Google Wave As A Spy Tool

I'm celebrating my anniversary to my lovely wife today -- and I'm not in the office.

Yet, I printed off a trial brief for the other attorney to file.  I brought everybody up to speed on what needed to be done.  And saw that no one logged into their account until 10:15 or so -- Google Wave's little green dot told me so.  The "on-line" notification for Google Wave is a little green dot.  A grey dot with a white 'x' means not logged in.  A yellow dot means inactive.

Now, on-line notification isn't anything new, but when you update a wave it moves to the top of the in-box.  Think of it as moving the file to the top of the stack by adding something new.  I'd added some new things and people weren't even able to see it.  I saw when they logged on -- exactly.  I immediately started conversing with them.  And I'm in a cushy robe with my feet propped up, letting my lovely wife take a nap.

I'm not quite sure how my employees feel about this, but I absolutely love to know what is going on in my office in real time -- even when I'm not there.

Why I Don't Have A Website

This seems a little contradictory since you are reading this on a website, but I don't have a website for my law office.

I have a paperless office, use some of the latest software, proud owner of a Droid smartphone, read my books on a Kindle, listen to my books on an iPod, and  have remotely filed bankruptcies from a train in England and belong to the Mile High Club of Bankruptcy Filers, having filed a case at 30,000 feet compliments of in flight Wi-Fi.  I'm no stranger to technology or a Luddite, but I don't have a website for my office.

In fact, back in the early 2000s was the proud owner of the URL usbankruptcy.com (and have the T-shirt to prove it).  I was going to make my millions doing bankruptcy on the Web.

So why don't I have a website?  Well, one is on the way, but it isn't going to be like anything I've noticed from other law firms or solo practitioners.

1.  I haven't needed the advertising.  Most of my business is word of mouth referrals from clients or former clients.  I've even scaled back my yellow page ads to the point that they are there for those few people who still look me up in the book can get my phone number.  It also means that when the client types my name in the search engine, my phone number pops up.

2.  Most websites for small law firms are stupid.  Ok, I know that is harsh, but lawyers are so full of themselves and the pomposity is usually only equal to the boredom I feel reading the sites.  I have to force myself to look at the competition and when I do, I think parenthetically  in perfect lawyer-ese (See, Number 1 above.)  Either the web site is so dry over legal concerns that no meaningful information other than contact information is conveyed or the web site reads a little bit like a bad infomercial on  "How To Get Rich On The Internet".

3.  I currently have an individualized web/cloud presence for my existing clients.  I interact with my clients daily on Google Wave.  They ask me questions, send me documents and I provide them with updates on their cases -- all on a wave designated specifically for their case.  So far the number of clients has been limited, but it is growing daily.

4. I don't want to put up a website that isn't "cool."  Maybe this is the biggest reason of all.  The tech world is all about geeky cool.  Clients like cool -- trust me, I have a blast showing off gadgets -- my Kindle (which has caused me to buy an extra book a week, just to show off the Kindle Store's almost automatic downloads),  texting clients while I talk to them face to face in my office with Google Voice, having my office staff type on their case wave in the other room, so they can watch real time collaboration.  If you note the common theme in this paragraph, I act like how I want my clients to act about me, showing off and talking about what they think is cool (and as far as attorney's go, I hope they say I'm cool).  So right now, my office web site isn't up, isn't running and won't be, until I can offer something that my clients really want to talk about.

Remember the Redundancy

As I embark on filing six motions to reopen cases that were closed without discharge and meditate on a $2000 plus mistake, the one phrase that keeps popping into my head is "remember the redundancy."

Automation lets you do more than most mere humans, but automation without redundancy can be a very bad thing.  My office has been undergoing a lot of changes (almost all for the better) in terms of software, case management, phone management, and employees (I added another attorney, an excellent young gentleman by the name of Abraham O. Smoot, VII (Sieben (z-bahn) for short).

In the process, I let two methods of redundancy (both human/software based, not solely software based redundancy) slip and this resulted in six cases being closed without a discharge.

Just my word of warning, remember your methods of redundancy in your upgrades -- and look for ways to upgrade your redundancy to multiple automatic systems.

I'll be redundant on this topic, I'm sure.

How to Explain Google Wave

I've read a bunch of different ways in which Google Wave has been explained, but I have had the opportunity to actually demo and use Wave in the real world.  I've introduced personally face to face at least a dozen new users to Wave in the last two weeks -- here is what I've learned.

People love Facebook.  People hate that everyone can see everything on Facebook.  People want their legal information as available as Facebook and as private as email.  Explain Wave as Facebook for only those people you want involved -- that simple -- and almost everyone gets it.  (Oh and throw in that it has the benefit of being real time).

