Law-Firm-in-a-Box (or "How to Tame the Paper Monster")

Last millennium, we tamed the paper monster - jammed a bridle between its gnarly jaws and rode him into submission like a rented pony.

We installed PerfectLaw - an "All-In-One" solution that encompasses everything from Time & Billing to General Ledger to Accounts Payable / Receivable to Docketing to Contact Management to Conflict Checks to Document Management and beyond. I like to think of PerfectLaw as "Law Firm in a Box". And rightfully so.

What differentiates PerfectLaw from any other solution out there is that it does everything (and does it well). You enter client / matter information once and it is available across all libraries. Whether you are profiling a document, entering time, submitting an expense, scanning a document or generating a management report, the user interface is easy to learn and consistent throughout the suite.

And PerfectLaw is notable for what it doesn't do: because all of the varying components share a single SQL database, there are no synchronization problems. No delay problems. No corruption problems. No room for vendors to play the finger pointing game and blame another vendor when compatibility issues arise. It all just simply works. And works well.

Before you go out and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on Elite, ProLaw, Interwoven, Hummingbird, Time-Slips or any other legal software - take a good long look at PerfectLaw. They make everyone else look like rank amateurs.

Camtasia Studio: Cool Tool for Training Videos

The lowest common denominator for every IT Manager is to keep the network up and humming along. Once that fundamental mission is accomplished - only then can you tip toe into the technological trifecta that distinguishes you from a mere techie: identifying, implementing and advertising solutions that allow your attorneys to more effectively represent their clients. Once initial training for a rollout is completed, the "advertising" component is too often relegated to a screenshot ladened memo or email entitled, "How To ..." That approach does a disservice to the time and effort you expended in indentifying and implementing the solution in the first place. Camtasia Studio places the advertising component on the front burner where it belongs, by allowing you quickly, easily and inexpensively create universally accessible training videos for your employees.

Camtasia Studio captures everything on your screen - from mouse movements to typing - and records your voice in the process. We use Camtasia to create short 3-5 minute training videos and make them available on the firm's Intranet. There are always questions that are hitting the help desk - and when the same questions arise repeatedly - they are prime candidates for Camstudio. Whether the question is about creating a table of authorities, changing styles in Word, running Easy Bates, tethering a Blackberry for use as a modem, whatever ... Camtasia allows you to create a video of the steps and save the resulting file in WMV, AVI, Flash, Quicktime, RealMedia, EXE, MP3 and even iPod format. Save the file to a network share, drop a link on the Intranet and you've brought advertising to a whole new level.

Camtasia Studio is available for $299 for an individual license - or $1,195 for a 5 pack. A fully functional 30 day trial version is available HERE. When you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on major rollouts, another couple hundred dollars is a small price to pay for ensuring the solutions you've efectively implemented are being effectively used.

The Bungled Jungle: The Perfect Gift for Computer Geeks

Every once in a blue moon, you come across something so uniquely ridiculous, you just can't get it out of your mind.

Perusing through an art festival, I recently stumbled upon a traveling display hosted by "The Bungled Jungle" - an art gallery based out of Salida, Colorado. The Bungled Jungle is best described as the marriage of "Where the Wild Things Are" to artists with too much time and creativity on their hands.

One particular display that left me chuckling was a gutted out shell of a computer monitor containing a handful of "Computer Viruses" - each virus meandering around inside the display's lighted shell. Viruses of differing shapes, sizes and colors - each clutching a piece of RAM or fragment of motherboard.

Perils and Pitfalls of Merger Negotiations

A decade and a half ago, I stood in the crowded main conference room of Maryland third largest law firm. Earlier that Monday morning, driving into work, NPR blared on my radio the news that the partners of the firm had convened an unheard of Sunday shareholders' meeting - and voted to dissolve the 140 year old firm.

In cemeteries throughout Maryland, the skeletal remains of attorneys long gone rolled over in their graves.

