The Mac Lawyer : Ben Stevens : Using Macs In The Practice Of Law

In his latest "Technology Update," Joe Kashi bemoans the current state of Microsoft's operating systems, noting that Vista is "not hot," Windows 7 is "years away," and XP is "being killed off."  In fact, he sounds like he's "almost" ready to be a Mac convert, when he says

Were I starting over and had no Windows-only legal software constraints, I'd go with the excellent Mac OS 10 or some form of Linux, both of which are based upon the powerful Unix operating systems that have been constantly improved and refined since the late 1960s, an when Bill Gates had not yet dropped out of Harvard. Unfortunately, most legal professionals don't have the luxury of changing operating systems because we are tied to Windows-only legal software.

I'm glad that Mr. Koshi is such a fan of Mac's OS X, but I disagree with his assertion that it's difficult for attorneys who use Windows to switch.  As I've written over the years, there are many excellent legal software options available to Mac users, and through the use of virtualization software, Mac users can also run any necessary Windows-only programs.

Source:  ""Technology Update" by Joe Kashi, published in the ABA Law Practice Management Section's Law Technology Today.

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The following guest post is from fellow Mac-using lawyer, G. Ware Cornell Jr.:

For more years than I would like to count, I started every jury trial with a legal pad (the 14 inch variety) and turned it ninety degrees and drew five or six lines down it. I would do this on several pages, sometimes drawing six or seven lines and sometimes less, depending on the configuration of the courtroom. With my pad turned sideways I would frantically write the name of the juror, his or her jury number and the seat number assigned by the judge.

This process was pretty easy to screw up. Sometimes it was my fault, such as when I omitted a prospective juror, and sometimes it was the fault of the court who might summarily excuse a member of the panel before any lawyer voir dire.

Once jurors were in the box, I would frantically write down answers to standard (which means important) questions. Then at the very bottom I would put in the stuff that wasn't standard. Finally I would take my pad and, based on what I could read or remember, select a jury.

Ten years ago, when I first started bringing laptops to trial, I tried to create jury selection template in Excel. I failed completely, but every time some new version of Excel came out I would try again, and repeat my failure.

Last fall I was in trial in Miami. I had just downloaded a trial version of iWork'08. There was some problem with the venire, and as a result I had a little time to kill. I decided to see if Numbers would do what Excel couldn't. To my amazement I had a very functional juror selection form in about ten minutes. Since then I have refined it a bit, but it is still basically the template I made in that courtroom.

My table has 22 rows, and in the first column I put what are (for my employment law practice) standard questions going down the row. The final row is for individualized notes. Given the ease with which templates are created or modified in Numbers, the questions are easily adaptable to specific practice issues. I also took advantage of slide and drop down menus to answer common questions like cities of residence.

With respect to residence in our courts, we do not often get specific residence addresses. However the community tin which a panel member resides gives important clues. When I was using a legal pad, I would rarely write out the full name of the city and use abbreviations like "FL" for Fort Lauderdale or "Hwd" for Hollywood. On my pad the residence information would not be in a line across the pad because other important information such as a trial scheduling issue might be covered before residence locations would be discussed. With the template every jurors residence is in one row, making access easier and more reliable.

I also used slide menus for age estimates in decades, since generally speaking asking a prospective juror her age is a recipe for disaster.

Note that in the example above age is reflected as twenty, but the juror has lived in South Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties primarily) for twenty five years. Age is estimated in decades in this template.

Few residents have lived in South Florida their whole lives. Most judges will make inquiry about length of residence during the court's voir dire.  I use a slide response since it really doesn't matter if it is eight years or eleven, I am looking for the degree of ties to the community. For instance, over forty percent of South Florida residents today did not live here during Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which was until Katrina the most destructive hurricane in history. In one case years ago, a witness claimed a certain event occurred on a particular August day.  In closing argument I showed a NOAA map recording the passage of Hurricane Andrew on that very day.  I wanted jurors who would remember how destructive that storm was and who would know how long it was before it was business as usual.

Other questions in my template are peculiar to my practice. However it is easy enough to change the questions to fit cases, and to save those changes as your own template using the "File" menu in Numbers.

One thing I like to ask at either pretrial or calendar call is how the court conducts voir dire. By this I want to know how big a panel will be ordered and where the jurors will sit, and in how many rows. If I have this information I can prepare my seating chart before I enter the courtroom. However, even if I don't the template allows me to easily create one even as the panel is being led into the gallery.

When you start a new document in Numbers, it creates a table with thirteen columns. Columns can be easily added or subtracted from the table, but most jury boxes put between six and nine seat in a seating row. Since each column represents a juror, I cut the number of columns to match the seat diagram with an extra column on the left for standard questions.

It is important to know where the first juror will sit. Juror number one will often be in the first seat of a row closest to the judge, but not always. Once I know where juror number one will be, I can give each seat a number. It is easy to delete or add rows in Numbers. As a result each table will represent one seating row. New tables are added simply by copying the first table, pasting and then adjusting the seating capacity of the second and/or third rows. This process works even when overflow jurors are placed in the court's seating gallery.

