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Technology

Law Practice TODAY Roundtable: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Organized by Dan Pinnington

December 2005

Our December issue always provides a chance to look back at the year that is coming to an end and to look forward to the next. In previous years, we polled law students, then young lawyers and then more senior lawyers. This year we decided to have a little fun. We asked several of our editors and other legal technology users to talk about technology they actually use now and what they hoped to see by the end of next year. Here is what they had to say.

The Roundtable

Editor: Let’s start with the fun side of technology. What technology tool do you actually use and cannot live without?

Dan: The hard drive on my trusty Dell Latitude C400 died a slow, painful, and noisy death through the months of August and September this year.  I knew the end was near when a friend sitting next to me at a meeting leaned over and queried “Is that your hard drive making that noise?”  This Dell was one of several Dells that I have had over the years, all of which were reliable and served me well.  I have always paid a little bit more for a laptop from the Latitude line, which in my experience, are more reliable than Dell’s Inspiron line.

As I do a lot of traveling, I prefer a smallish laptop.  My last three laptops have had a 12 inch screen, and have come in under 5 pounds or so.  I really like the portability that a smallish laptop gives me, as well as the light weight.  I have all my work product and e-mails on my hard drive, so I can work on anything at any time anywhere.  I don’t fuss about getting stuck at an airport for an hour or two – I just buckle down and get some work done.

When it came time to buy a new laptop, I agonized at the decision, as I always do.  The equivalent new Dell was even lighter than my existing one.  However, I had played with a few HP tablets at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago in the spring, and found myself quite intrigued by this prospect.

Ultimately, I ended up purchasing a HP TC4200 tablet, which has a 12 inch screen, and was only slightly heavier than my previous Dell.   Now, anyone who has seen my handwriting will know that I did not buy the tablet for its hand-written text conversion, though I must admit, it does amazingly well with my chicken scratch.  I may try to improve my handwriting to make use of this ability – you can actually do searches for occurrences of specified text strings within hand-written notes – amazing!

Several friends of mine have played with my tablet, and those that had neat and consistent handwriting got their scribbles converted to text with almost no errors.  Three of my friends actually went out and bought their own tablets after playing with my machine – and one uses it to take notes in court.  Two or three others are seriously considering about doing the same.

I do enjoy using the tablet functionality in a number of different ways.  I often download my messages in the morning, and spend time on the subway ride into work quickly reviewing my messages, and killing the spam that has come in (and got through our filter).  The ability to stand or sit and easily hold the tablet and drag and drop messages with the stylus lets me very quickly kill the spam messages and wade through my other messages in what is otherwise relatively dead time for me.  I also find myself reading PDFs.   Again, the tablet form factor makes this easy to do (I wouldn’t do it with a regular laptop). 

I also enjoy mindlessly surfing the web at night using the tablet interface.  And I want to tell you that you can play a wicked game of solitaire on a tablet, at least 10 times faster than you could ever do it with a standard mouse.

John: Kingsley Martin was the first person I know to use a tablet pc and actually rave about it. I tried his and just don’t get it. Maybe you have to have one to understand. . .

But I can say “Amen” to Dan’s point about small laptops. I have lived in a laptop since 1990 when I bought a used Compaq “lunchbox.” It weighed about 14 pounds and had a removable keyboard.

In the years that followed, I owned a succession of models with increasingly big screens. Then I took a step back. I bought a Dell Latitude X300 with a 12 inch screen. It weights around 5 pounds.

I will never go back. Finally I have a computer I can open in coach—even on a regional jet. I do my share of flying and need to be able to use my computer. Try opening that glorious 15 inch laptop while sitting in coach with somebody leaning all the way back. You might as well pull out your yellow pad.

The screen is more than adequate for writing, surfing the Web or doing product demos. When I get to the office, I dock the notebook and use the dual screen feature that comes standard with Dell. My desktop setup is a 17 inch flat screen with the notebook monitor used as the second screen. Dual screen allows me to monitor e-mail while I work on the main screen.

Don’t’ let anyone buy you another big screen (heavy) monster. Trade it in for the smallest and lightest notebook you can find.

