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1 Get Evernote Basic for free or upgrade to Plus or Premium URL: Basic FREE Plus $34.99/YR Premium $69.99/YR SIG N UP G ET PLUS GO PREMIUM 60 MB of new uploads per month Sync across 2 devices 1 GB of new uploads per month Sync across all devices 10 GB of new uploads per month Sync across all devices Stay organized across platforms Clip web pages and images Search for text inside images Share and discuss notes Add passcode lock on mobile apps Access notebooks offline Forward s Stay organized across platforms Clip web pages and images Search for text inside images Share and discuss notes Add passcode lock on mobile apps Access notebooks offline Forward s Stay organized across platforms Clip web pages and images Search for text inside images Share and discuss notes Add passcode lock on mobile apps Access notebooks offline Forward s

2 into Evernote Customer support via Customer support via live chat Search for text in PDFs Search for text in Office docs into Evernote Customer support via Customer support via live chat Search for text in PDFs Search for text in Office docs into Evernote Customer support via Customer support via live chat Search for text in PDFs Search for text in Office docs

3 Evernote For Lawyers Part 1 Increase Attorney Efficiency URL: How Attorneys Can Use Evernote Part 1 by Luke Ciciliano on December 1, 2014 in Software Tips This is the first post in a short series on how attorneys can make better use of Evernote. I briefly discussed how attorneys can reduce clutter with Evernote as part of my 30 days to a better law firm series. That article has proven to be quite popular over the last six months and, due to demand, I ve decided to write more on the topic. Properly leveraging Evernote is one of the best ways to increase law office efficiency which, in turn, increases profits. So that you can cut the inefficiency, and grow the size of your wallet, let s take a look at how your firm can you use Evernote. I began using Evernote in The software began life as a digital note taking and organization tool. Over the years it has greatly expanded and now includes tools for collaboration, task management, and in many ways is striving to be a comprehensive workspace which partially replaces Microsoft Office. Few professions can benefit from full leverage of Evernote as can the legal field. The large amount of information and documentation that attorneys have to keep organized can be mind-boggling. Evernote can greatly streamline your processes so that, as a lawyer, you can go from looking like this guy:

4 To lookin like these fine chaps right here: You score extra points if you can get the managing partner to let you wear such cool socks to work. Let s get to it.

5 I ll be looking at several points over the next few posts. Specifically, we ll talk about: Taking the right approach when organizing your Evernote files and common mistakes to avoid Why a service like Evernote will actually improve your cyber security How lawyers and law firms can use Evernote to go paperless How Evernote can be used to replace your overpriced task manager that does nothing but make life complicated case management software. I speak with quite a few attorneys who ask whether they should use Evernote in their practice. The answer is absolutely. That being said, like most things, if you don t have a game plan with how your going to implement the software then you re going to miss out on most of the benefits. The steps/tips I m going to lay out over the next few posts are meant to help you get started on the right track. Implementing this software, and ensuring it is used properly, will increase your profits in multiple ways. First, how much time do you spend looking for paper in your law office? This includes pleadings, discovery, hand written notes, post-its, etc.? Every minute you spend looking for something means lost productivity and lost profits. Second, how much are all those paper files costing you? You have to pay for paper, someone to file all that paper, as well as extra square feet of office space for a file room to store all that stuff. Third, how much time do you lose by not having all your information in one medium? You re constantly switching between mediums to get a task done when you re using paper files, one piece of software for your /calendar, and another piece of software as a task manager. Having everything in one medium, Evernote, will greatly streamline your workflow. These inefficiencies are part of the profit-depleting, aggravationincreasing, productivity killing part of legal practice called administrative time. The more of this nonsense you cut out then the easier life will be and the more money you will make. You have to remember that no system is better than the person using it. The phrase garbage in, garbage out exists for a reason. That s why my next post will make sure you get off on the right foot with Evernote by nailing your initial organization of the software. Do you use Evernote in your law practice? What do you like or dislike about the software?

