Note-Taking Apps to Reduce Information Overload

Jul 28, 2010 - by Nicole Black

Sometimes, in this new Web 2.0 world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with information. Organizing the flow of information, for both work and personal uses, is one way to manage the constant stream of information and reduce information overload.

In recent years, the Internet has spawned all sorts of innovative web applications that can make your life and your law practice simpler and more manageable. Note-taking and information capturing applications are a great way to accomplish this and can help you have seamless control over your busy practice and your life.

There are an assortment of note-taking web applications for everyone, no matter what your preference. Here are two of my favorites, both of which are:

1. free
2. accessible on the Web, and
3. offer iPhone and Android apps.

Private Placements: Why not use a Virtual Data Room?

Jul 15, 2010 - by Aaron Booth

Recently, I have been talking to professionals that specialize in issuing private placements. A private placement is a funding round of securities that are issued to a select group of targeted, private investors. In my discussions, it has become apparent that there is an opportunity for professionals in this space to leverage the capabilities of a virtual data room, particularly if they manage more than one of these transactions annually.

The existing trend in managing the distribution of documents to investors is email, which is unsecure and unable to provide intelligence. There are multiple opportunities throughout the private placement process where a virtual data room can be used in place of email to provide a faster, more secure method of delivering documents while also unlocking valuable data points that can accelerate the transaction and improve the efficiency of locating qualified and accredited investors that want to participate. The following points demonstrate the opportunities at each stage of the Private Placement process:

Strategic Assessment: Financial professionals first must analyze a business in order to make recommendations on financing alternatives that may include PP. The documents that must be shared can be large in quantity and confidential. A virtual data room is an attractive alternative to email for collecting and sharing this information in an organized fashion while keeping the data safe.

Web 2.0 Applications Make Scheduling Meetings Easy

Jul 13, 2010 - by Nicole Black

One of the more annoying tasks that many of us encounter on a nearly daily basis is attempting to coordinate a meeting or phone conference amongst a group of people. Generally, an agreed upon date and time is arrived upon only after a flurry of emails have gone back and forth between participants.

Scheduling a meeting can sometimes feel more complicated than the actual meeting itself. Many times I’ve found myself thinking, “There must be another way to do this.”

The good news: there is; actually, there are many. With the growing popularity of cloud computing, a number of creative Web 2.0 scheduling applications have been released that help to streamline and simplify the process of determining a mutually agreeable date and time for a meeting.

MeetWith.Me is a web based scheduling application that allows you to share your calendar and make public only the free blocks of time. No sign up is required -- you simply email a link to your pre-assigned MeetWith.Me page to meeting participants and allow them to choose a time to meet.

Managing Risk in the Cloud

Jun 29, 2010 - by Nicole Black

One of the primary concerns expressed by lawyers and other business owners when considering moving data and processes to the Cloud is risk. Understandably, business owners are wary of outsourcing confidential information and express concerns regarding the security of their data. Another concern involves the sense of lack of control over company data and the inability to monitor the software processes used to organize the information.

Fortunately, new products are appearing that are intended to address these common concerns. Two ideas of note and worth keeping an eye on: cyber-risk insurance and cloud monitoring services.

Cyber-risk insurance generally covers damages which stem from failures arising from your use of online or internet-based technologies. For example, this type of policy can cover data loss, service interruptions resulting from server downtime, and hardware or software failures. According to the article, Cyber Insurance, Cyber Risk, and How to Protect Your Company, nearly 29% of U.S. companies utilize cyber-risk insurance. Of course, cyber-risk insurance does little to protect the confidentiality of your client’s data, but it does provide your law practice with coverage should a data loss occur.

Cloud Computing: More Knowledge and Greater Productivity for Less Money

Jun 17, 2010 - by Joel Lessem

In 2008 Nicolar Carr published a bestseller called “The Big Switch: from Edison to Google,” it's central thesis being the strong correlation between the electrification of industry, a hundred years ago and the cloud computing industry today.

As electricity became available via power lines, industry abandoned costly in-house infrastructure such as waterwheels and coal furnaces.

Nicolas Carr sees the same thing happening with the trillion dollar information technology industry “switching” to the cloud computing grid and ridding itself of costly in-house servers, on premise software and in-house IT labor to maintain it all.

Conceptually, I think Carr is on the right track.  The internet is becoming technical electricity. Applications and massive virtualized server farms are far more efficient and less expensive to maintain.  The IT industry will go through a dramatic transformation (again) over the next 10 years with plenty of business “disruption.” Industry titans will become obsolete and new upstarts will transform into industry titans.

Is Firmex a Product or a Service?

