Mostly in life, you get what you pay for. And when you pay nothing, you don’t often get much in return. Sometimes you get more than you bargained for, but not in a good way. Once in a great while, though, you get an unexpected prize. Adobe Reader XI, Adobe’s free PDF reader software, is one of those prizes: A rare, good, free thing.

This post is not intended to convince you to join Google+. My friend Steve Matthews explains why lawyers should care about Google+ here. Instead, this post is intended to help you avoid some common mistakes when building your firm’s Google+ page so that, among other things, your listing will begin to appear in local search results. Merely creating your page will not guarantee high visibility for your firm in local results, of course, but it's a start.

Ready to ratchet up your marketing? Perhaps business is slower than you'd like, or you just don’t like the direction your practice is taking—too much repetition, not enough challenge? Maybe it's time to refocus your practice. Or maybe you need to stop waiting for others to "do something," and start bringing in your own clients. Regardless, first let's get clear on the realities of marketing legal services in 2013.

What you do (or don't do) to begin your day can determine how you feel for the rest of the day—whether you're focused or distracted, energized or tired, positive or grumpy. That's why it's so important to develop strong productivity practices for first thing in the morning. Here are a few good habits to include in your routine to get your day started correctly. Try them and see what a difference it makes.

It seems excellent lawyers do not always produce excellent legal writing. Whether due to a lack of time, of mental energy, of colleagues available to proofread, or of awareness of just how bloated a legal document can get, good lawyers sometimes can—and do—send out bad documents full of extra, meaningless words. Those interested in a quick, inexpensive tool to help them unclutter their writing should consider WordRake. This software program, developed by Gary Kinder based on his years of experience helping lawyers improve their writing, works with Microsoft Word 2010 to help lawyers move beyond basic spell-checking and proofreading to achieve clearer writing. .... READ MORE

The National Technology and Data Association (NTDA), a Virginia-based nonprofit focused on technology-related economics, combined with support from the Data Transfer Registrar (DTR), a governmental database logging national data transfer rates and formed via grants from the Congressional Data Mining House Subcommittee headed by Senator Peter Griffin of Massachusetts, recently completed a three-year study that found 88 percent of all lawyers under the age of 35 utilize smartphones during 92 percent of their workday, which occurs 60 percent of every total workweek, at a minimum.

In many ways, being a lawyer is still about pushing paper, even if much of that "paper" is now kept electronically, with redwelds and staples going the way of the triceratops and woolly mammoth, respectively. Certainly, the chief allure of electronic files is that you can find what you need faster ... no more frantic, headlong dashes into a cold storage room, and a resulting drill-tip search through rows and file folders and papers, large, small, crinkled. Of course, this only works when you know where you’re saving stuff, and how to retrieve it. If you don’t and can’t, paper can still push back, hard. ... READ MORE

Dan Pinnington and Reid Trautz, co-authors of the ABA book The Busy Lawyer’s Guide to Success: Essential Tips to Power Your Practice, share five of their favorites time management tips. 1. Handle more tasks with just one touch. Do as much of your work as you can the first time you touch it. Respond to […]

We've been hearing some mumbling among our iPad-owning colleagues lately. Something about the keyboard? Given that most iPad owners are passionately in love with the device, this grumbling is surprising. Is it an actual flaw? Or is it that we want the iPad to be something that it isn't? Inquiring minds wanted to know. So we asked some of our iPad expert friends in the legal community to share their thoughts—and their personal solutions. Here's what they said ...

Ah, for a week with endless hours to relax and read a few of the beautiful books on those end-of-year "top selling" and "best of" lists. Whether curled up by a cozy fire or digging your toes into some warm tropical sand, there's nothing better than a great book to help make the season bright. Unless it's a stack of great books. So, just in time for winter break, we bring you a Friday Five list of lists of books to read—and share. READ MORE