Dennis: Light and small, I agree. I've moved to an HP 1100 TC Tablet PC in the past year. I use it both as a slate-style Tablet PC and with the keyboard, making it a small and light notebook. As I've written elsewhere, it's changed the way I think about computing more fundamentally than anything else has in the last several years. I'm thinking of data input in new ways. Sometimes typing is the right vehicle, sometimes electronic ink, sometimes handwriting recognition, sometimes speech recognition, and sometimes document assembly or macros.

The Tablet PC is also great for travel, except that sometimes people want you to demo it for them. I had a medium-sized notebook and went on three flights in a row where I could not get the notebook open enough because of the seat in front of me to be able to use the computer comfortably.

More than ever, I think that the notebook or Tablet PC is the computer of choice for lawyers. It's odd that IT departments at a number of law firms are trying to force lawyers back to using desktop computers and Blackberries.

I'll also note that I heard from Dan several times during his hard drive difficulties. I've noticed that one side benefit of using a notebook or Tablet PC is that it helps you keep regular backups in mind, especially when you written something really important while away from the office and you realize that it is only on the hard drive of your notebook or Tablet PC.

Sheri: I travel at least twice a month for business and maybe four times a year for fun. Either way, my Sony Vaio is always packed into my carryon bag. It’s extremely light, only 4.3 pounds with a 13.3 inch widescreen display with XBRITE technology. XBRITE technology offers higher brightness levels than standard screens. Plus, the battery lasts for more than four hours. However, what makes my travels unforgettable in a good way is the Samsonite tote bag I use to transport my laptop.

The last thing this bag looks like it is carrying is a laptop computer. Because the bag is so light, it doesn’t add extra weight. It is well equipped with pockets just the right size for easy retrieval of my Palm Treo, USB stick, license, tickets and keys. Yet, the storage of my laptop in a middle padded section with a simple snap over the top offers the greatest advantage over any bag on the market.  I can glide through security without missing a beat and pull the laptop out easily while sitting in coach.

The other item I cannot live without is my USB Flash Drive. It has become invaluable for transferring large documents, photos, files, anything really, from my computer at work to my computer at home. It has even allowed me to leave my laptop at work and simply carry the USB Flash Drive with me when I am co-presenting at a symposium or educational session. It is small enough to carry in my pocket and is inexpensive.

Jim: I've been enjoying several time-saving utilities this year. Desktop search has changed my professional life. I love being able to quickly and reliably search through thousands of saved e-mails or every document on a network drive. I currently use X-1, but there are several products in this category. Anagram is an inexpensive utilitity that allows you to copy all of a person's contact information from their signature block on a document or e-mail into an Outlook Contact entry. I don't know about all of you, but before I had this utiltity, most of my contacts contained only names and e-mail addresses, and with my Treo, I needed phone numbers and more. I don't have the patience or the eye for detailed digital photo retouching so I love Google's free Picasa. Now I just crop the photo and hit Picasa's "I'm feeling lucky" button for instant retouching and a better result than I would accomplish on my own. I also find new uses for Adobe Acrobat 7.0 practically every week.

Wendy:  I finally bought a laptop, and I also replaced my desktop this year.  But being the non-technology person here, I bought a Dell Inspiron 6000 – a large, heavy, big screen laptop.  I don’t travel extensively for business, and after having carried a very heavy camera bag for many years – having an ultra light laptop really isn’t that important to me.   I agree with John that it wouldn’t be my ideal plane machine – but it’s my home computer and I love being able to sit somewhere comfortable and get work done.  Dan kindly changed a couple of settings on it for me to make it more user friendly, and was kind enough not to make any comments about it being big and bulky.

Tom:  I need a new laptop.  Don't get me wrong, my Dell Latitude D600 works for me just fine -- I'd just like something a little faster, a little more powerful.  The size of the laptop is not particularly important to me; I don't want a large notebook, but I can live without a small one, too.  And although I agree with Dan and Dennis that tablets are extremely cool, I just can't see myself using one.

