Estate Planning

Moving into a Virtual World - Getting Tech Savvy

By Hull and Hull LLP

Moving towards being more technologically inclined appears to be a theme that isn't only of interest to me.  I can't imagine a world where a computer wasn't available to make last minute changes to a factum or where every letter I sent required several days of ‘snail mail' to arrive.  That said, the touch screens of the Starship Enterprise were science fiction only several decades ago, and now the IPhone has made such technology common.  The world is changing rapidly at a pace almost impossible to keep up with, and any advice to stay up to date, and which benefits my practice, is appreciated.

I was recently flipping through both 'Briefly Speaking' and the 'National' and each featured a different article on how to advance your practice with the use of gadgets.   The National had recently discussed the use of Smartphones, but took the opportunity this month to deal with Blackberries and the new applications available help make your legal practice run smoothly.  Blacktrack was the app that I found most useful, as it aims to help you docket the time spent on client emails by recording the amount of time, and the name of the recipients and subject line in a handy chart format which can be easily used to docket time spent while on the go.  Although I can best see the usefulness of this application, all 10 for legal practitioners certainly have their niche uses.

Briefly Speaking took a slightly more broad approach to the use of technology in legal practice and discussed the TECHSHOW hosted by the American Bar Association every year in Chicago.   The show hosted many visitors from all areas of the legal profession with a focus this year on social network marketing and smart phones.  The show hosts sessions where the presenters are not vendors, but legal professionals who are particularly interested in technological solutions for everyday practice, which makes the information accessible and surely not too biased.  April 2011 celebrates the 25^th consecutive ABA TECHSHOW and although only a year away, I'm sure there will be many new and useful technological advancements to hear about. 

Until Tomorrow,

Nadia

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on June 01, 2010 (boomark / email).