by Brian Focht | Oct 25, 2016
If you’ve been conscious for 15 consecutive minutes or more at any point over the past five years or so, you’ve no doubt heard news about a major hack. It’s everywhere, extending even to domination of the presidential election campaign. Your business is at risk, your clients’ data is at risk, and you need to be involved. Sure, but even the best laid plans can suffer the same fate of the great city of Constantinople – one unlocked door and your city has fallen! Fortunately, you’ve actually got the opportunity to protect your business in a way that the Byzantine Empire couldn’t – insurance. Specifically Cyber Liability Insurance. There’s a lot to cyber liability insurance, so we’ll take this in several parts. In this part, we’ll be talking about the expenses you’ll likely run into in the event of a cyber-attack, and therefore need to ensure your cyber liability policy covers: The 5 Major Expenses Your Cyber Liability Policy Better Cover! 1) Parachuting Professionals You need an emergency response team. Think of them as a really nerdy version of Seal Team Six. Think I’m being overly-dramatic? Well, you’re right. However, you should be aware that most cyber liability claims that exhaust the policy limits do so covering the costs in this category! So, you’re going to need… Forensic IT Specialists You need immediate and effective analysis of your system to determine the size and scope of any breach, and professionals with the experience and training to eliminate any active threats to your system, limit the damage being caused by existing penetrations, and shore up your short-term defenses. Legal Advisors... read more
by Brian Focht | Jun 7, 2016
There may be no more clear example of when a lawyer truly needs to be mobile than a deposition. If you’re taking the deposition, you’re likely in hostile territory (opposing counsel’s office), asking questions of a party or witness who’s likely not on your side. Moreover, these days, cases are tried in deposition as opposed to a courtroom, so this isn’t something you can go into half-assed. You need to be ready. Thankfully, the world of mobile apps has kicked into high gear to make working away from your office possible – especially its advances over the past few years. All you need to do to confirm is to look at the post I wrote three years ago about essential deposition apps, and compare the lists. There might be some apps making a repeat appearance, but even those apps are largely unrecognizable from their earlier versions. So what do I bring with me to a deposition? 8 Deposition Apps for the Mobile Lawyer: 1) Microsoft OneNote Price: Free (w/ Office 365 subscription) Available On: iOS / Android I used to take most of my deposition notes directly on my deposition outline. My preferred tool was iAnnotate PDF, which has some amazing annotation tools. However, nothing in my experience serves a deposition’s note-taking needs better than Microsoft OneNote. I am able to open an entire notebook for each deposition. Then, on the first tab, I paste my deposition outline (which includes images of each exhibit I want to introduce, and where in the deposition). During the deposition, I’m able to add notes in different colors right next to the questions.... read more
by Brian Focht | May 17, 2016
Special Guest: Michael Chasin Download this Episode: Download Audio How do you guide your prospective clients through your sales funnel, taking every opportunity to ensure that they’re satisfied with their experience and making it as easy as possible for them to hire you? Ok, better question to start with: do you have a sales funnel? Do you know what a “sales funnel” is? To be honest, if you’re already familiar with the concepts of your law firm’s sales funnel, you’re probably not in the market for a CRM system. You, more likely than not, already have one. You have a functioning system in place for guiding your prospective clients and managing your network of referral sources. You’re also, most likely, in a very small minority in the legal profession. Because most lawyers don’t. That’s what CRM systems are designed for – to help businesses who may not have the clearest idea how best to turn “prospective clients” into “actual clients.” That’s what Lexicata CRM is for law firms – a tool to guide client intake and for managing your relationships with your existing network. Is Lexicata – or even some other CRM platform – right for your law firm? Well let’s start from the beginning. What is a CRM System? CRM stands for Contact (or Client) Relationship Management. A CRM system generally has two different purposes, and it can be deciphered somewhat from its own title – Contact Management & Relationship Management. Depending on the contact, your goals may require entirely different actions, even though the end goal is to drum up business. The first purpose is for tracking a prospective client.... read more
by Brian Focht | May 12, 2016
