LegalTech West Coast Day 1
Posted on June 24, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Legal News, Tech News | Leave a Comment
I am in Los Angeles today and tomorrow for LegalTech West. As usual for a conference like this, I spent much of my day today catching up with old friends. However, for the first time in quite a while, I was actually able to attend a few sessions.
I sat in on Leadership in Times of Turbulence where Monica Bay, George Rudoy, Tom Ranalli and Jim McKenna addressed a variety of ways for Legal IT Professionals to manage their team, protect their career and provide value to their firms. This session was full of interesting information. One comment I wrote down was from Jim McKenna while discussing how IT needs to understand how their users work. Jim said, “From a partner’s perspective, Outlook is the killer app.” Writing as someone whose job is to make law firms and attorneys use technology more efficiently, that comment really made me stop and think. As I write this hours later, I am still thinking about it.
I later had the opportunity to sit in as Donna Payne and Leah Matthews discussed Getting the Most Out of Your Investment in Office 2007. I have been training Word and Excel 2007 users for almost two years and I must say that I learned quite a bit during that presentation.
Tomorrow, I will be presenting with my friend and fellow CIC, Kelly Jones. Our topic is Newly On Your Own: Best Practices for Starting Up New Solo or Small Firm Practices. If you are here at LegalTech, I hope to see you tomorrow at 10:30 in room 507.
Reveal Formatting in Word 2007
Posted on June 19, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment
I always found Reveal Formatting a useful function in Word 2003. I used to access it from the Task Pane and found it an easy way to determine what formatting was in play in any given text in a Word Document. The Task Pane is no longer a featured part of Word 2007, and I could never remember how to access it. After hunting for it in training today, I tried a few things and I can now suggest at least three ways to access this feature.
Shift-F1 will access Reveal Formatting in the traditional Task Pane view.
You can add it to your Quick Access Toolbar. Simply pull down the arrow and select More Commands. When the dialog opens select All Commands and locate the Reveal Formatting command. Add it to the toolbar.
The most complicated way to find this is through the Style Inspector. Open Manage Styles and select the Style Inspector. When the Style Inspector is open, Reveal Formatting is one of the available functions.
If you missed this function like I did, try one of these methods to access it. If you have never taken a look at it, check it out. It is a handy way to see what formatting is in effect and has links to modify the formatting.
LexisNexis Customer Appreciation Discount Ends May 31
Posted on May 27, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Great Deals, Tech News, Time Matters, Time and Billing | Leave a Comment
Sorry for the late notice on this one but LexisNexis if offering a 50% discount on additional licenses for Time Matters and PCLaw through May 31. This offer only applies to version 9 of both products. If you are not on version 9, what better time to purchase an Annual Maintenance Plan.
For details or to order contact me directly, call your CIC, or call LexisNexis (tell them you heard about it here).
IP Associates Weekly Web Demos
Posted on May 27, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under IPA News, Time Matters, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment
After many requests, IP Associates has began a series of weekly web demonstrations of our Practice Area Templates for Time Matters. Webinars are held every Tuesday at 11 AM Central. Either Neil Johnson or myself will demonstrate Time Matters and how a Practice Area Template can get your firm started with Time Matters the right way with a setup that works like you do. We also conduct several training webinars each month on various Time Matters features and best practices.
If you are interested in attending, please visit IP Associates Webinars to register. Current and prospective Time Matters users are welcome as are CICs. There is no charge for our weekly demos and our training webinars are a low $99.00 per firm (as many attendees as you can fit around a computer or projector).
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
Posted on May 27, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under KPM News, Law Practice Management | Leave a Comment
For anyone interested or in the area, here are a few of my upcoming speaking engagements.
On June 25, I will be speaking a LegalTech in Los Angeles along with my friend and fellow CIC Kelly Jones. Our topic will be Newly on Your Own: Best Practices for Starting Up New Solo or Small Law Firms. For more information, visit LegalTech.
From October 29-31, I will be speaking, exhibiting and having fun at the Wisconsin Solo and Small Firm Conference at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells. This year I am speaking on Case Management Systems and Virtual Offices. The WSSF is probably one of my favorite shows of the year. If you have never attended, make plans now. There are program tracks on Substantive Law, Ethics/Quality of Life, Technology, and Practice Management. Super early bird discounts apply through June 15.