It would take days before I realized how much orchestration, how much conniving, how many smoky back room deals must have been cut over the preceding months, and how much backstabbing must have occurred in order for that vote to have even taken place. And to have the news broadcast throughout the greater metropolitan DC area less than 12 hours after the vote - with only a Sunday night intervening? Well, that just defines the breadth and depth of the planning.

Standing in that conference room, the office's managing partner assured us that - as an office - we had merge into the firm just two years earlier as a whole - and we would simply merge ourselves into another firm as a whole. No one left behind. Take us as a whole or not at all. Noble words - but demonstrative of the dangerously naive business sense most attorneys carry with them.

The core group of rainmakers began negotiating with other mega-firms in the area. Their noble words turned to empty deeds when the negotiating committee cut a deal for themselves only - leaving everyone else in the lurch. It all comes down to self preservation - and when forced to make a decision at the negotiating table between saving themselves or holding out more a more inclusive deal, the rainmakers justify their survival-of-the-fittest Darwinian decision by convincing themselves that they have already taken care of their employees by providing years of prior work - and that it's simply time for them to leave the nest and fly away.

I was one of 5 who helped dissolve and liquidate the firm - and 'twas not a pretty sight. A lot of butt-hurt people whose years of loyalty to the rainmakers bought them nothing but COBRA rights.

Now, it's deja vu all over again. My existing firm is in merger negotiations - and even before it begins in earnest, the Darwinian mentality is seeping through - despite the reminiscent speech to the masses that we will only merge if we can bring the whole firm along.

Riiiiggggghhhhht.

Security - and How One Young Marine Brought a Battalion to Its Knees

The Marine Corps tests the readiness of its infantry units before they are are permitted to deploy around the globe. Typically, the test measures the unit's ability to locate, close with and destroy a smaller, counter-insurgency sized force. The ratio is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 aggressors against a battalion of 1500 Marines. The aggressors are selected from a separate unit - which takes pride in inflicting mock casualties on the unit being tested.

On the one occasion I was selected to be an aggressor, we actually came to "blows" in combat town - a good old fashioned bared knuckled brawl in the middle of a combat town. During the same exercise, I hit a tank turret with an M-203 grenade (spewing dayglow orange dye instead of white phosphorous). The tank commander whipped his M-1 Abrams straight towards us - plowing down saplings to reach us - and, but for the speed of our Humvee - I'm certain we would have come to blows with them as well. The point is - both sides took their roles VERY seriously.

There is a Marine Corps legend of a young PFC (Private First Class) who was selected to be a member of the aggressing unit. On his own initiative, the young PFC spent the weekend prior to the exercise rummaging through the battalion's dipsy dumpster. As a member of the aggressing unit, he was able to walk away with map overlays, memos, radio frequencies, call signs, every aspect of the battalion's battle plan for the upcoming test. When the exercise began - it was a slaughter. The command and control of the battalion was neutralized almost immediately. The counter insurgency unit used the radios, frequencies and call signs to wreak utter havoc on what remained of the battalion - having one company launch mock mortars against another company in the same battalion. Masterful.

It was possible because one young, ambitious Marine recognized that one man's trash is another man's treasure. He walked away with another stripe on his sleeve.

How far do you think an unscrupulous attorney might go to win millions for his client? How safe is your trash? How safe is your network? How loyal are your employees?

Don't think espionage happens in law firms? One day, a battalion of Marines never thought they could be brought to their knees by a young PFC and his trash bag.

The Speed of Beauracracy

Spent a few hours this afernoon at a LexisNexis Law Firm Leaders' Roundtable hosted at the offices of Miller & Chevalier a block or so from the White House. The topic on the table was Lexis' Managed Network Services offering - with presentations / Q & A sessions with two firms who have partially implemented the offering (Dinsmore Shohl & Bryan Cave).