Sometimes, you just can’t take it anymore. Your client has had WAY too much of a good thing – meaning your service as their lawyer. The case has gone superbly, and your client, whom you loathe, is about to reap the rewards of your work. At least that’s what I’m left to assume as you conclude your closing argument. You had done splendidly up to that point, putting on all the evidence you needed to support your case. You even made your tyrant of a client (I’m assuming, remember) look amazing on the stand! You stood up to give your closing argument – even ignoring the judge’s ridiculously calling it your “summation,” (I hate it when they call it that, too) – ready to rock. It was clear that you’d chosen this moment to detonate your client’s case. This was the moment you broke out that miraculous piece of hell-ware known as PowerPoint. Here are 10 Innovative Ways to Destroy Your Lawsuit with PowerPoint: 1) You prepared your PowerPoint Presentation last week, and never even thought to update it. Sure, you’re a busy attorney, so it’s possible that you didn’t actually do this on purpose. However, I’m assuming that you take your technology competence at least as seriously as the color coordination of your belt and necktie, so I’m going to assume that this was really just a cover. Your PowerPoint presentation included several slides that you had to run back to your computer and advance through. Why? Because they contained evidence that the judge ruled was inadmissible. This was a stroke of genius on your part – even if... read more
by Brian Focht | May 10, 2016
Special Guests: Sean Dennin and Peter Mansmann Download this Episode: Download Audio On this episode of the Legal Technology Review Podcast, my guests Sean Dennin and Peter Mansmann, CEO and President, respectively, of Precise, Inc., a legal technology company from Pennsylvania, join me to discuss their newest product, Predict. Using the power of statistical research and analysis, Predict allows attorneys to get a detailed, statistically significant look at how jurors are likely to respond to various issues, topics, witnesses and general concepts in their case. Precise, Inc. uses Big Data and Presentation Tools to help lawyers They’ve gotten good at figuring out the best way to present information to people. For example, people spend 11 hours per day getting their information from a screen – TV, internet, social media, etc. As a result, jurors tend to be pretty bored with the way information is presented, so Precise has spent a lot of time learning about ways to take information and present it in a way that jurors are not only likely to understand, but also are more likely to remember – because they’re actually paying attention. Predict – Using Big Data to Break Down Your Jury Pool Predict is bringing the science of statistics and psychological profiling – understanding the way populations respond to fact patterns. It’s been used in many industries – what message is going to resonate with what types of people, and what types of people are going to best respond to your message? There are four basic personality types in the Myers-Briggs personality profile. (16 types, but 4 types of 4 main categories) – people in... read more
by Brian Focht | Apr 21, 2016
If you have followed my blog in the past, you know how big an advocate I am for reducing the amount of paper law firms use. Some like to call it the “paperless” office, a title that I do like, but some feel that it just isn’t representative of reality. Law firms simply aren’t in a position to go “paperless.” Regardless the terminology, there are several essential components to a successful paperless – or less paper – law firm. In my opinion, the lynchpin of your paperless strategy is electronic signatures. Without them, your firm will be doomed to a veritable no-man’s-land of printing anything out that needs to be signed. So you need one, we agree. Now, how do you get one? So for really important documents, there are expensive “digital signature” solutions, but lawyers don’t need that kind of security for every day documents. Hell, even most pleadings and discovery documents require no more added security than you’d have with a signature stamp at your desk. But getting a legit-looking signature into electronic format hasn’t always been a very easy thing to do. And even if you manage to get an image of your signature that doesn’t have an annoying background to go with it, the was no true universal place to use it. Until now. Allow me to introduce your free electronic signature solution: Adobe Reader DC. Here is how you can create an electronic signature to use on any PDF document that needs to be signed, without spending any money, and it takes about a minute to do. How to Create a Free eSignature in... read more
by Brian Focht | Apr 15, 2016
Welcome to the first episode in my new video series Tech Tools & Tips, offering some simple technology solutions to life’s little inconveniences. Using video demonstrations of some of my favorite technology tools, I’m going to show you how easy it is to improve your practice through the technology you already own. On today’s menu: business cards. Business Cards – so useful, but so useless! Today, I’m tackling an issue that I’ve had for quite a while: what the hell do I do with all of the business cards that I’m handed at events. They disappear SO FAST! Plus, the ones I have tend to be of little value when I’m digging them out of my bag or my desk several months later. So I needed a way to save the information on those business cards, and in a timely fashion. It turns out that the key is to use Evernote. 1) So, in short, this is all you have to do when someone hands you a business card:Take a picture of the card – a good one, because sometimes the text isn’t that easy to read. (While Evernote does have a spot for front and back photos, it’s not designed for you to take them both right away, like FullContact is.) 2) Save the image in Evernote as a “Business Card” – as opposed to a photo or a document. Wait while Evernote converts the business card into a contact. This takes seconds. While it does that Evernote also checks to see if the person is on LinkedIn. If they are, the person’s LinkedIn information, including photo, are added to... read more
