Time-saving technology tips for busy lawyers

Technology offers countless ways to enhance efficiency—but only if the technology is understood and used well. During a recent continuing legal education program, “Managing Technology Overload,” sponsored by the Section of Litigation and Center for CLE, experts offered tips on using some of the technology lawyers encounter every day to improve efficiency and serve clients better.

Outlook is the most popular e-mail client, but many users don’t use its helpful features, beyond reading and sending messages. Kim Jessum of Stradley Ronan Stevens & Young, LLP demonstrated how to turn messages into meetings by dragging e-mails to the calendaring function in Outlook. When the calendar input box appears to create the appointment, there are several useful options: invite others to a meeting, color code an appointment and mark an appointment "private," among them.

The color coding system allows the user to quickly size up his or her day. For example, one color may mean a high-level appointment or a day in court, indicating a day in which the user needs to wear a suit to work. The private option can shield an appointment—for example, a doctor's appointment—from colleagues or an assistant.

Among other Calendar tips, Jessum suggested users set the reminder feature so they won’t forget important meetings.

Regarding Outlook e-mail, Jessum offered several pointers on organizing messages, including setting rules so messages from particular people end up in a certain folder, sorting e-mail, grouping e-mail within a folder and renaming the subject lines of e-mails so they can be located easily when needed.

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Of specific interest to lawyers, panel experts advised using a metadata scrubber to remove hidden information in e-mail that may be privileged or work-product protected, and suggested Metadata Assistant, Doc Scrubber and Workshare Protect.

Those interested in removing metadata from PDFs can use Adobe Acrobat Standard to identify such hidden information. Panelist Gregory Shelton of Williams Kastner also introduced how to use the software’s voice-enabled “read out loud” feature and how to cut and copy text from PDFs.

In other time-saving technology tips, panelist Ed Poll of LawBiz Management in Venice, Calif., discussed how busy lawyers can use the Internet for networking. He mentioned a few of the current and upcoming major sites including LinkedIn, Facebook (a more social alternative to LinkedIn’s business focus) and Plaxo.

While online marketing or networking may have a start-up learning curve and require maintenance, it is far-reaching, as opposed to on-site networking, which has the costs and time associated with it, as well as geographic limitations.

In addition to Jessum, Shelton and Poll, the session included Janice Mitrius of Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.; Bonin Bough of Interactive, Social & Emerging Media; Mark Lyon of Ringer & Simmons; Alfred A. Malena Jr. of Thompson, Slagle & Hannan; Ann Morris of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; and Quincy Harley Jr. of Kirkland & Ellis.

A copy of all the pointers discussed in this article may be found here.  

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