Douglas:  I also made the switch to a tablet this year, a Toshiba R10.  It has the 14.1" screen and it is a convertible, meaning that I can use it as a regular laptop or swivel the screen around and write on it like a notepad.  I was probably in the "lukewarm" camp and got a unit to test out prior to purchasing.  One airline trip and I was hooked - the ability to sit in a cramped regional jet and scroll through my email and compose handwritten responses saved quite a bit of time.  Interestingly enough, my clients found these little handwritten notes more personal and I received a lot of positive feedback.  Like Dan, I also find myself reading more PDF documents while traveling and contract review is now completely digital - I scan the document to PDF, mark it up with the digital pen, and email the draft back with my notes.  Quick, simple and an efficient use of my time and my assistant's time. 

And the tablet pc must live in something - and anything from Booq is the coolest and nicest way to store your laptop and gear.

Editor: How about something more fun than a laptop? What technology can’t you live without?

John: My iPod is the one thing I couldn’t live without. Even if I can’t open my notebook on the plane, I can always listen to my iPod.

My wife got me an iPod for Christmas two years ago. I put it in a drawer and ignored it for more than a year. Actually I watched my kids use theirs. It didn’t dawn on me for the longest time why I might like it.

Then I discovered shuffle. Shuffle is the setting that allows me to play songs at random I can shuffle the whole thing or I can shuffle a play list. Shuffle is really the reason to have an iPod.

When I was younger, I believed in the sanctity of the album (for those of you who go back that far). The artist put a series of songs together in a specific order and it was our duty to listen to it just that way. Sgt. Pepper’s was the quintessential concept album and it would have been sacrilegious to shuffle it.

Today either the CDs aren’t that good or I have lost my religion. I loaded up my iPod with every CD I own and even bought a few from Apple. Now I shuffle. I never play the whole album through, I just listen to the songs at random.

It is like having my own radio station. It gets better the more I load. I have the Bose iPod speaker unit at home and another one at the office. I just carry the iPod in my briefcase and plug it in when I arrive. Then I hit the remote.

For 25 years I worked in silence. I never thought to put on a CD because it would be too distracting. With shuffle, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It plays in the background while I work away. Occasionally I zone in, like to a hot tune by the Radiators, and then I get back into my work. I enjoy work more and don’t think I am losing anything in the balance.

iPod. I am hoping to get the new 60 gig video version for this Christmas. You can have my 30 gig one.

Dennis: I agree with the iPod, especially in this new era of podcasting. I resisted the iPod for a while, but it just makes so much sense for travel, especially on crowded planes. You can't appreciate this until you have it, but it's very cool (and useful) to carry your entire CD collection with you after you rip it to an iPod. Sampling the world of podcasts allows you to listen to some very specific content, including seminar presentations from some of the best thinkers and speakers in the world.

Dan: An iPod has been on the wish list for quite awhile. I have unsuccessfully entered into dozens of draws at various trade shows to win one. Again, like other technology purchases I make, I find myself distressed by the fact that there are new models coming out every three weeks or so that have new features or hold more songs. It is hard to go out grab one when you know a bigger and better option will be out just around the corner. Perhaps this will be the next big tech purchase (or will be under the tree – I have dropped hints to the appropriate people).

Jim: Ditto on the iPod. Simply put, it brought music back into my life.

Tom:  Gee, I guess I have to fall in line behind the other iPod lovers.  I just got the 60GB video iPod, and it's amazing -- the quality of video is surprisingly good, and the battery life is much longer (15-20 hours for music) than my old clunker 3G iPod (3 hours).  The only complaint I have is that the front of the iPod scratches easily;  so if you're thinking of buying one, make sure you get an appropriate protective covering for it.

To get away from this slavish devotion to the iPod, I'll also say that I cannot live without my XM Satellite Radio.  To be able to listen to any kind of music whenever I want, without commercial interruption, is pretty fantastic.

Wendy:   I really hate to admit this – because it’s like going back to the dark ages – but I love my Sony headphone radio.  I am a National Public Radio junky, and while the rest of you are listening to tunes on your iPod, I’m listening to news and in depth programming.  I know that you could be listening to it on your iPod too, but you’re probably listening to music, and it appears that John’s old iPod is already spoken for.  It’s great for walking the dog or framing artwork in the basement.  I couldn’t live without it.  There are people in my neighborhood who think I have an antenna growing out of my left ear.

