The Connected Lawyer

I have written before about how much I like the combination of my Freedom Keychain GPS and TomTom Maps. Until this last week, however, all that I had really done with the system was play around with it. On vacation, however, I had the opportunity to use it in several situations. In each situation, the system came through with flying colors.

The first situation that I had the opportunity to use the GPS was on the interstate between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. While traveling through Indianapolis, we saw a message that said that there had been an accident on I-74 and to consider alternative routes.  Given that traffic had not been too bad until then (it was night by the time we hit Indy) we decided to continue on. Once we got on 74, however, the message had changed. Now, the message was warning that the road was closed ahead. Sure enough, up ahead, we could see brake lights ahead, where traffic was stopped.

I indicated that there was a roadblock ahead and that we needed an alternate route. The software instructed us to exit at the next exit (which was fortunately before the stopped traffic) and then routed us down a frontage road and through a small town, before taking us back to the interstate. Along the way, we saw a very long line of cars just parked on the interstate. Had we not navigated around the area, we would have set on the interstate for probably hours. As it was, our detour added 6 minutes to our trip.

Further, if I did not have the GPS, we would never have found our way back to the interstate in any reasonable length of time. All in all, it was a huge time saver for us. Plus, it was unbelievably simple to use.

When we arrived at our destination, I had to stop at the rental office to pick up keys to our cabin as well as directions. Unfortunately, the map that the rental office provided was poorly designed, not to scale, and difficult to follow. Fortunately, however, all that I had to do was enter the address in my GPS and it led me to the front door of the cabin. Without the GPS, however, we would likely have wandered around the mountain for quite a while looking for the cabin.

In sum,  I love the convenience of being able to carry the GPS with me at all times. I also love the simple interface provided by the TomTom software. The maps are accurate and easy to use. I would recommend this set up to anyone who uses a compatible device.

I agree with the Greatest American Lawyer about the Power of a Good Vacation. Taking GAL’s words to heart, the family and I are spending the week in Tennessee at the Kickback Kottage. The cabin is very nice and has several amenities, including a hot tub and, most importantly, high speed internet access. The high speed access means that I can spend 30 minutes or so in the morning while the others are rising or in the evening after they go to bed to check my email.

Being able to check my email as I go along means that I can assign tasks to my assistant to handle while I am gone, or create a task list for items to deal with when I return. One of the hallmarks of leveraging technology is being able to work where ever I am. This does not mean that I want to work all of the time. Instead, it means that I want to be able to leave the office and do so without worrying that things are falling apart.

This is just another example of how technology can free you from the office and still allow you to effectively practice law.

For Christmas, my sister gave me a copy of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Had she not given it to me, I likely would never have picked the book up. I have have too many unsatisfactory results from reading books that I “should” read to read a book simply because it is popular.

In this case, I am quite grateful that my sister gave me this book. I absolutely loved it. Hosseini does a wonderful job of describing Afghanistan, Kabul, and the rule of the Taliban. I found the description of Afghan culture particularly interesting and enjoyable. Hosseini masters what many others never seem to be able to. He can richly describe something without allowing the description to slow down or interfere with the story. In short, Hosseini tells a great story and tells it in an engaging and interesting manner.

Hosseini also creates real life characters with depth. The story, which I would describe as being about friendship and redemption, provides you with plenty of opportunities to like, dislike, and empathize with the characters.

If you are looking for a well-told, engaging story. I recommend The Kite Runner.

Do you use Google Docs? If so, you might want to check out the Google Docs Bar for Firefox.

According to the extension website,

gDocsBar is a sidebar extension for firefox, a perfect companion for Google Docs.

With gDocsBar, you can drag and drop multiple files into the sidebar to upload documents.

You can search and filter documents right from the sidebar.

Your Gmail credentials are sent to Google directly over SSL. Your passwords are stored in Firefox Password Manager.

If you use Google Docs, this extension seems like a great idea.

I know that I have been blogging about this issue a fair amount lately. However, I think that it is the one area that can most dramatically improve our practice as well as our efficiency.

Last night I had dinner with, among others, an attorney from another state. At one point in the evening, the topic of conversation turned to efiling and electronic access. When I explained the electronic access availability that we have in Illinois (which, for all intents and purposes, is nonexistant), he was dumbfounded. When I explained to him that, to get a copy of a document from a court file, I have to physically travel to the courthouse, I bet I could have knocked him over with a feather.

It is disappointing to see that Illinois is so far behind the curve on this issue. It is refreshing to see, however, that a disinterested third party shares my opinions on the abysmal state of efiling and electronic access here in the Land of Lincoln.

