla templates, Drupal themes, DotNetNuke skins, and Blogger templates. Artisteer software has a clean interface (it actually reminded me of Word 2007) and it was simple to choose one of their blog themes and then edit it extensively to get pretty much the look I wanted. I was able to add different fonts, although it includes dozens. Artisteer can customize almost everything in the themes by color, font, size and more. One drawback: it comes with a limited amount of clipart images for use in the header, but you can also use your own.

Artisteer is a fairly inexpensive option when compared to other products out there, like Dreamweaver ($399 for new users) or Adobe Contribute CS4 at around $199 for a new license. If you already own Dreamweaver, you can download a free extension called ThemeDreamer, which allows WYSIWYG editing of WordPress. There are also other WYSIWIG editors, such as Microsoft SharePoint Designer.

Is there a better way to spend time on a cloudy Friday than checking out some fun and fascinating websites? (OK, probably there is, but humor me.) My new Sites for Sore Eyes column (co-written with Jim Calloway) is in the latest edition of GPSolo Technology eReport.  The topic? Travel sites you may never have heard of.  Most are useful to one degree or another, and some are rather humorous. I don’t know why, but I find it amusing that there is a website devoted to finding clean public restrooms around the globe (The Bathroom Diaries).  This eReport contains an article on iPhone apps and one on SaaS (’software as a service’ – everyone’s favorite new catchphrase). There’s also a review of the 2009 iteration of QuickBooks for the Mac. Be sure to check out eReport whenever it comes out – usually quarterly. It’s always free and online.