Douglas:  While I love my iPod, it plays second fiddle to my earphones.  I can't live without my Shure E3c   sound isolating earphones.  They are a bit pricey, but I liken it to an investment in my mental well being.  Unlike the Bose sound canceling set, the Shure's fit deep down in my ear canal and block out most of the background noise.  Since they are not electrically driven, I can put them on as soon as I sit down in an airplane and never take them out until we hit the gate at the other end of the flight.  I can plug them into my iPod and jam away or I can simply sit there and zone out - blissfully unaware of the screaming kid or airplane engine rumble.

Sheri: I’ll chime in and say that my iPod tops my list of favorite electronic toys, but what I really love is iTunes. I can download all of my favorite songs and even learn about new ones. The fee of $.99 per song is very reasonable. Plus, even my technology challenged husband can create playlists and download songs without my assistance.

Editor: What about wireless? Are you a believer or do the security concerns scare you away?

Dennis: We've reached a tipping point on wireless. I'm surprised these days when I can't find a free WiFi access point or have to pay for wireless Internet access. That's a huge change from even a year ago. I'm started to take ubiquitous wireless access almost for granted these days. It's part of my computing experience.

I'll probably find myself in agreement with what John says on wireless security. Let's face it, most people talk about security concerns but really don't do anything. Is using wireless fully secure? No, but what is? There are three to five simple, basic steps you can and should take when using WiFi that will allow to be reasonably secure when using wireless. I take those steps and figure that the bad guys will go after the easy targets - other people using no or lax security efforts rather than fuss with me. As I said, the basic security precautions are straight-forward. You can always use encryption too.

Dan: Despite all the security concerns of using wireless, I started using it at home last year and used it much more extensively this year.  It is great to have the ability to wander around the house and find a quiet spot to work, either in the day, or more often in the evening.   Of course, I have done all those things that one should do to turn on the security on my router.

Sheri: My life has changed since our IT person gave me the Sierra Wireless AirCard 580 from Sprint. Just today, I was sitting on the plane waiting for the other passengers to board when I was able to whip out my laptop and connect to the Internet. I downloaded a few of the articles I needed to edit for this issue of Law Practice TODAY and saved them to my desktop so that I could edit during my flight to Washington DC. Using the AirCard 580 means I no longer need to search for a Hot Spot. Anywhere there is cellular access, I can connect to the Internet.  In terms of security, we’ve set up the necessary precautions to ensure I am working in a safe environment.

John: Security be damned, I live for wireless. We have a wireless setup at home with no encryption and the ssid on broadcast. The kids use it, I use it, my wife uses it. We have three different wireless access points to cover the whole house.

Granted, we live in the country and don’t have any neighbors nearby. But the convenience of wireless is just too compelling. I fire up my notebook and work anywhere I like. It might be on the back porch in the summer, on the kitchen table, in the TV room, or upstairs in my office. Even when there is a Cat 5 cable handy, I go wireless.

On the road, there is no alternative. I choose hotels based on wireless access. In a jam, I head to a Starbucks. I have spent days working at a Starbucks combining high-speed connectivity with Grande Chais (not a coffee drinker). Wireless makes it happen.

I do turn on personal firewall, which can limit access to my computer. Also, we access mail and other accounts over SSL which means the open transmission is encrypted. But otherwise, put me down for wireless anytime.

Jim: You have to have wireless capability at home. Give it to yourself this Christmas if you don't! (Well, I guess you do need a laptop for it to make sense.) It will be interesting to see how the wireless services Sheri discusses on the mobile phone networks revolutionize things once again as they gain acceptance. Right now some are deterred by the higher monthly price. But just imagine, for example, a trial lawyer who spends many days at the counsel table in court having the ability to do a quick Google search when the other side's expert witness says something unexpected, to send a quick e-mail to the staff back at the office about something that just happened during trial or to just check e-mail during a break.

Tom:  I agree with John -- I love wireless, and I generally go without encryption at home.  That said, I don't leave my wireless connection on all the time; just for a few hours each night that I'm using it.  I do turn off the SSID broadcast, whatever that's worth.  I am coming to rely on wireless technology more often on the road, and ponying up $10 at the airport is worth it, if it means I can get things done during the hour I'm waiting on a plane.