Visit Me at the Wisconsin State Bar Convention
Posted on May 4, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under KPM News | Leave a Comment
I will be helping out at the LexisNexis booth at the Wisconsin State Bar Convention with week Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Stop by, catch up and meet the new LexisNexis Territory Manager for Wisconsin, Brad Phillips.
Column on ScanSnap Community Site
Posted on April 23, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Document Management, Gadgets and Technology, KPM News, Time Matters, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment
I have written a short column that appears on the new Fujitsu ScanSnap Community site in the “Ask the Experts” section. The column is entitled “How Can I Integrate a Case Management System with ScanSnap.” If you are interested take a look. There are some other interesting columns there including several that explain some the functions included with ScanSnap like Scan to Email or Print.
Time Matters Archiving and Documents
Posted on April 18, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Document Management, Time Matters, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment
“How do we archive documents to our Closed Files folder while using Time Matters?” This is a common question from firms that are new to Time Matters, or any other document management system. The question is asked because many firms that save their documents through Word/WordPerfect/Windows move their documents to a Closed folder once the matter is concluded. The reason is obvious. They want to unclutter their list of open files to make it easier to find documents.
With Time Matters or another document management system, the whole point is to make things easier. You should be able to find your documents easily no matter where they are and there is no reason to archive the old documents, especially if that means changing their physical location.
For starters, the document management system is designed to keep track of where your documents are and this is how you locate and retrieve documents. In theory, you should never even have to look at the documents in Windows. Who cares where they are when find them from the Time Matters Matter or Document Lists. Moving closed file documents serves no real purpose when you have a document management system.
Second, with Time Matters and most other systems, moving the documents will actually do more harm than good. Most document management systems link to the saved location, so moving the document will break the links. In Time Matters this means that the “FileName” field will point to the wrong location and you will see a big “?” when you look at the document record. This is not to say that you cannot use the Time Matters Archive feature. Just remember that this only places the Document Record (not the document) into a different Time Matters list. It does not physically move the file. This way, the document will no longer show up in the main Document List but will still be accessible to the system.
Old habits die hard, so if you insist on using Time Matters but moving closed documents on your server, there is a Time Matters feature that can help. Using the File Menu, Utilities, Document Management, Document Paths feature you can repoint the link in the File Name field. Use this with caution. You must precisely identify the part of the path that will change and what it will change to. PRECISELY! I most often find that people trying to do this identify too little of the path and end up moving too many documents because they have not narrowed it down enough.
All of my comments here presume that you are not saving your documents to the Files folder in Time Matters. I do not recommend this and believe you should save them to a separate document folder but that is a discussion for another post.
Default Reminders in Time Matters
Posted on April 7, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Time Matters, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment
A question that I am asked quite often at Time Matters Boot Campsis whether there can be a default set of reminders for a particular type of Event or ToDo. The answer is “Yes.” Why would you want to do this? Well, there are a few reasons. There is just a bit less typing every time you create that specific type of Event or ToDo. You also gain some consistency in the way records are created. Finally, you don’t forget to enter a reminder.
Default reminders can be set for a specific Event or ToDo with the Classification Code setup dialog. If, for example, I want default reminders of 14 days, 7 days and 1 day for any deposition I schedule, the Event Classification Code Form would look like this.
Time Matters Default Reminders
A couple of comments on this. First, you may override the default reminders when you create the Event or ToDo. Second, I have found that there is a limitation to the number of characters that can be in the default reminder. I believe it is 24 characters. For some reason, this limitation seems to be smaller than the number of characters you can actually type into the Reminder field on a form.
See You at TechShow
Posted on April 2, 2009 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under KPM News, Tech News | Leave a Comment
I will be at the ABA TechShow in Chicago the next few days. On Thursday and Friday from 9:00 to 1:00 I will be helping out at the LexisNexis Practice Management booth, demoing Time Matters, PCLaw and HotDocs. If you are at the show, stop by and say hello.