Jun 10, 2010 - by Joel Lessem

When I first went to trademark Firmex virtual data rooms as a software company, the trademark attorney told me that to trademark us as a product company I had to physically be able to “ship” something.  “Send us a copy of your product on a disk with packaging.”  My reaction was “huh?” – We have the internet – we don’t “ship” software on FEDEX trucks anymore, we let the internet take care of the distribution.  According to the Trademark office, then, you’re not a software product company,  you are a service company.

Still, I was confounded since Firmex behaves like a software product company: we build a product; we show people how to use it and 99% of our revenues are from “product licensing.” However, we don’t install the software on our clients’ computers, and that, according to the Trademark office, makes us a service company.  I disagreed.

Four years later, I realize that we are in many regards a SERVICE company.  I have spent the last few months interviewing clients, finding out what they like and what they wish to improve about the Firmex “product.”  Despite perhaps some feature requests, almost inevitably our clients are quick to volunteer that their SERVICE HAS BEEN GREAT.

North Carolina Lawyers can use Cloud Computing Services in their Law Practices

Jun 8, 2010 - by Nicole Black

The North Carolina State Bar (NCSB) recently issued a proposed formal ethics opinion (proposed 2010 FEO 7), which may assist lawyers in assessing the risks of using a particular cloud computing product in their law practice.

The primary issue addressed by the NCSB was whether a law firm may use SaaS-based platforms, such as law practice management software, and thus store confidential client data on servers located offsite and controlled by a third party.

The NCSB concluded that it was permissible for lawyers to do so as long as steps were taken to “effectively minimize the risk of inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of confidential client information and to protect client property, including file information, from risk of loss.”

Importantly, the NCSB stated that a lawyer is not required to guarantee that a system is “invulnerable to unauthorized access” and that a law firm’s duty to protect confidential client information does not compel a particular method of handling the information, nor does it prohibit the use of third party vendors who may have access to the data.

Law Enforcement: Security, Ethics and Cloud Computing

May 26, 2010 - by Nicole Black

In prior posts we discussed the ethical and security issues that lawyers should consider when deciding whether to use cloud computing platforms in their law practice. In this post we’ll discuss one pressing legal issue that remains unsettled: whether law enforcement must obtain a warrant before accessing data stored in the cloud.

Currently, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) dictates when and how law enforcement agents can access electronic data. This statute has not been significantly revised since 1986 and many argue that it provides little, if any guidance, regarding governmental access to data stored online, given that technology has changed so drastically since the ECPA was enacted.

To that end, the search giant, Google, recently joined the Digital Due Process coalition, a newly formed organization that supports the revision of the ECPA to reflect current technology standards. As explained on the DDP’s website:

(The)  ECPA is a patchwork of confusing standards that have been interpreted inconsistently by the courts, creating uncertainty for both service providers and law enforcement agencies. ECPA can no longer be applied in a clear and consistent way, and, consequently, the vast amount of personal information generated by today’s digital communication services may no longer be adequately protected.

Time Tracking and Billing Software Solutions for Lawyers

May 18, 2010 - by Nicole Black

For most attorneys, billing and time tracking is a necessary evil. Tracking billable time can be an arduous task, but it’s important to stay on top of it; often practicing attorneys become so frantically busy that they are unable to recall what happened during the day. This scenario can be extraordinarily frustrating since lost time is lost money.

Billing and time tracking software can help to alleviate some of the problems encountered when attempting to track billable hours.

A good place to start when researching options is the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, which provides a thorough summary of the different types of time tracking and billing software products that are available. Also useful is an ABA chart that compares a number of available products.

A few noteworthy products worth considering include Chrometa and the Saas based programs, Time59,  and Bill4Time. Bill4Time is the only time tracking product included in the ABA’s chart. All three companies offer a 30-day free trial.

Cloud Computing: Security Issues for Lawyers

May 11, 2010 - by Nicole Black

In prior posts I discussed basic cloud computing concepts and the ethical issues triggered by cloud computing. There are also security issues that lawyers must consider when deciding whether to use cloud computing products in their practice.

Two key steps lawyers can take to ensure that their data is secure are to:

1. ask the right questions of cloud computing vendor and
2. ensure that their contract with the vendor addresses important security issues.

1. What type of facility will host the data?
2. Who has access to the data?
3. How frequently are back-ups performed?
4. Is data backed up to more than one server?
5. How secure are the data centers?
6. What types of encryption methods are used and how are passwords stored?
7. Are there redundant power supplies?
8. Is there more than one server?
9. Where are the servers located?
10. If a natural disaster strikes one geographic region, would all data be lost?