Why “Top 5 iOs Apps I Can’t Live Without” and not “Top 10 iOS Apps I Can’t Live Without”? 5 reasons.

1. 10 is too many. You can always come up with 6 or 7, but more than that and you are padding.
2. 5 forces you to think about it and actually leave one or two you really like off the list.
3. Duh! All the lists in High Fidelity were Top 5.
4. Actually, I can only think of 3 reasons.

So here are the five iOS apps that I use day in, day out, multiple times a day. 

Zite

Zite is an iOS news reader that is described as an “intelligent magazine” and that is an apt description. When you first launch Zite it has you enter your interests. Then it presents you with a “magazine” of articles from the web that are representative of those interests. The app notes when you launch an article and read it. You can also indicate whether you like or dislike a particular article, author or topic. The result, within a short period of time of using it regularly, is a “magazine” containing dozens and dozens of articles in multiple topics that you are likely to enjoy. The more you use it and the more you utilize the like/dislike feature, the better the “magazine” becomes for you.  It comes with multiple pre-defined categories like Business, Movies, Apple News, Gadgets, Technology, Politics and many others. You can also add custom categories. Zite is absolutely an iOS app I use almost every day.

Dropbox

The bottom line is I couldn’t run my practice without Dropbox.  At least I don’t want to try. Dropbox allows me to sync my client and other files across multiple devices: my Macbook Pro, my iPad and my iPhone and my family iMac. Like my Mac, Dropbox just works. And for me that is high praise.

Fantastical

Fantastical is a recent addition.  A few months ago this certainly would not have been on my list. Before I tried Fantastical, I didn’t realize how irritating Apple’s Calendar could be.

Fantastical is a simple calendar iOS application that syncs with and usurps Calendar. It is available for both your Mac and your iPhone. It allows “natural language” entry of calendar items. For example, it understand that if I enter “Lunch next Tuesday with Sam” to set up an appointment on the appropriate date and time.  I can preset multiple default reminders. (When Apple introduced Mountain Lion it totally castrated the “snooze” feature on Calendar’s alerts to a single 15 minute snooze. Which does you no good if you want a reminder of something 10 days before an event so that you can start prepping for it. Apple screwed that one up and at least with Fantastical I can set multiple default alerts that can make for a work-around for the snooze feature.)

My only complaint about Fantastical is that it really doesn’t have an iPad app.  Oh sure, you can install it on the iPad, but what you get is a tiny iPhone sized application. Not what you really want on your iPad. But I use both the iPhone and Mac versions all day, every day.

Kindle

A few years ago when I started on my paperless path, I realized that I needed to adopt paperless practices in my personal as well as professional life. One thing I realized I needed to do was find an alternative to traditional books. Books were taking over my house. I’m an avid reader. I am always reading something. The Kindle and iBook apps let me buy e-book versions of most new books. In fact, some books are now only available as e-books. These apps certainly help in lugging around whatever I’m reading. In the past I’d bring 2 or 3 books on a vacation. Lugging multiple books was always a pain.  With e-books, I can literally carry dozens of books with me. And my house no longer looks like a literary version of Hoarders.

Now why Kindle rather than iBook? A couple of reasons. One: Price. Kindle books are almost always less expensive than iBook versions. Two: Selection.  The selection on Amazon.com in Kindle books seems much more extensive than the iBook store. Three: Sharing. Amazon makes it possible for you to loan your Kindle e-books for short periods of time. It is also possible to simply download the e-book to multiple kindle devices or iPad Kindle apps using the same Amazon account. The logical use for this is sharing the books among family members. The sharing thing is something that Apple doesn’t do at all. At least I’ve never come across that option. For that reason, I find myself using Kindle more often than iBook.

Human Anatomy Atlas

I am a trial lawyer and I primarily represent plaintiffs in medical malpractice and medical product liability cases. Thus, I am always on the lookout for anything that will enhance my ability to educate myself and others with regard to anatomy issues. And the Human Anatomy Atlas, from Visible Body, is a great iOS app for this. It allows you to view all aspects of human anatomy, broken down by systems, such as digestive, circulatory, nervous, skeletal, muscular and others. And you can view the systems in conjunction with each other. It allows you to zoom and rotate, viewing the organ or structure from any angle. It also allows you to fade out other systems and highlight structures. It is a great tool.

I own several other anatomy apps and most limit themselves to a particular system. There are a couple that do a stellar job in displaying the skeletal system, something I find particularly useful in orthopedic malpractice cases. However, Human Anatomy Atlas brings them all together. It allows you to project to a a monitor or projector and you can e-mail yourself .pdfs to use as paper exhibits. This one app can easily replace hundreds of dollars worth of anatomy illustrations for a single trial. In the context of several trials, you’ll save thousands of dollars. One of the best apps for a frugal lawyer.

Instapaper

I find the Instapaper service and its accompanying iPad and iPhone iOS apps to be invaluable in a paperless practice. Rather than printing off web pages and articles to read later, I simply utilize the Instapaper app.  A button or tab is added to your browser and if you click on it while in a web page that article or page is then saved to Instapaper for later viewing on your iPad. If you are like me you find multiple articles every day that you want or need to review. Rather than going down the rabbit hole that can end up with you having wasted several productive hours of your day surfing the internet, click on the article and review it later. Really valuable time saving application.

That’s my top five

Wait a minute, that was six! Did you ever notice in High Fidelity that the top five lists rarely actually contained five items? While staring at the camera reciting whatever important, angst-ridden list that was called for at that point in the script, Rob Gordon would be interrupted and the list would only contain 3 or 4 items. Other times he would go on and on, apparently unable to count to five. So my Top 5 list actually contains six. I could have edited out Dropbox because it is so ubiquitous, but it is ubiquitous for a reason.  Kind of like the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in a list of Top Five Songs about Death. Just can’t leave it out.

(image: http://mixtressrae.blogspot.com/2012/12/high-fidelity-2000.html)

Top 5 iOS Apps I Can’t Live Without was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

I’ve already dispelled a number of myths about solo attorneys: from their alleged inability to get another job, to how much they work and how much they make.

After writing that post, I was confronted with more misconceptions about solo attorneys that need correction.

Solo attorneys have offices, they’re not afraid of big law attorneys, and often have better (and cooler) technology than big law.

Myth 1: solo attorneys work out of their cars

It’s possible I’m overly sensitive. It’s also possible that when you’re a solo attorney, you get asked lots of stupid questions. One of my favorite questions is “oh, you have your own practice, do you have an office?” Pay attention: I don’t get asked where my office is, I get asked if I have an office.

Yes, yes I do. I also have a furniture, a website, a full caseload and I run a business in my spare time. I even wear big boy clothes when I go to court.

Ok, I admit, some solo attorneys do not have an office. In this day and age, however, I would say those attorneys are in the minority. At a minimum, nearly every solo attorney I know at least has a virtual office. Even so, that still counts as an office and virtual offices are usually just a placeholder for new solos starting out.

All of the solo attorneys I know with full caseloads have actual offices. I need an office because I have a full caseload, but I also think I have a full caseload because I have an office and spend lots of time there. Go ahead and debate the chicken and egg theory, if you will.

The bottom line is that the next time you meet a solo, please don’t ask them if they have an office.

Myth 2: solo attorneys are scared of big law attorneys

Nope. Not at all. Some big-name partner might “handle” my case, but I usually deal with a young associate. Said associate is usually younger than me, less experienced in the venue, and less knowledgable in the substantive law. Advantage: me. In other cases, it’s obvious that the other side is churning the case (billing time in order to bill time). I’m trying to win it. That’s always going to work out to my advantage.

Even in situations where I went toe to toe with Joey Joe Joe, that went to blah blah law school and worked on important case and is partner at the firm of somebody I don’t know and someone I’ve never heard of, I’m not scared. The rules of civil procedure don’t change. I present CLE’s on my area of law—opposing counsel calls it the Fair Collection Practicing thingee. Advantage: still me.

I had a case last year where I represented a consumer against a debt collector. One of the big firms in town represented the debt collector. At the pretrial, the Magistrate came out and said “nice to see you again Mr. Ryder.” The Magistrate then turned to an allegedly high-ranking partner from the big firm and said “I’m sorry, what’s your name?” The Magistrate then proceeded to tell the partner that his client should settle the case, because “Mr. Ryder knows what he’s doing.”

On another case (different big firm), a partner sarcastically asked me why I was bringing my FDCPA case in federal court, because the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over these cases. I politely informed them that it’s a federal statute, so I’m fairly certain a federal court will hear the case. At the pretrial, I asked them to explain to the judge why the pleaded lack of subject matter jurisdiction as an affirmative defense in their answer. All I heard was crickets chirping. I believe the case was resolved shortly thereafter.

But go ahead and keep thinking I’m afraid. Let me know how that works out.

Myth 3: solo attorneys use outdated technology

Of course they do, they can’t even afford to have a real office. Oh wait.

By and large, solo attorneys use technology that is at least as cutting edge, if not more cutting edge, than big firms. I recently visited someone that worked at one of the large firms in town, and they complained about how lousy their computers and technology were. I think his laptop was running some outdated version of Windows. I’m pretty sure he drooled when he saw my MacBook Pro and Thunderbolt monitor.

Big firms have technology committees and IT departments. I’m guessing the members of those committees read Lawyerist for advice on law firm technology. Take note: Lawyerist was started by a solo attorney writing about technology. Take another note: most of the articles written on technology are still written by solo attorneys.

