Advocate's Studio

You manage your law firm with high tech tools, why not your family? If you already subscribe to the thought that high tech means high efficiency, then you might be interested in this calendar-based white board / web tool for family management called HatchedIt. What caught my eye was this blurb at the top of the About Us page:

According to Salary.com the job of family CEO should pay $134,121.00 per year.   It is an executive-level position that entails managing multiple schedules within tight budgetary constraints, while staying focused on the emotional and physical needs of others.

I’ll buy that. Anyway, it’s primarily a calendar app, but it is also more than that. Along with the calendar, you get an address book, a tool for sharing family news, a notebook tool and even a household blog. The idea is that HatchedIt can serve as your personal Sharepoint +  a place to keep important information vital to the whole family, as well as a hub for the social sharing we are all familiar with in our more mainstream web dealings. While your immediate family- connected group may be small, HatchedIt allows you to connect with a larger group of HatchedIt users via permissions. Use email from the app to communicate with non-HatchedIt individuals. You can set up personal news and blog feeds, and easily share interesting content within the app to your family. Guess I won’t need to email my son with cool YouTube videos anymore. No more complaining that you didn’t know about that dinner date on the calendar – HatchedIt lets you share the information in one space with personal log-ins and passwords for members. View all or individual calendars. Group chat with other members, share select information with members, sitters, grandparents, or parents of your kid’s best friends. Send event invitations. Use it for organizing private family events to organizing class parents at schools, hobby groups, and volunteer efforts. Privacy controls let you share as much or as little as you want.  That is a lot of organization, all for free.

You can access this web app from any computer, as well as via free mobile apps for iOS and Android. It goes where you go.

These days, I primarily turn to Google’s suite of applications to handle my co-calendaring and personal home management. But there is something to be said for an application that is dedicated to the family. Well thought out and executed, Kirstin Bischoff and Megan Brown.

Total Attorneys is a web-based (read: cloud-based) law practice management program. Essentially, TA provides the means for clients to retain your services, make payments, upload documents and complete forms online, while you and your colleagues can access complete case files at any time from any location with a secure Internet connection. Manage your practice, track time, send bills, manage documents and communicate with clients, all from a centralized Web location. They even offer virtual receptionist services from their Chicago location. Sounds pretty cool, right?

It gets cooler. TA has now implemented an App store for its platform, called Total Apps, unveiling the wonder at the ABA Tech show going on in Chicago as we speak. The first apps out of the box include:

• Fastcase, for legal research

• Capital Payments, for payment processing

• LegalEase, for attorney and paralegal contract support services

• Legal Web Experts, for website creation and marketing

• Virtual Receptionist, for fielding calls

• LawQA, to showcase expertise

• Google Sync, to keep Contacts, Calendars and Tasks in line

• IfByPhone, to reach out to leads that have contacted you

• LegalLeads, TA’s own lead generation service

Plus, TA has an iPhone and iPad app to enable access to the platform while on the go. The timetracking feature on the mobile apps is ultra simple to use, making it quite easy to accurately keep time. Plus you can easily access the various tasks within the platform and, I presume in the near future, the apps via the mobile interface as well.

TA is making its API available to developers in the hopes that third parties will pick up and run with the store and integrate more functionality into the platform. I think this is a forward-thinking means of managing legal practice in a way  our rapidly mobilized society can understand – with app-based, tool-oriented deployable solutions. Nice work, guys.

More on the visual front. I am a big fan of the new wave of visually-inspired resume builders. ResumUP is a new player in this field with a very easy, detailed resume creation tool built on Facebook and LinkedIn. The tool is in beta, but from my view point, works just fine. The resume piece offers great depth in editing professional and educational experience, achievements and career focus, as well as boxes for pycho-social elements to fill out your character profile. The result is quite gorgeous, full of charts, detail and color.

But ResumUP doesn’t stop at your background. You can also make your job searching intentions known on the site, and employers can search and post “visual vacancies.”  The job postings mirror the visual style of the resumes, with corresponding charts and graphics for job description, experience levels, necessary skills, benefits and compensation. Check out some of the sample postings here.

Of course, there is a social piece. You can take advantage of a dashboard when you connect with friends on the site. Plus there are plenty of sharing tools for spreading your resume, with buttons for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. There is a message center within the app. And, you can download your resume in PDF form via the export feature.

I think the idea is quite brilliant – the Web is an experiential place. Offering a visually-appealing means to promote yourself and peruse jobs seems a natural fit for how we interact with information. If you would like a peek at how ResumUP works and looks, check out the video below. And take a few minutes to create your own graphic resume at their site.

Following my class at Solo Practice University on the changes to Google’s privacy policies and terms of service, I have found myself in a lot of conversations about web privacy generally. It pays to spend some time thinking about actions and consequences on the Web. So I thought I would discuss some tips here about staying as safe as possible in the virtual wilds of the World Wide Web.

First, consider your browser. The big three: Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Oh, and Safari too.

Chrome comes with security settings enabled by default. These protections include malware and phishing notifications – it will warn if it detects malicious content on sites you may be visiting. Chrome can be adjusted to permit or refuse cookies, Javascript, pop-ups, plug-ins, images, and location sharing. You also can manage SSL setting and certificates. When you enable SSL, Chrome will encrypt all sensitive data communications. Settings can be found by clicking the wrench in the upper right corner of the tool bar. Click on options, then “Under the hood” and find the setting you wish to tweak.

IE has a “smartscreen filter” and several security settings enabled by default. It can identify impostor web sites designed to capture sensitive data. When loading files, it will flash high warnings for risky files, but allow loading of reputable or well known files. It will also alert you of potential harm before permitting software to enter your computer. Simply click on the “Safety “button in the Internet explorer, then “SmartScreen filter” and select it.

