Office Technology For The Solo And Small Office Lawyer

Transcription

1 Office Technology For The Solo And Small Office Lawyer Sean Markham Markham Law Firm, LLC Markhamlawsc.com Jason Ward Dickerson & Ward, LLC Dickersonward.com All attorneys should have a working understanding of technology. This understanding is essential for 3 main reasons: 1. It will allow them to understand the new complexities that computers and new technology are adding to discovery in litigation. 2. It will allow them to work more efficiently. 3. And most importantly, it will allow them to seize on new technologies that can save them money and/or increase efficiency. When evaluating the technology setup in an office, or building a new office system, you should start at the point where services come into the building. These services are the internet/phones/power. Everything else builds on this starting point. 1. Internet Connection a. You should pay for as much as you can afford, and make sure it is enough to handle you, your support staff, and your phones. I would suggest: i. Firms with 1-25 employees 1. 5 Mbs download, per person, minimum, and 2. 2 Mbs upload, per person, minimum. ii. Firms with Mbs download, per person, and 1

2 Mbs upload, per person. b. If you are going to use a VPN, make sure the provider is going to give you a static IP address. 2. Firewall To Protect The Users From Bad Guys a. This should not be a firewall on your personal computer, it should be a dedicated unit and should be one that is upgradeable. This is called a Hardware Firewall. b. You will need, and MUST, hire a network engineer to install the firewall. If it is a Cisco, hire a certified Cisco IT professional. You do not want to be the next Target or Sony. These companies did not do a good job of securing their data, which was then copied and used for criminal purposes. c. Some companies offer firewalls that receive regular, automatic updates, that will keep your protection current with the latest threats. i. Fortinet is a great, easy to use, cheap product. You should still hire someone to set it up for you 30series.html ii. Cisco - series-next-generation-firewalls/index.html iii. Barracuda - d. Best Practices article on using a Firewall 3. A network switch (sometimes called a router ) This is a relatively easy purchase but some planning needs to go into how many devices you have, how many are wired, how many are wireless, and how you are going to send these services to each user terminal. 2

3 i. Wi-fi means you no wires (or fewer), but it is less secure and if you do not use the best security you are vulnerable to people breaking into your network. You should use WPA2 or WPA2 Enterprise. If you have a device that does not use this standard, THROW IT OUT 1!' ii. This is a good guide to securing your wi-fi network iii. Wired is more reliable than wi-fi, cannot be hacked, has greater speed, and can handle more devices at the same time. b. Most modern offices will use a combination of both. The devices that do not move, or use high amounts of data, will use a wired connection. Lawyers who are moving around from office to office will use the wifi. c. You should never allow an unauthorized user on your network. If you think you might have a guest or client who will need to use your network, you should hire an IT professional to set up your network. Make sure you tell them to have one network for your office users and one for your guests that is totally separate. If they cannot do this you need to hire a better IT person. d. There are many companies that make these devices and they can be acquired through Amazon or other electronics providers. These devices need to have enough ports to handle the number of devices you have, or may have on your network. i. Netgear - ii. Cisco - ess/products/index.html 1 Actually you should recycle the device. 3

4 iii. Linksys - iv. Fortinet series.html 4. VPN VPN is a private network that protects communications over the internet. a. Most firewalls have the ability to set up a VPN for your office. You should make sure you have an IT professional set this up as a mistake in setup could compromise the security of the VPN Tunnel. b. Any computer that you plan to use outside of the office should connect to the VPN tunnel. 5. Phones a. Voice over Internet Protocol (this means make a phone call over the internet). VOIP has become more reliable in recent years. This is a great option for an office that is small and cannot afford a full phone system, or a law office that is constantly changing employees. They allow for flexibility and customization that is not available with traditional phone systems. They also allow for easier use remotely. i. Google voice is great for the solo attorney and it is free, but has limited options and flexablity. ii. Vonage for business iii. RingCentral is great for the small office and solo lawyer in its flexablity and options. b. this is the traditional phone system most offices have purchased over the past 35 years. They have greatly improved and many are adaptable to VOIP. There is a tipping point where the number of employees makes a PBX system more affordable as compared to a cloud VOIP solution. Each year this tipping point increases as cost of VOIP goes down. 6. Battery Backup. 4

5 Items 1-4 above MUST have a battery backup and you should have a large enough battery to keep these devices running for at least 2 hours. If you decide to host your in office, you should have 4-8 hours of battery time. a. APC is the primary company for these solutions - b. If you are having trouble deciding, this is a good resource on how to choose the best backup solution based on your needs: 7. Computers a. Windows and Macs are both options b. Windows computers tend to be cheaper and have better compatibility with many software solutions. The downside is that Windows tends to be less reliable, more complicated, and the computers do not last as long as the Macs c. Macs tend to last longer, are more reliable, and are actually easier to use once you get used to the operating system. The downside is that they are less compatible with important software programs and they tend to cost more to initially purchase. The compatibility issues have largely been resolved because now you can run Windows on your mac for those times when you need to use certain types of software. 8. Scanners a. Every attorney should have a scanner at his or her desk. The best, as voted by numerous reviewers, is the fujitsu scansnap line. The ix500 is fantastic. rs/scansnap/scansnap-ix500.html b. It is important that you establish a system for scanning and make all of your employees utilize that system Software 5

