I just returned from the 2007 ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco, so thought I'd share a few thoughts, comments, and new ideas:
I had the pleasure of presenting Technology for the Rest of Us with the incomparable Tom O'Connor of the Legal Electronic Document Institute. We had a great audience, with whom we shared information and gained new knowledge, such as:
- Dual LCD monitors are now becoming standard issue on busy lawyer desktops. One screen can be used for doing work one documents, etc., and the other for managing your calendar, clients, tasks,and email. Combined, they take less space than the old CRT monitors.
- Remote back-up for all computer files is also quickly becoming the new standard in protection for law firms. Due diligence is needed when selecting a vendor to keep these files confidential.
- Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.0 continues to impress every lawyer who sees it in action, especially as to creating searchable text PDFs, redacting, and e-mail features with Outlook.
- Smaller firms have yet to feel the impending impact of EDD. Many big firms have head-on experience with EDD, but it doesn't seem to have affected many smaller litigation firms--yet.
- More of our audience--from across the spectrum of firm sizes--were interested in document management technology than case management software. This confirms a trend I've been seeing for some time.
I also had the pleasure of meeting solo lawyer, Brian Hermanson from Ponca City, Oklahoma, and serving with him on a panel for the National Conference of Bar Presidents Metropolitan Bar Caucus. The panel discussed innovative ways metro bar associations can serve their solo and small firm members. Our suggestions included:
- Delivering CLE across numerous platforms, including podcasting (some bars are doing this already).
- Conducting surveys to gather market intelligence on staff salaries, hourly rates, and marketing trends for smaller law firms.
- Entering into co-branding agreements with the ABA and other bars to distribute their books, articles, and content to their members.
It is clear that many bars want to do more to assist solo and small firm practitioners to improve their practices and the delivery of service to their clients.
From a terrific panel of firm financial managers moderated by Ed Poll, comes these interesting ideas:
- Firms are taking advantage of the new check scanners offered by some banks to more quickly and securely deposit client checks.
- More firms are closing their billing on the 25th day of each month to get their bills into the "first of the month" billing cycle of clients--both businesses and individuals.
- Law firms are putting more pressure on partners to collect bills sooner (nothing new there!), but they are using automated e-mail and other added technology features now available in many time & billing programs to keep the pressure on, well, automatically!
- Larger firms are doing more to ensure that each new client matter has a signed representation letter or agreement before starting any work. This is a smart practice, and is just one area where large firms tend to lag behind smaller firms.
And finally, I was able to enjoy a bit of San Francisco hospitality with friends, Jim Calloway, Sharon Nelson, John Simek, the aforementioned Tom O'Connor, and others, but I made a late night solo trek to one of my favorite restaurants, Brandy Ho's in Chinatown for their amazing Smoked Duck Hunanese. It isn't the fanciest restaurant in San Francisco, but it is where I left my heart!