When I schedule trips, I often end up with reservation confirmations from airlines, hotels, and car rental companies. I then have to put all of that information together to keep track of when I am supposed to be and how I am getting there.

TripIt is a website that offers you a way to organize your travel plans. You simply forward your reservation emails to your account at TripIt and TripIt automatically organizes your travel plans. In organizing your plan, TripIt also automatically adds common maps that people use. Additionally, TripIt shows you typical weather based upon historical patterns. It also includes a cool feature to give you one button access to flight check in and flight status on your airline’s website.

As long as you don’t mind uploading your travel information to the website, TripIt looks like a useful tool for traveling.

One of the things that leveraging technology to practice law allows you to do is to practice law anywhere. Sometimes, this means that you are practicing law at home, with the kids around. If you have ever tried this before, you know how difficult this can be. Web Worker Daily has a post on how to work productively with kids at home. The list seems aimed at those who work at home a lot. However many of the tips work just as well for those who are working at home with the kids on a irregular basis.

Some of the best advice is for you to get up early or stay up later than the kids to get some work done. If you are a morning person, you can probably get some work done before the kids get up. Alternatively, if you are a night person, you can use the time after they have gone to bed to get some work done.

Another great tip is:

2. Team up with your spouse. It really helps to have a great, supportive spouse. My wife is a teacher, so she needs to do work herself, so we take turns working at the computer while the other keeps the kids at bay. Take the kids outside, or take them to a park, or read to them, while your spouse does some work. Then switch.

If you have a spouse that can help you with this, it is a great technique. It allows you to both get some work done and keeps the kids occupied.

Check out the entire post for the rest of the tips.

Bonnie Scucha points us toward an article from the federal courts describing the effects of PACER. PACER is the electronic access system that allows users to access and retrieve electronic copies of court files. The article reports that:

Hundreds of millions of pages of court documents retrieved online each year by customers who numbers are approaching 750,000. Less attention, however, has focused on PACER’s impact on court staffs.

“It’s definitely changed the way our office does business, and I think it’s been a change for the better,” said Monica Menier, clerk of the bankruptcy court in the Middle District of Louisiana.

“Back in the paper world, we constantly had law firm runners who came to the clerk’s office to make copies of case files. They’d have to drive to the courthouse, find a parking place, feed the meter, and pay 50 cents per copy. Helping them consumed a lot of staff time,” she said. “Those days are gone.”

David Weaver, clerk of court and court administrator in the Eastern District of Michigan, offers a similar assessment. “We once had 12 case-searching terminals in a public area of our office, but eight of those terminals are gone. Very little walk-up business remains. We don’t have file clerks anymore.”

I just wish that our courts in Illinois would realize the benefits of allowing us to have remote electronic access to court files. I consider it a terrible shame that it is much easier for me to retrieve a document from a federal court file in Seattle, Texas, or New Jersey, than it is for me to retrieve a document from DuPage County, where I practice regularly.

Affinity Law Office Technology Blog reveals that Google has released an update allowing you to sync your Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook. You can enable full bidirectional sync between both calendars or you can sync only from either Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook.

If you have been looking for a solution to share your Microsoft Outlook Calendar without using Exchange Server, this may be the solution for you. Simply enable bidirectional sync with a Google Calendar and give your assistant access to the Google Calendar.

To get started with setting up your calendar sync, start here.

Don’t forget, you can also access and add to your Google Calendar from your mobile phone. Go here, to find out more information about that.

This week I gained a new member in my Household: A Dell Latitude D630. My D600 was 4+ years old and had starting having problems. The optical drive did not work unless you taped it shut, the internal wireless card stopped working, the power button did not work well, and the touchpad was kind of touchy.  And those are just some of the problems that I was having. Thus, it was time to get a new one.

I was really pleased with how well my old Latitude held up. Despite the problems I was having just recently, I have no complaints about the machine. I take it with me almost everywhere I go. Given the amount of traveling it did, I am pretty impressed that it lasted as long and as well as it did.

The 630 is a nice improvement over the 600. In addition to the increase in speed because of the faster processor and more RAM, it also incorporates some additional features. Perhaps my favor thing is that Dell has added two additional USB ports. My 600 had only two ports in the back. My 630 has two in the back plus two on the right side beside the opitcal drive. I am a USB device junkie. I can never have enough USB ports. It also has a Firewire port. Now I just have to find something to plug into it.

Although it can be a bit of a pain to transfer to a new computer,  this transfer went relatively painless (despite the fact that it was time consuming). Nevertheless, I am quite happy to welcome my new laptop to the family.