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

Last week, I gave two presentations at the South Carolina Association for Justice convention held in Hilton Head Island, SC.  For the technology section, my presentation was titled "Transitioning Your Law Practice to the Mac Platform".  In it, I discussed the advantages that Macs offer versus PCs, hardware options, and software programs that can be used in a law practice.  SCAJ puts on a fantastic conference, and it is always one of my favorites every year.  Thanks again to SCAJ for inviting me back again, and I'm already looking forward to next year.

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I was honored to have the opportunity to speak earlier this week in Montreal, Quebec at Legal IT 4.0. I presented three sessions: "Top Mobile Applications for Lawyers" with Monique Stam; "75 Tips in 75 Minutes" with Craig Ball and Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay; and "Attractive Aspects of Windows 7 and Mac OS X" with Philippe Senécal. The conference was well organized and well attended, with over 300 people at the various sessions.

I stayed at the incredible Hôtel Le Germain, which was adjacent to Centre Mont-Royal, where the conference was held. One of the highlights of this (too short) trip was the wonderful faculty dinner at Restaurant Europea. The food was so delicious and beautifully presented that it’s difficult to even begin to describe. Suffice it to say that if you visit Montreal, you owe it to yourself to plan a dinner there.

Thank you to Dominic Jaar and the organizers for inviting me to speak at such an outstanding conference. If you are in the area, I urge you to attend this seminar next year, as it is truly Canada’s premier legal technology conference. You can find out much more about this conference here.

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To all my readers and friends north of the border, I will be in Montreal, Quebec, Canada next week (April 26 and 27, 2010) speaking at the Legal IT conference.  I will be presenting sessions on the following topics:  

• Top mobile applications for lawyers
• Attractive aspects of Windows 7 and Mac OS X
• 75 tips in 75 minutes

I am looking forward to this conference, as I've heard great things from past attendees.  If you are in Montreal or are attending this conference, I hope that you will stop me to say hello.

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Now that I'm back from ABA TechShow and have had a little time to catch my breath, I thought I'd share my thoughts and reflections about this year's conference:

• The "Mac Track" was greatly expanded this year.  What began in 2008 as a Saturday morning only session has now grown to a full day of programming on Thursday.  I want to publicly thank Brett Burney for all of his hard work to make this a reality.  By all accounts, it was very well received by the attendees. I attended each of this year's sessions, and all of the speakers were outstanding, entertaining, and informative.  I believe that TechShow would benefit from expanding the "Mac Track" even more next year and including more in depth sessions and possibly at least one session devoted to the iPad.
• There seemed to be an unwarranted amount of skepticism regarding cloud computing (SaaS) at many of the sessions this year, even the ones supposedly devoted to that very topic.  The same old "concerns" were given, but they were not based necessarily in fact.  I have no doubt that cloud based options will continue to be useful and grow in popularity.  I find it somewhat amusing that people have no hesitation at all in using on-line banking features, but for some reason they believe that cloud options are still not secure enough for their client data.
• The iPhone was also repeatedly attacked and accused of not being secure, but less than two minutes later, the same panel was advocating using a Kindle to present items in Court.  Of course, the Kindle has no password protection or security features included whatsoever.  My security guru, Finis Price, believes that virtually all smartphones have similar security "risks", and I believe that the vast majority of them can be mitigated through the use of plain old common sense.
• TechShow as a whole would benefit from being more platform independent. The organizers should remember that not everyone uses Outlook, Word, or Windows, yet many of the sessions that were marketed toward a "general" audience tended to inordinately favor them.  Also, having more "how to" sessions, including step-by-step instructions and/or demonstrations would be beneficial, perhaps even taking place in smaller, more intimate settings.  For instance, how great would a session on making killer trial presentations using Keynote be?  Or maybe a Keynote vs. PowerPoint showdown?
• On a more positive note, it was great to have the first Mac-specific vendor at the TechShow Expo this year.  Marketcircle had a booth exhibiting their products, Daylite and Billings.  I had several attendees tell me that they found the information presented at their booth to be quite helpful and informative. The folks from Marketcircle told me that they were very pleased with the reception they received, and I hope they will exhibit again next year and bring other Mac vendors with them.
• Finally, one of my favorite parts of TechShow is the people.  There were new presenters this year, including my friend Finis Price (who did an outstanding job in all of his seminars and with his honest Twitter coverage).  It was great to make new friends and also catch up with old ones, such as Brett Burney; Adriana Linares; Ben Schorr; Larry and Ariel from Rocket Matter; Jack from Clio; Amin from Marketcircle; and many others.

All in all TechShow was a great success this year.  I truly appreciate the opportunity to give the presentations I gave, and I hope to be invited back in the future.  I invite my readers who attended TechShow to submit their thoughts about the conference using my comments section.  If you missed it this year, mark your calendars now for next year's show, which will be held April 11 - 13, 2011, in Chicago.