I can only imagine the intense debates about if/why/how the firm should move away from BlackBerrys to iPhones or other smartphones. I’m assuming the debate took quite some time, which is why it took most firms years to start using iPhones.

Here’s it works at a solo law firm: “oh that looks helpful, it will save me time, I’m going to buy it.” Then we’re off to the races. I use technology efficiently as I can, because I need to use it that way. I don’t have a secretary that files all of the documents in various cases, or a paralegal that can compare a revised document to a previous version. But I can use systems and programs to do those tasks efficiently and quickly.

And I don’t need an IT person to tell me whether or not Dropbox is a security risk. As noted above, I wear big boy pants. I read the rules, I read advisory opinions, and I decide if it’s appropriate or not (yes—Dropbox is perfectly acceptable).

Solo attorneys are pretty awesome

That’s not a myth, it’s a reality. The sooner you figure that out, the better.

At the same time, it’s pretty fun being the underdog. So maybe you should keep thinking I work from my car and use a dot-matrix printer.

(photo:

Three Myths About Solo Attorneys (Part 2 of 3) was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

MobiLit is the newest entry into a crowded trial presentation field that is dominated by TrialPad and Exhibit A. What makes it different? It is designed to wirelessly project its presentation to other iPads. Additionally, it can send images to a projector or even a TV with an Apple TV or direct wired connection. While this may be convenient, it is unclear why it is necessary. Other than possible use in mediation, I haven’t come across a situation where this is going to be useful. And as a trial presentation app, it falls flat. The bottom line is, it doesn’t seem to bring anything significant to the game and doesn’t appear to match up to the standards set by TrialPad for trial presentation.

MobiLit ($9.99) is, at its most basic, simply a .pdf presentation app. That’s it. It doesn’t do video, it doesn’t do depositions in other formats, it doesn’t do other document formats such as .jpg or .tif. It is, to put it simply, a one trick pony. And, according to the limited documentation (provided only under the “Help” tab under “Settings”) it doesn’t do higher definition .pdfs well. MobiLit indicates that it may bog down on 600×600 dpi .pdfs–which is unfortunate since many attorneys will obtain trial graphics in this higher definition setting, which is preferable for projecting large images in trial.

MobiLit includes basic markup tools (line, highlight, pen, erase) but no  advanced presentation functions. It claims to do call outs, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to access this feature. Even the video tutorials on the MobiLit website didn’t address any of the markup functions, so how (or whether) it works is a mystery to me. That’s it–no arrows, no circles, no boxes, nothing else–just highlighter, line, pen and erase. In today’s trial presentation app market that is simply nothing to get excited about.

There are other quirks. The interface isn’t particularly intuitive as to how to get documents into what MobiLit calls “projects.” At this point in app development this basic function should be obvious and intuitive. Its not in MobiLit. I actually had to find seek out the “help” section in order to figure it out. Here is a tip for MobiLit: “import” is much more accurate and intuitive than “edit” when you are importing documents or folders.

On the plus side, MobiLit does have Drobbox integration.  It can also import files from email and iTunes. And the price is a plus. As opposed to other, more expensive options, MobiLit is only $9.99.   But this doesn’t make up for its lack of features. To me it simply is a bare bones app. I don’t want bare bones when it comes to my trial presentations–I want the bells and whistles.

The bottom line is I simply don’t very many situations where I would be able to control having everyone involved in a case with an iPad. Even if they did, I would have to ask them to install the free MobiLit Viewer. Add the need to have everyone on the same WiFi network and it really creates logistical problems.  Its a neat idea, but I simply don’t see a practical application for it. If I had an unlimited budget, I guess I could have 5 or 6 iPads available to hand out to the judge, witnesses and opposing counsel and have the a projector involved, but that simply doesn’t seem realistic.

Score

MobiLit iPad Trial Presentation App, Review was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

Startups and entrepreneurs in need of legal assistance are seeking alternatives to the traditional law firm model for convenience and affordability. Law firms are responding by providing unbundled legal services through different models, and doing so without sacrificing revenue.

I have written before about how lawyers can use unbundling as part of a marketing strategy for their law firms to differentiate themselves from traditional full-service law firms that stick to the billable hour model. Unbundling facilitates fixed fees and packaged legal services, and can be delivered online using secure methods. These alternatives to traditional delivery of legal services particularly appeal to busy and often money-strapped startups and entrepreneurs.

Take for example Cooley LLP’s Cooley Go. Pitched as a “mobile-friendly microsite,” the service of the firm caters to the startup and entrepreneurial set by providing unbundled legal forms and resources online, including a document assembly tool. Clients can take advantage of the Cooley Go’s unbundled services, and can connect with one of their lawyers for additional full-service representation. While this is no doubt part of a larger marketing strategy to attract cost-conscious and busy entrepreneurs and small business owners, this model still offers flexible payments and delivery.

Fenwick and West LLP created Fenwick Flex as a way to provide unbundled legal services and in-house counsel where legal assistance can be purchased by the number of hours a project might need. A startup needing a lawyer to assist it in a specific acquisition or other event might want to retain the unbundled services on a project basis, rather than retaining the traditional firm on the billable hour model for full-representation.

What both of these online models demonstrate is the law firm reaction to the market need by startups and entrepreneurs for unbundled and convenient legal assistance. What is also clear is that these services are not being offered at the detriment of the law firms, but rather as a creative way of inviting a target market base into their firm’s trusted fold. The projection of choice and flexibility that these models provide for clients is what sells the law firm. The use of technology, in the case of Cooley Go’s document assembly tool, allows their lawyers to offer services unbundled without sacrificing time or charging the same billable hour for standard documents.

This is an important lesson for law firms, because other online legal services such as UpCounsel are already on the scene attracting startups, small business owners, and entrepreneurs with affordable and convenient unbundled legal services. As the ABA Partners with Rocket Lawyer on pilot projects to connect members with clients through their platform, we will see unbundling occurring in more practice areas.

For solos and small firms, you will want to find ways to collaborate with companies like Rocket Lawyer and UpCounsel to connect with clients who desire unbundled legal services. Larger law firms will want to look at ways to create unbundling departments within their existing business model, such as those at Fenwick and Cooley. Lawyers will not have to sacrifice legal fees to offer unbundled services if they take note from the business models that work best.

A shift to unbundling in the legal profession will lead to greater access to legal assistance across most practice areas. The Legal Services Commission already acknowledged the benefits of unbundling and mobile delivery to increase access to justice in its 2013 Report of The Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice. The ABA House of Delegates adopted a Resolution 108 on Unbundling in 2013 encouraging the practice.

While the unbundling trend may be starting out with larger firms for startups and entrepreneurs, it will make its way to down to smaller sized firms and encompass many more areas of law. All lawyers can benefit from learning techniques for unbundling and using technology to deliver services online.

Offer Unbundled Legal Services to Compete in Today’s Legal Market was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

This week, Sam talks with Kristin LaMont, lawyer and adjunct professor, about how to maintain your work-life balance when your firm goes mobile.

The Benefits of Silence

Sam wanted to talk about how beneficial it is to take time out of your day and make sure nothing is calling for your attention. Scientists researching the effects of noise pollution in mice used silence on the control group. They found that interesting things were happening in the control subjects. When things were silent, the brain kicked into high gear to fill that silence and built new cells in the memory centers.

Aaron wondered about whether that meant that people should have more silence and less interruption during their work day—perhaps by avoiding things like open office plans or turning off notifications. Sam said he wasn’t sure that was the focus of the post he’d read, but that for him, external stimulus makes it hard to get things done. Setting aside quiet time to focus is important. Equally important is setting aside time when you are specifically available to be interrupted.

Going Mobile without Losing Balance, with Kristin LaMont

Kristin LaMont is an attorney in Salem, Oregon, who has practiced family law for the past 23 years. She has a passion for supporting work/life balance for herself and members of her firm by offering flexible work options for attorneys and staff through the use of technology and actively incorporating mindfulness practices into the culture of her firm.

Kristin is active in the American Bar Association Law Practice Management Division. She is a frequent speaker on technology and practice management topics, and she teaches Law Practice Management as an Adjunct Professor at Willamette University College of Law.

Thanks to Ruby Receptionists and Xero for sponsoring this episode!

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Podcast #86: Going Mobile without Losing Balance, with Kristin LaMont was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

Taking a vacation as a litigator (especially a solo litigator) can be difficult. Frankly, a vacation may not feel like much of a vacation.

In today’s technological wonderland it’s easy to work from anywhere. The bad thing is clients are increasingly expecting lawyers to work from anywhere.

In my opinion, the best solution is to compromise. Don’t ignore your practice while you are gone, but don’t immerse yourself either.

Business as Usual

For many attorneys, a vacation just means working from a different location. For example, if you run a solo practice, if you are a litigator, and/or if you have clients and cases the demand constant attention.

With a cloud service like Dropbox, you can access all of your files from anywhere. If you use a phone service like Google Voice, your business phone goes wherever you go. Although faxes are becoming extinct, an electronic fax service lets you send and receive faxes from anywhere.

In essence, the only thing you don’t have is access to your mail and a printer. If you work in federal court, however, everything is electronic and most attorneys that practice in federal court send everything (including letters) via e-mail or fax.

In other words: you can run your practice from faraway places. The kids can be at the beach, and you can file a motion to dismiss from the hotel. Of course, if you are working 24/7 during your vacation, that’s not much of a vacation. Fortunately, there is a compromise that should allow you to enjoy the majority of your vacation and stay on top of things at the office.

