How do you actually do e-discovery?

You'll find no shortage of sites highlighting the latest case in which an attorney or client was sanctioned for failing to handle e-discovery correctly. But how do you actually go through the steps of producing and dealing with electronic information in discovery? I recently presented a step-by-step approach with electronic discovery expert and consultant Mandi Ross at the ISBA Solo and Small Firm conference. Here is a link to view the PowerPoint slides from that presentation. It includes a summary of some of the key cases in the evolution of e-discovery law and a step-by-step process for how to think about e-discovery. Of course, a big disclaimer: this is not legal advice, just an interesting presentation.

Get Free Internet at Federal Court

The Northern District of Illinois announced that it is offering free wireless Internet access at the courthouse, available in the lobby and on the second floor cafeteria. For those who don't know, it is at 219 S. Dearborn Street in Chicago. I have visited the cafeteria, which is fairly impressive and a nice place to camp out. To use it, turn on your wireless card (some are always on), for Windows computers right-click on the little wireless access icon in the system tray (the lower right-hand side of the screen), select View available wireless networks, and select the WIZ network. It is unsecured and requires no password, so be aware it's like any other public wireless access, with all attendant risks.

Also, note this is the Federal Court building, so to use you must either sit in the cavernous lobby or go through security. And I suspect there are some security measures behind the scenes to monitor use.

Great how-to program for lawyers

The Illinois Bar's 2007 Solo & Small Firm Conference had tremendously useful tips for lawyers in firms of all sizes. Along with Nerino Petro, I co-chaired the technology track and spoke at several events. Here are some preliminary highlights. I will be filling in details shortly.

E-discovery:

• Top cases on ediscovery summarized--how we got here
• The practical problem: how do you meet your burdens without bankrupting both parties?
• Practical tips for using the new rules to greatly reduce the discovery burden

Virtual IT department:

• Using several remote access tools to manage your computer remotely (Dave Yavitz)
• Practical tips from an IT guy who gets the business side on how to simplify (John Ahlberg)
• Ethical concerns of using remote services--better read that privacy agreement (Judge Bob Moss)

Vista v. Mac v. Linux shootout:

• Vista: more stable than XP, a little better design, 3d-party software not ready yet
• Mac: great, slick, but expensive. Some software won't run on it, but very little
• Linux: example, Zonbu PC. Cheap, does what you need, no IT hassles

PowerPoint

• How-to tips (text callouts, diagramming, timelines, etc.) to be posted soon (some already below)
  
• Detox your slides--no clutter, abandon bullets where possible, use plain backgrounds.
• Use the evidence in PowerPoint, not characterizations
• Increase throughput by using summaries, like timelines
• Think strategically. Ask what the goal is and let that drive the presentation

60 tips/gizmos and gadgets -- too many: will add my favorites soon

Several other presentations I saw, all good. Will be adding them too.

I'll continue to revise this post somewhat over the next few days.

30 Dirty Tricks for Acrobat

This post by Rick Borstein has a link to a PDF with 30 Adobe Acrobat tricks for lawyers. There are a number of useful ones I like. Among them are

• using the pencil tool as a highlighter,
• reducing PDF file sizes with the optimizer (good for efiling),
• capturing parts of web pages to convert to PDF (good for evidence),
  
• searching across directories,
  
• indexing a directory for faster searches,
• embedding a search index in a PDF document,
• more efficiently converting TIFFs (discovery image docs) to PDFs,
  
• and converting DWGs (AutoCAD docs you get from engineers) to PDF

Tip: Send Big Files

Email systems block big files from being transferred. To send one anyway, use a service like yousendit, sendthisfile, or dropsend. Yousendit is run by a former Adobe Systems Inc. executive and funded by well-known venture capital firms, according to the WSJ, so it may be more trustworthy than others.

Free 366-page TechnoLawyer book

TechnoLawyer posted a book with some excellent articles from the various legal blogs ("blawgs" as the natives refer to them before hacking your computer to steal your favorites list). Just download it. The link is here. It is nicely formatted and easy to read on a computer screen.

