Archive for the 'Legal' Category

Lawyers Jump In on the Mac vs. PC Debate

Published at March 1, 2008 in Legal and cult of mac. 2 Comments
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My friend Ben Stevens over at the MacLawyer blog participated in a recent debate for the American Bar Association Journal about Macs vs. PC’s. Of course Ben won the contest. As Ben explained, “Of course, I had a much easier position to argue since the facts were so strongly on my side.”

The whole debate reminds me of a recurring experience I’m having with my Mac as of late. Everytime I pull it out at the courthouse or in deposition, I become the subject of curiosity and questions. It seems a lot of people in the legal profession are curious about switching. I attended a day long seminar recently in Los Angeles about a PC-only application that I use often in my practice (CaseMap). I run it in Parallels with no problems. I think I sold about 10 Macs that day. The funniest thing was the speaker hunted me down afterward and told me how funny it was for him giving the presentation and looking up at about 100 Dell logos with one shining Apple in the middle. Then he told me he wants to switch too.

Parallels on a Windows Network

Published at January 23, 2008 in Legal and parallels. 2 Comments
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I’ve been in the same office for 15 years. For giggles I decided to move to another office recently. It is a little bigger and has a better view. Also, it is good to shake things up once in awhile. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until after I got all my furniture moved that there is no ethernet into my new digs and as far as the network is concerned, I fell out the window.

So my PC box sits in my computer stand with its two monitors silent while I attempt to get someone to wire it up. Mainly out of necessity but also out of Mac geekiness, I decided to see if I could exist on a windows network with nothing but my MacBook Pro. Turns out I can.

We use a specific program that is a relational database for lawyers called TimeMatters. It is PC only and although the program can be frustrating, one thing it does very well is keep all of your data on the server. So I booted up parallels and had an extended call with a very smart PC friend of mine and in about an hour we had my Mac securely on the network with TimeMatters installed on my laptop and working flawlessly in Parallels. For the last few days I’ve been doing most word processing in Pages and jumping over to Parallels for the database management stuff. I’m very pleased at this newfound ability and amazed why I didn’t take steps to make this happen earlier.

I’ve frequently used Parallels for another legal PC only program, CaseMap, but interacting with the office database on my Mac seems to step it up a notch. It makes me feel a little bit of a rebel. The lone wolf.

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Okay, maybe I’m laying it on a bit thick, but I’ve had very few problems. Once Parallels sent one of my cores spinning up for no apparent reason. I logged out of windows and rebooted the virtual machine and everything sorted itself out. Other than that, no complaints. And the fact that my cable installer seems to be busy doesn’t really bother me so much either.

A Lawyer’s Take on Macworld 2008

Published at January 20, 2008 in Legal, OmniFocus, Uncategorized, bento, busysync, daylite, drobo, macspeech, macworld, scansnap, smartboard and timecapsule. 1 Comment
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In addition to being an affirmed Mac geek, I am also a lawyer. So as I spent the last several days talking to developers and roaming the halls of Macworld, a few things in particular got me excited about practicing law with my Mac.

Macbook Air

Apple’s new machine is a real eye catcher. It is just three pounds and manages to keep a 13 inch monitor. While this would be really nice for the roadwarrior or running around in depositions and trial, the $1800 price tag makes me look twice. If you really need thin and are willing to sacrifice a bit of functionality (no ethernet or firewire) you may want to check it out. I’m sticking with my Macbook Pro for the time being.

MacSpeech

For those of you former PC users who miss having DragonDictate in your toolbelt, fret no more. I was never a big fan of iListen, but the folks at at iListen recently acquired the license for the Dragon recognition engine for use on the Mac. Their new product, MacSpeech Dictate will be releasing next month and looks fantastic. I spent about an hour at their booth and am very impressed. I also watched David Pogue fawn over it as it produced very accurate and quick results.

I wasn’t alone in my opinion that this product will change things. It was one of the “Best of Show” award winners by several publications. Put this one at the top of your list for productivity boosters.

OmniFocus

I’m a big fan of the Omni Group applications. I use OmniOutline, OmniPlan, and OmniGraffle to manage much of my caseload. I got in early on the beta of their OmniFocus task management application and it was just released as a 1.0. This application is fantastic for keeping all the plates in the air. I did an extended review of it at Macsparky.com

I talked to the folks at Omni and they are going to do everything in their power to get these applications on the iPhone once the iPhone SDK releases.