The Check In Method

This is my preferred method when I’m out of the office or on vacation. I’d love to tell you that I feel comfortable shutting off my phone and ignoring e-mail for a week. But my firm’s income is my household’s only source of income, so that’s just not happening.

What I typically do is turn my office phone to “do not disturb” in Google Voice. That means all calls go straight to voicemails (and the transcriptions are e-mailed to me immediately). If I’m gone for more than two days, I change my voicemail to say I’m out of the office and will have limited access to voicemail and e-mail until ________.

I don’t turn on an autoresponder for my e-mail, because I still check it a couple of times a day.

If it’s important, I can deal with it immediately. If not, I can ignore it until I get back, or at least until I am not sitting on the beach. After the kids go to bed (or are napping), I’ll turn on my computer and deal with my inbox.

Do I constantly think about work while on vacation? Yes. Would I think about it if I didn’t check my e-mail? Yes. To me, ignoring everything would be more stressful than checking in a few times a day.

Admittedly, I spend the two weeks prior to vacation dealing with everything possible and even telling opposing counsel I will be gone. That means that I rarely (if ever) have to deal with a massive issue while I am gone. By massive issue, I mean motion practice, hearings, etc.

For the most part, the check in method allows me to keep tabs on my practice and handle some client intake while I am gone. And when you run your own business, that is a good thing (in my humble opinion).

The Check Out Method

I look forward to the day/vacation where I can turn off everything and not worry about it. I can do that for a few days (like a weekend), but not during the business week.

I see a number of issues with completely checking out. One, even if you think you wrapped up everything before you left, you may have missed something. Maybe the court needs something. Maybe opposing counsel is taking advantage of your vacation and filing a motion. If you completely ignore everything, it could be a big problem. Of course, I suspect a court would be somewhat sympathetic to a solo practitioner taking a vacation. Somewhat, but not entirely.

Two, if you completely ignore your client intake for a week or more, I suspect those individuals will forever be potential clients, and never actual clients. Sure, some of them will wait for you. But in my practice, I am many times the legal equivalent of an ER doctor. My clients need legal assistance, and they need it quickly. If I cannot help them, they will find help elsewhere.

Three, I suspect that many people check out for part of their vacation, and then check in halfway through. Then they see an overflowing inbox, ten thousand things that need attention, and completely freak out. That’s why I prefer to keep tabs on things throughout the day—I’d rather spend an hour each day dealing with stuff as opposed to spending an entire day at the midpoint of my vacation.

I’m not the first lawyer to take family vacations—what works for you?

Originally published 2013-03-12. Republished 2017-08-04.

(Not) Working on Vacation was originally published on Lawyerist.com.

Verizon has busted AT&T’s monopoly on the iPhone. If you already use an iPhone or you are thinking about getting one, there are some differences between the two wireless carriers.

Here is what you need to know.

Want to surf while you talk? Go with AT&T

If you go with Verizon, you cannot use the internet while you are on the phone. On AT&T, you can talk and surf all day. That might sound like a non-factor, but it xomes in handy. There are plenty of times when I am on the phone with Sam or opposing counsel and I need to look up a document in Dropbox. Is it completely necessary? No. Is it helpful? Very.

Along the same lines, talking while referencing an email is also helpful. In theory, if you use the Mail app for your work email, you might be able to look at email offline while talking on the phone. That theory, however, has not been tested.

Bottom line: if you want to surf and talk, you can only do it with AT&T.

Need to create a wireless hotspot? Go with Verizon

The Verizon iPhone will allow you to create a 3G hotspot for up to 5 other devices, which is pretty sweet. AT&T offers tethering for one device, but it is an additional expense, and you can only tether to one device, not multiple devices.

I do not use tethering. It would be neat to have it, but I can do almost everything lawyerly on my iPhone, so I am not interested in paying for it. If it were free, however, I am sure I would use it. Given how much data iPhones suck down though, I have a feeling the hotspot option could quickly become a paid option.

As of right now, however, if hotspots are your thing, go with Verizon.

Which company is cheaper?

Complete unknown at this point—Verizon has not published any data rates. Speculating on rumors is silly at this point. Do not assume, however, that you need to pay for an unlimited or large data plan.

I use my iPhone a ton. Both my house and my office have Wi-Fi, which has limited my actual 3G data usage to always less than 2GB, and sometimes under 200MB (the two available data plans on AT&T). Keep that in mind when you are comparing plans.

Verizon allegedly has better coverage

Many AT&T iPhone users are eager to jump ship because of the alleged bad coverage. The only time I cannot use my iPhone is when I am at a sporting event. Apparently every other person is trying to check their fantasy sports team during the game, which is not a deal-breaker. Then again, not being able to call my mother-in-law, who was watching our baby, was very annoying.

Ask your friends to see what provider they use, and whether they are happy with the coverage. Both providers also have service coverage maps on their website, which is helpful, but asking your friends will provide much better information on the quality of coverage.

(photo:

The post Which iPhone Network Should Lawyers Choose? appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Using a smartphone makes it easy to maintain a mobile law office and can enhance your productivity. Depending on what smartphone you use, you can access files, create and modify documents, and even take credit card payments.

At certain times, however, turning off your smartphone is the smartest thing you can do.

Turn off your smartphone at lunch

Unless their is some pending emergency (pregnant spouse comes to mind), turn off your phone at lunch. It is bad enough when someone’s phone goes off during lunch. Worse yet, pulling it out and answering is really bad manners.

If you know you need to take a call, reschedule your lunch meeting. At a bare minimum, warn your lunch company that you have to take a call and apologize in advance. You might want to pick up the tab too.

Calls in court are bad news

When your Jonas Brothers ringer goes off during court, that is highly embarrassing, unless the judge happens to be a fan. Rather than screw around with turning down or turning off your ringer, just turn off your phone or switch to airplane mode. Depending on where your phone is, a vibrating smartphone can make even more noise than a ringer.

Keep it simple and safe by turning off your phone entirely.

Dinner with the family is off limits

Technology makes it easy to work from anywhere and to feel like you constantly need to check in. Constantly being checked into work, however, means that you are constantly checked out from your family and the real world.

When you get home, even if it just for dinner or a few hours, turn off your work smartphone. Obviously there are exceptions when you might need to turn it on, but make that the exception, instead of the norm. Maintaining a good work-life balance is key to being a happy lawyer.

(photo:

The post Smart Lawyers Turn Off Smartphones appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Yesterday I made my first-ever trip to a client’s house for a meeting. I was well-prepared, in terms of office equipment and necessary technology, but it made me think about all the things I could have forgotten.

If you need to visit a client at home, here is what you should bring along.

Contact information and directions

Obvious necessities, but also the easiest to forget. Even if you bring your BlackBerry, you might not have your client’s address and phone number saved in an e-mail. Make sure you either have contact information saved in an e-mail, or bring a paper copy of that info. If you are a solo attorney, you cannot simply call the office secretary and ask her to give you that information.

Driving forty-five minutes and then realizing you do not have your client’s address is bad news. If you get lost, having your client’s phone number ensures that you can let them know you will be late.

If you use a smartphone, be sure to check out these apps for the road warrior attorney.

Charged laptop and power cord

You never know when you might need to generate a document. Make sure you bring a laptop with a full battery. Chances are, your client has running electricity, but the only available outlet might be in an awkward place. If your laptop is ready to rock, you should not have to worry about unplugging ten kitchen appliances in order to get to work.

Just to be safe, keep an extension cord in your trunk. It might sound silly, but using an extension cord is much easier than reaching behind the fridge to plug in your laptop.

Printer in a box

Fortunately, I did not need to print anything yesterday, but I almost did. If you make lots of house calls, it is worth investing in a printer that you can bring with you. Keep the original box—it has lots of styrofoam to make your printer safe and secure while in the trunk.

Admittedly, it can be a hassle to lug a printer with you. At the same time, it is much easier than driving back to the office or the nearest Kinkos in order to print something. You do not need to buy another pricey laserjet, just pickup something affordable, along with extra ink, in order to be prepared.

(photo:

The post Essential Equipment for the Traveling Attorney appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Earlier this week I had my first meeting with a client at their house and wrote about essential equipment for attorneys on the move (lots of great comments on that post, by the way).

During my meeting, I used my legal pad for visualization purposes, and found myself dying for a whiteboard. Fortunately, portable whiteboards exist, and they are worth price.

How it works

WhiteyBoard is more like a poster, instead of a board. The product is like a white film that has permanent static cling—which means you can stick onto walls and other objects. This is great for two reasons.

One, you stick it in your briefcase or bag, rather than lugging around a whiteboard. Two, if you bring a whiteboard, you have to bring a stand too. In addition, the product seems to maintain its ability to cling to surfaces. Just like a regular whiteboard, you can wipe away your work and use it again.

There are a variety of sizes available, depending on what best suits your needs. Most importantly, all of the sizes are affordable and much cheaper than purchasing a normal whiteboard.

Why it is useful

Most people cannot digest information solely by listening, which is why I frequently use whiteboard diagrams when meeting with clients. When I was meeting with clients out of the office, I had to use my legal pad to draw diagrams, which was less than ideal.

As noted above, this eliminates carrying around a whiteboard and a stand. Drawing on a legal pad is ok, but you are constrained by the surface area of a legal pad. In addition, I have not mastered the art of writing upside down. When I was diagramming on my legal pad, I was constantly drawing and then flipping my pad around so that the clients could see my work.

If you make lots of house calls and find yourself tired of drawing on legal pads, I highly recommend trying out WhiteyBoards.