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As my readers know, I am an advocate for the use of technology to improve the practice of law and delivery of legal services to my clients. As a result, I am frequently asked to speak at legal technology seminars, and I'm pleased that I'll be in Chicago this week presenting at the annual ABA TechShow.  I will be giving two presentations this year: "Mac Software for the Law Office" with Finis Price and "iPhone Tips for Lawyers" with Jeff Richardson.  Thanks to the ABA for inviting me back for the third year in a row and also to my firm for allowing me time away from the office for this seminar.

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Next Friday, I will be in Nashville, TN speaking at Law Tech 2010, sponsored by the Tennessee Bar Association.  Specifically, I will be presenting "Software as a Service (SaaS): Practicing Law in the Clouds", using programs such as DropBox, Evernote, Rocket Matter, etc.  I will also be participating in a Mac round table discussion with Finis Price and Steve Weaver.  If you are in the area, you can register here for this seminar.

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The ABA TechShow blog has a series called "The Best of ABA TechShow 2009", which features some of the best presentations given by past speakers to showcase some of the content available to attendees.  I am pleased that "Got Apple Envy? Macs in a PC World", the presentation given by David Sparks and me is one of those featured. The session description is listed below, and you can download a *.pdf version of our materials as well.

It used to be the only apples found in the law office were in lunch bags. No longer: the resurgence of the Apple Macintosh platform has led to many attorneys now practicing law on their Macs. Popular Mac attorneys and bloggers Ben Stevens and David Sparks discussed the Macintosh platform at ABA TECHSHOW 2009 in their session "Got Apple Envy? Practicing Law with a Mac."

David and Ben provided a convincing argument about why using a Mac for the practice of law makes sense, and also shared strategies and recommendations on the best hardware and software solutions for a Mac attorney. Finally, they explained how to successfully drive a Mac in a PC firm with recommendations for networking and file sharing.

The attendees enjoyed an entertaining and educational session. Ben and David will both be back presenting at ABA TECHSHOW 2010.  Click here to read David and Ben's paper!

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I am in Orlando, Florida this weekend, speaking at  MILO Fest 2009 on the subject of "Computing in the Clouds."  My talk will discuss ways to use web-based technology in the practice of law, including programs like Evernote, Dropbox, and Gmail.  I look forward to getting to meet and spend some time with my readers at this conference.

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If you are a Mac-using attorney (or if you want to become one), then you should attend MILO Fest 2009, the Mac-focused conference for attorneys that will be held Thursday, November 5, 2009, through Saturday, November 7, 2009, at the Disney World Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, FL.

Topics announced thus far include: SaaS Roundtable, Branding with your Mac, Running Your Practice in the Cloud, Social Media Business Development, Stupid iPhone Lawyer Tricks, Creating Kick-Butt Legal Presentations, and Video for Lawyers on a Mac.

If you want to learn more about or register for MILOfest 2009, click HERE.  I hope to see you there!

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If you are a Mac-using attorney (or if you want to become one), then you should attend MILO Fest 2009, the Mac-focused conference for attorneys.  After weeks of anticipation and speculation, details have just been announced this week about this exciting seminar.

I am excited to be one of the speakers, and I think that this seminar will be one that is discussed for years.  You should make plans now so that you don't miss out.  Topics announced to date:  SaaS Roundtable, Branding with your Mac, Running Your Practice in the Cloud, Social Media Business Development, Stupid iPhone Lawyer Tricks, Creating Kick-Butt Legal Presentations.

If you want to find out more about MILO Fest, you can click HERE for dates, location, pricing, and much more, and if you're ready to register, you can click HERE.  If you want to learn more about MILO or join, simply click HERE.  I hope to see you all at MILO Fest later this year.

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As you may know, The Mac Lawyer was privileged to speak at the ABA TechShow, which was recently held in Chicago.  TechShow is the "World's Premier Legal Technology Conference & Expo," and it truly is an honor that I was asked to speak again this year.

I was invited to speak at both sessions of the (second and hopefully now annual) Mac Track:  "Got Apple Envy? Macs in a PC World" (with David Sparks) and "Mac@Trial" (with Brett Burney).  I also served on the panel of the iPhone roundtable discussion: "Is that an iPhone in Your Pocket?" (with Reid Trautz and David Sparks).

There were a large number of Macs in each of all of the sessions this year, which supports my belief that Macs are gaining an ever-increasing market share among attorneys.  Hopefully, the Planning Board for next year's TechShow will give the Mac Track an expanded and/or more prominent presence, particularly since it is made up of so many Mac users.

In case you were not able to attend, one of the attendees at the "Got Apple Envy? Macs in a PC World" session has posted the video excerpt below, in which I am discussing the various ways to run Windows on Macs.  I hope that you enjoy it and that you will consider attending TechShow 2010.

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Today, I had the pleasure to speak at Law Tech 2009 :: Marketing, Management and Technology Solutions for Your Firm, sponsored by the Tennessee Bar Association.  Specifically, I participated in the panel discussion on "Macs for Lawyers" along with Caesar Cirigliano, Eddie Davidson, Jim Moore, and Steve Weaver.  We had a good crowd and I believe that everyone enjoyed this session.  Thanks to the Tennessee Bar for inviting me back to speak again this year.

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