To whom can attorneys turn for
real, practical office management and computer tips geared especially
for them?
For starters, turn to your colleagues, professional staff, and
consultants.
The Law Practice Section and Solo and Small Firm Practice Committee
cosponsored "60+ Hot Practice Management and Techno Tips in 60 Minutes"
at the Bar's annual convention in June. In the interest of space, the
presenters offer their favorite tips. Nothing said in this article is to
be construed as a State Bar endorsement of any brand or product.
- Tips
from Debra Hix-Sykes, President & CEO, DHS & Associates,
Milwaukee.
- Tips
from David Grove, Owner of Grove Law Office, DeForest.
- Tips
from Ross L. Kodner, Founder of MicroLaw Inc., Milwaukee.
- Tips
from Lori Kannenberg, Law firm administrator, Lawton & Cates
S.C., Madison.
|
Ross L. Kodner |
Founder of MicroLaw Inc., Milwaukee, a legal technology consultancy.
He also is a columnist for WordPerfect in the Law Office, The Lawyer's
PC, and Law Office Computing magazines |
Upgrade to the Latest WordPerfect Office 2000
Here are some of the most useful new additions to WordPerfect 9:
Real-Time Preview. To see
changes to text, for example to see how a paragraph would look in a
different font, or how that font change affects the document's layout
and pagination, just drop down the font list from the screen and let
your mouse "hover" above the desired font. The text automatically
changes so you can visually see the result. If you like it, click, and
it's selected. If you don't like it, just move away from the font
drop-down list and the document remains in original format.
Autoscroll. For those lawyers generating long
documents and a need to proofread in detail, the new "autoscroll"
feature is helpful. You click on the icon and then move the pointer
towards the top or bottom of your screen. As you move in that direction
the text scrolls up or down. The closer you go to the top or bottom of
the screen, the faster the scroll. No longer do you have to keep hitting
the down arrow or page down key to move smoothly through a document.
Browser-like "Back" and "Forward." Two little arrows
on the WordPerfect 9 toolbar move you to the prior or subsequent
insertion points in your document, making document editing easier. For
example, to go back to the third last paragraph you edited, click the
Back button three times.
Block "Make it Fit." The Make it Fit expert, first
introduced in WordPerfect 7, provided valuable capabilities when you had
to squeeze a too long or short document into a specific number of pages.
The Make it Fit expert put document sizing on autopilot, automatically
mixing and matching document layout and text format changes to subtly
cram in that extra text. But that worked only for entire documents. In
WordPerfect 9, Make it Fit allows you to select a chunk of text - of any
size - and apply Make it Fit just to that block.
While there are lots of other additions ranging from XML capability
to the inclusion of Microsoft's VBA as an alternative macro programming
language, the items above are the big additions.
How to Survive When "Tech Support" is Merely a Fond
Memory.
The era of low-priced, low-profit hardware and software has brought
the demise of vendor-provided technical support as we know it. This is
not a surprise, nor is it a new development. Free tech support is rare
these days. "Per incident fees" dominate, but often the exchange of
credit card number for alleged "solutions" ends up costing you money
without any answers in return. So what should we do?
Help each other. Virtual communities of lawyers, legal professionals,
and legal technologists are all over. Further, the world of "lay users"
has built a sprawling web of online technical resources staffed by real
users who have solved the same real problems you've faced. Two general
types of community-based self-techno help are available.
Electronic Resources.
These consist of Web sites, electronic mailing lists, and newsgroups.
In the legal-specific segment, look to the major legal tech-oriented
electronic mailing lists:
o ABA LPM Section's Network2d (www.abanet.org/discussions/M-rlists.html
to subscribe) (a close-knit group where some of the most well-known
legal techno-dudes hang out).
o Lawtech, another ABA email list run by the organization's Legal
Technology Resource Center (www.abanet.org/discussions/I-llists.html
to subscribe) (great answers to the most obscure and perplexing
problems).
o Netlawyers - Lew Rose's respected and widely-subscribed discussion
on all things Net-related with occasional general technical diversions
(www.net-lawyers.org to
subscribe).
o Technolawyer List, a topic-driven email list run by New York lawyer
and netrepreneur Neil Squillante (www.technolawyer.com to
subscribe) (tends to have lengthy and meaty postings of periodic
immeasurable value).
State Bar Resources.
Discussion Forums. Take advantage of your State Bar Web site-based
legal discussion forums. Any State Bar member can participate in an
active discussion forum (bulletin board) on legal techno-topics by
visiting www.wisbar.org/dg-menu.htm.