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The post Bring a Portable Whiteboard When Out of the Office appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Last week I wrote about essential equipment for attorneys on the move. After reading the comments for that post, I felt compelled to add some of the items readers suggested.

Here are some other items to bring when you hit the road.

The basics: pens and legal pads

Sticking these in your bag seems so obvious that it almost goes without mention. At the same time, they are so important, it is worth another reminder.

If you are frequently note-taker (guilty), stick one or two legal pads in your briefcase or laptop bag and keep them there. For pens, buy an extra box of your personal favorite and stick them in there as well. Having your normal office tools is essential to a seamless transition when working out of the office.

Car chargers

If you burn up your smartphone battery like most attorneys, then you better have a car charger. Depending on your phone, they usually run around $20. Even if you only use it twice a year, that is still worth the price. If your phone is your lifeline and connection to your office, not spending $20 to cover your butt is a poor choice.

You might want to invest in either a cigarette adapter power outlet or a power supply for your laptop. You can always plug in your computer at a client’s house or a gas station, but there are scenarios when you need to access your laptop in your car.

Notary stamp

If you are having a client sign an affidavit or other document, it is much easier to notarize them yourself, rather than asking them to take care of it and mail it to you.

If your client requires a home meeting, there is a good chance it is difficult for them to leave the house or it is a major inconvenience. Bring along your stamp to make things easier for your client.

Best of the rest

You can never go wrong with an extra bottle of hand sanitizer or two. Keep one in your glove compartment and one in your bag.

If you can find room, bring along some spare clothes. Whenever I travel to hearing long distance, it seems inevitable that I spill something while eating (usually eating while driving).

Speaking of which, bring along something to eat and drink. When you are done with your meeting or hearing, you can get home that much faster if you do not have to stop for dinner.

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The post More Essential Equipment for the Traveling Attorney appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Running your own solo practice carries lots of responsibility, along with some nice advantages—like the ability to work from a variety of locations.

With the right combination of services and applications, you should be able to run your solo practice from your smartphone.

Ditch the landline

Google Voice and Skype are both cheap and good services. Google Voice does not cost anything to use, but it does piggyback your cellphone’s minutes, so you could end up with a higher wireless bill. A year’s subscription to Skype can be purchased for less than $30.

If your business phone number is either a Google Voice number or a Skype number, you can take those calls directly on your cellphone. With Skype, there is an application that runs on both Wi-Fi and 3G signals. Because Google Voice piggybacks your existing numbers, the calls just come straight to your phone.

I use both. Calls come into my Skype number and then forward to my Google Voice number after a couple of rings. When I am out of my office, I can make and take calls without anybody knowing the difference. On top of that, it is much cheaper than paying for a landline, which runs about $60 a month.

Access client files from your smartphone

I use Dropbox. Like any other file storage system (cloud or otherwise), it carries security risks. Compared to the alternatives, however, I am comfortable using Dropbox.

There has been more than one occasion where I am out of the office and need to quickly view part of a client’s file. The Dropbox app makes that happen—and quickly.

Be aware, however, that Dropbox’s mobile application has a security risk—a data snooper can potentially view the Metadata for any file that you access on your smartphone. Metadata is the name of the file, file type, size, and modify time. For the most part, this is not critical data—unless you name your files “Incriminating conversation with witness X” or something along those lines. In other words, you need to be aware of the risk, but if you take the appropriate precautions, using the mobile app is ok.

Take appropriate security precautions

Smartphones are awesome because of their utility relative to their size and convenience. But if you are carrying around client files in your pocket, you need to take appropriate security precautions. Your smartphone should have a password and the auto-lock function should be turned on. Most phones will also automatically erase all data after a certain number of failed attempts to enter the password.

I would avoid using any client-specific apps that do not have their own specific password function (Dropbox has one). Lastly, both Android and iOS have applications that allow for a remote wipe. Make sure you know how to use that program in the event you lose your phone.

Smartphones can do much more than make phonecalls—so make the most of it!

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The post Run your Solo Practice from Your Smartphone appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

eWorky is a searchable database of “more than 3,178 coworking spaces, WiFi cafes, business centers, shared offices.” I found a space near me that I didn’t know about, as well as two that I already did. Seems like a useful tool for travelers as well as anyone looking for a place to work when you are tired of your couch.

The post Looking for a Place to Work? appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Although most states have come around — a mere five years or so after everyone else —  to being comfortable with lawyers storing data in the cloud, that semi-forward thinking is not extended to being comfortable with lawyers not having an office. A few state bars have issued ethics opinions explicitly affirming your right to go virtual, but several still retain the “bona fide office” rule, which says you have to have an actual physical office in order to practice in the state.

And then there is the weird middle ground: many states track the language of Model Rule 7.2, which states that if a lawyer advertises, they must “include the name and office address of at least one lawyer or law firm responsible for its content.” A cautious reading of that would be to assume that state requires you to maintain an actual office. A less cautious reading would be to assume that state only wishes you to provide some sort of address on your advertising materials.

Here’s where all fifty states (and the District of Columbia) stand on the issue right now.

Featured image: “woman handcuffed to her desk at work” from Shutterstock.

The post States That Require a Bona Fide Office appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

In this episode, Curo Legal founder Chad Burton explains how (and why) he ditched his computer for an iPad Pro, and then ditched his iPad Pro for his iPhone. And the thing is, you might be able to do it, too.

Chad Burton

Chad Burton is a former litigator who developed one of the nation’s first “new model” law firms, leveraging cloud-based technology and modern business practices to develop a lean virtual law firm. He also has an unhealthy obsession with experimenting with the latest legal and productivity technologies. If there’s a possibility it can be leveraged to better practice and serve clients, chances are he’s tested it out and annoyed the rest of the team about it.

You can follow Chad on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Thanks to Ruby Receptionists, Spotlight Branding, and FreshBooks for sponsoring this episode!

Listen and Subscribe

To listen to the podcast, just scroll up and hit the play button (or click the link to this post if you are reading this by email).

To make sure you don’t miss an episode of the Lawyerist Podcast, subscribe now in iTunes, Stitcher, or any other podcast player. Or find out about new episodes by subscribing to the Lawyerist Insider, our email newsletter. We will announce new episodes in the Insider, and you can listen to them right here on Lawyerist.

Transcript

Voiceover: Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast with Sam Glover and Aaron Street. Each week, Lawyerist brings you advice and interviews to help you build a more successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. And now, here are Sam and Aaron.

Sam Glover: Hi, I’m Sam Glover.

Aaron Street: And I’m Aaron Street and this is episode 112 of The Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today we are talking with Chad Burton about how to ditch your computer and do everything from your smartphone.

Sam Glover: Today’s podcast is sponsored by FreshBooks which is ridiculously easy to use and packed with powerful features. Try it now at freshbooks.com/lawyerist and enter Lawyerist in the how did you hear about us section.

Aaron Street: Today’s podcast is sponsored by Ruby Receptionists and its smart, charming receptionists who are perfect for small firms. Visit callruby.com/lawyerist to get a risk free trial with Ruby.

Sam Glover: And today’s podcast is sponsored by Spotlight Branding, which wants you to know that having a new website designed for your law firm doesn’t have to suck. Spotlight Branding prides itself on great communication, meeting deadlines, and getting results. Text the word website to 66866 in order to receive a free website appraisal worksheet.

So today’s podcast is about going without a computer and doing everything from your smartphone and Aaron, you and I have been experimenting with similar things but not quite so extreme as Chad and we’ve done it for some time. Now, I should say at the outside, both of us actually still use computers like as far as I can tell, Chad’s workspace at home is literally setting his iPhone on his standing desk or something.

Aaron Street: Yeah, although I did just take a picture of you two days ago, with a keyboard and an iPad as though that were your office set up.

Sam Glover: Yep.

Aaron Street: So maybe Chad has inspired you.

Sam Glover: Well, when I’m traveling.

Aaron Street: And I have to say that, saying that Chad Burton inspires us is going to make his ego actually explode.

Sam Glover: That’s all right I love Chad, I’m happy to pat his ego a little bit. I mean, when I’m traveling I find that I really just don’t want to carry stuff and even my MacBook Pro, it’s a 13 inch, I think it weighs like three pounds, but it’s a lot of weight to add to my backpack or my shoulder bag and I just don’t want it. So I’ve been trying to reduce and so what I did, we just got back from TECHSHOW, which was a lot of fun and crazy and all I brought was my iPhone and my iPad mini and I brought my Apple Magic Keyboard to type on with it and I didn’t do a ton of typing but when I did it worked great.

Aaron Street: Yeah and so I think there’s certainly a distinction between, kind of minimizing your tech set up when your traveling and at TECHSHOW I mostly just used my phone and paper. But Chad right now is only using a smartphone, ever. And I think, as we’ll get into, in the interview with him, I think the distinction between what he’s doing and what I would be able to do is that Chad was brought up kind of at the tail end of the dictation era and so he’s used to writing with his voice, which is how he uses his smartphone often to compose things so he’ll use Siri and voice dictation to write things and I’ve never been a voice dictation person.

Sam Glover: No.

Aaron Street: So I can’t get my head around that, so I type with my thumbs. And therefore, I can do a ton of shit with my iPhone but I’m not gonna write things with it at this point.

Sam Glover: Although I did plug my Apple Magic Keyboard in, not plug, I hooked it up to my iPhone via Bluetooth and although it’s a little bit weird to be typing with a full sized keyboard on an iPhone, that keyboard is so light and thin that it works, if I need it to.