6 Please Share: Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket More About Luke Ciciliano Luke Ciciliano is an SEO consultant and technology blogger who has helped numerous attorneys build their practice through online marketing. View all posts by Luke Ciciliano Follow Us Related Posts: Attorneys Should Take Cyber-Security Seriously Three Tips For Lawyers Who Use Gmail My Six-Week Windows Challenge Popular 2014 Posts Law Firm Software Evernote For Lawyers Series Wrap Up Software Tips

7 Lawyers And Evernote Organizing Your File System URL: Setting Up A Law Firm s File System In Evernote by Luke Ciciliano on December 2, 2014 in Software Tips This is the second post in my series on why lawyers should use Evernote. My last post served as a series overview and gave a few examples of how attorneys can save time with Evernote. This post is going to look at setting up your Evernote file system for maximum efficiency as well as mistakes attorneys make when using what I consider one of the best apps there is. This is an important part of the discussion because, like with most things in life, if you get off on the wrong foot then you re likely to have problems down the road. Starting in the right direction will help ensure efficiency increases as well as your profits, which flow from your becoming a productivity animal. Let s get organized! If you re reading this article then I m assuming we re past the what is Evernote discussion. As you know, it s a digital filing cabinet/note taking system where you can create notebooks to hold data and then tag notes with a designation so you can quickly find them. A lot of law firms start using Evernote and saving everything imaginable into it without really thinking about the organization aspect. If you were starting a law firm them you wouldn t just start throwing all your documents into one giant box with sticky notes attached (or at least I hope you wouldn t). You would site down and make a methodical plan for filing items so that they can be quickly retrieved. Well Evernote is a filing system, so before you even start using it you need to come up

8 with a plan. Lawyers should take a less is more approach with Evernote By less is more I mean that you should use relatively few notebooks in your Evernote account and make good use of the tagging feature. Let s say, for example, you keep notes after every court hearing or important case development. You wouldn t want to have a separate notebook for each client with that client s notes saved in it. Instead, you would want one notebook, called notes, where you would save the notes on all your cases. You would then tag each note with the respective client s name. When you want to view the notes for a particular client then all you do is select notes folder, filter the folder by the client s tag, and voila, you re viewing all your notes on that particular client. This is a two click process that takes all of 2 seconds. Keeping your number of notebooks to a minimum is the best way to prevent your file system from feeling cumbersome. Most attorneys make the mistake of over-using notebooks and under-using tags in Evernote. They create a notebook for every client or, worse, create multiple notebooks for every client (such as client A correspondence and client A pleadings ) as a way to further classify things. The reason why attorneys do this is understandable; they re setting up a system which mirrors what one would do with a paper file. Paper files are, after all, what one knows and people tend to follow methods they already know. The problem with this approach is that it creates clutter. The more notebooks you use then the more you have to sort through just to find something. You ll also find that using an excessive number of notebooks leads to a slower workflow; you ll spend an increasing amount of time figuring out which notebooks something should be stored in. There are a number of other reasons why using too many notebooks will kill your productivity but I m sure you don t want to read my manifesto opinions on the topic.

9 I would suggest using the following notebooks along with tags for each client (in other words, tag every note): Correspondence (a later post will discuss how to make Evernote your paperless correspondence file) Pleadings Discovery Notes (for everything that doesn t fit into one of the notebooks above) I consider myself a power user of the service and I have all of four notebooks. My workrelated notebooks are notes, correspondence, and client leads. I also have one notebook titled personal where I keep things that aren t work related. In the first year or so that I used the service I made the mistake of using way too many notebooks. I think it was 2011 when I took a weekend to consolidate those notebooks and make better use of tags. I haven t looked back since. Lawyers err by not seeing Evernote as a re-imagined file system One of the biggest mistakes attorneys, and people in general, make with technology is to try and hold on to the past. Have you stopped to consider the extent to which modern digital solutions have user experiences modeled after their nondigital predecessors? For example, why does the file system in Microsoft Windows resemble the folder structure you would use in a filing cabinet? The answer is that people are used to filing cabinets and they want something to equate it to; individuals are resistant to change and won t adopt technology that radically departs from what they know. The problem with this is that modeling a digital solution, on a non-digital approach, can carry over the same inefficiencies which the modern software is meant to solve. The example I gave above,