BusySync

For the small offices that don’t need the expense of a server but want to sync iCal calendars between multiple desks, there is a great little application called BusySync. For a cost of $20 per computer, you get seamless bonjour and net syncing between machines. They have a new version due out soon that will also allow for Google calendar syncing.

Bento

FileMaker is the best application for database intensive solutions. If you are running a small practice, FileMaker’s smaller application, Bento, looks really robust.

Billings and Daylite

Marketcircle continues its place at the top of small office management software. They had a nice booth and made regular presentations. I was unaware of some of their interesting add-on products like Daylite Delivery and the FileMaker connector. These guys fill a very particular niche.

Fujitsu ScanSnap

I love my Fujitsu ScanSnap. It is a reliable, fast scanner with a small footprint. Now they have a portable version, the S300M, that retails at $295 and looks perfect for those depositions on the other side of the country.

Smart Board

Smart Technologies has a very impressive device you install over your LCD television that allows you to create a virtual white board like you are John Madden. The price point is steep. I was told “around $5,000″ but it sure is nice.

Storage - Drobo and TimeCapsule

While TimeCapsule is aimed as a consumer device, 1TB storage with a built in wireless “N” router is a pretty attractive product.

I was also impressed with the Drobo that allows you to drop up to four swappable drives in with no headache. Interestingly, if you pull out a drive while it is running (or if the drive dies), Drobo automatically moves the data around to protect its integrity. The Drobo device costs $500 without any drives.

For all of you Mac lawyers, I highly recommend visiting Macworld sometime when you get a chance. Not only will you find some great tools for your practice, you’ll probably have a good time while you are at it.

Downloads Galore

Published at September 11, 2007 in Humpty Dumpty, Legal, Screencast and Screencasts. 0 Comments
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One of the benefits of having plenty of server space is I no longer have to rubber band and scotch tape together ways of getting large fils to readers. I’ve been doing lots of back-end work on the site the last few days rebuilding links and restructuring pages. It is not completely done but getting closer. The good news is several items are much easier to access now.

Screencasts - All Resolutions, All Day

I now have the screencasts formatted for HD, AppleTV, and iPod and all conveniently available on the screencast page

Humpty Dumpty Revisited

I’ve edited the Humpty Dumpty entry. That was where I gave the law talk and Keynote to my fifth grader’s class. For all those teachers and parents interested in using this, I now have the PDF file, the Keynote and (for those OS X challenged) a clickable quicktime file for the Dell boxes. Who knows, when they see the fantastic Keynote transitions, maybe a few of them will come to the light side. Gone are the days of me sending these files to people via Pando. Now you can find them right here.

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Law Parents and Humpty Dumpty

Published at June 11, 2007 in Humpty Dumpty, Keynote, Legal and Parenting. 2 Comments

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Attention All of you Law Dads and Moms…During my fifth grader’s parent teacher conference I offered to come in and help the kids learn a bit about the judicial system and how it fits into our three branches of government. I had heard about a case that one of the bar associations had put together letting the kids roleplay a trial. Well it took me some six months to track it down but I finally did get the transcript for a kids trial. Humpty Dumpty … did he actually fall? or was he pushed? It is a great little trial where the kids play the roles of the judge, attorneys, parties, witnesses, bailiff, and jury.

I also put together a keynote presentation to give the kids before doing the trial (which has been exported to Powerpoint for those of you that are Mac challenged). The kids were very attentive during the presentation and asked some very good question. “How do you defend someone if you know he is guilty?” Since I’ve done all this work I thought I might as well share it.Below you can download “the case” along with my Keynote Presentation. For those folks still on Windows, download the Quicktime and it will work just like Keynote on your Dell. You can live life large. Grin. If you do use it, please drop me a note and let me know how it goes.

The kids seemed to have a good time and I’ve already agreed to go back to the fifth grade next year and do it for the next group (even though I won’t actually have any kids in the class)

By the way… My daughter’s class had two juries because of size. One said he fell, the other said he was pushed. Can anyone say double jeopardy?

Download “The Case” in PDF

Keynote File

Quicktime File