Wendy:  Wireless is great by me.  That access is part of what made me finally get a laptop.  I look for hot spots in various cities throughout the country and certainly plan to use the information for travel.  I think it is becoming a significant differentiator between hotels to stay in and venues for coffee or relaxation.  It’s a huge value added.  I do choose to do my on-line banking at the office on what I believe to be a more secure connection than my home access.

Douglas:  If it doesn't have wireless availability, I don't visit.  Whether it is a coffee shop, hotel or airline traveler's club - if there isn't some type of access; it isn't going to get my business.   When I say availability, it can be an Ethernet connection - I have traveled the past couple of years with a travel router which isn't much bigger than a deck of cards.  It resides permanently in my carry-on luggage and I can connect it to any Ethernet cable, fire it up and have instant wireless access.  Combined with my tablet pc, I can work and surf while lounging in any hotel bed - rather, than sitting hunch over chained to an Ethernet cable sitting on the room's tiny desk.

Editor: What about mobile technology? What are you using and what would you like to be using?

John: I am on my second Treo and I both love them and hate them. I love the fact that I can get e-mail on the road from a Taxi or the airport (without having to pay a $10 fee for traditional wireless). But I hate the fact that the e-mail often times out and I have to keep trying. I don’t know if the problem stems from the Treo, our e-mail service or bad cell connections. I just know I am frustrated.

The phone frustrates me too. The keyboard is too small to do much on e-mail and the phone is larger than I would like. It also drops calls seemingly at random. Many times I press to dial a call and then put the phone up to my ear. After a period of silence, I realize the phone has for some reason decided not to dial. I then have to redial the call. Frustrating.

I saw notice of a lawsuit against Treo claiming a series of problems some of which I have experienced. Maybe the new Windows version will be better but I will wait to see how it goes. I have started thinking about alternatives. I love combining mail, calendar and contacts onto a single device but am not sure Treo has nailed all of the features yet. But it is a start.

Dennis: As most of you know, I hate cell phones – poor reception, spotty service, difficult to use. They are a necessary evil. But, I really don't like them. I get the easiest to use one I can. I'd never invest in a Treo or other expensive cell phone device.

With my Tablet PC and WiFi access, I really have the mobile tools I want. I moved away from using any kind of PDA. I've been using a review Blackberry unit to test a time-keeping service recently and that's given me a new view of the Blackberry. I'm more positive about them after using one for a few weeks, but only if you travel or are out of the office a lot. I'd still rather have the full tool set of a Tablet PC and WiFi.

Sheri: I find myself equally enthused and frustrated with my Treo 650. If you are someone who hates to waste even a minute of your day, you’ll enjoy the ability to keep in constant contact with colleagues and clients through its connection to your e-mail account. The phone function, on the other hand, is a lot less desirable. In fact, I purchased a small Motorola phone that offers excellent cellular service because I found my calls were often dropped on my Treo.

Jim: I recently got a new Treo 650, my first Treo, and am glad to see that the others have the same love-hate relationship with it. I, too, regularly experience the "just decided not to place the call" feature. Like so many users, I found the volume inadequate and was forced to purchase a third party utility, VolumeCare, just to be able to hear when there was external noise. But I think the PDA-phone combo is important for lawyers. There's nothing like carrying your entire personal phone directory with you at all times and I've snapped a few pictures with the Treo of my son at events that I wouldn't have otherwise now have.

Dan:  My tech toys budget is certainly not what I would like it to be, but if it was somewhat larger, I certainly would be rather inclined to go out now and get a Treo given they now have the Windows operating system. Not sure whether I would find it truly useful, but it would be fun to have. Right now I find the combination of a simple cell phone along with my rather portable laptop works fine for me. I prefer to have a decent sized screen when I work on content, or surf the web – I not at all inclined to surf on a cell phone or PDA. If I need to phone someone, I have the basic cell phone. Most of what I do is not that urgent or important for me to require a Blackberry or another form of instant 7/24 e-mail access.

Tom:  I too am a Treo user, but I'm still using the 600.  I want to upgrade, but I think I'll wait until the 700p comes out (hopefully) early next year -- I don't want a Windows-based smartphone, because the data plans are too expensive.  I don't find I have the same phone problems that John and Sheri have -- for me, the phone works pretty well, for the most part.  But even if I were having phone problems, the ability to check e-mail and surf the Web would make it all worth it for me.