10 of using too many notebooks, is because attorneys are setting up Evernote in the same way they would set up a paper filing cabinet. If you want to super charge your productivity then avoid the trap of modeling your digital solution on non-digital methods. Rather than saying this is how we organize our paper files, and setting up Evernote to mirror that method, you should recognize that paper files and Evernote are very different things. Your goal should be to create a file system which allows you to retrieve needed information as easily as possible. Using fewer notebooks, and more tags, will get you there. In my next we ll look at how you can easily use Evernote to create a paperless law office. Please Share: Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket More About Luke Ciciliano Luke Ciciliano is an SEO consultant and technology blogger who has helped numerous attorneys build their practice through online marketing. View all posts by Luke Ciciliano Follow Us Related Posts: Attorneys Should Take Cyber-Security Seriously Three Tips For Lawyers Who Use Gmail My Six-Week Windows Challenge Popular 2014 Posts Law Firm Software Evernote For Lawyers Series Wrap Up Software Tips

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12 A Paperless Law Office With Evernote Lawyer Productivity URL: Lawyers Can Go Paperless With Evernote by Luke Ciciliano on December 3, 2014 in Software Tips This post continues my discussion on how attorneys and law firms can use Evernote. Yesterday I gave tips on how lawyers can organize their Evernote files more efficiently. In this article I m going to go over something you can do with ease create a paperless law office with Evernote. We re going to look at four things. First, let s talk about how you can keep all your notes organized in a paperless fashion. Second, we ll look at how to deal with correspondence. Third, we ll tackle the issue of pleadings and discovery. Finally, we ll wrap up by looking at why Evernote is the best choice for a paperless solution. If you don t like clutter then read on. If you re a fan of not being able to find things and having extra stress then 1) this article is not for you and 2) you probably look like this ol boy:

13 If you don t want to share in this pictured gentleman s unfortunate fate, then read on. Lawyers can create a paperless note system in Evernote It s time to ask yourself a few questions. First, how many legal pads do you have scattered around your office with various notes taken on them? How many sticky notes are all over the place with reminders or notes on them? How many sticky notes are attached to the computer monitor on which you re reading this article? Don t lie, I know you re looking at the notes on your monitor right now. How many notes do you have, regarding cases, vendors, etc., in paper files? Now ask yourself the big one how much time do you spend looking for things in your office? Creating a paperless note system in Evernote will 1) keep all your data in one easily searchable place, so you can quickly find it and 2) save you quite a bit of time and money. Evernote allows you to note only save notes that you type directly in the software, it also allows you to attach handwritten notes or other items. When typing your notes on something is more practical than writing them down then simply type them directly into Evernote. There are, however, plenty of times where a legal pad is preferable for taking notes down. When you re performing a consultation then it s easier to give the client your attention if you re writing something down as opposed to typing. Such allows you to make more eye contact, etc. Also, most attorneys prefer the ol pen and paper when they re in Court. Finally, there are times in which something quickly gets jotted down on paper. The solution to these situations is simple, when you re done with the consult, court appearance, or other task, simply scan the paper and attach it to a note in the software. Once you ve scanned and uploaded the note, then the piece of paper can be stashed in the following filing cabinet:

14 When you need to retrieve your scanned notes from Evernote then you can do so, in all of two seconds, through the Evernote search functions. Lawyers and law firms will greatly simplify their lives just by implementing these steps. Attorneys can easily set up paperless correspondence files with Evernote There are two forms of documents which should be in a paper correspondence file. Letters/faxes as well as printed s. Having all the correspondence on a case in one central location is important for obvious reasons. There aren t many good solutions for this, however, because of the issue; if I send you an and you respond then the rest of your firm doesn t have access to that unless you print it. Attorneys can quickly and easily get around this dilema by creating a paperless correspondence file, that the entire office can view, with Evernote. Getting paper correspondence into Evernote is the easy part. Just scan it and attach it to a note the way we discussed above. is easily dealt with as well. Sign up for an app called Powerbot. When you read and send s then this app allows you to easily, and pretty seamlessly, send the s straight into Evernote with an appropriate

