Solo practitioners and small law firms can’t match the “people power” capabilities of big law firms to get things done. But they can use labour-saving technology to level the playing field.
Lou Milrad is a business and IT lawyer based in Toronto. He left a big law firm four years ago to set up a virtual firm with three people: “me, myself and I.”
Milrad is a master of multi-tasking. When he travels for business, he’s also dictating emails and documents for his law practice – all the while keeping his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel.
“I use a combination of mobile apps to dictate text by voice, as well as catching up on calls as I drive,” says Milrad. “In this way, I am able to use my driving time productively, while driving safely and staying within the law.”
There are a number of ways that solo and small practitioners can access this kind of voice-enabled technology. One option is to access Dragon’s Dictation mobile app on a smartphone, then use Bluetooth to connect to the car’s mobile system, and Siri as the gateway to dictate emails, notes and memos. Some BMWs come equipped with Dragon Drive messaging software. It allows drivers to answer and send emails or texts while driving simply by speaking aloud – the microphone is built into the car’s cabin.
Here are some other ways to offset a small firm’s lack of human resources:
Capture documents onsite: Document management is a key challenge, especially for lawyers who are frequently out of the office. In the digital age, it makes sense to capture, store, search and retrieve documents electronically, but it’s not practical to cart around a standard scanner/fax machine. “What you need – and I use – is a small-footprint desktop scanner with OCR (optical character recognition) capability,” said Milrad.
This is where a tool like the Fujitsu SnapScan iX100 comes in handy: Measuring just 273 x 47.5 x 36mm (10.74 x 1.87 x 1.42 inches) in size, the lightweight, battery-powered iX100 connects to a laptop/smartphone to scan legal documents into PDFs, JPEGs and editable Word/Excel files. This device can also scan two business cards at a time, and electronically “stitch together” documents that are fed in halves on standard-sized paper. The iX100 will connect directly to a lawyer’s home or office wi-fi network for easy file transfers.
Have trial documents on your iPad: Every courtroom lawyer needs trial documents to be readily accessible. Lit Software’s TrialPad for iPad app makes this easy and affordable. Available at the iTunes store, TrialPad for iPad allows lawyers to store each case’s documents and videos in separate folders. The user can then highlight and display critical text using a portable projector; do side-by-side document comparisons; source, edit and play videos; and attach exhibit stickers to electronic documents.
Tech-savvy U.S. lawyer Dave Maxfield, a consumer protection litigator, co-developed an iPad app called Final Argument that blended his love of visual mapping tools with his need for a courtroom presentation tool. In addition to Final Argument, which is available at the iTunes store, Maxfield relies on nTrepid Timestream, a visual timeline program developed by a former FBI agent to “see” the events that shaped the case. Finally, when he’s ready to draft, he uses a powerful document assembly add-in for Word called Doxsera to automate the pleading and discovery process.
Rethink forms: Filling out forms on a client’s behalf can be a huge time sink for law firms. Creating online forms that clients can log onto and fill out themselves eliminates the need to spend costly lawyer or staff time on routine work – thus saving the client money by reducing billable hours. Cutting out the middleman and having the client input his or her own information can also improve accuracy.
Toronto’s DMC Law is a four-person firm that specializes in providing legal services to Ontario dentists. “This is a niche legal field with clients who have very specific needs,” said Michael Carabash, one of DMC’s four lawyers. “By focusing on dental law, we provide our clients with an expert level of service, while out-competing larger law firms who are typically generalists.”
DMC Law is a major force in the field despite its size in part because of its use of technology. It keeps its clients’ costs down by providing them with free customizable forms through dentistlegalforms.com. It also uses blogs and videos as information tools for clients.
When time is at a premium, the last thing solo and small-firm practitioners want to do is drop everything to search for those forms they rarely use but need right now. LawDepot provides access to a searchable database of Canadian legal forms, with a free account for entry-level users. One reassuring detai: LawDepot is a member of the Better Business Bureau, with an A+ rating.
Make Dropbox safer: Cloud storage sites like Dropbox are great online places for lawyers to upload, store, share, and download documents. The downside is that such sites are not overly secure; if hackers manage to find their way into the cloud-provider’s database, your files could be compromised.
One solution is to encrypt files before posting them to Dropbox, using a program such as Boxcryptor. This encryption system encodes uploads and decodes downloads for Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, SugarSync and Box, among others. Boxcryptor also offers apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone, allowing solo and small practitioners complete access to their cloud-stored files while on the move.
Freelance writer James Careless is a frequent contributor to PracticeLink.