Aaron Street: I think you should be one of those people who gets one of those like rubbery roll up keyboards and you could just stuff that in your pocket and you could be iPhone only too and just squint at the screen.

Sam Glover: I mean, I don’t want to use a keyboard just to use a keyboard if it sucks, those look like they probably suck to type on. I don’t know I’m into that.

Aaron Street: All right.

Sam Glover: I’m more likely to get like a big, two-inch thick mechanical keyboard that has Bluetooth and haul that around in my bag.

Aaron Street: Just have it on your lap on the bus?

Sam Glover: Yeah, clacking away.

Aaron Street: Once I get some Apple AirPod ear buds I’ll—

Sam Glover: There you go.

Aaron Street: I’ll see if I can write through my ear holes.

Sam Glover: No you’re right, Chad is a dictator. Potentially that is his staff are gonna recognize that too, but I meant with his phone and yet that does make a huge difference. It also means he walks around like a crazy person all the time talking out loud to people and to his phone and to Siri and so I guess if that’s your thing.

Aaron Street: So I’m gonna be really curious to see how many people listen to this episode, hearing Chad’s cutting edge techniques for productivity and try to adopt an iPhone-only tech package.

Sam Glover: Heres what I’ll ask, like some of you who are hearing this and going God wouldn’t it be great if I could get by with my iPhone, like do it for three days. Force yourself to use only your iPhone for three days then report back. Send us an email at email@lawyerist.com and tell us how it went. Pick days when you’re not gonna be in trouble if it doesn’t work I guess. But, try it for three days and see if you can do it and let us know how it goes. So with that in mind, I can’t wait to hear and we’ll talk about them on a future episode if we get any feedback but now that we’ve said all that let’s hear from Chad and hear how he does it.

Chad Burton: Hi, Chad Burton. I am the CEO of CuroLegal. We primarily develop software for the label industry, mostly bar associations, law firms, and legal aid organizations and along with that, but a part of our business is doing tech consulting for law firms.

Sam Glover: Okay so that’s interesting, so you and I have talked about—

Chad Burton: I knew this was coming, I knew it.

Sam Glover: No, cause we’ve talked about what does CuroLegal actually do,

Chad Burton: Yep.

Sam Glover: And initially I was critical of you for not explaining it well and then you came up with a really good explanation the last time we had you on the podcast and I totally get it, but now your business model is changing so now your customer base is more sort of the legal industry organizations like bar associations instead of individual lawyers.

Chad Burton: That’s true, yeah I looked, actually before this I couldn’t remember how long ago it was, it was last March, so it’s almost been a year and yes, so we’ve seen a lot of evolutions since then and yeah we’re really trying to tackle issues that are broader for the profession and while there’s obviously important and individual law firms or organizations but we’re really trying to go at bigger picture issues. So that’s where the tech development, especially with the bar association has come in.

Sam Glover: And I guess the most highest profile, the most high profile one recently, is ABA Blueprint which is sort of a, well you explain it. Tell me what it is.

Chad Burton: Sure. So ABA Blueprint has rolled out a few months ago and it’s a standalone application that we developed for the ABA to help solo and small firm lawyers find tools to run their practice in a quick and efficient manner. So that’s been out for a few months and been off and running and going well, the other higher profile that’s out already, application we developed first and I think we talked about it on the last podcast was called LawHUB for the—

Sam Glover: Right

Chad Burton: —New York State Bar. If Blueprint is and they’re complimentary tools in the sense that ABA Blueprint is about helping lawyers that don’t have the tools to run their practice. LawHUB is really a dashboard that does three things. One is curating bar contents, so if you’re a member of The New York State Bar, the website itself kind of barfs out everything, whether it’s relevant for you or not, LawHUB, which is true, just like that’s how almost all bar associations

Sam Glover: That’s how the internet works

Chad Burton: Websites work.

Sam Glover: That’s how the front page—

Chad Burton: Yeah, exactly.

Sam Glover: Website works.

Chad Burton: Right, so we’re ruining the internet. Right, exactly. So it’s curating, so when you sign up for LawHUB, which is free for members, it asks you about your practice areas and your type of firm you work in so then the information from the bar is then curated based on that. So you only see CLE that’s relevant for you and you can go back and change that, so if you want to expand your practice and get into other areas you can go back and change it but that’s one area. It’s also integrating third party technology like CLEO, LawPay, Google Calendar, 365 Calendar, Fastcase, so you can accomplish basic

Sam Glover: Productivity dashboard.

Chad Burton: Exactly. And so you can see your payments coming in through LawPay you can enter time and for Clio, you can do fast searches for Fastcase, quick searches for it. And then the third area that is gonna be rolled out here soon is for, lack of a better label, a practice management center that has a bunch of original practice management content, and actually your aware of this cause we—

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Chad Burton: Because we have a bunch of Lawyerist links in there, so you were kind enough to help us put some content together there so it’s a, for those day-to-day quick questions that members have, they can go and check it out. We’ve got some podcasts from legal type networks that are relevant in the practice management front for solo and small firms so that’s a day to day tool that we developed for New York and actually a couple weeks ago we acquired the rights for the LawHUB from New York, we Curo, and so we are going to continue developing—

Sam Glover: So that’s what I was wondering, so is the idea that these are white label software that you can sell to other bar associations, or offer them as partnerships and stuff like that?

Chad Burton: Yeah, absolutely and so that’s what we’re looking at, with other bars and organizations to get it in their hands.

Sam Glover: Well and I have to say, for anyone who’s listening whether your from bar association or anybody else that might be interested. You guys build beautiful software, these web apps are—

Chad Burton: Thank you.

Sam Glover: They’re very attractive, they’re very modern. They move well, they’re fast. You guys are good at this and I’m curious, where is the work being done, where are you getting this development done?

Chad Burton: We have our own desk team, it’s not me that’s for sure. Based on the topic of the podcast—

Sam Glover: What we’re going to talk about is, how you lack the tools—

Chad Burton: That’s right, I personally am incapable of doing it. Yeah, we have, actually our development team is in Portland, Maine so—

Sam Glover: Gotcha.

Chad Burton: Yeah so we have a full team there.

Sam Glover: And then, who is responsible for managing those development projects because whoever it is is pretty good at what they do form what I can tell from the outside.

Chad Burton: Right. Well it depends on which part of it, it’s a higher level, that’s me and then the, and if she was on the air with us and if it was, it was actually about executing, getting things done, that would be Nicole.

Sam Glover: Gotcha. Nicole Bradick who’s also been on our podcast.

Chad Burton: Yes.

Sam Glover: Cool.

Chad Burton: Yes, exactly. She would take credit for being responsible for actual execution. Which is true.

Sam Glover: And so now I’m gonna change gears and announce that this is our very first podcast recorded with somebody who is using the new Apple AirPods, which you’ve been talking into this whole time, so how do you like them? This is our first chance to do a review of AirPods.

Chad Burton: Awesome, and hopefully they keep working because that’d be tragic if they didn’t. Right in the middle.

Sam Glover: But people want to know, are they any good? Do you love them? Are you ever going back?

Chad Burton: I love them and I won’t go back. I’ve traveled a couple times with them and I’ll bring my old ones just in case something happens but or the regular cord, earpods or whatever they’re called. But yeah, I’ve had them since the first shipment came out and yeah they’re great, they work well. The battery charges quickly. Probably the thing I like about them most is how I would have this, just as we were talking about today with my primary device being, my phone. I have these in all the time and with the earpods, the old ones, probably about five times a day I would catch the cord on something and rip them out of my ears or the phone out of my hands and I pace around when I talk on the phone and think about things so they’ve been good. I haven’t really had any problems with them. There was a little software bug in the first ones that they would cut out briefly but they seem to have fixed that recently with an update.

Sam Glover: So I’m giving your recommendation a lot of weight because what we are gonna to talk about today is that currently you basically get by with a notepad and an iPhone. But before we start going into detail on that, let me just back up and tell the listeners, so ever since I’ve known you, and I think we finally met at the very first Clio Cloud Conference at that cool jazz hotel that they did the first one at, right?

Chad Burton: Oh that’s right, yep. I forgot about that.

Sam Glover: And I think at the time, you had ditched your computer for the most part for an iPad mini I think. So ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been trying to use as little technology as possible and automate as much as possible. So, I’m inferring that you’re really motivated to ditch your computer. Why do you hate computers so much?

Chad Burton: It’s not that I hate them, I like Macs quite a bit. But I like the minimal nature of not having a lot things in general but also when I was practicing law and that carried over into our business motto with Curo, it’s a very mobile practice. I worked on the go, wanted to make sure that I could do the same work if I’m traveling somewhere that I could in an office. So I wanted to be able to flip and walk out the door and not have to worry about trying to replicate work or not have access to things. And so I used to be all Mac and then the iPad came out and got the first version of that and it wasn’t there yet, naturally from the standpoint of being able to work a lot on it. But as the iPad just evolved and especially the iPad Pro that came out, I think a year and a half ago or so. The larger one.

Sam Glover: That was basically when you ditched your laptop entirely, right?

Chad Burton: Yeah, just entirely. Because at the same time, I think it was iOS 9 that would allow you to upload documents to a regular website that you couldn’t do on previous versions.

Sam Glover: Right

Chad Burton: So that was a big part of the—

Sam Glover: That was the big turning point for me too.

Chad Burton: Yeah.

Sam Glover: Because then I could actually like draft blog posts.