15 folder designation and tag. Voila, all of your law firm s written correspondence and s are now saved into an easily searchable Evernote correspondence file. Here s a great video from Steve Dotto (who gives great tech tips) demonstrating how easily you can manage s with Powerbot: As of this writing, Powerbot works with Gmail, Outlook, Outlook.com, and Yahoo mail. If you re still using Outlook then 1) I m sorry and 2) you may want to read why Gmail is better than Outlook. Powerbot can be set up and implemented, literally, in seconds. Law firms can set up paperless pleadings and correspondence files with Evernote It s easy to set up paperless pleadings and discovery files in Evernote. Just follow the same process as the one above for written notes. There s a big benefit, however, of using Evernote for these items. You will now have a bad ass brief bank! Think of how often lawyers and law firms want to assign a task to someone such as a law clerk or a paralegal. The person receiving an assignment will often need an example of previous work product. Finding a good example often means sifting through files in various client folders until you can find a good one. Having your pleadings in Evernote cures this. Say you assign your law clerk a Motion to Dismiss. All the clerk has to do is search Evernote for that type of pleading and they ll suddenly have every one your firm has ever done right there in a row and they can easily skim the examples. This will make everyone s life easier. Evernote is the best solution for attorneys and law firms that want to go paperless Why is this solution so great for law firm s wanting to go paperless? Simple, it allows you to be device and platform neutral. By this I mean that Evernote has great desktop applications for both Windows and Mac. It also has great mobile applications for Android and ios devices. It works great in the browser so you can work from any computer or a Chromebook (which I use as my laptop). This is an independent product that doesn t try to marry itself to any one platform. As a result, it works well on all platforms. If you use Windows in the office, your managing partner carries an iphone, and an associate uses

16 an Android device, then everyone can still access everything with ease. Going paperless this way is 1) easy and 2) something that will save you time and increase efficiency which, in turn, increases profits. One final benefit of Evernote is the advantage it will give you in Court. All of your notes, pleadings, correspondence, etc. will be accessible on your mobile device and easily searchable. When s the last time you could bring that level of documentation into Court with the ability to find what you re looking for in a matter of seconds? Not recently I m willing to bet. Have you considered going paperless with your law office? Is Evernote your solution of choice? Feel free to chime in on the comment form below. Please Share: Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket More About Luke Ciciliano Luke Ciciliano is an SEO consultant and technology blogger who has helped numerous attorneys build their practice through online marketing. View all posts by Luke Ciciliano Follow Us Related Posts: Attorneys Should Take Cyber-Security Seriously Three Tips For Lawyers Who Use Gmail My Six-Week Windows Challenge Popular 2014 Posts Law Firm Software Evernote For Lawyers Series Wrap Up Software Tips

17 Evernote Security In Your Law Firm Attorney Productivity URL: Using Evernote Can Improve Your Firm s Cyber Security by Luke Ciciliano on December 8, 2014 in Software Tips how to go about it correctly. This is the next post in my series on how Evernote can be used to improve your law practice. I ve previously looked at how to best set up your Evernote file system and how attorneys can use the software to easily create a paperless law office. In this post I m going to look at how Evernote ties into a topic that is pretty relevant these days improving cyber security. Moving more of your law practice online to the cloud is far more secure than how most are currently going about things. Lets talk about 1) why it s more secure to move your information online into Evernote and 2) It seems like we can t go long these days without hearing about another high profile hack of a cloud service. The latest is Sony s Playstation store, as reported by Cnet. Why these hacks are occurring is an issue related to human error and not cloud computing, which is a rant for another article. The important thing to understand here is that the Cloud is more secure than the current server setup employed by most law firms. Ask yourself a few questions how many times have you had to clean viruses or malware off of your office computers? How many times have you run into IT problems due to people downloading items or clicking links that they shouldn t be clicking? How much productivity do you lose while waiting for your IT guy? The bottom line is that the likliehood of your data being compromised, through your own internal data vulnerabilities, is much higher than the likliehood of Evernote being hacked. I ve previously written on how to fix law firm cyber security. A big step of that process is the switching to cloud services. If you want to increase security and improve productivity at 1

