Law Office Technology

Your Practice In the Cloud

Your Practice in the Cloud

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The Mississippi State Bar: Greenville CLE on the Road Program

04/20/2012

Tom O’Connor and Craig Bayer

How to use PCLaw Mobility

PCLaw Mobility is a new feature in PCLaw 11.  It allows you to access some PCLaw information from a Smartphone and track some time and expense entries.   I am going to assume that you have Mobility Setup in PCLaw. 

On the Browser, on your smart phone, go to: https://pclawmobility.lexisnexis.com/

Users will need to enter their email address and passwords. If a user cannot login, first go to Options –> Security in PCLaw.

Make sure the Enable access to mobility feature is checked and that the correct email address is entered into the program.

If you still cannot login, call Technical Support.

There are 4 Main Modules in the Program. The Calendar function is not out yet, but will be available in a future release. However, you can sync your smartphone’s calendar to PCLaw via Outlook, so this not a deal breaker.

Contacts

Before Mobility, you would have to sync all the PCLaw Contacts with Outlook and then on to your smartphone. Most users don’t want all the firm’s contacts in their smartphone contacts, because it makes it hard to call your mom when you are searching through 10,000 people.

Mobility Contacts keeps your firm rolodex separate and always available. It is the best of both worlds.

If you click a phone number on a device like an IPhone:

You can dial the number.

If you click on an email address:

It will open up an email with the user’s email address in the To: Section.

Neither the phone call, nor the email, will be recorded back to PCLaw as phone / email entries, at this time. However, best practices would indicate after you made the phone call / email, you would record a time entry on the device and that would keep a record.

You can also add new contacts or edit them.

Matters

You can create a matter or edit the fields shown above for a matter.

You can also view the related contacts and the description.

Time / Fee Entries

You have the option of choosing between creating a Time and Expense.

The Description field is for the description of the time entry.

The Duration is the amount of time you spent on the task. A timer does not run automatically, so you will need type in the time entry.

Code is the task code and most likely will be BW, unless you are using Task Based Billing.

Matter is the assigned matter that the time entry will go on.

Get Ready To Go Mobile – PCLaw® v11 Preview

 

In the office or on-the-go! With PCLaw® v11 Mobility Service you can keep your firm’s matters and finances organized and in control—anytime, anywhere.

Preview PCLaw Mobility and learn how you and your firm timekeepers can quickly and securely access the information you need and capture billable time and expenses as they occur — on the go. See all the newest PCLaw enhancements available in version 11, including new advanced security capabilities and improved integrations with Intuit® QuickBooks® and more.

About the presenter:

Craig Bayer is a Certified Independent Consultant (CIC) and legal technologist with Law Office Technology and a member of Lawtopia, LLC. Craig speaks at many bar events on various technology topics facing the legal industry today. Lawtopia, LLC is a strategic partnership of nine legal technology consulting companies headed by veteran LexisNexis® CICs. Pooling the knowledge and resources of so many experienced partners allows Lawtopia to provide unmatched consulting services on a broad range of legal technology products and services from coast to coast.

To register: http://bit.ly/eENCHX

Quick Hits: 4-11-2011

The Ernie Challenge

http://theerniechallenge.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/to-edna-and-beyond-the-ernie-challenge/

Silver in the Windy City – ABA TECHSHOW Turns 25 This Week!

http://www.legalitprofessionals.com/Christy-Burke/silver-in-the-windy-city-aba-techshow-turns-25-next-week.html

The Complete Guide to Backing up your Computer

http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2011/04/04/a-complete-guide-to-backing-up-your-computer/?awesm=tnw.to_17hCJ

IDC Forecasts Worldwide Smartphone Market to Grow by Nearly 50% in 2011

 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS22762811

Top 10 Micro-Apps for Windows and Mac OS X

http://m.lifehacker.com/5790110/top-10-micro+apps-for-windows-and-mac-os-x

MiniTool Power Data Recovery Finds Your Lost and Deleted Files

http://m.lifehacker.com/5789376/minitool-power-data-recovery-finds-your-lost-and-deleted-files

DropTunes Is a Web Jukebox for Your Dropbox Music Stash

http://m.lifehacker.com/5788980/droptunes-is-a-web-jukebox-for-your-dropbox-music-stash