Chad Burton: Right, exactly you’re just gonna—

Sam Glover: Included an image—

Chad Burton: Get that content, right exactly you could drag content and apps were developing quick enough that they were either better because some of the features were preferred for me than the quote unquote regular web based ones or on a computer, and iOS fits my work style and how my brain works better than Mac OS does. And that’s what really started moving it and with the iPad Pro, you effectively, with the larger one where you could do split screen, you could have two apps next to each other, you could have your phone so you really had three screens in a way no matter where you were and so—

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Chad Burton: Really got into that and ditched the computer.

Sam Glover: So maybe this is a good point to kind of back up and talk about what kind of work you actually do. You’re not a practicing lawyer, I don’t think right now, are you?

Chad Burton: Correct. I do not.

Sam Glover: So what kind of work are you doing and which pieces of it might be analogous to what a lawyer is doing day to day?

Chad Burton: I do draft quite a bit of content, whether it’s articles, blog posts, and then not like you, but I still draft articles and things.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Chad Burton: I handle contracts of all the deals we’ve closed and contracts involved with different deals, I handled those.

Sam Glover: Do you print much stuff?

Chad Burton: No, not unless I absolutely have to.

Sam Glover: Yep, but I mean you obviously can print things and sign them and scan them and using a phone or an iPad.

Chad Burton: Oh yeah, absolutely. If I have to print something, it’s only because it has to be printed, otherwise it stays digital.

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Sam Glover: This podcast is supported by Ruby Receptionists. As a matter of fact, Ruby answers our phones at Lawyerist and my firm was a paying Ruby customer before that. Here’s what I love about Ruby. When I’m in the middle of something, I hate to be interrupted, so when the phone rings it annoys me and that often carries over into the conversation I have after I pick up the phone, which is why I’m better off not answering my own phone, instead Ruby answers the phone and if the person on the other end asks for me, a friendly, cheerful receptionist from Ruby calls me and asks if I want them to put the call through. It’s a buffer that gives me a minute to let go of my annoyance and be a better human being during the call.

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Sam Glover: I know a lawyer who has a very traditional litigation practice who almost never sits down at a computer anymore, because the Microsoft Word app is awesome.

Chad Burton: Oh yeah.

Sam Glover: And you can’t really do sophisticated styles on it which drives me crazy, but you can get around it and it works and he has a Bluetooth keyboard and he just takes his iPad around and that’s how he drafts appellate briefs and—

Chad Burton: Right.

Sam Glover: Summary judgment memorandum so it’s obviously possible to just go laptop-less or computer-less and use an iPad. What motivated you to drop the iPad and just go to a phone and how do you get all that work done on just a phone?

Chad Burton: I wish it was, well nothing is normal. So I was in Chicago for an ABA, for law practice division we had some reception and this was in September of 2016 and I, like an idiot, left my man purse with my iPad in it at the bar where we had this reception and just walked out without it. And so realized it later that night after got back and couldn’t get a hold of anyone and so for about 24 hours until the bar opened up the next day, it was gone and I assumed that somebody picked it up, even though it was kind of off in the corner, which is why I forgot it, I assumed it was gone.

So at this meeting all day, sitting there, still paying attention in case people are listening to this but also simultaneously, thinking like oh crap what am I going to do now, do I go buy another iPad, is this a chance to go buy the MacBook, which I really like, the newest, little thin one. Which is about the size of the larger iPad Pro. Do I go that route? Then I thought what if I just use my phone, I wonder how long I could get by with that. And so, that there that day, four o’clock comes around, we’re done with this meeting, I go over to the bar, of course they had my iPad in my bag, weirdly enough, the meatheads and other people that were at this bar otherwise didn’t want a man purse, I don’t understand why so apparently it was not their thing.

And so I got all of it back and it was fine, even the Pencil was in there, the Apple Pencil, all of it was in there. But then I was like well, okay fine. And then traveling home the next couple days I thought would just go a couple of days and just do my little experiment with my phone because when you think about the work you do and this, I didn’t mention this earlier, but think about 90% of my day is communicating and—

Sam Glover: Yep.

Chad Burton: Whether it’s using email/Hangouts, Facetime, on the phone like this, that’s most of what we do, which is also analogous to being a lawyer on the communication front and—

Sam Glover:  But on that, typing my fingers are how I do most of that communication. Do you dictate just a lot or do you only do short communications or how do you communicate?

Chad Burton: I’d say all of the above. I like voice to text and so I will use the iPhone built in voice to text for quicker communications, if it makes sense. I’m still not comfortable with this whole talking to yourself in public thing, I’m just not there yet. I try to every so often if I’m in the airport but I’m like all right, fine I’m talking to Siri here even though there’s other humans around and airport connectivity is so awful that it ends up getting, “I’m sorry I’m not available” like come on I was just trying

Sam Glover: Yeah I get that too.

Chad Burton: To talk to myself, right. I was trying to go outside my comfort zone and you ruined it Siri. Go into your short messages comment, it helps if your typing it out manually, which I’m quick at on the phone, it helps condense your messages.

And then for longer form articles, I just did this with a blog post this morning, I’ll use Dragon anywhere. Which is the iOS version of Nuance’s Dragon software and that’s quite good and if you use iOS voice to text, it will cut you off after a period of time, I don’t know how it decides when to cut you off. But with Dragon, you can talk for 15 or 20 minutes and just keep going. So that’s useful. And I was doing that even when I was using an iPad and a computer because that’s how I write. So it kind of goes back to your style. Even when I was practicing law, I was better off getting out a spoken version with dictation first on a brief or whatever I was writing because I could get the thoughts out of my head as opposed to sitting there starring at the screen saying all right what’s my first sentence. I would just get it out and then I could edit it and I just kept that going over the years.

Sam Glover: Well it’s interesting, I don’t mind speech recognition works fine for me, I’ve never been much of an actual dictator, dictator but I type so fast and I like typing and I have a hard time getting my head around, thinking through what I’m writing without a keyboard. Like I can imagine if I were trying to live through an iPhone, I would probably carry around a Bluetooth keyboard and use it with my iPhone I guess.

Chad Burton: That’s funny, about a couple weeks ago I pulled out, I’ve got a couple Bluetooth keyboards that I got out for that purpose and then I just didn’t need them, I wasn’t using them. And I was just as efficient and that actually caused me to get out my iPad and okay am I screwing up efficiency time here. And really spending a little bit of time doing different tasks and I’m just as fast with my phone as I am with a keyboard and an iPad. Going to one of your comments about the organization and if you’re just using your phone that’s where I do carry around a notebook that where I’ll throw down an outline if it’s something longer, take notes on that has kind of become my second screen in a way so, that if I am drafting a longer blog post or something I’ll outline it first that way and that way I can look at that while I’m doing voice to text.

Sam Glover: Sometimes I’ll actually write the whole thing out long hand and then you reading it in voice to text is a piece of cake.

Chad Burton: Right, exactly.

Sam Glover: So, okay so everybody here does something, well anybody who owns technology has a few gripes. So, list your gripes for me. What doesn’t work about living with just an iPhone?

Chad Burton: What doesn’t—

Sam Glover: Or what do you just desperately wish Apple would change about the iPhone so that you could work more efficiently with it?

Chad Burton: I am looking forward to a kind of more robust Siri option. I’ve tested out all those, whether it’s the Google’s version, Cortana Microsoft, there’s that one Hound, I don’t know if it’s even still around it’s like a third-party Siri. I’ve tried all those, but I have an Amazon Echo thing on my desk here and I was gonna call it Alexis and then I realized it would turn it on. Even with that I’m not, again it’s like oh that’ll be a nice supplement to my phone, there’s gotta be something else and I don’t use it because the phone is doing what I need. So if we could kind of step up the, I’m looking forward to when Siri is also more proactive. Even though it already is now, in a lot of ways that maybe people don’t realize that while it doesn’t have the official Siri label on it, there’s a lot that the phone does that is where it’s learning for examples so I’ve got the feature turned on so that if I do have my AirPods in it will announce to me whose calling.

Sam Glover: Gotcha.

Chad Burton: And it will do that, even if I don’t have the contact in, it’s going in and looking at my email and saying well this is probably who it is and so there’s that, a lot of that is already happening by using the device and its learning behavior so I’m looking forward to that kind of stepping up its game even more so.

Sam Glover: Very cool. So what other things are essential to making this work for you? I mean I know you were big on Fancy Hands before which is kind of a one at a time, outsourcing service that will, you can ask the Fancy Hands to go buy flowers for your wife or book a hotel for you or all kinds of other things. What other services or apps are essential for you to function with just your iPhone?

Chad Burton: So I have many issues but one of them is that I kind of bounce between apps trying to find that best solution that’s out there and I’m one of those people that will leave six or seven email apps in a folder on the second or third screen on the phone and wait for that update to come through. And like, oh finally now I’m gonna use this again and actually this past weekend, I found the ultimate nerd thing but I decided to wipe my phone clean and start over because I felt like it was—

Sam Glover: I do that sometimes too.

Chad Burton: Do you? Okay so I’m not the only one, okay good.

Sam Glover: No I totally do that.

Chad Burton: Because the native Apple apps are really good, they actually do what I need and I just get sucked into these other third party types of apps and so I decided this weekend I was like screw it I’m just gonna delete everything off the phone and I went through the list of previously downloaded apps and was really critical of do I really need this one and down to things like do I need the extra weather apps or is what’s on the phone good enough and it is so I’m gonna use that. And so I really tend to minimize that and so I’m looking at my phone home screen right now and it has the default calendar, mail, notes, I’m trying to not be as gross so I’m using the Lose It app so that’s sitting there. Some social media apps, but I guess the one thing if you’re going device only you still have to handle the paper side of things.

