Entries Tagged 'Agile Law Firms' ↓

We use a hosted Exchange server and hosted Sharepoint to run our office. It is vastly superior to owning our own server. Cheaper, too.

However, the Jasager project has me antsy. Right now I am sitting in the Starbucks at the corner of Lake and California in Pasadena. I’m only logging in where https:// is allowed. So Gmail (yes), Google Reader (no), etc. Bank, no.

Short summary of Jasager: dead simple method of playing the MITM game, with me as the person NOT in the middle. Username/password pairs sniffed, etc.

T-Mobile wifi, FWIW. But I have the free “drink a coffee get 2 hours free wifi on ATT” deal as well.

The vendor we use for hosted Exchange does not allow login via https. So I’m not logging into Sharepoint. I’m not firing up Entourage (an execrable program all by itself).

Defenses are limited. See this article.

I’m thinking of getting an EVDO card to protect against this. The EVDO card will also plug into a wifi router at the office to give all of us internet backup if/when the big pipe fails.

Question.

(1) Are there any hosted Exchange providers that give security above the generic plain old insecure http:// login?

(2) Who else feels hinky when they’re on the road with wifi blazing?

My Twitter equipment review of the Sony ICD-UX70.  I bought it because my antique Olympus DS-330 wouldn’t mount as a USB drive on my MacBook.  I’m sorry I spent the money on the Sony.  The Sony’s sole saving grace:  it is red.

Since this is one of the things we are wrestling with right now, here is a link to a recent Law21 post on lawyers and saving electronic documents in the “client file” (wow what a Dickensian anachronism that sounds like).

This is for insiders only (meaning people who care about arcana like this).  FWIW we’re aiming at paperless and the effort needed to do so it magnificent in its hugeness.  For those of you on the paperless office kick the best tool we have at the moment is Worldox.

For all of you records management people, document management mavens, knowledge management gurus, and others, I need some help and offer in return to share what’s going on here.

Our office is fast approaching paperless office status.

We are dealing with a large pile of old, dead files.  We are doing that by moving them from paper to PDF.  The question is how do we get rid of the paper once it is scanned?

I see two problems:

• Ethics. The State Bar of California has rules about client files and who owns them (the client) and what rights the client has to the files.  Obviously these rules need to be followed.
• Evidence. The rules of evidence apply to what we’re doing.  Scanned images of documents aren’t the documents.  The hearsay rule applies.  In the case where something from our files is needed to be introduced as evidence in court, we need to be sure that it will work.

I am not a trial lawyer and my last exposure to Evidence was in the bar exam review course.  I am not a legal ethics wizard so I don’t know what the State Bar of California says.  But I need to answer both of these questions in order to go paperless.

I’m figuring there are a ton of lawyers out there just like me.  Let’s help each other.

Here is my procedure for how to make the “shred or return paper file?” decision.

It is in a PBWiki page.  I don’t know how to make a PBWiki page public AND allow you to comment on that page.  Please look at the procedures there and make your comments here, or email me with your comments at phil at hodgen ddoott com.  Emailed comments will be shared with everyone.

Yeah you can talk back on Twitter too - @philiphodgen.

Thanks!

Update:  Here is my file scanning procedure public wiki page.  Again, it is in PBWiki and I don’t know how to make it publicly viewable and keep the comments available.  When I make the page visible on the web and choose “locked” as status it closes the comments.  I’m still learning to speak PBWiki.

The way file things is an anachronism inherited from the dim past. I know exactly why I use it, who told me about it (he’s long dead, and I wonder who told HIM!).

The firm uses 4 digits identifying the customer, followed by three digits identifying the matter.  This system was established a zillion years ago by caveman law firms to make paper filing systems simple.  It was preferable to an alphabetical system.  It was also better for the antique accounting systems dating back to paper days.

It occurred to me this week that one of the reasons it is hard to move us into the paperless and virtual law office world is because I am lugging this 1234-123 numbering system with me — business practices that are someone else’s baggage from 1954.

A far better solution would be to use the concept of a trouble ticket or issue tracker, such as is used for software development or customer service.

A matter comes into the office, we need a unique identifier for it of course.  But in this day of databases and Googly indexing and all of that, the rigid hierarchical method of numbering and categorization of matters isn’t needed so much.

What is REALLY needed is project management.  I have thought for a long time that managing a project like a trouble ticket at my ISP would be really wonderful.  All of the communications would be tied to that “ticket” and so would all of the documents.  Status would be easy to track.  And when the project is finished the ticket is closed and I have an instant archive. The process IS the file.