13 Reasons to Use Wave for Case Management

1. It keeps all the correspondences and important documents in one word searchable location for each case available for everyone involved in the case to see simultaneously (if they have an internet connection.) 2. Easy to make templates. 3. Correspondence can be limited to the desired participants -- and no one else. 4. Playback feature for monitoring, fixing errors, security and being a snoopy boss. (I've even thought of circumstances where it could be compelling evidence in a courtroom, i.e. Here is what happened, step by step Your Honor . . .) 5. Tags can serve as flags for items that need to be done. 6. Search probably needs a benefit line of its own, since you can search in numerous ways:
a. Traditional Word Search
b. By Tag
c. Within a group
d. By participant
e. By Colored Folder
f. The above allows for searching for different waves, but you can also do a word search inside of the wave you are working in.
7. Can't be deleted -- work really can't be lost. 8. The format is completely open. It can be adapted to fit whatever any particular office needs to aid in their workflow. You can participate in a wave with another attorney or office and structure the wave to fit whatever your particular needs are. Organization and structure is left to the participants to create. 9. Gadgets that can be added to help structure things the way you want. (e.g. a countdown clock). More can be added or created depending on need and ingenuity. 10. It eliminates long email strings, since the correspondence is all contained in one location. For this reason, we've adopted a policy in my office that we set up a different wave for each case. Search makes it easy to find and access quickly. 11. Everyone that has access to the wave can see exactly what progress has been made on the case and what still needs to be done. 12. You can create private communications inside the wave itself, limiting who can view a particular discussion. 13. Adding participants and documents to a wave is as simple as a drag and drop or for the email inclined, using the paperclip attachment above. 

What I Use to Manage My Practice

I was following The Lawyerist blog and there was a post today on What I use to Manage My Practice.

I've  included my response below, but wanted to add a couple of thoughts.  If I go back twenty years to when I started practicing there is only one piece of software I still use -- WordPerfect.  I'm going to have a hard time letting that go, but I can tell that it is on its way out, despite my efforts at resuscitation.

Also, Everything search is phenomenal.  In the office I limited to office files, which makes it even more speedy.


Calendar:  I am in the middle -- as we speak --  of the shift from TimeMatters to Google Calendar and Apps.  I've found TimeMatters' alleged robustness and flexibility was actually significant unnecessary data input in disguise.  My staff spent more time keeping the data clean than doing productive work.


Project Management:  I looked at BaseCamp and decided not to use it.  I had been using TimeMatters for project management.  My practice is mostly consumer bankruptcy work, so there is a uniformity to each case that lends itself to templates and repetition.  I've found that I can use Google Wave for my case management within my office.  It allows for collaboration with my staff and all anyone needs is a web browser, like BaseCamp.  I'd recommend it for smaller projects or repetitive ones.

Tasks/to-dos:  GoogleWave, TeuxDeux

Contacts: BestCase Bankruptcy Software and GoogleWave.  Using Google Wave solved my contact issue, since we set up a separate Wave for each case with all of the office participating in the wave and the initial wave contains all of the contact information.

We are also using Google Voice to text and call our clients.

E-mail: Gmail and more recently, GoogleWave

Word processing / document creation:  WordPerfect (too busy to change all the merges), BestCase Bankruptcy, occasionally Google Docs and MicroSoft Office

PDF creation: AdobeAcrobat that came with my Fujitsu ScanSnap

Timekeeping & billing: Flat fee, so timekeeping and billing aren't critical.

Bookkeeping / accounting: QuickBooks

Backup: Carbonite and TapeBackUp  (We use DropBox, but for transferring large files, not backup.)


Project Management:  I looked at BaseCamp and decided not to use it.  I had been using TimeMatters for project management.  My practice is mostly consumer bankruptcy work, so there is a uniformity to each case that lends itself to templates and repetition.  I've found that I can use Google Wave for my case management within my office.  It allows for collaboration with my staff and all anyone needs is a web bro

Google Wave Templates

I was a little bit slow on the uptake in figuring out how to make templates in Google Wave and a simple process took me almost two months to figure out.

Simple process, but you can only use one blip for your template.

1.  Create the template in a new wave.
2.  Select the participants in the template.

3.  Put in the necessary tags (more on tags later, but they are critical to project and case management).

4.  Save it in a Template folder.
5.  Select the dropdown menu in the upper right corner of the blip -- Copy Message to a New Wave

6.  The template is copied into a new wave, ready for use.

As I've been using Google Wave in my office it has become clear that the most effective method for case management has been to set up a separate wave for each case.  I'll discuss that more in later posts.