6 i. The ABA has prepared a great chart outlining many of the feature differences and price differences for Practice Management software. I would suggest you use Cloud as a way to test the waters. h/ltrc/charts/pmtbchart.authcheckdam.pdf ii. The Cloud based solutions have low upfront costs and do a great job of organizing how you practice law. i. BestCase 1. Did you know you can have your client enter their information in a simple easy to use questionnaire and import to BestCase BestCase can also automatically import documents from ECF for your matters. ii. Cloud bankruptcy software it is coming and you won t have to update your software anymore i. Adobe Acrobat Pro for opening, editing, and creating PDF files. ii. Word/Excel/Outlook the essential software for document production in the modern law office iii. Office 365 allows for online collaboration using word docs, storage of files, and many other features for an annual charge of $99 per year. iv. QuickBooks (or other alternatives) for accounting. 6

7 1. A cloud alternative to quickbooks is v. Virtual machine emulator (if you have a mac) 1. I would recommend you use virtualbox it is free, you only have to bring your version of windows. i. A mobile scanner app to make PDFs when traveling ( tinyscan CamScanner TurboScan Scanner Pro Genius Scan ) ii. Evernote iii. A date calculator ( DaysFrom ) iv. Loan Calculator i. Most smart phones have the ability to transcribe your dictation into text. This will allow you to be more productive with your smart phone 10. Disaster planning i. You can backup your data in office for the price of a hard drive ($100). This is not a great idea because if a disaster strikes your office you computer and the backup are gone. The cheapest solution is to pay for the offsite backup and not both internal and offsite. Some organizations need an onsite backup in addition to the offsite. If you decided to have an onsite backup you should get a Drobo backup drive: The Drobo drive has multiple redundancies called Advance RAID. What makes it different is, unlike regular RAID drives, you can just replace the broken part. The old ones required an IT professional to oversee the replacement process. 7

8 i. An offsite backup is great because it is stored in facilities that are secure, hardened to withstand disasters, power outages, mechanical failures, and your data is duplicated at several locations ii. Some good options are: 1. Drobo a good solution if you are backing up in office and offsite 2. Backblaze - can be installed on each computer and is seamless. Also allows you to encrypt the data with a secure key so no one at Backblaze or the NSA can get your data. 3. Carbonite reccomended by the bar. c. Allthough this has already been addressed in detail above you should think about backups for: i. Your server ii. Any desktop computers you use iii. Any other equipment you may need to use during a power outage. iv. Some items like printers and copiers are not able to use a battery backup because they need far to0 much power. 11. Printing a. I would first go to an office supply store and compare the cost and page yield of each toner cartridge. Divide the price by the number of pages. When you find the cheapest per page you will want to make sure it has the following specs below. i. If you are buying a printer you should probably get one with the following minimum specifications pages per minute printing 2. Duplexing 3. Wireless 8

9 4. A duty cycle of 10,000 pages per month ii. PC Magazine does a good job of ranking the best printers ( b. this is a good comparison site for color laser printers i. If you cannot afford a color laser printer and do not print much color, get a cheap color injet printer. ii. Color significantly adds to the cost and price per page because of the increased complexity and need for additional toner cartridges. c. unless your office produces lots of paper, you should probably avoid buying a large multifunction copier. If you are considering the purchase of a copier, you should compare the lease cost with the return you might get if you purchased the copier. If you produce enough pages, the purchase is probably cheaper than a lease. i. You also MUST get a system that monitors the pages printed and copied so you can bill those charges back to the client with little effort. ii. Papercut is the best solution I have found for all environments. It can monitor the copier and print jobs from all operating systems. i. You can purchase or lease a mailing machine. This is great if you send out a lot of mail but I would suggest that you consider using a noticing agent. They are able to send mail more cheaply (with a few exceptions) and more efficiently. ii. You can get an account with a company like These solutions can be limiting in that the require you to purchase their stamp media and you have to print the whole page of stamps (30-48 stamps) otherwise you waste the media. 9

10 iii. Another alternative, which I use, is a dymo label writer. It prints stamps and labels. 1. Dymo destop mailing solution with twin printer Solution- LabelWriter/dp/B005D9JB3U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid = &sr=8-2&keywords=Desktop+Mailing+Solution 2. Dymo turbo LabelWriter-Thermal-Printer /dp/B0027JIIKQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid= &sr=8-2&keywords=Dymo+label+maker 12. Vendors Services i. Certificate of Service is a great solution for getting mailouts done and reducing your need for hardware, software, paper, and hassle. ii. The BNC has opened up their noticing center, but it is only available Wednesday to Saturday. This limited schedule may rule them out as a useful option. iii. Other noticing agents exist but many are not tailored to handle smaller services. Be careful i. Call Ruby is the highest rated and arguably the best. But, is pricey at $249 a month to start with 100 receptionist minutes. ii. Total Attorney Receptionist is a little different in price structure. Rather than charging for receptionist minutes they 10

11 charge per call. Currently $199 for 50 calls. c. you should consider outsourcing this matter if it is sufficiently large or complex. i. Rosen Litigation Technology Consulting is local and a good place to start if you need help on a project Places to go for more information a. Our Bar does a great job of providing a starting point in the Practice Management Assistance Program P.aspx b. Lawyerist is a great blog with small and Solo pointers, tech news and developments, and information on how to start a law firm. c. Above the Law is less focused on your practice and more on news in the legal industry, but it does have a good technology section. 11

12 Network Planning Diagram Internet Firewall Battery Backup Network Hub (staff) Network Hub (guest Wired Network Wi-Fi Network Wi-Fi Office Users Networked devices like copier, scanners, and server Phone system Battery backup Battery Backup Battery Backup 12