By Jim Calloway Trial lawyers tend to spend more time dealing with e-Discovery issues than some other types of practices. But when you consider any business could be on the receiving end of an e-Discovery preservation letter at any time, e-Discovery is a good subject for all lawyers to know something about. Craig Ball has…

By Jim Calloway When we use software, we accept a lot of default settings. So many lawyers are just using whatever default font for email that came with Outlook or was selected by their IT department. Considering how much lawyers use email for important communications today, you should examine your options. For example, if you…

By Jim Calloway As the world mourns the passing of Betty White, we share this great short video of her praising the merits of multi-factor authentication. Even in 2016 when she participated in World Password Day, she imparted a timeless call to action in her special style that will always make us smile. Take Betty’s…

By Julie Bays Each year the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Resource Center surveys ABA members to discover how lawyers are using technology in the practice nationwide. I recently reviewed the ABA Legal Technology Survey 2021 so that I could write a report on the 2021 Technology Budgeting and Planning for solo and small firms. The good news is…

By Jim Calloway My friend Dennis Kennedy, who serves as Interim Director, Center for Law, Technology & Innovation at Michigan State University, recently did a LinkedIn post entitled Fast Fish And New Technologies– Are Small Law Firms Outcompeting Large Firms? Perhaps the easiest way to explain his piece is to quote the first two paragraphs….

By Jim Calloway It’s the time of year to think about planning for next year. Attorney Megan Zavieh shares some ideas in A Pre-Year-End Checklist for Solos and Small Firms posted on Attorney at Work. Although the author focuses on limiting ethical risks, her sample list of key business areas and suggestions for reviewing are…

By Jim Calloway “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” is the much-quoted opening to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Sometimes Microsoft’s automatic updates have the same reaction. We love it when something new and useful appears with little fanfare, like the Dictate button that provides great speech…

By Jim Calloway Having another person pay for your clients is good for the lawyer who gets paid. But third party fee payments can turn into sticky situations sometimes. A parent may pay for a child’s attorney fees in a domestic dissolution case. But the parent, having paid for the lawyer, may assume that they…

By Jim Calloway Subscribers to Microsoft 365 are by now used to receiving product updates without warning. So today we will discuss new and undiscovered PowerPoint features that you may have missed. Some lawyers only open Microsoft PowerPoint when they agree to teach a CLE presentation. But there are many more uses for PowerPoint. If…

By Jim Calloway Expanding the Clipboard memory in Word is something all lawyers should know how to utilize. It is so simple. Just open a document in Word and click the arrow angled downward to expand the Clipboard group. Now copy a few sections of the document and watch the expanded Clipboard grow as it…

By Jim Calloway As Microsoft 365 continues solidifying its position in workplaces around the globe, most lawyers involved with litigation or corporate compliance will deal with a discovery request involving data held in Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 and eDiscovery: What Lawyers Need to Know is written from an organization preparing to respond to discovery requests….

By Jim Calloway Dru Armstrong has been CEO of LawPay for just a few months and it was a pleasure to meet her when we interviewed her for our Digital Edge podcast: A Conversation with LawPay’s CEO – and Introducing ClientCredit. She was fun, engaging and it clearly wasn’t her first rodeo as far being…

By Jim Calloway Today our tips on Microsoft Word come from Mark C. Palmer, who is the Chief Counsel of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. Mark is sharing his 6 Ways Lawyers Should Be Using Microsoft Word. Hopefully you are using some of these ways and also perhaps you can learn something new…

By Jim Calloway You may be glad to return to face-to-face meetings and hearings, but videoconferencing is not going away. There will still be clients who can be spared a long drive to your office for a quick conference, but video is preferred so you can share documents on the screen. You may decide that…

By Jim Calloway You may read the subject line and think you know how to do this, but the advanced features outlined in this short piece are not so commonly known or used. Document creators have often recognized the power of find and replace. It speeds the process of changing a word or phrase throughout…

By Jim Calloway Sometimes Microsoft tends to hide powerful features in favor of simple interfaces better for the average user. Microsoft Word’s Print Preview Edit Mode is something useful that you have probably never used because it is hidden. It shouldn’t be hidden and that is an easy fix. Today’s suggested project is to learn…

By Jim Calloway Legal ethics guru Lucian T. Pera recently suggested in his column in Law Practice Magazine that lawyers have an ethical duty to stay current on the news, at least where things like data breaches and hacking attacks are concerned. Such current interest items are often not covered in standard ethics fare. For…

By Jim Calloway When you need to edit a PDF file, one great tool is Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. It has so many features, including combining several PDFs into one, the ability to redact, electronic signatures and the like. Everyone in your law office who needs to do sophisticated work with PDF files likely needs…

By Jim Calloway Email is a part of our lives, like it or not. It is great when you need to deliver documents to another state without paying for a courier. But between all the spam, the phishing attempts to attack your computers and an appreciation that most emails contain a request for you to…

By Jim Calloway Lawyers often deal with the challenges that occur when people die without making a last will and testament. One result is sometimes intestacy laws distribute property differently than the deceased might have wanted. Additional expenses and legal fees are almost always a result. Similar challenges and expenses can occur when a lawyer…