Reap the Benefits of Tech in Your Law Practice

Not too long ago I had the chance to time travel. On a particular wintry day I finished a deal involving a cutting edge 21st century video rendering innovation. Later that day I visited the offices of a prominent Brooklyn attorney. As I walked in, he was busy editing a document. With a pair of scissors in hand and scotch tape strips neatly arranged, he was carefully cutting out a section of the page and pasting a new one in. He looked at me and laughed. He said it would take him longer to fire up the computer and scanner and edit the document, so he just cut and pasted the good old way.

The contrast between my morning

The contrast between my morning and afternoon could not have been any greater and to a large degree reflected the spectrum of practitioners and their use of law office innovation.

As a technophile attorney, I am immersed in new innovation and on the whole find myself surrounded by tech savvy entrepreneurs and investors. Together, many of my colleagues have been hesitant to embrace new products and services in some cases because the products were complex.

The business standpoint

From the business standpoint, theories just as lean product methodology created a new generation of products and services that are user-centric, practical and feature friendly interfaces. This culminated with the introduction of finger friendly mobile apps that forced developers to create simple, visually pleasing applications.

Many years ago I used to be a POT user. POT stands for plain old telephone and is a general descriptor for ordinary telephone landlines. I used to pay a massive bill every month to make up for it for simple telephone service.

Then I switched to VOIP, which stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. As an early adopter, I did experience some tribulations. In the past several years, nevertheless, VOIP research has matured and it is now reliable, significantly less expensive, easy to set up and provides numerous advantages over POTs.

Getting VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is easy. Afterwards signing up with one of the many VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) providers you will get a small box that you'll connect to your high speed Internet router or modem on one end and to your telephone on the other end and that's pretty much it.

The cost of VOIP service is much less than the cost of POTs and more importantly, you get access to many amazing features just as simultaneous ring in several places then, custom call routing based on the incoming phone number, call logs that can be exported to calendars, voicemail e-mail alerts, transcription of voicemail to text and incoming faxes. If you travel you can take your small VOIP box with you, plug it in anywhere with an Internet connection and have your office phone right there. You can even port your telephone number, so no need to get a new one.

Newbies: Start with one line and see how things work out. See the comparison of many of the leading service providers at www.voip-service-review.toptenreviews.com.

Advanced Users: Try a virtual PBX (Private -Automatic- Branch Exchange) service. Replace your expensive PBX (Private -Automatic- Branch Exchange) phone system with a virtual solution that provides auto attendant, unlimited extensions and advance voicemail features. Go to www.PBX (Private -Automatic- Branch Exchange)compare.com for a comparison of features and prices of different providers.

Two features to watch for when buying a printer: make sure it has networking capabilities, and look for duplex two-sided printing capability.

Advanced Users: A paperless office is becoming a reality. Consider replacing all standalone laser printers with networked multifunction ones with duplex two-sided scanning ability. I scan nearly every document that comes my way and the ability to scan both sides has been a real time saver.

Networking all printers would allow the printers to send the documents to one big depository for all members of the firm to access. As well, consider setting up special dedicated network printers for certain tasks just as label printing.

Can it be cloudy and sunny together? The answer is yes. The "cloud" is probably the fastest developing innovation these days.

The cloud is at heart a secure place on the Internet that can host your data, files and e-mails. Unlike local servers that can crash or run out of space, it is always sunny up in the cloud. With the cloud you can easily synch files between your laptop and your desktop computer or enable sharing data among several members of your firm.

To reach the cloud, just sign up with one of the many virtual drop file services, download a small software program and at the time simply drag your files to a predefined folder in other words shared with any computer you work on and even your mobile phone.

Advanced Users: Forego your firm's network and move all file depositories, data and e-mails to the net. I know of several firms that moved their computer infrastructure to the cloud and significantly reduced the cost of IT.

Having your own Internet connection anywhere you go is plain simply awesome. Say goodbye to $10 hotel or airport Internet charges or the questionable security of public WiFi hot spots.

You can achieve your own Internet connection in two simple ways. Either buy a dedicated Internet card for your laptop from any one of the cell carriers, or better but, turn your iPhone/Android/Windows Mobile/BlackBerry/Palm phone into a WiFi hot spot that can provide Internet to several devices wirelessly or via cord. Some carriers require that you pay an additional monthly fee, or that you buy an app that enables this functionality, however it's so then worth it.

Let's say you are in court and want to access your desktop computer or printer back in the office. In the past you either had to set up a complicated private network called VPN, or create some form of tunneling that was often rejected by the firewall in your office.

Advanced Users: With your mobile Internet connection and a tablet with a remote PC app running on it, you really can access your primary computer anywhere you are with just a tablet or with your Smartphone.

If you don't have a Smartphone, now is a good time to take the plunge. The iPhone and the Android platforms are very mature and offer easy setup of e-mail, calendar, contacts and access to thousands of applications ranging from billing, time management and courtroom presentations to those that involve angry birds and zucchini farming. BlackBerry too offers superb e-mail handling and a great battery life.

Newbies: Just get one and start using it. Most cloud-based e-mail systems can integrate with all the leading phones. If you need help, you can always ask your cell company's tech support to help you set up your e-mail.

I hope you enjoy your new found toys, as well known by adults as a "business expense." Opportunely, the attorney whom I met that afternoon on the whole has a pair of scissors handy, nevertheless I did see him with a BlackBerry device the other day.