Law Practice Today

Ever need to run through a document with a colleague or need to explain how to set up a program or find a file on their computer? Don’t you wish you could hop on their desktop and speed up the process? One of the simplest web-based tools to use, Glance, lets you share your screen in real time and allows you to give control of your desktop to someone else who is accessing it remotely.

Glance has been around for several years, but it has greatly improved since its infancy and deserves another look as an everyday business management tool. In comparison with many web conferencing products that are on the market, both free and professional versions, Glance is more practical for quick set up and use on both PCs and Macs. The software should not be used to share confidential attorney/client information, but is instead best intended for use as a web-based method of communication for the members of a law practice.

There are a variety of uses for the application that may arise during the average course of a work week. Glance’s screen sharing may be used to train and work remotely with legal assistants and office managers. Colleagues within a law practice may want to use the application to quickly communicate with others without having to talk it out over the phone. A colleague might use Glance to allow another attorney to access one of the programs or files on the office system remotely when web-based access to those systems is not available. If the law practice has an IT professional that provides consultation on a regular basis, using Glance could save the time and expensive of having the IT person physically come into the office or try to explain what needs to be handled over the phone.

The setup of the application is simple. The software is downloaded from the Glance site and installed on your system. It places a little square letter G icon in the corner of your screen. When you want to start a session all you do it right click on the icon and select start a session. You then create a session code which can be anything you want and the session starts. An email with a link into the session may be sent out to guests. They will enter the access code you entered to view your screen. Once you have created a session, you may give the guests control over your desktop and easily take the control back by moving your mouse. Because the product focuses on simply desktop sharing rather than adding other features, there is very little delay if any between what you show on your screen and what your guests see.

Web conferences do not have to be scheduled in advance which makes the program really easy to pull up and use on the fly, such as during a phone conversation where your colleague is just not getting it and needs to be shown the steps in real time. You can use the same session code each time you use the program and email the link and information to your guests ahead of time if you want to set up a scheduled conference time. The free audio conferencing that comes with the product provides you with both a host and guest access code with the standard phone conferencing options. When you email your guests the link to enter the session you may also email them the instructions for calling into the conference line.

Some of the disadvantages of Glance are that it lacks what other larger web conferencing tools have that might be useful for an attorney, such as recording the session, added security, online chat, and webcams. That said, these missing features really are not needed for how this software is best used as a business tool. For example, I have tried to use Adobe Connect Pro for small conferences, but as far as being able to use the application quickly, it really requires more setup time and a separate phone conferencing service. The security features with Glance are not as tight as with Webex or Adobe Connect Pro, but for simple desktop sharing without communicating sensitive attorney/client data, it’s an affordable tool more intended for everyday use.

From a security standpoint, Glance is about as secure as emailing an attachment to a colleague. The company’s servers do not store the information you share on the screen, they just route it to your guest so there is never an archived file of your session stored somewhere. The company even admits in their documentation that a sophisticated hacker could intercept the web session to also view your screen, but it would be more difficult for a hacker to do this than for them to intercept your web browsing in general.

The price for the application is a reasonable $49.95 a month for one user license with a seven day free trial period. If your law practice needs web conferencing for confidential matters requiring added security, then you may want to consider a more comprehensive (and costly) web conferencing software than Glance. However, for the price, Glance is an easy business management tool that can come in handy for the solo practitioner working with a virtual assistant as well as a larger, traditional law practice. From training legal assistants and communicating with them remotely to basic collaborating online with colleagues, Glance is worth a second…glance.