How to manage e-mail, IT and more…compliments of The Connected Lawyer.
SIC: How should a small law firm manage IT? Self-manage? Outside consultant?
TCL:
There a lot of factors that must be considered when answering this question. The two key questions are the number of computers involved and knowledge the attorney has about technology. The smaller the set up (e.g. 1 desktop, 1 laptop) the more easily that it is for a tech savvy attorney to handle his own IT issues. However, if complications develop or the set up becomes more complicated, then it may be time to hire an outside consultant. It does not have to be a complicated issue for you to waste an entire day of billings trying to solve a computer problem.
My advice is to look for an IT consultant who can help you before you have problems. One of the best ways to do this is to ask other attorneys who they use. For example, chances are that a consultant can set you up with a backup system more efficiently and more cost effectively (once your lost time is included) than you can do yourself. Once you find such a person, keep his info handy to help you with issues as they arise.
On the flip side, I don’t think it benefits anyone if you don’t have someone in your office who at least has a basic understanding of how your computer system works. Just make sure that you are spending your time practicing law and not fixing computers.
SIC: How should folks efficiently balance the constant flow of e-mail with the need for uninterrupted, billable work time?
TCL:
Oh, if only I had a magical solution for this problem. The best advice I can give is to turn off your automatic notifications that tell you that you have received an email. Once you do this, keep your email program minimized and check it only when you want it. For example take a break every hour or so and spend 5 to 10 minutes handling your email. Alternatively you can ignore your email for longer periods of time and then allocate more time to check it, for example, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
I have one additional recommendation that applies regardless of how you manage your email when you are at your computer: on your smartphone, turn off the automatic notification that you have received an email. If you want to check your email on your phone that is fine. However, do not be a slave to it.
SIC: What’s a common technology mistake or two you often see in the legal profession?
TCL:
The biggest mistake that I see is that attorneys do not effectively use the technology that they have. For example, I see attorneys all of the time who treat their word processor as an expensive typewriter. They never take advantage of the various features that allow them to properly format a document, or track changes, or generate a table of contents. Instead, they try to do all of these things by hand.
Similarly, I see attorneys will full versions of Adobe Acrobat who use it only to print PDFs they download from the Internet. I have seen attorneys create a document in Word, print it, and then scan it so they can have an electronic copy rather than simply printing the document to PDF from Word.
Simply put, the biggest mistake you can make is to not understand how to use and leverage the technology that you have already paid for.
August 8, 2009
I have already seen it somethere…