Guiding the discussion was Lorin Keuhner - a Legal Technology Specialist with Lexis' Total Practice Solutions group - and was interesting not so much for the particular offering (it was pitched to us a year ago and we choked on the price tag), but more as a reminder of the layers upon layers of beuracracy that some IT directors and managers must endure. Technology committees. Steering committees. Fincancing. Hardware / software / service / infrastructure / telophony vendor macro pow-wows ... sitting around talking about 2 year implemetations. It makes me just wanna poke myself in the eye with a sharp pencil. How do these guys manage to implement technology before it becomes obsolete.

In my perfect world, I knock on the Manging Partner's door and give him the full blown presentation. This is the problem, this is the cure, these are the treatment options, these are the consequences of failure act, this is the ROI, this is the time frame for implementation, here are the alternatives. Sometimes I'll get the thumbs up on the spot - othertimes a week later after it passes through the Admin Committee. 2 year implementation? Firm's have incorporated and dissolved in less time than that.

Atomic Wedgies and the Finders, Binders, Minders & Grinders

A salty old Marine-turned-Legal-Administrator once taught me (among many other things) that there are four types of attorneys: Finders, Binders, Minders & Grinders. Easy to remember - and spot on. But those monikers go to the individual role of each attorney within a firm - not to the core of their character.

Over a few frosty beers at the infamous Vienna Inn, I caught up with that fellow former Jarhead - and hashed out a theory that had been lingering in the recesses of my mind for quite some time.

There is a particular breed of attorney who craves chaos. It's what butters their bread. When no chaos exists, they create chaos out of thin air - and they do it at others' expense. They seek their pound of flesh for past transgressions - real or imagined - direct or indirect. It matters not - the impact is the same. It is the revenge of the nerds.

For the moment, we'll pull a Madame Tussauds and form a wax model for analysis. Call him Atomic Wedgie, Esq. Here's his backgrounder: In elementary school, he played well enough with others - but slagged behind developmentally as he entered jr. high. He's the boy who received the most Atomic Wedgies in the locker room, was always picked last (or not at all) for kickball. Girls laughed at him, boys tripped him in the hallway. High school provided no refuge. His escape was Dungeons and Dragons. His first "date" was halfway through college with a fat girl - who he ended up marrying.

Somewhere along the way, he decides that becoming a lawyer would empower him. So chase the J.D., does he. The early years of law firm life are marked by peer conflict. He doesn't play well with others...stabs backs...but does work hard. After 7 years, he finds his personal holy grail - partnership - and the bare knuckles come out. It's payback time. Every pretty associate gets lured in, verbally seduced into looking up to him and then utterly, totally, eventually, verbally thrashed. Every jock-type clerk or associate is kicked to the curb with complaints. And when Atomic Wedgie, Esq. screws up - there is always someone else to blame.

True story: Back in my days of paralegalling, I sat in Atomic Wedgie, Esq.'s office as he "held court" - running through endless theories of how to respond to a new complaint against his newfound client - one of the mega home improvement store chains. Next to me sat a beautiful blonde associate. Smokin' hot. Halfway through the meeting, she queries: Mr. Atomic Wedgie, Esq. - shouldn't we file a motion to dismiss?

His knee jerk reaction is to shoot her idea down as emanating from the succulent lips of a luscious blonde. Wrote it down, did I: "No way - that would be a waste of the client's money."

A month later, the client calls, demanding to know why the hell we didn't file a motion to dismiss. Atomic Wedgie responds that, "damned - I asked my associate to take care of that! Heads will roll."

A law school friend calls the beautiful associate. The friend is working in the legal department of the mega home improvement store and asks her if everything is ok - how she could have possibly screwed up. That the blame was being laid at her feet.

Two weeks later, she was fired.

I asked her why she didn't protest - assign the blame where it rightfully belonged? Her response? "Who wants to work for a firm that would make a jerk like that partner?!"

Spot on. There's a lesson for managing partners everywhere.

