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A Lawyer's Guide to Buying a Laptop (Part 3)

By Barron K. Henley posted 04-11-2017
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Warranties, Security, Bundled Office Suite, Miscellany In the first part of the three-part series, I reviewed the types of laptops suitable for lawyers, what you need to know about processors, and graphics and display adapters. In the second part , I reviewed laptop memory, hard drive options, screen options, and operating system options. In this final installment, I discuss warranties, security issues, and preinstalled Microsoft Office. With this information, you have what you need to make a laptop buying decision. Good luck! Warranty Options System Warranty : Ideally, you want at least a three-year, next-business-day, on-site warranty with ...
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Everything You Need to Know About SEO: Conclusions (Part 5)

By Brendan B. Chard posted 11-26-2014
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Part 1 of this series offered some insight for figuring out whether you actually need SEO. Part 2 explained how to optimize SEO by becoming an authority in your chosen niche. Part 3 reviewed how becoming the “go-to” business factors into SEO. The last installment discussed when paying to advertise with search engines is easier and more cost effective than SEO. In this final installment, I offer some SEO strategy conclusions. If you’ve read all four parts of this series, hopefully the wheels are turning and you're excited about the opportunities available for almost any practice area. You now also know just about everything you need as a lawyer to speak ...
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Smartphone as Backup Internet Connection

By Scott Bassett posted 11-11-2014
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Many lawyers are "dead in the water" if their primary office or home Internet connection goes down. Fortunately, your smartphone, because it has a data plan, can serve as a backup Internet connection. It isn't a perfect solution, but it will do in a pinch (like when you need to comply with an impending e-filing deadline). Most smartphones have the ability to "tether" their connection to your computer in three different ways. USB tethering is the fastest and most efficient in terms of connection speed and preservation of your smartphone's battery. You need to connect your Internet-enabled smartphone (or tablet) to your computer using a USB cable. Each ...
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Versatile Google Chromecast Is for Work and Play

By Jeffrey E. Kirkey posted 09-16-2014
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The Google Chromecast is a thumb-sized media streaming device that plugs into the HDMI port on your TV. With a simple mobile app you can send your favorite online shows, movies, music, and more to your TV using your iPhone, iPad, Android smartphone/tablet, or your laptop. Chromecast streams Netflix, HBO GO, YouTube, WatchESPN, Pandora and other apps. For everything else, you can mirror what you see on the small screen to the big screen. If you’re on your laptop, you can “cast” any website in the Chrome browser. So what makes the Chromecast useful in your law practice? It works with newer projectors so you can walk into any conference room that has an ...
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Everything You Need to Know About SEO: Advertising (Part 4)

By Brendan B. Chard posted 08-29-2014
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Part 1 of this series offered some insight for figuring out whether you need SEO. Part 2 explained how to optimize SEO by becoming an authority in your chosen niche. Part 3 reviewed how becoming a “go-to” business factors into SEO. In this installment, I discuss when paying for search engine advertising is easier and more cost effective than SEO. Is Advertising Right for You? Let’s face it. Google wants you to pay for advertising. Google makes nearly all of its money from search ads and no money from organic listings. The organic ranking algorithm is about building the Google brand, not yours. Said another way, the only incentive Google has for ranking ...
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Get Your Clients to Pay You Online

By William A. McNeil posted 07-31-2014
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I fondly recall the days when a client would sit across the desk from me and write a sizable check for my fees. Now, I almost never see this happening. To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t mind a bit because of the alternatives now available. I believe there are two main reasons for this change. These reasons also explain why it is imperative for your law practice to have online methods for your clients to pay their legal fees. First, people simply do not write many checks anymore. You can see this at gas stations and supermarkets. People are paying either with cash or with cards, not checks. Second, clients may no longer be as loyal to their attorneys ...
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Everything You Need to Know About SEO: Becoming the “Go-To” Business (Part 3)

By Brendan B. Chard posted 06-30-2014
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In part 1 of this series, I offered some insight for figuring out if you actually need SEO. In part 2 , I explained how to optimize SEO by becoming an authority in your chosen niche. In this installment, I review how becoming the “go-to” business factors into SEO. To search engines, you're not just a website, you're also a local business. This means you are judged not only on your website authority, but on the longevity, reputation, and physical location of your firm. You may have noticed that when you do a search for a business (i.e., Ann Arbor Bankruptcy Attorney), the search results display special local businesses in slots lettered A-G with business ...
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PowerPoint for iPad: It's Now Your Best Choice

By Paul J. Unger posted 06-20-2014
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Presenting a PowerPoint from your iPad can result in a more natural and interactive presentation, allowing you to walk around wirelessly, switch between applications, write notes or do white-boarding, and then go back to your core presentation. My three “choice” apps to have in your toolbox to show PowerPoint presentations on the iPad are PowerPoint itself (available since March 28, 2014), Keynote, and SlideShark. There are pros and cons to all three. PowerPoint is the best choice of all three because there are no conversion issues, has a very large font set, and it now supports video and audio (the first version did not support video and audio). ...
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Windows and Internet Explorer Users: Important Security Patch Information