Focus on a List of Projects, Not Just To-Dos, to Relieve Productivity Stress

http://lifehacker.com/#!5788591/focus-on-a-list-of-projects-not-just-to+dos-to-relieve-productivity-stress

Virus and Porn

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/reporting.aspx

Review of MobiLaw’s PCLaw iPhone App miniLaw

I have been a PCLaw user since 2002, a consultant since 2004 and a iPhone user since 2008.  There are a variety of apps for tracking time including some that are very good.  They usually have some sort of export function, but none of them are made with PCLaw in mind.  You have to jump through hoops to get matters imported into the phone and time exported out.  This week I stumbled upon a product called miniLaw which is basically PCLaw Satellite for the iPhone. 

IMPORTING MATTERS TO THE iPHONE

In PCLaw you send an export file of your matters to an email account on your iPhone. 

Once you get the email you click on the attachment.

Select Open in '”miniLaw” and this will import all matters into miniLaw. 

TRACKING TIME AND EXPENSE ENTRIES

You have the option of clicking the green button to run a timer or manually adding a time entry.  You can leave the app with the timer running to make a phone call / email and then return to the app to stop the timer. 

If you leave a timer running, you will see a notification above the app to remind you that a timer is running.

All your time entries will show up in the time screen just like the PCLaw Time Sheet.  You even have the option of starting and stopping timers. 

 

There is even a module to enter Expense Recoveries and Mileage. 

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

• Search by Client or Matter
• View a list of all the Matters for a particular client
• Set rounding settings for time entries
• View Email, Phone, and Address Information for a matter
• View the Matter Description
• Track Mileage
• Enter Expense and Time Entries from a Matter
• View information by Date, Client, and Activity
• Choose a General Ledger Account for Expenses
  

CONCLUSION

This app is a dream come true for PCLaw and iPhone users.  While out of the office,  I know I am forgetting to enter time entries.  This application solves this issue perfectly.  What sets this app apart from the others is the seamless ability to import matters to the iPhone and export time into PCLaw.   

miniLaw is available in the iTunes App Store for $39.99.  If you can capture just one time entry it will pay for itself. 

You need to be aware that Lexis is releasing a Web Application for PCLaw this quarter.  The product will be free for anyone that is in on a current amp plan.  I have seen some early prototypes,  it looks promising.  You will need to be connected to the internet to use the lexis app,  you can be offline to run miniLaw.  

How to Find your iPhone or iPad for free

Apple will let you use its MobileMe Service for free to find your iPhone or Ipad though GPS or the Internet if you lose it.  Granted the iPhone or iPad has to be on and connected to the internet.  You should set this up if you have and iPhone or iPad.  It will also let you have your phone send a loud sound if it is missing or wipe all the data off your phone. 

 

Go to Settings –> Mail, Contacts, Calendars

 

Chose MobileMe

 

Click on Create Free Apple ID

Fill out some information and Verify your Email Address.

 

Go to http://me.com, log in and find your device.

iPhone Scheduling Feature

I got an email from my friend Kirby the other week inviting me to his Tailgate for an LSU Game.

I noticed that my iPhone highlighted tomorrow afternoon, so I clicked on it.

An event popped up on my Calendar with the correct Date.  The event title was the subject of the email, and since Kirby wrote tomorrow afternoon in the email,  my iPhone scheduled it for Tomorrow Afternoon, which was Sept. 25th at 3pm. 

It even put Kirby’s address as the location.  Pretty productive feature. 

How to Speed up ITunes

If you are running ITunes on a windows machine,  it is probably the biggest resource hog.   Here are some tips to speed it up.

Delete the playlists above.  Delete all Playlists that are in Purple.  It takes ITunes a lot of resources to keep these up to date.  So if you never use them,  get rid of them. 

Go to the preferences and uncheck everything.  Don’t look for shared libraries.

Don’t look for Apple TV’s.

Don’t look for remote speakers.

Get the point,  you don’t want ITunes to look for any of this stuff, it takes up memory.  Uncheck it all. 

The iPhone is Secure Enough

I read an article about iPhone Security on the blog Ride the Lightning, which decried the iPhone and suggested that it not be used because of security flaws.  The main problem I have with articles like these is that my clients read them and immediately come after me for suggesting that they use an iPhone.  Obviously I am not immune to this, as the firm Strong & Hanni immediately banned the use of iPhones after reading this blog. 