Download Microsoft Exchange 2007 beta 2

Microsoft has released Exchange Server 2007 Beta 2 for download. The new version of Exchange has built in Anti-spam and Anti-virus and takes the legal community a few steps closer to unified messaging - with delivery of faxes and voicemail to the user's mailbox. Microsoft has also incorporated some 3rd party ideas as well - such as inbox access from telephones.

We've downloaded Exchange 2007 Beta 2 and will be testing it over the next few weeks. Check back for the unfiltered analysis.

The Pivotal Power of Pie

The moment is burned into my memory.

Plaintiff's attorney sat shell-shocked at counsels' table - tears streaming down her middle aged face. Late on this Friday, with the verdict decreed, the federal judge had already shuffled back to his chambers ... and the jury had rapidly followed suit - departing the courthouse to begin their weekend and resume their lives. Even the plaintiff had made his exodus from the courtroom he had called home during the 3 week trial. All that remained were a handful of lawyers packing up their litigation bags - and the tears of a heretofore undefeated trial attorney. Occasionally, out of the corner of your eye, you would see her body convulse slightly - as she muffled back the sobs. Her record was ruined. Technology was to blame.

The plaintiff was an aircraft mechanic -working for a Fortune 50 aerospace company (our client). He filed suit claiming a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"). A plethora of health problems had reduced his lung capacity by 50% and the chemicals and respirators he was required to use in the performance of his job served only to aggravate his condition. His job was to refurbish aircraft parts (typically hydraulic components), and that meant the parts had to first be dismantled and thoroughly cleaned with powerful chemicals - then ground smooth and polished. When the individual components were back in tip-top shape, he would then reassemble the product in a "clean room" - which was over pressurized to keep even the dust out.

When his lung condition worsened, the plaintiff invoked his rights under the ADA and requested that he be allowed to spend more time in the clean room - and less time around the methylethylbadshit chemicals. The company agreed.

In his complaint, the plaintiff alleged that rather than allowing him more time in the clean room - we actually punished him for invoking his rights under the ADA - and subsequently forced him to spend even more time in the dirty areas - which, in turn, forced him to choose between his health and his job. He chose his health and resigned. It was a multi-million dollar claim - and the plaintiff's various ailments made him a very sympathetic witness.

Every time an aircraft component was reworked, the employee was required to swipe a credit card through one of a dozen different readers. He or she would then punch in a code to establish what task was being performed and which part was being reworked. When the task was finished, the employee was required to swipe the credit card to indicate the task was completed. The location of the reader established where the work was being done. This record allowed the company to bill their clients with utmost precision for the work that was being done on the aircraft parts.

During discovery, the relevant database of these "swipes" equated to 10 banker's boxes full of dot matrix printouts. For our benefit, we had the database administrator for the company export the data into csv format - and we began the arduous task of analyzing the information. Did the plaintiff really spend less time in the clean room after he complained? How did his time in the clean room compare to other employees? Those were the key questions that would make or break the case.

First we had to understand the meaning of each code and the location of each reader - then break the tasks and locations into "clean" or "dirty" categories. Using Excel pivot tables, we were able to quickly analyze the data. For the uninitiated, an Excel pivot table is one of the most powerful tools available for conducting statistical analyses. In effect, you drag and drop particular fields onto the X and Y axis of a spreadsheet and drop another field into the data portion. You can use other fields to limit the data displayed.

In this case, we placed the date field on the X-Axis and broke it into two groups 1) before the plaintiff requested more time in the clean room and 2) after his request. The names of the employees in the department were placed on the Y-Axis. Inside the matrix, we placed the sum of the hours. We could then limit the data to display just the hours that were spent in the the clean room, or in the dirty room - and compare the results of every employee in the department to see how the plaintiff stacked up - down to the number of minutes and seconds.

The results were profound - and irrefutable. Once the plaintiff requested the accommodation - he spent considerably less time in the dirty areas and substantially more time in the clean room. We walked the company's database administrator through our analysis and he confirmed both the methodology and the accuracy of our results. We asked the administrator to then independently perform the analysis - and then we prepared him to testify.