Wendy:  I have no mobile technology other than my laptop (which you just can’t hold up to your ear) and it’s rarely a problem.  This has been a conscious choice.  Perhaps it’s my home town, but I would say that 50% of the calls I receive from mobile phones either are of poor quality or get lost altogether, so I'm with Dennis here.  I am very uncomfortable with people talking on the phone in the car, and that’s probably where I would want to use the phone.  I think that people are having a harder and harder time being “where they are”.  If I have company in my home or a client in my office I would never answer the phone while they were there unless it was an emergency or something that had been scheduled.   So I haven’t figured out a reason yet that I should have mobile technology, although I will admit it’s getting more difficult in public places, and airports to find a phone if you need one.   I try and think of technology as something that serves my needs and the needs of my clients.  I haven’t had any trouble communicating in a timely way with my clients without mobile technology, and have often found the quality of the service to be poor and often annoying.

Douglas:  I have avoided as long as possible owning a Treo or Blackberry.  Today, in fact, I received a Blackberry to demo and I still don't like the idea of being constantly connected and connectable.  My favorite piece of mobile technology: my car.  If I need to travel somewhere within a 300 mile or so radius of my home - I am driving.  Airline travel is abysmal and the service is becoming a race to the lowest common denominator.  When I am in my car, I can listen to some tunes on my iPod, think about what I want to accomplish and smile at people who pass me by in a rush.

Editor: How about VoIP? Is this the year it starts making real inroads?

Dennis: I talked recently with a consultant who told me that some law firms have found that, when moving offices, it was cheaper to put in VOIP at the new location than it would be just to move the phone and PBX equipment from the old location.

I've had experiences at the extreme ends of VOIP this year. First, I saw Christian Na of Mitel give a presentation on their enterprise VOIP system. Wow! I was reminded of Arthur C. Clark's much quoted statement "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It's amazing what you can do when voice becomes just one component of the electronic data stream over which you have control through your computer.

I've also experimented with the free Skype and GoogleTalk VOIP services. They work very well and it certainly saves me on calls to Dan Pinnington in Canada.

I would agree that VOIP will bubble up toward the top of the agenda for many law firms in the coming year. The economics alone make it worth considering. The one negative I've heard comes from large firm lawyers who have noticed that there can be a minor delay when the call first connects, so that either party might miss a few words. That's a minor inconvenience to me compared to the horrors we've all grown to live with in cellular service these days.

John:  This is squarely on my radar screen. Our CTO switched to VOIP (Vonage) at home and really loves the service. He has a cable modem and so had plenty of bandwidth to support VOIP. The setup was apparently a snap.

He now gets free long distance in his base monthly fee. He can pick up calls from any Internet connection, forward calls via the Web and track calls through the service. Sound quality is not an issue and we talk often at night. If I were a traditional phone company I would be worried.

I really look forward to seeing it in the office. Calls can go right to e-mail or be picked up from home or on the road. The problem for me and I bet a lot of you is this. We already have a phone system in the office and it isn’t broken. Until it breaks, or we outgrow it, it will be hard to justify the switch. How can VOIP be cost effective if I have to buy a bunch of new equipment? It may be years before we get it in the office but I am thinking about switching our home service this year.

Dan:  I started playing with Google Talk about a month ago. I am using it without a headset – just using the internal microphone and speaker works fine.  It is great to be able to sit in the living room at night and call up friends all over the world and chat for free.

Jim: For individual users and early adaptors, it's a great concept and I plan on signing up with Google Talk in the next few weeks. But I would add a recent cautionary tale of a conference call I was recently on where one of the participants was using VoIP. His voice was so muddy and hard to hear that it was very frustrating for the rest of us. I don't want to think about the reaction of a really good client to getting that type of call from their lawyer. I am told that it was probably an issue of insufficient bandwidth from his Internet service provider and not the VoIP provider. I still think this represents the future and I wouldn't have the family fortune invested in the securities of traditional phone companies.