PowerPoint technical how-to tips for lawyers

Today I am speaking on an ABA teleconference about how to use PowerPoint to persuade a judge or jury. The teleconference covers the high-level approach to arguing using PowerPoint. But for technical information, teleconferences aren't great. So here are technical, how-to tips for the do-it-yourself lawyer.

1. Dark background with fade at bottom

Dark-background slides look more professional for a trial, making the screen less of a focus than a light-background screen. A slightly nicer version is a dark background that fades to light just a little at the bottom.

To make it, start with a blank presentation. Then click on Format -> Background and use the drop-down arrow to get color choices. I usually pick More Colors so I can get a dark blue.


Then click on the same drop-down arrow, select Fill Effects, and click the Gradient tab, and click on the version of the gradient that is lighter on the bottom.


Then click Apply to all and you're done.

2. Put a picture of a document on a slide

Showing a document on screen is easy. Scan the document to PDF and open it in Acrobat. Then (in Acrobat 8) click Tools -> Select & Zoom -> Snapshot tool to get the graphics selector. You can drag it to select an area or click somewhere on the side of the document to select the whole page.


Do that. Then go to PowerPoint and on the blank slide paste the image (Ctrl-V). Drag the corners to expand or shrink it until it looks right. Hold the Ctrl key down to shrink or expand the document symmetrically.

3. Create a build from one slide to the next

If you are going to build on a slide, in the slide sorter (the sequence of slides on the left of PowerPoint) click on the slide you want to duplicate and hit Ctrl-D. A duplicate should appear below it.

4. Blow up part of a document.

Go back to Acrobat, zoom in so the document is bigger. Then use the same graphics select tool mentioned in point 2. But this time select the paragraph you want. Acrobat will copy that portion. Then flip to PowerPoint and paste it over the document you pasted there earlier. Because Acrobat was showing the document blown up, the part you just copy will be bigger. Drag to resize. Also, select the box you just pasted, right-click and select Format picture, click on the Color and lines tab, and select a line color like black. It should not say None in that box. That will draw a line around your box to make it stand out from the background.

4. Underline key words and phrases

Now you have a blow up of a key paragraph. Click on a slide and hit Ctrl-D in slide sorter to duplicate that slide with the blow up. Use the line tool (click on the button for it on the bottom of PowerPoint 2003) and drag on the bottom of the sentence you want to underline from where you want to start to where you want to end. That will draw a thin, black line underneath the sentence. While that line is still selected (when you draw it, it is), click on the other tools to first increase its size and then change its color to red. I've circled those three tools (draw line, line color, and line width) below.


5. Quote text

Text is easy to quote. Insert a text box and start typing. Change the font to larger and as needed for appearance. For transcripts, I like Courier New font. For cases, I like Times New Roman. The use of different fonts helps identify context to the viewer grasps what is happening more quickly.

As you can tell from my style, I believe simple slides are the best. Don't use headings and bullet points, if you can help it. These basic tips will cover most of the tasks you want to handle in PowerPoint for presentations.

A $99 PC?

The Zonbu is a small box that costs $99 plus a $13-per-month subscription for automatically updating all software and automatically synchronizing files with a secure online site. The computer runs Linux, but it works like Windows and has a host of useful software compatible with Microsoft Office. It comes with an email and calendar program (Evolution); the OpenOffice.org word processor, spreadsheet, presenter; a drawing program; and a database program. There is plenty more.

Reviews have been mixed. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal compared it price-wise to a Dell and concluded it wasn't a better deal. He also noted that you can't install your own software, the Linux software is rougher than the Windows software, and it was slow to perform some tasks. But others seem to like it. A Gizmodo article gives it a full rundown.

I liked it for its potential. A few of these could outfit a small office (or even big one) for very little money. With all that software loaded and updated automatically, along with a far smaller risk of viruses, this computer could eliminate many difficulties ordinary, non-techie, lawyers face in dealing with an office of complicated, difficult-to-maintain PCs. The software automatically backs up your files. So they are safe--in fact, they are all synched, so you can get them on any computer connected to the Internet. And Zonbu promises that files are secure--they are encrypted at your PC so you can feel confident that even Zonbu can't get at them if it wants to.

