Perhaps you’re an insatiable traveler, never quite at home unless you’re not at home. Perhaps work regularly tears you away from the comforts of home, and you’re always looking for ways to make it less of a pain. Or maybe for you, planning the journey is the best part of the trip—and there's nothing you love so much as researching every last detail of your one big travel splurge: mapping the itinerary, boning up on local culture, and making endless lists of must-see's. Well, no matter your travel personality, it’s almost certain there's a travel app to get you through. For this week's Friday Five, we dish up a ton of reviews and “best of” lists in the world of travel apps—both iPhone and Android.
Originally published February 17, 2012If you were selling fruit and customers wanted to buy apples, wouldn’t you make sure you had apples? And wouldn't you let them know you had apples? Of course you would. But this simple scenario gets so much more complicated when you're selling something complex, like most legal services.
Originally published February 16, 2012You're a new lawyer, launching a new law firm. How do you decide what your hourly rate will be? The ethics rules say that your rate must be "reasonable." That doesn’t give you much to go on. You know your rate should be a fair price for the quality of your work, and that it should be competitive with other attorneys in the same type of practice in your community. But can you find out what they charge?
Originally published February 15, 2012Thinking in terms of business-to-business versus business-to-consumer marketing, are you B-to-B or B-to-C? Your law firm is a business, of course—a "B." So, is your target client another B, or a consumer—a "C?" If you don't know the answer, you'd better figure it out. It's important.
Originally published February 14, 2012For recording and organizing notes, there are a number of really good apps to consider. And, as is true with all apps, many overlap in functionality. The apps outlined below for the iPad and iPhone have particular strengths that may resonate with the way you work and satisfy your note-taking needs. Check them out and see which ones you like best.
Originally published February 13, 2012Yes, we can hear the jokes now. A lawyer who is afraid to speak is like a vegan at a steakhouse—not only rare (no pun intended) but also a bit laughable. But wait. To many a lawyer, fear of speaking is not funny, it is an unhappy reality. But somewhere along the way, everyone gets called on to speak. Now what? We contacted three speaking experts—highly sought out lawyers on the speaking circuit as well as a trainer of litigators—on how to once and for all banish fear and give an applause-worthy speech.
Originally published February 9, 2012To say that the iPad has created a buzz in the litigation technology world is an understatement. The sweet little panel has provided a number of novel ways to manage documents and display and mark up evidence. But even as developers create new uses at the podium and in the witness box, there are still other opportunities to use the iPad at counsel table during voir dire. Here's a show-and-tell video review of two apps, iJuror and Jury Duty.
Originally published February 8, 2012Many firms talk about the importance of cross-selling—or cross-marketing, if you prefer—their clients. The problem is that you must serve the client before you can cross-market to the client. Too many firms fail to realize this and then wonder why their cross-marketing efforts fail. The place to start in business development with clients is with client service. Here’s a brief list of some of the more important points to keep in mind.
Originally published February 7, 2012You know you saved it—that file that you spent hours working on a few weeks ago. That file you’re now desperate to retrieve but can’t locate. But it's not in your Recent Documents (because you weren’t working on it recently), and it's not pinned to a Jump List. You’ve clicked and clicked through the usual suspect folders, all to no avail—you just can’t find it. Well, this is why you don’t look, you let your computer search for you. Why should you spend precious time on the hunt for saved files when the computer can do it better and faster? Here are a handful of ways you can make searching for files easier on yourself.
Originally published February 6, 2012Last Friday, we told you about some of the legal technology products released just-in-time for LegalTech New York this past week. Now that LTNY has wrapped, we're sorting through the on-site posts and tweets to give you a Friday Five update on even more. And, since we find that some big-picture perspective always helps us better grasp the product news, we recommend some links focusing on innovations to expect this year.
Originally published February 3, 2012