The ten banker's boxes worth of data - and the entire case - all came down to two pie charts, side by side on a huge poster board. The first showed the percentage of time that plaintiff spent in the clean and dirty rooms before his request. The second showed the same data after his request. The only option available to plaintiff's counsel was to attack the underlying data by claiming that it was wrong or that the company had altered it.

The highlight of the case came when the database administrator testified that he "owned the data." The judge put up his hand and abruptly stopped the questioning to ask the witness directly: "What do you mean, you OWN the data?" The witness responded "I own it. I am responsible for its accuracy and its authenticity. That data is used to bill our clients, including the government, for the work we do. It is my job to ensure that the data is 100% accurate.”

At that moment, the plaintiff lost the case - and counsel lost her record of undefeated trials.

The Ultimate Big Brother Program for Network Audits

Every once in a while, I sit straight up in my chair and think aloud "HOLY SH*T - THAT'S COOL!" It doesn't happen very often - but when it does, the reaction is involuntarily audible. The last time it happened was when I discovered the usefulness of a program called AIDA32 for auditing the firm's networked workstations.

AIDA32 is a small program, with a small network footprint that accomplishes some BIG auditing tasks. Triggered by a command line in your login script, AIDA32 will quickly scour (and I mean SCOUR) each workstation whenever a user logs onto your network. Each login generates a csv report containing a level of detail that is, quite honestly, beyond frightening (read the whole list, slowly):

Computer name, user name, operating system (including service pack), logon domain, motherboard name and chipset, memory, bios type, comm ports, video adapter(s), monitor(s), audio adapter, disk drive(s), optical drives, keyboard, mouse, ip address, MAC address, network adapter, modem, printer drivers, usb devices, cpu type, original clock speed, physical memory free / used, swap space, OS installation date, OS ID, OS Key, computer uptime, database drivers, monitor manufacture week and year, monitor serial number, physical drive partition type & size, date DHCP lease was obtained (and is set to expire), MTU, connection speed, the name and version of EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE INSTALLED, all processes and services, whether Windows Update is turned on and when the updates are scheduled to install, all Microsoft fixes, and the name of the anti virus software and dat versions installed.

And, believe it or not, that's the scaled back report - 500 lines on average - dumped into a csv file and named based on the user id, computer name, and date / time of login. I forgo the feature that allows me to capture the user's entire internet browsing history and cookies (seriously). I created two separate network shares - one to hold the exe and one for the reports - assigning different rights to each share. The AUDIT share allows users to read and execute and that's where I store the executable and the parameters for the report to be generated. The AUDITREPORTS share allows users to write and list the contents of the directory, but not to open or read the reports - that way they can't snoop through anyone else's reports. A professional User Guide is also available.

You can configure the program to run every time the user logs in - or at whatever other interval you might prefer. The program runs silently and users are, therefore, not even aware of the process. You can, if you choose, load the program as a TSR on each workstation - allowing you to query the computer at any time. When a user reports a problem with their computer, the AIDA32 report logs are my first stop in diagnosing the problem.

A very cool program named Excel Compare allows us to generate a report of the differences between two Excel (or csv) files. Thus, we start with the problematic workstation's most recent report and compare it against the next most recent report from the same workstation. Excel Compare generates the report in about 3 seconds - and pinpoints what changed on the workstation. Those differences are the prime suspects in determining what caused the problem. Sometimes, the issues trace to a new software update - or some ridiculous program the user saw fit to install themselves so they could insert smiley faces in their corporate email.

Did I mention that AIDA32 is free?

Tracking Web Stats on the Cheap with StatCounter

Ever wonder who's perusing your web site? Who's looking at your bio? Where they're coming from? How long they're staying? What browser they're using? What operating system they're using? www.StatCounter.com can answer all of those questions, and more - for free. Set up a "project", install some code into your page - then have reports emailed to you. The free version tracks the last 100 hits. Who knows? You might be a victim of StatCounting by just reading this article.