It lacks networking, but I expect at some point the company will see the benefit of selling many machines to an office, and even so there are other ways to accomplish that. There are plenty of other sites that handle shared files. Watch this device. If it adds a few features, it could be an alternative to a standard office suite.

It was 10 years ago today

Almost. There are those of us who grew up with the Internet, back in the days of teletype machines in the 1970s, and saw the web emerge as we studied to do something other than become Internet millionaires.

"This world wide web thing is really cool. No one will ever use it, though. Back to editing this article."

- Idiot Todd from somewhere in 1992-93.

My early conception of a blog was something like an online magazine. You can see all of the crazy ideas from back then helpfully archived at the archive. Type a domain into the search box and see what comes up. You'll notice it doesn't always get images or all of the pages.

As you can see from my early view of this medium, which was up before the term "blog" came into use, I thought subjected-oriented sites (not personal diaries) would be more like magazines with long articles.

Of course that was wrong--it's more efficient to write short pieces quickly and easily.

But there is one thing that blogs don't handle well: organized, topical lists. Look at the Tech 101 link on the left-hand size of that early blog. Why would anyone want to be limited to random news? Sometimes people want to find things. So I tried to do both.

Of course, I got too busy and abandoned the domain name to the first taker, which is an Australian firearms dealer. I won't link to avoid furthering the sale of firearms, but it's at toddf.com if you care.

Solo & Small Firm 2007

One of the best resources for solo, small-firm, and entrepreneurial lawyers is the Illinois State Bar Association's annual Solo & Small Firm conference. It is September 6-8, 2007 at the Pheasant Run resort in St. Charles, Illinois.

I am co-chairing the technology track, called 21st Century Law. The topics this year are excellent, with a very practical focus. I will be speaking at several events:

• E-discovery: practical tips
• To Vista or Not? Comparing Vista to Mac OSX and Linux
• PowerPoint: How to Win Using PowerPoint
• 60 Tips in 60 Minutes
• Technology Roundtable

The conference has limited admission (only a couple of hundred people), so register as soon as possible if you want to go.

Buying technology

Few business owners really have the resources to make truly smart technology purchases. Lawyers, my ilk, for example, fail to both properly consider the costs of software and get full value from what they buy. Buying technology also involves more than simply paying cash out of pocket. The cost of a new piece of software may seem small, until you consider what it stops you from doing or how much time it requires.

When you buy technology, here are some guidelines for making a decision. Following these can save you time and money.

1. Figure out what problem you need solved.

For example, you may say "we need to stop formatting our documents with every brief we write." Lawyers write briefs, which are memoranda to judges, explaining their arguments. Briefs start with a caption, a block of text identifying the parties and case, followed by a title and then argument. The argument usually has several outline-point headings to make it easier to read.

Formatting takes time and labor. There must be some computer program that can reduce that time. To identify the problem, you need to be specific. "I need to format automatically" is not enough. How about this: "I need to automatically insert a caption, automatically create outline points formatted the way I want, and automatically make my paragraphs indented on the first line and double-spaced." That's better. It's not complete. Ask your colleagues what else you want/need.

2. Find tools that do what you want.

This seems hard, but it's not as bad as you think, assuming you've done step one. Ask your friends what they use, do a Google search, and start making a list. Then, put a grid together.

3. Do CBA--cost/benefit analysis.

Compare all benefits and all costs. Benefits are those the solutions to the problems you identify plus other benefits the software brings. Costs are not only dollars out of pocket, but collateral damage too.

This latter point is often not well understood. Take, for example, our office's document management program. It intercepts requests for opening and saving doccuments, forcing whomever is doing the saving to enter additional data (client number, full title, document type, author) and allowing whomever is opening to search those fields or by full text.

That's helpful.

But it also interferes with any other way of storing documents, does not allow us to tie into it using other software, and will not work on any operating system but Windows. Those are costs.

With the need-to-format example above, I might get something like this:
One option: Microsoft Word
+ Allows auto formatting (~ $30,000 per year labor)
+ Ensures consistency in editing
- Requires training
- Staff resistance
- $300 per seat ($15,000 per year)
- Saves in its own format, so we're stuck with it

Over all, it looks like a winner. So I'll buy it.

If you take these three steps, you'll make better buying decisions.