The following illustration shows sixteen prospective jurors sitting in two rows.  In this configuration the jury box is most likely to the judge's left. If it were reversed the numbering would be reversed as well.

Along the bottom of the screen, certain information may be highlighted in green or red. Based on a juror's overall response I give each panel member a quick overall assessment of suitability. A juror I really want will get a high enough assessment to get a "green light", where as the one's of whom I have the most concerned will get a "red light." The template automatically highlights these panel members.

Finally I have a question with a drop down menu to tract peremptory and challenges for cause. I have not attempted to create any capacity to automatically configure the jury box based on challenges. I presume it is possible, however given the prevalence of back-striking in our state courts (a practice generally disallowed in U.S. District Court) and the number of jurors that may ultimately be seated in federal court, I rely on my ability to count to help me visualize who will ultimately be seated in the box.

Jury selection remains a critical part of a trial lawyer's job. Years ago, lawyers were given basic information about a prospective venire a week or so in advance. Most trial lawyers today, except those who have tried highly publicized cases in which selection questionnaires were utilized, never see even the names of panel members until they are brought to the courtroom. What follows is an often hurried process in which selection error possibilities dramatically increase.

Templates cannot substitute for experience and skill during voir dire. But a jury selection template can simplify and routinize the process, and that creates a bit more time for a lawyer to focus on the panel with an eye towards selecting the best possible jury on any given day.

You can download a copy of the Jury Selection Template in Numbers format by clicking HERE.

G. Ware Cornell Jr. is a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer in Weston, Florida where he primarily practices employment law with the firm of Cornell & Associates P.A. He is a graduate of Emory University, the University of Georgia School of Law, and served as the first senior law clerk for United States District Judge William M. Hoeveler in the Southern District of Florida upon his investiture in 1977. Mr. Cornell was recently selected as a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, a trial lawyers' honorary society.

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Kait Duplaga was understandably upset when her White Plains, NY apartment was robbed.  The crooks took flat-screen televisions, computer games, iPods, DVDs, and two laptop computers.  Fortunately for her, one of the items taken was her Mac laptop.

Although the police were not having much luck tracking the thiefs, Ms. Duplaga exploited the software installed on her Mac to track down the culprits and even get their photographs.  She utilized a feature called "Back to My Mac," which enabled her to access to her missing laptop remotely and to activate its built-in camera and PhotoBooth to take the culprit's photo.

One of her roommates recognized the person photograph as a friend of a friend, who had been a guest at their apartment a few weeks prior to the theft.  The deputy commissioner of public safety in White Plains said "It's certainly a great use of what was probably meant as a business product. But if she had taken the picture and didn't know who he was, we wouldn't be in the same place as far as the investigation goes."

Source:  "Stolen Laptop Helps Turn Tables on Suspects" by Lisa W. Foderaro, published in The New York Times.

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The Mac has come a long way in recent years.  Jeffrey Allen's Mac Notes column this month takes a look at how much better Mac-using attorneys have it today than their brethren of the not-so-distant past.  It contrasts the methods that they had to use in the old days (1985-2000) with how great they have it today.  It mentions some of the "old" software programs and some of the ones used today.  It is quite an interesting read, and you can access it HERE.

Source:  "The Best of Times..."  by Jeffrey Allen, published in the ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division's Technology eReport.

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Luigi Benetton published an interesting article in the April/May 2008 edition of The Canadian Bar Association's National magazine, which discussed the "Mac conversion" experiences of several former PC-using attorneys and firms.   Some of their reasons given by these professionals are:

• Rob Hyndman :: After the latest in a string of what he calls "Windows catastrophes" and the 24 hours of work it took him to restore his system afterwards, Hyndman made a technological u-turn and migrated to the Mac.
• Damien Fox :: "You want something that just works for you," he says.
• Jennifer Gabriel :: Since there is so little actual internal IT support needed, she spends more time spearheading new IT initiatives and staffing reception.

The article also discusses some of the hurdles that Mac-using attorneys must deal with in their practices, including the fact that there are fewer Mac-specific software options from which to choose.  If you are considering making the switch, you should read the entire article at the link provided below.

Source:  "Making The Switch to Mac" by Luigi Benetton, published in the National.

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about IBM allowing some of its employees to begin using Macs.  Last week, BusinessWeek published an article about how other businesses are beginning to move to Macs.  The companies mentioned in the article include not only IBM, but also Google and Cisco. 

The author mentions that Apple really doesn't make an effort to target businesses, choosing instead to focus on consumers and schools.  Instead, it is the employees themselves that are clamoring for the ability to use Macs at work, just as they use Macs at home and iPods and iPhones everywhere. One CIO said "Steve Jobs doesn't need a sales force because he already has one: employees like the ones in my company."