Printing to PDF on the Cheap

PDF995 is an inexpensive solution that enables users to print files directly to PDF without having to purchase the full blown version of Acrobat. The cost is $600 for 100 licenses (free for non-commercial use).

We were recently preparing a brief for electronic filing with a Federal court and Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard kept throwing off the pagination in the PDF version. Using PDF995, we were able to print and file the lengthy brief without throwing the pagination (and accompanying table of authorities) out of whack.

Free Metadata Scrubber and Redaction Tools for Word Documents

We came across two Microsoft downloads which are particularly well suited for law firms and corporate legal departments:

The first is a metadata scrubber which allows you to permanently remove hidden and collaborative data, such as track changes, comments, and summary information from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

The second is a redaction tool which allows you to quickly and permanently black out portions of Word documents.

Fixing the Microsoft Fix - SVCHOST.EXE APPLICATION ERROR 0x745f2780

We ran into a recurring problem this morning - XP Pro users were experiencing errors following an automatic Windows update. The following dialoque boxes kept popping up: "svchost.exe application error - 0x745f245" and "generic host process for win32 service has encountered a problem and needs to close".

Came across the solution in a Tek-Tips thread entitled svchost.exe & generic host process.

The first step is to ensure that the "Automatic Updates" and "Background Intelligent Transfer Service" are set to automatically run, are enabled in the hardware profile and can interact with the desktop. Thanks to rct99403 at Tek-Tips for the solution.

1. Click Start->Run, type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the open box and click OK. Double click the service "Automatic Updates".
2. Click on the Log On tab, please ensure the option "Local System account" is selected and the option "Allow service to interact with desktop" is unchecked.
3. Check if this service has been enabled on the listed Hardware Profile. If not, please click the Enable button to enable it.
4. Click on the tab "General "; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic". Then please click the button "Start" under "Service Status" to start the service.
5. Repeat the above steps with the other service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)

I dropped the remaining commands into Notepad, saved it as a batch file on the network and quickly apply the fix to any affected machines by simply executing the batch (or download a .zip file containing the batch file HERE):

REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
net stop WuAuServ
ren C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution SDold
net start WuAuServ

The Smoking Gun That Misfired

Jeffrey Archer's Honor Among Thieves weaves a mesmerizing beach-chair-paperback-tale of the forgery / theft / replacement of the Declaration of Independence. In the book, Saddam commissions the theft with intent to burn the original on the 4th of July - in front of a bank of live CNN cameras. Anyway - the only distinguishable difference between the original Declaration and the fake was that the forgery corrected misspellings present in the original Declaration.

In the middle of a recent multi-million dollar trial, opposing counsel approached us with an envelope his client claimed to have received in the mail. Inside the envelope was an anonymous note accompanying a printed email ostensibly sent from our client's VP to another executive within the company. In one neatly packaged email paragraph, all of the opposing party's defense theories were given life. Off the record, opposing counsel was substantially skeptical as to it's authenticity - but faced the possibility of a malpractice suit if he failed to use the "evidence" and subsequently lost the case.

I was asked to scour our client's Lotus Notes databases, searching for any indication that this might be a legitimate message. None found. Next, I began a forensic review of the document - scanning it in at 1200 dpi and dissecting it character by character. I discovered a number of anomalies. The most profound had to do with the confidentiality notice at the bottom of the message.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of messages contained in the Notes database, this was the only one that had double spaces following each period in the confidentiality notice. The original confidentiality notice was in HTML format - an environment in which multiple spaces are truncated down to a single space. In the "smoking gun" email printout, the periods in the confidentiality notice were always followed by two spaces. When you enlarged the text to 800%, the difference was dramatic. It became demonstrably clear that "someone" had copied a legitimate message into Word, made changes and printed the "smoking gun". What they didn't count on was Word's Auto Correct feature - which dutifully changed those single spaces to double spaces.