by Brian Focht | Apr 12, 2016
Special Guest: Larry Port Download this Episode: Download Audio As one of the original cloud-based law practice management systems, Rocket Matter has helped to pave the way for a significant number of legal technology companies and startups, particularly those targeting solo and small firms. However, being one of the first means that everyone gets the chance to learn from your successes and your failures before you get to. One of the biggest problems for Rocket Matter: its user interface (“UI”) was designed for an era where our computer screens were very different than they are now. As you can see, the original layout was designed for the 4:3 standard screens of last decade. If you wanted to take advantage of the widescreen layout (or just be able to read the information on your screen), the result was to provide an extremely limited field of view. Additionally, the old interface actually provided considerable difficulty for Rocket Matter’s designers to implement many of the updates and fixes that they wanted, due to it’s increasingly outdated framework. So instead of a facelift or simple cosmetic changes, Larry Port describes the process as “tearing the whole thing down.” Rocket Matter’s UI Overhaul Starting with the user interface, Rocket Matter set out to make their system easier to use. Starting with the look, they appear to have taken my advice and decided that the interface aesthetic originally given to their iPad app would be applied to the entire system. I certainly approve! Moreover, they took advantage of the teardown to make the entire system much more user friendly and accessible. Now using the full width of... read more
by Brian Focht | Apr 8, 2016
Part 1 of a three-part series describing my experience at ABA TECHSHOW 2016. This year was my first time at ABA TECHSHOW, and I certainly came away incredibly impressed. The organizers did a great job of putting together an event that provided benefit for attorneys of all levels of technology sophistication – not an easy task when you’ve got tech savvy attorneys speaking and non-tech savvy attorneys looking for CLE credit! However, one of the most impressive aspects was the massive amount of small-firm oriented legal technology companies who set up shop in the ABA TECHSHOW Expo Hall. Many of them even saved some big announcements or products to coincide with TECHSHOW. So, from announcements, to demonstrations, from not fighting to… not fighting, and, of course, puppies… here is my edition of the Best of ABA TECHSHOW 2016: The Expo Hall. To get a sense of how immense the expo hall was, I decided to take a little walking tour on Periscope. I’ve smoothed out the footage a little for the video below: The Best Announcements and Releases from the Expo Hall at ABA TECHSHOW 2016: 1. Rocket Matter announces Complete User Interface Redesign In what was apparently amazing timing, Rocket Matter began the week of ABA TECHSHOW by announcing that it was launching its new User Interface. They completely rebuilt the UI to be easier on the eyes, and much more intuitive. Featuring a left-sided menu bar, lightbox windows for adding new information (without navigating away from the prior screen), and a whole host of upgrades that you can check out in my video review of the updates with... read more
by Brian Focht | Mar 3, 2016
I’ve talked a lot recently about the necessity of backing up your law firm’s data. Losing your data due to computer malfunction, user error, hacking, or any other event can be truly damaging to your law firm and your reputation. However, the rise of the Paperless Law Firm actually creates a new dilemma that few lawyers appreciate: what to do with electronic documents in closed files. What you need is a system of archiving your client files that allows them to be preserved for an extended period of time, and in a retrievable format. Here are _ steps to archiving… Before we begin, a note on your archived files: There are a few quick points I’d like to discuss about what I mean when I’m talking about “archiving” records, as well as a few things you’d better already have in place: Archiving vs. Data Backup Some of you probably already know what I mean when I talk about the differences between archiving and data backup, but it’s worthwhile to clarify. Data backup is creating regular, routine copies of your existing files, whether on local storage media or in the cloud. As such, access to your backups and the speed at which backups can be performed are two of the most important features of a quality backup system. In essence, your data backup is a complete copy of your existing system. Archived files, on the other hand, are stored away once and left untouched and – hopefully – forgotten. You’re less concerned with the speed of the backup than the stability of the media your archive is being stored on.... read more