The article is an interesting read, and it''s great to see other businesses realizing (just like many attorneys) the many benefits that Macs offer.  There is also an accompanying podcast by John Byrne that takes a look inside the making of this story.  You can access the podcast by clicking HERE.

Source:  "The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit" by Peter Burrows, published at BusinessWeek.

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The Connected Lawyer  published an informative interview with Larry Port from Rocket Matter, which is a web-based practice management and time and billing solution.  Since I am a big fan of Rocket Matter, I have published excerpts / highlights from that interview below for my readers.  However, I urge you to click the link below to read the entire interview for yourself.

What is Rocket Matter?

Rocket Matter is an easy-to-use web-based legal practice management and time and billing solution. It's designed from the ground up to facilitate the practice of law in small and solo firms.  Rocket Matter allows law firms to manage calendars, to-do lists, contacts, matters, and time and billing in one integrated and simple solution.

We created a technology we call "Bill as you Work", which traps billable time as lawyers and paralegals go about their day. The net result is a product that allows firms to operate more efficiently and reduces the amount of time that gets lost for invoicing.  Since we host Rocket Matter on our servers and it's accessed via the Internet, users have ubiquitous access to their information while never having to spend money or time on software installations or upgrades.

Tell me more about Bill as you Work. How does it work? What does it capture?

The whole idea behind "Bill as you Work" is to capture time as you go about your day to day activities, so that at the end of the month when it comes time to bill you don't end up losing all of your precious hours. For example, when you schedule a deposition in your calendar, you can choose to bill for the time spent when you create the appointment. Likewise, your to-do items can be instantly converted from simple reminders into billable items that can end up on your invoice. The application also contains its own stopwatch, so you can time any activity you work on and funnel that directly into billing.

What size of firm is your product ideal for?

Our ideal firm is small, consisting of 1 to 25 total employees. We can scale our application to much larger firms, but we want to focus on the solo and small firm segment of the market, which has been under-served for too long.

What type of security do you use to make sure that the information remains secure?

The security measures we included in Rocket Matter are comprehensive. Every request is encrypted with 128-bit secure SSL, the same encryption used by many major banks and financial institutions. Passwords are hashed (stored in an encrypted format) and known only by you. Threat Modeling, which is the practice of identifying and countering attacks, is a fundamental part of our development process. There are a host of other security measures we have taken to lock down and isolate a firms data, and we'll be conducting ongoing audits with independent security specialist firms.

What type of computer system do I need to access my data?

Rocket Matter runs in an Internet browser, freeing you from the constraints of any particular operating system. Macs, PC's, and Linux systems can all be used, as long as they have a modern browser (Firefox, IE 6 or above, and Safari). Now that full-fledged mobile browsers have been introduced, iPhones and Pocket PC's with SkyFire can be used to access Rocket Matter.

Can I access my data in any way if I cannot reach your servers, (e.g., I can't get to the internet)?

Currently, access to Rocket Matter requires an Internet connection. Of course, if you need to access some piece of crucial information and you find yourself without access, you can always call our customer support line.

What happens to my data if I chose to stop using your service?

In the sad circumstance that we part ways, Rocket Matter will offer you a full copy of your data at no charge. Your contacts and calendar data will be exported to industry standard formats, such as vCard and iCalendar, which can be read by applications such as Outlook, iCal, and Address Book. Your matter and time and billing information will be exported to a navigable HTML format, so that you can view and make sense of your information.

Can I backup my data from your servers to a local hard drive?

Rocket Matter is developing an enhanced service plan, in which customers can obtain regular backups of their information. Users participating in this plan will have the option of downloading their data or having it sent to them on a DVD.

Do your offer training with your product? If so, what kind?

Rocket Matter users enjoy free training called CRE, or Continuing Rocket Education. These are live webinars hosted every week, open to all Rocket Matter customers at no additional cost. Furthermore, we offer Online CRE courses, which allow users at any time to watch guided instructional videos on the various features of the program.

What is the pricing for Rocket Matter?

During our Pilot Program, we are charging $50 USD per attorney per month and $15 USD per support staff per month.  Customer support is included for Pilot Program participants. Phone support is available from 9am to 6pm EST. Phone support is handled in the United States and conducted by a native English speaker.

What makes Rocket Matter different from other similar programs?

Rocket Matter's big differentiator is the simple yet comprehensive nature of its features. Simplicity, paired with great customer support and training, will enable our customers to actually use our product and enjoy doing so.

Compared to traditional legal practice management tools, Rocket Matter is a leap forward in ease-of-use. We eliminated the confusing "bloatware", or features people don't require. We've taken the elements that most firms need: calendaring, contact management, matter management, and invoicing, and rolled them into one integrated product.

By creating a web-based solution, we have created another differentiator with existing legal products: there is no need to purchase additional hardware, and no IT consultant required for an install or upgrade. We handle backups, security, and all of the other technical issues so that attorneys and their staffs can focus on the practice of law.

Source:  "An Interview with Larry Port from Rocket Matter" by Bryan Sims, published at The Connected Lawyer.

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