Sam Glover: Yep.

Chad Burton: And so with my notebook, if I want to digitize some of those notes, I’m using Evernote for awhile and they rolled out the new, redesigned iOS version and it was still really slow for me and so I got rid of that.

Sam Glover: It’s like, it’s gotten worse somehow.

Chad Burton: It has.

Sam Glover: I’m so devoted to Evernote but the new redesign crashes all the time, it’s slow. So what are you using instead?

Chad Burton: I’m just using regular notes, I’m using Scanner Pro.

Sam Glover: Yep.

Chad Burton: And so I use that and then I have a couple little, I don’t know whatever they label ways to automate so if its receipts, I’ve got certain automations for that and different things to upload to Google Drive, which is what we use at Curo and I’ve got my Scans app still so if it’s something larger I can just scan directly onto the phone but other than that, I’m just using the dictation app, the Dragon Anywhere that’s really got me covered at this point.

Sam Glover: Wow, so you’re both minimal in the sense of not using a computer or iPad and minimal in the sense of what you actually put on your phone. So, be honest, when’s the last time you used a computer?

Chad Burton: I used a computer, down in Miami for ABA Midyear. I had to use a computer, what was that for? Oh for a presentation. It was for a presentation, I was—

Sam Glover: Oh to actually give your presentation.

Chad Burton: It was part of the presentation was showing Blueprint and LawHUB which are both web based applications and showing those live as part of a center for innovation presentation and I would normally just plug my phone in and then I can use my watch to control the slide deck, if I’m gonna do it. It’s great, I know. But there’s another layer of problems there. But because I was effectively downloading those, or actually showing them live, I needed to use a computer so not only was it not a Mac, it was a PC so I felt like I was trying to learn a foreign language again, it was like trying to learn Spanish from back in undergrad and trying to figure out like how do I even log in.

Sam Glover: I feel like I’m gonna give you a pass on this one because you weren’t actually using it to do anything yourself and you were just, yeah. So I think I’m gonna give you a pass on that. When’s the last time you used an iPad?

Chad Burton: Besides the screwing around with it a couple weeks ago, it was probably a month and a half ago and you may give me a pass on this one too because I was doing a webinar, which ABA has BeaconLive in their slide tool and I had to call in with my phone and so I was debating whether to just use my phone to adjust the slides, I tried it and I could do it but I decided I would be a real jerk if all of a sudden my phone crashed and I was disconnected both on the slides and my phone just for trying to do the experiment.

Sam Glover: Yeah.

Chad Burton: So I got out my iPad, I was like yeah that would be kind of jerky, like why’d you disappear during it? Oh I was just using my phone and that’s why it happened. Sorry.

Sam Glover: Okay so you are legitimately living the computer-less life.

Chad Burton: So September when I ditched it, I even tried, gosh when was it, it was probably back in, it was right after I tried this and started doing this in early October I needed a deal with a large spreadsheet and I had had Fancy Hands convert some PDFs into spreadsheets and I needed that deal with those but I was experimenting between the iPad and my iPhone and it wasn’t overly complicated so I just ended up doing it on my phone, or I tried but I didn’t need to.

Sam Glover: Well, Chad Burton, thank you for visiting us from the future.

Chad Burton: That’s right, I’ll have to get back in my DeLorean.

Sam Glover: How to live the life without computers.

Chad Burton: That’s right.

Sam Glover:  Climb back into your time machine and I hope to talk to you at some point in the future

Chad Burton: Sounds good, thanks Sam.

Aaron Street: Make sure to catch next weeks episode of The Lawyerist Podcast. If you’d like more information about today’s show please visit lawyerist.com/podcast or legaltalknetwork.com. You can subscribe via iTunes or anywhere podcasts are found. Both Lawyerist and the Legal Talk Network can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and you can download the free app from Legal Talk Network in Google Play or iTunes.

Sam Glover: The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of, nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said during this podcast is legal advice.

The post Podcast #112: How to Ditch Your Computer and Work from Your Phone, with Chad Burton appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

I love my Android OS* smartphone. But like lots of folks, I’m not thrilled with the lack of battery life. Being not particularly tech-savvy, I started looking for a solution. What I found out surprised me.

Like any other problem common to lots of people, there are a whole lot of shams, scams and bad advice online about why your Android smartphone battery runs out before your work day is over. I’ve tried to sift through a lot of that, and I’ve found a few solutions.

Unless, like our fearless leader Sam, you buy your phone outright, then go find a service provider, or are brave enough to “root” your phone, you probably signed a contract for a service plan and got the phone free or at a discount. That means you almost certainly ended up with “bloatware,” apps that developers paid your provider to install on the phone, and that you cannot remove. After you add your own apps, you might suspect that your battery problem is due to too many apps running even when you are not using them.

A killer solution?

If that’s true, an app to force-quit apps that you are not using sounds like a good idea. It would free up memory and extend battery life, right? Some websites that I have in the past considered reliable sources for tech advice recommend “App killers.”

But while apps can screw up your phone, (I’m convinced the Facebook app screwed up mine) they aren’t really to blame for poor battery life. Without getting into tech-speak that I would likely misuse, the fact is that Android is very good at keeping apps available to you without having them “running” and using power. That’s why in Android, you have no option to “quit” an app—you just hit the “home” key. An app-killer is in fact a bad idea because it can kill off apps that are helping your phone to run well.

What to do?

Apps aren’t perfect, and they can “misbehave” and run your battery down as well as hurt phone performance. But there are apps like Watchdog (a free version is available in the Android Market, now apparently called Play Store) that monitors (but does not kill) your apps. It alerts you to problems so you can kill misbehaving apps yourself.

To extend your battery life, you need to better control the functions that are in fact using up your juice. If you go to Settings > About Phone > Battery > Battery Use you can see what’s using what. You can control these functions manually, or get apps that you can customize that will adjust your data connection, wi-fi settings, navigation, and other energy-intensive features. I have been very pleased with how I’ve managed to extend battery life without sacrificing any of the features that make me love my smartphone.

*not to be confused with the “Droid” brand of smartphones.

(photo:

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Verizon has busted AT&T’s monopoly on the iPhone. If you already use an iPhone or you are thinking about getting one, there are some differences between the two wireless carriers.

Here is what you need to know.

Want to surf while you talk? Go with AT&T

If you go with Verizon, you cannot use the internet while you are on the phone. On AT&T, you can talk and surf all day. That might sound like a non-factor, but it xomes in handy. There are plenty of times when I am on the phone with Sam or opposing counsel and I need to look up a document in Dropbox. Is it completely necessary? No. Is it helpful? Very.

Along the same lines, talking while referencing an email is also helpful. In theory, if you use the Mail app for your work email, you might be able to look at email offline while talking on the phone. That theory, however, has not been tested.

Bottom line: if you want to surf and talk, you can only do it with AT&T.

Need to create a wireless hotspot? Go with Verizon

The Verizon iPhone will allow you to create a 3G hotspot for up to 5 other devices, which is pretty sweet. AT&T offers tethering for one device, but it is an additional expense, and you can only tether to one device, not multiple devices.

I do not use tethering. It would be neat to have it, but I can do almost everything lawyerly on my iPhone, so I am not interested in paying for it. If it were free, however, I am sure I would use it. Given how much data iPhones suck down though, I have a feeling the hotspot option could quickly become a paid option.

As of right now, however, if hotspots are your thing, go with Verizon.

Which company is cheaper?

Complete unknown at this point—Verizon has not published any data rates. Speculating on rumors is silly at this point. Do not assume, however, that you need to pay for an unlimited or large data plan.

I use my iPhone a ton. Both my house and my office have Wi-Fi, which has limited my actual 3G data usage to always less than 2GB, and sometimes under 200MB (the two available data plans on AT&T). Keep that in mind when you are comparing plans.

Verizon allegedly has better coverage

Many AT&T iPhone users are eager to jump ship because of the alleged bad coverage. The only time I cannot use my iPhone is when I am at a sporting event. Apparently every other person is trying to check their fantasy sports team during the game, which is not a deal-breaker. Then again, not being able to call my mother-in-law, who was watching our baby, was very annoying.

Ask your friends to see what provider they use, and whether they are happy with the coverage. Both providers also have service coverage maps on their website, which is helpful, but asking your friends will provide much better information on the quality of coverage.

(photo:

The post Which iPhone Network Should Lawyers Choose? appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Smartphones make it easy to work from nearly any location. Working outside of the office, however, makes it easy to lose track of billable time.

A new program, MobileArchiver for Outlook, will archive all of your mobile phone calls and text messages into Microsoft Outlook, making it easier to find billable phone calls.

How does it work?

The program runs on your desktop computer, not on your BlackBerry. It uses backup data from your BlackBerry and regurgitates into an easily readable format—Microsoft Outlook. Once you have backed up your phone, import the backup file into MobileArchiver.

Once MobileArchiver has grabbed the file, all of your phone calls and text messages are viewable in Microsoft Outlook, like they were e-mails.

Currently, the program only works with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones but says that other phones will be supported in the future. MobileArchiver has a free trial and if you elect to purchase the program there is a one-time fee of $29.99.

If you make lots of calls, it is worth the price

You can always look up phone calls on your phone bill. If, however, you make tons of business calls from your mobile phone, it would be a pain to go through your bill line by line and highlight each call. At a minimum, the program is useful because it will import the data into Outlook and make it easy to search and track calls.

I do not know many attorneys who use text messages to communicate with clients, but the same principle would apply.

