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Passwords Are a Major Annoyance of the Digital Age. How to Cope.

By Jim Calloway “Lawyers have hated passwords since passwords first made their appearance,” some of my colleagues recently wrote. So true. Emerging AI tools mean it is easier to crack passwords. So, the standard advice for strong passwords is now at least 15 characters, with requirements of upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers, symbols and maybe…

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A Non-Hysterical Guide to ChatGPT for Lawyers

By Jim Calloway Attorneys need to know about ChatGPT and other AI tools because your clients will use them and at some point there will be a legal issue. So it’s important to understand the basics. Some lawyers tell me they have never heard of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool from OpenAI, released late last…

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Creating Your Website

By Julie Bays, OBA Practice Management Advisor Online marketing today is critical for law firms of all sizes. After all, few consumers even have a copy of the Yellow Pages and many small town and regional newspapers have folded or increased their ad rates significantly. So, a website is important for you to have not only…

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What’s the Best Legal Pad for You?

By Jim Calloway I must confess that, although the Attorney@Work website is one of my top resources, I’ve rarely cared for some posts by Analog Attorney. Call it “digital bias” if you wish. But sometimes the pieces seem to strain to do something the traditional way, even when digital methods are preferable. That is noted…

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Retainers, Advances or Deposits? ABA Ethics Panel Says the Label Doesn’t Matter Because All Must be Held in Trust

By Jim Calloway Prepaid legal fees and refundability of those fees was the subject of American Bar Association Formal Opinion 505. The recently released opinion states that under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, a fee paid to a lawyer in advance for services to be rendered in the future must be placed in a…

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Informed Delivery by USPS: See Your Mail Before It Arrives for Free

By Julie Bays Informed Delivery is a free service by USPS (United States Postal Service) that enables users to preview images of their incoming letter-sized mail and receive notifications about scheduled packages. This feature can greatly benefit lawyers and businesses by streamlining mail management, enhancing security, and improving organization. Key Benefits for Lawyers and Businesses:…

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What to Expect from the New MS Outlook

By Jim Calloway You may have noticed a button in the upper right-hand corner of your Outlook screen that says try the new Outlook. Being a busy lawyer may have meant you thought “No time for that now. Maybe later.” And some who clicked on the button were so surprised by the new look of…

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The Good and the Bad of Solo Practice: Clio’s Latest Legal Trends Report for Solos

By Jim Calloway Empirical data about solo law practice used to be difficult to locate. Clio, a legal practice management solution, has stepped into the breach with its Legal Trends reports. Its 2023 Legal Trends for Solo Law Firms has been released. It uses anonymized data from Clio customers and survey data from legal professionals…

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15 MS Office Keyboard Shortcuts to Boost Your Productivity

By Jim Calloway Some of you may recall at the beginning of the year, our Digital Edge podcast covered The Ten Most Popular Office 365 Tips For Lawyers and featured Danielle DavisRoe of Affinity Consulting. It was a great podcast and, if you missed it, it is not too late to listen. Recently Danielle DavisRoe…

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FBI Warns Against Using Public Charging Stations

By Jim Calloway Avoiding free charging stations in airports, hotels and shopping centers is important for your digital security, according to a warning recently posted by the FBI. As the tweet noted, “Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices.” While it is not…

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Easy Photo Editing for Lawyers — Google Pixel’s Magic Eraser Comes to iPhone

By Jim Calloway Today’s photo editing software can be amazingly powerful. But power creates complexity. For tools like Photoshop, significant training will be required to use it. For the rest of us, a tool like Google’s Magic Eraser is all we need because we normally just want to remove unwanted images or people from photos….

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How to Record a Phone Call on Android

By Jim Calloway Approximately one year ago, it became more challenging to record phone calls on Android phones. In April 2022, Google announced Android apps in the Play Store could no longer use Android’s accessibility APIs for non-accessibility purposes. Since that was how most third-party call recording apps operated, they were effectively killed when the…

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Gmail Tricks You Can Use

By Jim Calloway I would imagine most lawyers by now have a Gmail account, although many do not use it for their professional email account. Catherine Reach, Director, North Carolina Bar Association Center for Practice Management last week published Gmail Tricks You Can Use. There are some handy tips included in this post. My Gmail…

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Marketing Tips For Young ̶ And Not So Young ̶ Lawyers

By Jim Calloway Marketing was the theme of the March/April 2023 American Bar Association Law Practice Magazine. While there are many articles of interest in that issue, let me direct you to Marketing Tips For Young And Not So Young Lawyers by Stephen Embrey, Chair of the ABA’s Law Practice Division. This is a short…

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How to Repair a Broken Word Document

By Jim Calloway Barron Henley, of Affinity Consulting, spoke at ABA TECHSHOW on mastering Microsoft Word (my title, not his). Barron has done similar programs for the OBA before. His program is half great tips and improved efficiency and half voicing all the frustrations we have experienced with Word. You know these, e.g. “How can…

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Exchanging Files with Dropbox

by Jim Calloway Many lawyers use Dropbox. One of its powerful features is file sharing. However, there have been several highly publicized instances of sharing errors where confidential client documents were compromised. If you are a Dropbox user, the post Exchanging Files with Dropbox is a great read, which outlines the different ways you can…

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GoDaddy Says a Multi-Year Breach Hijacked Customer Websites and Accounts

Another major security breach has made the news. Ars Technica reports, GoDaddy says a multi-year breach hijacked customer websites and accounts. The report notes the “most recent event occurred last December when the threat actor gained access to the cPanel hosting servers customers use to manage websites hosted by GoDaddy. The threat actor then installed…

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Small Firm Lawyers Can Represent Big Business ̶ Here’s How

By Jim Calloway Oklahoma City attorney Mark A. Robertson defies the stereotype. He heads a small law firm doing securities work and representing both large and small businesses. In his feature for the ABA’s Law Practice Today, Advising the Business Client, he provides a thorough review of how lawyers can build a clientele of business…

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How to Handle a Mistake as a Young Lawyer

By Jim Calloway One challenge of practicing law is that it often seems there are only two standards of conduct: absolute perfection and malpractice. Those of us who have worked in law firms know that perfection isn’t possible with fallible humans doing the work. But one can design systems to hopefully catch most errors before…

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The Ten Most Popular Office 365 Tips for Lawyers

By Jim Calloway Our new Digital Edge podcast, The Ten Most Popular Office 365 Tips For Lawyers, is really quite special in that I can almost guarantee you will learn at least one thing that you will immediately start to use. Our guest is Danielle DavisRoe, who is a senior consultant at Affinity Consulting Group….

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