Douglas:  We are using a VoIP with our virtual satellite office right now and the quality has always been very high - granted it is with one of the paid services rather than Skype or Google.  One of the more intriguing aspects of VoIP is the ability to have a phone number "anywhere" - you can sign up for any area code and have multiple numbers in multiple area codes.  I think we will soon see a lot of solos and small firms with multiple offices throughout the country -- raising interesting questions regarding whether they are "advertising" in those locations.

Tom:  You know, I'm not all that excited about VoIP.  I have tried Skype and Google talk, and I think the quality is great for the service being provided.  But when I have the need to talk to Dennis, I'm still going to call him on a regular landline (or cell) rather than Skype him.

Editor: Anything else on the horizon?

Dan: I haven’t played with voice recognition for many years.  From what I am told, the latest and greatest versions are really improved.  While you won’t get absolutely perfect text with loads of fancy formatting, you can get 95-98 percent accuracy. This is more than adequate for internal e-mails, notes to yourself, and first drafts of documents. I am thinking it is time to revisit VR, and hope to get to it this year.

Looking forward to next year, the other big technology project I think I might undertake would be a blog. I just need more time….

John: I may start a blog this year as well. In some respects, Law Practice TODAY is our blog with a lot of smart writers contributing to its content. The difference is that a personal blog might be fun. And who knows. We might get famous like Dennis.

Dennis: Ah, but fame is a fleeting thing. Blogs are fun and the network of bloggers is the greatest network in the world. I still describe my blog as an "experiment in writing" and blogging as a "writers' medium," but I'm very interested in how the newer generation of blogs targeted specifically for marketing work out. I agree that John and Dan should be blogging - they'd be great.

John and I talk every year about whether things like web services, .Net, AJAX and Web 2.0 are really on the horizon for law firms. It seems like every year we reluctantly decide the answer is "not yet," even though John goes ahead and implements some of these things. I think that we'll see some penetration of the so-called Web 2.0 apps – light-weight, simple, free Internet applications. An example is the collaborative writing tool call Writely that we experimented with when putting this article together.

I think RSS and news aggregation will become much more ubiquitous in the coming year. It'll be built into the new version of Windows, so I feel pretty safe in making this prediction. I'm also very interested in the glimpses I've seen of the upcoming new version of Microsoft Office. Also, keeping in the Microsoft vein, the combination of Tablet PCs and Microsoft OneNote seems like such a natural for lawyers that I'll be surprised if that combination doesn't become more commonplace. Most lawyers can expect a fight from their IT departments on that one, though. And that's unfortunate.

Jim: I've really enjoyed posting to my blog this year. But blogging is not for everyone. You have to be willing to "give away" a lot of your valuable insight and information to the entire online world. But for me in the non-profit world, it is a great way to better serve our "wired" members, while at the same time helping other lawyers across the globe. We'll continue to see tens of thousands of new blogs hit the web each week, with many of the best being written by lawyers.

Tom and Dennis first got me thinking about the power of RSS news feeds. Our state Supreme Court now has a choice of RSS feeds for every appellate decision published. As the other courts and state agencies get on board, this will be a great resource for lawyers. Imagine being able to subscribe to an agency's RSS feed and get the updated rules and regs, the decisions from hearings, the dockets, the announcements and press releases - even a notice when inclimate weather forces an early closing. If you practice before an agency, start lobbying them to set up an RSS newsfeed now.

The mega-trend here is the ability for all of us to publish our views and information to the world at little cost. Blogs let everyone become a columnist. RSS lets everyone be a syndicated columnist. Web pages let us all be publishers. Electronic mailing lists and online communities let us all assemble unpaid teams of experts and consultants. Services like Flickr let us publish and distribute high quality photo albums. Podcasting is like our own radio show. Tagging lets us be a reference librarian for others. Sounds like even more information overload in the future, doesn't it?

Tom:  I really can't add anything here; Dennis is the futurist of this group.  I, like Dennis, think Web 2.0 applications will be huge in near future -- this new technology will allow Web users to navigate and retrieve information more efficiently.  And I agree that while RSS will continue to become an incredibly powerful information delivery system, it will become more and more a part of the "plumbing" of the Internet.   The best part of all of the technologies mentioned, as Jim indicates, is that they enable anyone to have a voice on the Internet.  It's a really exciting time.

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