By Scott Bassett posted 05-30-2014
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A few weeks ago, it was widely reported that all versions of the Internet Explorer Web browser from Microsoft from version 6 to version 11 (the current version) were vulnerable to a new and serious zero-day exploit. The exploit would allow an attacker to gain control of a computer and have the same rights as the currently logged-in user. Microsoft has released a security patch to protect against this vulnerability. Users should not browse the Web using Internet Explorer until they have downloaded and installed this patch. Fortunately, doing so is as easy as running Windows Update. This even applies to otherwise unsupported Windows XP computers. If you have ...
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Everything You Need to Know About SEO: Becoming an Authority (Part 2)

By Brendan B. Chard posted 05-05-2014
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In part 1 of this series, we laid the groundwork for figuring out if you actually need search engine optimization (SEO). In this installment, we’ll review the first of the three ways to make SEO work for you: becoming an authority on a topic. Search engines rank popular, influential, authoritative websites. To show search engines that your website should be associated with a topic, you need to regularly produce content on that topic. Static websites stand little chance of gaining long-term organic ranking success without a content growth strategy. Elements of Website Pages Your content needs to be unique, compelling, and well-structured. Every page/post ...
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How Microsoft and GoDaddy’s Partnership Can Help Your Small Law Firm

By Scott Bassett posted 04-03-2014
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Last fall, Microsoft and discount domain registrar and Web hosting company GoDaddy announced that users could purchase custom GoDaddy domain names directly from within Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription-based office suite. (Domain names represent the online identity of companies and individuals. For example, the Institute of Continuing Legal Education’s domain name is www.icle.org.) If you already have a GoDaddy-managed domain name, you can also update Office 365 to use that name directly from within Office 365. Microsoft and GoDaddy have now expanded their partnership by offering three packages that include e-mail, calendar, and contact syncing between ...
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Everything You Need to Know About SEO (Part 1)

By Brendan B. Chard posted 03-18-2014
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You’ve heard search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical feature of your law firm website, but do you actually understand what the heck that means? This is the first installment in a series of five posts that will explain everything you need to know about SEO. At a high level, SEO simply means doing things that will help your website rank higher in the organic search results for the topics you want associated with your firm. SEO can be part of a comprehensive marketing plan, but it is not—nor should it ever be—the sole plan. Search engines don't care about your business; they care about theirs. What you want is a branding, marketing, client acquisition, ...
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Responsive Web Design for Attorneys

By William A. McNeil posted 09-05-2013
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The ABA Journal recently published an article talking about "responsive web design" and how it might help your law firm site be more effective. Your law firm website may very well be the first encounter that prospective clients have with your firm. You want their experience to be positive and informative, not frustrating. Responsive design can help achieve that positive experience. What is Responsive Design Anyway? Responsive design means coding a website to allow it to be viewed in a different format on an iPhone, Android, or tablet device. Without getting into the boring details, a programmer incorporates a fluid design where the code can detect the ...
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Build Your Website Right and Clients will Come: Search Engine Optimization

By William A. McNeil posted 08-05-2013
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If you are thinking about launching a website for your firm or if you want to update your current website, here are some tips on using search engine optimization (SEO) to help you build it the right way from the start and maximize your return on investment. Research Your Keywords and Competition First Before deciding on a web design firm, you should take advantage of the Google keyword research tools available to anyone for free! Go to http://www.googlekeywordtool.com/ . They give a brief explanation of keywords and then link to Google’s keyword tool. You can then type in keywords hat you might think apply to your law practice and get statistics ...
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Keep Your iPad Data Safe in the Cloud

By Paul J. Unger posted 03-04-2013
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For legal professionals, the iPad remains the most popular tablet, despite some competition from Android and Windows-based tablets. The wide selection of legal specific apps for the iPad still cannot be matched by competing Android or Windows tablets. However, with success comes responsibility, and when it comes to lawyers, accountability, security and saving time is extremely important when serving clients. Here are my “best-practice” recommendations and tips for safe use of cloud applications with iPads. Although there are many ways to access documents on your tablet, Dropbox has become the standard and is clearly the easiest to use. However, just ...
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Is Time Entry Dragging Down your Billables?

By Paul J. Unger posted 02-07-2013
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Law firms lose an enormous amount of money because lawyers fail to enter their time. This is especially tough for lawyers on the go who do not sit at their desk all the time. iTimeKeep provides two critical qualities that make it a great tool for lawyers. First, it offers the most comprehensive list of time/billing/accounting and practice management systems with which it integrates. This means when lawyers select the client/matter in the time entry field in iTimeKeep, it provides the client/matter list directly from the firm's practice management or time/billing/accounting system. It will also link to all billing codes and provides spell-checking, which ...
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Passwords for The Internet Age

By Brendan B. Chard posted 01-25-2013
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There have been numerous articles on password security over the years including this doozy over at Wired.com . But given our increasing usage of online services for everything from email to banking and social connection to shopping I think it’s worth revisiting this topic with some new ideas and fresh information. Surprise! None Of Your Passwords are in Your Control You may think that your passwords are all tucked away nice and secure. They could be in your head, in a password protected word document, taped to the inside of a desk drawer, or written in a notebook. But something you need to realize right now is that every password you use is also somewhere ...
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