The only downside is that you still need to know the purpose of the phone call. Most attorneys do not submit invoices to clients with a list of ten phone calls that all say “phone call to client.” You still need to track your phone calls elsewhere to ensure that you know the purpose of each call.

If you live on your smartphone, MobileArchiver can make it easier to track your calls and track your time.

The post Keep Track of Mobile Calls and Text Messages appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

I’ve been an iPhone user since the first iPhone came out and for the most part, I’ve  been pretty happy with my experience. But there’s always room for improvement and I recently discovered 2 apps, the YouMail app for your voicemail and the TouchBase app for your calendar, that do just that and greatly enhance the iPhone’s native voicemail system and calendaring system. If you’re a busy iPhone-toting lawyer, then you’ll appreciate these apps since they make it all the more easy to organize and stay on top of your voice messages and hectic schedule.

YouMail

First, there’s the free YouMail app, which I first learned about courtesy of Ross Kodner, legal technology consultant extraordinaire, at his blog Ross Ipsa Loquitur. I’d been searching for an app to supplement the iPhone’s native voicemail app for sometime, ever since the unfortunate demise last October of the Yap voicemail app, which I’d loved.

The YouMail app supplements the native voicemail in a number of useful ways. First, YouMail provides visual caller ID, so you’re able to see the name and location of the person calling you.

Another nice feature is that you can create and assign different greetings to different contacts, so if you’re a lawyer and have a client who calls you repeatedly if you don’t reply right away, you could create a greeting just for that client that sets limits in the message as to how quickly you’ll be able to reply.

For those annoying salespeople who just won’t leave you alone and are always trying to sell you new legal products, there’s the “ditch” function. You mark their number as ditched and then can assign a specific prerecorded greeting to all ditched numbers, such as an “out of service” greeting. You can also prevent ditched numbers from leaving voicemails.

YouMail also makes it easy to organize your voicemails. You can create sub-folders (ie. “follow up,” “clients,” “law firm,” “personal,” or “family”) and then file voicemails into specific folders after you’ve listened to them.

You can also forward voicemails to your phone, a feature that I find to be extremely useful, since my email tends to operate as my “to-do” list and voicemails which sit on my phone sometimes tend to fall by the wayside. But if I email them to my main email account, then it serves as a reminder that I need to follow up on the message.  You can always email a voicemail to someone else as well, if need be.

Additionally, if you upgrade to one of the YouMail Pro editions, you can receive transcriptions of your voicemail messages. The Pro plans start at $4.99 per month for the first 20 seconds of thee first 20 messages received.

Finally, if you’re an Android user, you’re in luck. YouMail is also available for Android devices.

TouchBase

Another app that I recently discovered that has greatly improved my workflow is the TouchBase Calendar app, which costs $2.99. This is a great app that interfaces seamlessly with the native iPhone calendaring app. It also has built-in synching that works with Google Calendar, Exchange, or any other calendar that works with the iPhone.

You can schedule an appointment through either the TouchBase interface or the iPhone’s calendar. The when you open up the specific appointment in TouchBase, the app automatically detects and links to relevant people listed in your iPhone’s “contacts.” It also detects the location of the meeting, if you provided that information when you entered the appointment.

This means that assuming the app has detected the correct location, you can simply map out the location with a touch of a button, from right within the app.

You can also send, directly from the app, pre-written texts or emails to meeting attendees advising them that you’re running late, etc. And, you can revise the default message templates to include different pre-written messages.

Finally, you can initiate a phone call to attendees from within the app as well.

And, good news for you Android loving lawyers, an Android app is being developed as we speak!

The post YouMail and TouchBase Enhance Your iPhone’s Native Calendar and Voicemail appeared first on Lawyerist.com.

Why “Top 5 iOs Apps I Can’t Live Without” and not “Top 10 iOS Apps I Can’t Live Without”? 5 reasons.

1. 10 is too many. You can always come up with 6 or 7, but more than that and you are padding.
2. 5 forces you to think about it and actually leave one or two you really like off the list.
3. Duh! All the lists in High Fidelity were Top 5.
4. Actually, I can only think of 3 reasons.

So here are the five iOS apps that I use day in, day out, multiple times a day. 

Zite

Zite is an iOS news reader that is described as an “intelligent magazine” and that is an apt description. When you first launch Zite it has you enter your interests. Then it presents you with a “magazine” of articles from the web that are representative of those interests. The app notes when you launch an article and read it. You can also indicate whether you like or dislike a particular article, author or topic. The result, within a short period of time of using it regularly, is a “magazine” containing dozens and dozens of articles in multiple topics that you are likely to enjoy. The more you use it and the more you utilize the like/dislike feature, the better the “magazine” becomes for you.  It comes with multiple pre-defined categories like Business, Movies, Apple News, Gadgets, Technology, Politics and many others. You can also add custom categories. Zite is absolutely an iOS app I use almost every day.

Dropbox

The bottom line is I couldn’t run my practice without Dropbox.  At least I don’t want to try. Dropbox allows me to sync my client and other files across multiple devices: my Macbook Pro, my iPad and my iPhone and my family iMac. Like my Mac, Dropbox just works. And for me that is high praise.

Fantastical

Fantastical is a recent addition.  A few months ago this certainly would not have been on my list. Before I tried Fantastical, I didn’t realize how irritating Apple’s Calendar could be.

Fantastical is a simple calendar iOS application that syncs with and usurps Calendar. It is available for both your Mac and your iPhone. It allows “natural language” entry of calendar items. For example, it understand that if I enter “Lunch next Tuesday with Sam” to set up an appointment on the appropriate date and time.  I can preset multiple default reminders. (When Apple introduced Mountain Lion it totally castrated the “snooze” feature on Calendar’s alerts to a single 15 minute snooze. Which does you no good if you want a reminder of something 10 days before an event so that you can start prepping for it. Apple screwed that one up and at least with Fantastical I can set multiple default alerts that can make for a work-around for the snooze feature.)

My only complaint about Fantastical is that it really doesn’t have an iPad app.  Oh sure, you can install it on the iPad, but what you get is a tiny iPhone sized application. Not what you really want on your iPad. But I use both the iPhone and Mac versions all day, every day.

Kindle

A few years ago when I started on my paperless path, I realized that I needed to adopt paperless practices in my personal as well as professional life. One thing I realized I needed to do was find an alternative to traditional books. Books were taking over my house. I’m an avid reader. I am always reading something. The Kindle and iBook apps let me buy e-book versions of most new books. In fact, some books are now only available as e-books. These apps certainly help in lugging around whatever I’m reading. In the past I’d bring 2 or 3 books on a vacation. Lugging multiple books was always a pain.  With e-books, I can literally carry dozens of books with me. And my house no longer looks like a literary version of Hoarders.

Now why Kindle rather than iBook? A couple of reasons. One: Price. Kindle books are almost always less expensive than iBook versions. Two: Selection.  The selection on Amazon.com in Kindle books seems much more extensive than the iBook store. Three: Sharing. Amazon makes it possible for you to loan your Kindle e-books for short periods of time. It is also possible to simply download the e-book to multiple kindle devices or iPad Kindle apps using the same Amazon account. The logical use for this is sharing the books among family members. The sharing thing is something that Apple doesn’t do at all. At least I’ve never come across that option. For that reason, I find myself using Kindle more often than iBook.

Human Anatomy Atlas

I am a trial lawyer and I primarily represent plaintiffs in medical malpractice and medical product liability cases. Thus, I am always on the lookout for anything that will enhance my ability to educate myself and others with regard to anatomy issues. And the Human Anatomy Atlas, from Visible Body, is a great iOS app for this. It allows you to view all aspects of human anatomy, broken down by systems, such as digestive, circulatory, nervous, skeletal, muscular and others. And you can view the systems in conjunction with each other. It allows you to zoom and rotate, viewing the organ or structure from any angle. It also allows you to fade out other systems and highlight structures. It is a great tool.

I own several other anatomy apps and most limit themselves to a particular system. There are a couple that do a stellar job in displaying the skeletal system, something I find particularly useful in orthopedic malpractice cases. However, Human Anatomy Atlas brings them all together. It allows you to project to a a monitor or projector and you can e-mail yourself .pdfs to use as paper exhibits. This one app can easily replace hundreds of dollars worth of anatomy illustrations for a single trial. In the context of several trials, you’ll save thousands of dollars. One of the best apps for a frugal lawyer.

Instapaper

I find the Instapaper service and its accompanying iPad and iPhone iOS apps to be invaluable in a paperless practice. Rather than printing off web pages and articles to read later, I simply utilize the Instapaper app.  A button or tab is added to your browser and if you click on it while in a web page that article or page is then saved to Instapaper for later viewing on your iPad. If you are like me you find multiple articles every day that you want or need to review. Rather than going down the rabbit hole that can end up with you having wasted several productive hours of your day surfing the internet, click on the article and review it later. Really valuable time saving application.

That’s my top five

Wait a minute, that was six! Did you ever notice in High Fidelity that the top five lists rarely actually contained five items? While staring at the camera reciting whatever important, angst-ridden list that was called for at that point in the script, Rob Gordon would be interrupted and the list would only contain 3 or 4 items. Other times he would go on and on, apparently unable to count to five. So my Top 5 list actually contains six. I could have edited out Dropbox because it is so ubiquitous, but it is ubiquitous for a reason.  Kind of like the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in a list of Top Five Songs about Death. Just can’t leave it out.

(image: http://mixtressrae.blogspot.com/2012/12/high-fidelity-2000.html)

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