Firefox has its Favicon in the URL bar – hover and it will give an overview of whether a site is safe or not. Click it and you will get more information such as whether passwords are saved and number of visits. Firefox also warns against Trojans and other malware. Firefox maintains a list of phony phishing sites that are updated daily. It integrates with your antivirus software. To get into your Firefox settings, click on “Tools”, then “Options,” then “Security”.

Macs are often considered to be “safe” from such unwanted intrusions. But there have been instances of Mac-borne viruses, so it is worth getting familiar with your Safari security settings. Unclick the “open safe files after downloading” box in the General settings. Go into “Preferences” then “Security” and check the “Warn when visiting a fraudulent website” checkbox Safari will then advise when you are about to visit a website that has been reported as fraudulent or distributes malware.

On any browser, look for the “lock” icon and “https” in the URL bar. This connotes that the site is secure and is using encryption to protect your information.

Another concept that comes up frequently in web browsing is anonymous browsing through the use of proxy servers. Anonymous web browsing is browsing the Web without revealing your IP address or any other personally identifiable information to the websites that you are visiting. A proxy server is a server that serves as the “middleman” between your local request for action and the response from a server somewhere else. The request can be for a file, a connection, a web page or some other Web resource residing on another server. Many people use anonymous proxy servers to mask their identity while browsing. While there certainly nefarious reasons for doing so, it is a technique that can also be used to protect your privacy and disconnect you from search history. VPN (“virtual private network”) servers also allow anonymous browsing, and are often used within the enterprise to protect against infiltration by unwanted intruders or protect against the dissemination of sensitive information.

Worried about tracking cookies? There are ways to deal with those right within your browser. In IE, go to Control Panel, Internet Options, Privacy, and either choose the slider preset that blocks third-party cookies, or go into Advanced, Override automatic cookie handling, and then check Block under ‘Third-party cookies’. In Safari, go to Edit, Preferences, Privacy, and set ‘Block cookies’ to “From third parties and advertisers.” In Firefox, click on Options, Privacy, select “Use Custom Settings for History” from the drop-down menu and uncheck “Accept third-party cookies.” In Chrome, head to Options, then “Under the Hood,” then “Content Settings” in which you will check “Block third-party cookies From Being Set.” You also can deal with these within Google’s Ad Preference manager here or on a grander scale via the Opt Out From Online Behavior tool here.

Finally, there are tools to help you boost your security level on the Web. While the browsers all have some form of “incognito” mode, Cocoon is an extension for Firefox and IE, as well as mobile version, that blocks both cookies and IP addresses by routing your page requests through their servers. It has built in virus scanning tools and provides a disposable email address creator, keeping the spam out of your mail email inbox, as well as a handy “notes” feature – jot down notes on any web page and view them from your history. Very nice.

To access your browser’s incognito mode, do the following. In IE 9, InPrivate Browsing can be found with a Ctrl-Shift-P, Chrome’s Incognito Mode can be accessed with a Ctrl-Shift-N, Firefox’s Private Browsing mode is set with Ctrl-Shift-P, and Safari can too, with Private Browsing selectable from the Edit menu.

Maybe you don’t like so much social in your browsing, consider Antisocial for Chrome and ShareMeNot for Firefox. These will interfere with sharing buttons across the Web, such as Facebook’s “Like” and Google’s “+1″. Whether by preventing them from loading or by keeping them from reporting back to the social juggernaut whence they spawn, these extensions prevent tracking and keep your browsing and your social separate. Of course, you can log out of your social networks when you are done with them to keep sharing activity to a minimum as well.

Finally, although it doesn’t work on every site, HTTPS Everywhere will help enable HTTPS on sites that allow for it. When the site is HTTPS enabled, this extension will activate the HTTPS connection to encrypt your communication with those websites. Available in Firefox and Chrome flavors. Brought to you by the fine folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Use as many or as few of these tips to meet your comfort level on the Web. Remember to read privacy policies and terms of service on any of the sites on which you may want to spend time. Make sure you maintain control over your own information and web experience. Because if you don’t, who will?

There are many web-based systems out there to handle time tracking for attorneys, with all levels of integration into practice management systems. But if you are a small player and are looking for a simple system, CaseFox might be an option for you.

CaseFox can track both billable and non-billable hours and expenses, monitor unbilled hours, late payments and handle trust accounting, tasks management and case notes/case tracking. CaseFox has a simple, intuitive interface that utilizes a dashboard to track your cases and billings. It integrates with Google products, such as Docs, Tasks and Gmail. This allows you to attach Google Docs to case notes and time entries, and coordinate tasks and entries in CaseFox with Google Tasks / Gmail. This is accomplished by using your Google log-in to access CaseFox. Because it employs a mobile friendly interface, you can access CaseFox on the web on your desktop, mobile, or tablet with equal ease. The app also employs a two-click invoicing mechanism that generates a mailable PDF based on your prior time entries. CaseFox will monitor billing status as well – you can access that status via the dashboard. File notes can be either public or private.

Using different permissions, contract attorneys and independent contractors can directly enter their billable time and expenses in your CaseFox account without being able to see any other data.

CaseFox uses SSL for security and critical user data in stored in the encrypted form in our databases. You can export data in PDF or Excel format.

You can try the full feature set on CaseFox for free – limited to four cases and one user. The paid plans are pretty affordable, in my opinion: $$10 / month for 25 cases, unlimited users, $25 / month for up to 50 cases, unlimited users, and $35 / month for unlimited cases, unlimited users.  Seems more than affordable.

If you are looking to start up or change an existing system, take a look at CaseFox. It might be the animal for you.