In the post, there are some links to YouTube that show how easy it is to hack into an iPhone.  Since the post did not suggest what phone was totally secure, I decided to search YouTube to find the un-hackable phone.

No Blackberry (except for the Blackberry, the NSA spent four months making hacker proof for the President.) So there you go, get elected president and you can use your Blackberry.

No Windows Mobile

No Palm Pre, plus read this article: http://www.precentral.net/secure-hand-pre-and-security

What about Desktops?

No Windows XP

No Mac

There are no videos on how to hack a legal pad or typewriter, so these might be the only options for a totally secure firm.

To put matters into perspective, any geek off the street can hack into an XP Machine.  So if you have a desktop or laptop running XP, it is more unsecure then an iPhone or Blackberry.  Download The Ultimate BootDisk, burn it to a CD and you can easily boot to an XP machine and change all the passwords.  I used to have to do this all the time to help clients recover their data.  I guess you have to ask yourself, if you lose your iPhone, is the next person that picks it up going to be able to:

“First off you “jailbreak” the phone by placing it into recovery mode and installing a custom RAM disk to the iPhone.  Jonathan mentions that the tools are only available to law enforcement (nice thought, but not so); but also acknowledges that it is fairly simple to develop your own. Several products like Red Sn0w and Purple Ra1n are freely available to “jailbreak” the phone. You then install a Secure Shell (SSH) client to port the raw disk image onto your computer.”

If you have password protected your phone, the person that finds your iPhone also has to be able to:

“Jonathan has another demo where he replaces the passcode file with one that contains a blank password, effectively removing the unlock code.”

Now if you are attorney Michael Clayton and U-North has a crack team of ex CIA types bugging your law partners phones and killing them,  you probably want to dump what ever mobile device you have and conduct all meetings in a shower with the water going full blast.  For the rest of us, here are some steps to make your iPhone more secure:

1.  Password lock your iPhone.  Settings –> General –> Passcode Lock. 

This will make you type in a 4 digit password every time you want to use your iPhone.  After 10 failed attempts the phone will erase itself.  I know there is a way to hack this, but the average joe six pack that finds your iPhone will probably not know this.  One of the basic rules of security is to put in place obstacles that will make hackers look for an easier target.  This is one of those obstacles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Purchase an app like Lost n Found.  These apps allow you to put some sort of contact information on the wallpaper of your iPhone.  If someone finds your lost iPhone, they will see a contact number.  If you have followed Step 1 and locked your phone, this is all they will see.  I guess it all comes down to your view of people.  Do you believe that most people are good and will attempt to return your phone, or are they NSA level hackers that will go through all your client data and sell it to opposing council and send an ethics complaint to the state bar?  It is a sick world.

3. Sign up for MobileMe so you can locate your phone via a website or remote wipe it if you lose it.  MobileMe will also allow you to send a text message to your lost phone and send out an annoying noise for two minutes so you can find it.  Now, if you lose your device, and the next person that finds it happens to carry around the tool that allows you to yank out the iPhone sim card, this will not work. 

If you follow these three steps, your iphone is going to be more secure then Windows XP, but not as secure as a typewriter. 

Is it the iPhone or AT&T

Very good article in the Atlantic about AT&T’s network.  They offer the following quote:

Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone's "air interface," the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that "affect both voice and data." He said that in the eyes of the consumer, "the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it's AT&T's fault." AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he said. AT&T and Apple both declined to comment on Mr. Entner's assessments.

I have been on the AT&T network in Louisiana since I got a cell phone.   I have run the Treo 600, 650, 680, 750 on the network.  Until June of this year I was using the AT&T Tilt.  Since then I have been using the iPhone 3GS.  The multiple Treo’s and the Tilt never had the dropped calls and connection issues the iPhone had.  I always had a sneaking suspicion that it might be the iPhone hardware or the software radio.  By having one exclusive carrier, Apple has a huge advantage.  If the iPhone was available on Sprint and Verizon as well, and the coverage sucked, the finger could be pointed directly at Apple.  In Canada, the iPhone is available on the Rogers Network.  I wonder if they have the same issues that the US user has?