Email Lists. The State Bar supports more than 25
electronic mail lists for various sections, committees, and programs.
While most State Bar lists are restricted to members of a very specific
group, many are open to all members of a particular section.
Subscriptions to the following section email lists are open to
section members:
o crimlaw - sponsored by the Criminal Law Section;
o famlaw - sponsored by the Family Law Section; and
o lawpractice - sponsored by the Law Practice Section.
The following email list is open to any State Bar member:
o ssp - sponsored by the Solo and Small Firm Practice Section.
To subscribe to a State Bar email list, send an email to majordomo@lists.wisbar.org.
Do not put anything in the subject line of your message. In the body of
the message, type the word "subscribe" (without the quotation marks),
the name of the list you want to subscribe to and your email address -
for example, "subscribe ssp jsmith@web.com."
For more information on email lists, including how to subscribe,
post, retrieve, and sort email messages, please see "Using Electronic
Mailing Lists to Discuss Legal Technology," by Ross L. Kodner, in the
November 1999 Wisconsin Lawyer.
Free, nonlegal-specific support Web sites. Many are cropping up,
including:
o Ask-a-Tech promises
emailed help within 48 hours.
o Experts Exchange, a
"knowledge-sharing community" built around 70 message boards where more
than 5,000 registered experts answer posted questions.
o Windows Annoyances, Woody
Leonhard's sites that provide tips about an annoying line of products
from Microsoft.
o World O'Windows
o Tom's Hardware Guide
o Networking
with Windows 95 - A Primer Intel's Web page for small firm
Windows-based networking.
"Fee-based" Web support resources. Some online services include:
o Intel AnswerExpress Support
Suite $20 per question or sign up for $100 per year.
o PC Crisis Line bills
$3/minute for the first 10 minutes and $1/minute thereafter.
o PC Techline at a flat
$2/minute rate via a 900 number.
Practice Preventive PC Maintenance. Well-cared-for PCs work better,
crash less often, and work when we need them. The following are some
simple self-maintenance tips to keep your PC working at peak abilities.
Consider performing them monthly (ideally), or quarterly (at a
minimum):
o Delete all files and folders with dates older than one week
from your C:\WINDOWS\TEMP folder.
o Purge your Web browser's history and cache
files.
o Run Scandisk (located in Start | Programs |
Accessories | System Tools). Select the Standard option and turn on
Automatically Fix Errors. Click on the Advanced button and under Log
File, pick Replace Log; for Cross-Linked Files, select Delete; click
Free under Lost File Fragments; under Check Files For pick Invalid Dates
and Times. Finally, disable Check Host Drive First unless you have a
compressed hard drive.
o Empty your Recycle Bin (first undelete any files
you need to recover from it).
o Run Disk Defragmenter (located in Start | Programs
| Accessories | System Tools) at least once a quarter for a heavily used
PC. The program will tell you if your drive needs defragmenting or
not.
o Update your anti-virus software by downloading new
virus databases or signature files from your software's Web site. Do
this at least monthly to be able to detect and kill the latest damaging
viruses that might infest your system.
o Perform a Test Restore with your data backup
system at least once a month, or more often if you have time. Backup
systems that aren't working properly have the insidious characteristic
of looking like they're working just fine. It's just plain too late when
you need to restore from a backup and you get nothing more than "tape
empty" messages. To test your backup system - regardless of type - try
and select a few documents and restore them to the system (move the
originals first to a safe folder or a floppy so that you have an empty
area to restore to). Then see if you can access them - that is, pull up
a WordPerfect document in WordPerfect. If this works, the likelihood is
that your entire backup session is restorable when the chips are down.
By the way, the next time you do this, test restore different files than
the previous time.
o Keep your PCs and printers clean. Dust and paper
particles and other miscellaneous PC-hostile gunk trashes PCs and
cripples laser printers. Use a can of compressed air to blow out the
crud from inside your laser printer. Take the covers off your PCs and
blow them out as well.
o Consider keeping some spare PC parts on the shelf
for components you would feel comfortable replacing on your own. For
example, you might keep a spare mouse and keyboard handy. Make sure the
replacements are precise replacements -identical to the most common
keyboard and mouse used in your office and with the same kinds of
connectors. You also might keep a network card, network cables, and a
video card on the shelf.
o Finally, have a disaster plan to know what to do if key
parts of your system fail - such as your PCs, printers, network
system, and so on. This means knowing what diagnostic steps to take, who
to call, and having a list of all your key software and hardware with
version numbers and serial numbers.
Wisconsin Lawyer