18 the same time than switch to Evernote. If you re opposed to prosperity then keep on truckin down your current path. Ensuring your Evernote files are secure requires two basic steps. First, enable twofactor authentication in the software. This means that, even if Evernote were hacked and someone obtained your passwords, they wouldn t be able to access your account unless they also had your cell phone which is required to access a two-factor system. This level of security is huge. You should be activating two-factor authentication on all your services and not just on Evernote. The second big step to becoming secure is to not use the same password for everything. There are two common problems with law firm password management most attorneys either use the same password for all of their accounts or make each password unique and then can t remember them. I have to say it blows my mind when I see law offices losing valuable time trying to simply figure out what their passwords are. There s a simple fix for this. Employ a password manager called Last Pass. I ve stressed the need to use Last Pass before and won t re-hash it here; watching this excellent video from Steve Dotto will give you the ins and outs of Last Pass. Evernote is an amazing tool for law firms. You can use it to go paperless and increase efficiency. I m also going to be talking about how you can use it to replace your current case management software. Making sure it s secure, following these steps, is crucial. These steps will make your office more secure than it is currently and eliminates one of the big excuses attorneys give for not implementing a service like Evernote. References: 1 Please Share: Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket More About Luke Ciciliano Luke Ciciliano is an SEO consultant and technology blogger who has helped numerous attorneys build their practice through online marketing. View all posts by Luke Ciciliano

19 Follow Us Related Posts: Attorneys Should Take Cyber-Security Seriously Three Tips For Lawyers Who Use Gmail My Six-Week Windows Challenge Popular 2014 Posts Law Firm Software Evernote For Lawyers Series Wrap Up Software Tips

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21 OneNote: one place for all of your notes Watch the 2 minute video 1. Take notes anywhere on the page Write your name here 2. Get organized You start with "My Notebook" - everything lives in here Add sections for activities like: Add pages inside of each section:

22 (Pages are over there) 3. For more tips, check out 30 second videos Clip from the web Plan a trip with others Search notes instantly Write notes on slides 4. Create your first page You're in the Quick Notes section - use it for random notes

23 OneNote Basics Remember everything Add Tags to any notes Make checklists and to-do lists Create your own custom tags Collaborate with others Keep your notebooks on OneDrive Share with friends and family Anyone can edit in a browser Keep everything in sync People can edit pages at the same time Real-Time Sync on the same page Everything stored in the cloud Accessible from any device

24 Clip from the web Quickly clip anything on your screen Take screenshots of products online Save important news articles Organize with tables Type, then press TAB to create a table Quickly sort and shade tables Convert tables to Excel spreadsheets Write notes on slides Send PowerPoint or Word docs to OneNote Annotate with a stylus on your tablet Highlight and finger-paint

25 Integrate with Outlook Take notes on Outlook or Lync meetings Insert meeting details Add Outlook tasks from OneNote From Outlook: Add Excel spreadsheets Track finances, budgets, & more Preview updates on the page Brainstorm without clutter Hide everything but the essentials Extra space to focus on your notes

26 Take quick notes Quickly jot down thoughts and ideas They go into your Quick Notes section

27 OneNote: all your notes on all your devices OneNote can help organize your life Play video now! School Work Home Handwrite notes and clip from the Syncs to PC, phone, & web Share plans with family and

28 (Credit: Ben M. Schorr)

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31 Credits and Other Useful Links: Credits: Some of the articles included were re-printed with permission. Ben M. Schorr Senior Content Developer Modern Assistance & Support Experience Team Microsoft Luke Ciciliano SEO For Lawyers, LLC Other Useful Links: (Credit: Jeff Bennion, Esq. - an article on one attorney s use of Microsoft OneNote)