In the end, the fake email never saw the light of day, we won an $11 million verdict, and the opposing party put a gun to his head. Whoever said there wasn't honor among thieves?

To Catch a Thief

A number of years ago, we had several brand new Dell desktops (still in the box) disappear from a locked storage suite. Only three people had keys to that area - myself, the legal administrator, and, of course, the building's security company - Vance International.

The security guards were only authorized to enter our offices to admit and observe the cleaning crew. We had our suspicions that the guards themselves were the culprits - but no proof.

With two crisp $1 bills left on my desk and a $29 program created by Marc Schneider, Web Cam Control Center ("WCCC" for short), we were able to confirm our suspicions (see the image, above). WCCC allowed us to define portions of the web cam's field of view and continually track that area for "X" percent of change - comparing each frame against the prior frame - or against a predefined frame. Each time motion is detected, WCCC begins capturing still frames - or movie clips - and either emails those files off or sends them to an ftp server. With that level of functionality, you can receive alerts on your Blackberry, quickly review the attached image, and call the police - if appropriate - in near real time.

To Vance International's credit, they swiftly set up a sting to catch this guy in the act. To Vance's disgrace, they simply fired the guard rather than prosecuting. In the end, the firm was compensated for the cost of the missing Dells (from building management, not Vance) - and we learned the valuable lesson that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Mergers and Migrations with Robust File Copy Utility ("RoboCopy")

Microsoft didn't just hit the the nail on the head with their release of the Robust File Copy Utility (a.k.a. "RoboCopy") ... they managed to squarely smash the nail through several planks of wood using the power and simplicity of a sledgehammer.

RoboCopy is a free command line tool included with Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools which speeds the process of moving, migrating and backing up data from point A to point B. Years ago, I moved away from nightly backup tapes and into the realm of external firewire drives - with RoboCopy as the heavy lifter. Ever have to restore a single file from a backup tape? Arrrggghhh. I'd rather be sitting in an Admin Committee meeting poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick. With external drives, the process is almost pleasant.

For each volume or directory that I want to back up, I simply enter a line in notepad and then save the whole thing as a batch file. Set the task scheduler to run the batch file on an admin machine at a particular time each day and/or night - and life is good. For behemoths like the Exchange Information Store and the SQL Database, those files are first backed up to a Network Attached Storage unit - and RoboCopy pulls those copies down in the middle of the night. That way, if we ever have to restore the megafiles, we can try it first straight from the NAS rather than the slower external firewire drive (or turtle-paced tape drive).

RoboCopy compares the source and destination files - and will only copy files that have changed since the last backup to that external drive. You can even set a switch to purge files on the destination drive that no longer exist on the source. Logging to the screen or to a text file is a snap - with an option to simply list the files that would otherwise be copied or moved (a handy way to test your scripts). The flexibility is unparalleled. A pretty comprehensive list of RoboCopy commands and switches are located HERE.

A pretty typical line in my backup batch file looks like this:
"G:\toolkit\RoboCopy \\Main\data\LIBRARY\DOCS\ E:\Main\data\LIBRARY\DOCS\ /E /XF *.tmp /A-:R /R:5 /zb /purge /np /LOG:E:\MAIN_BACKUP.txt"

The system first finds the RoboCopy executable ["G:\toolkit\RoboCopy"] then tells it to look at the source where all my documents are located [\\Main\Data\LIBRARY\DOCS\] and copy them to the firewire drive [E:\Main\data\LIBRARY\DOCS\].

The switches tell RoboCopy to:

• copy all subdirectories [/E]
  
• to exclude any tmp files [/EF*.tmp]
  
• to reset any read only files [/A:R]
  
• to retry copying the file 5 times if it is in use [R:5]
  
• to use restartable mode; if access denied use Backup mode [/ZB]
  
• to purge any files on the destination that no longer exist in the source [/purge]
  
• not to display the progess [/NP]
  
• and to log the job [/LOG:E:\MAIN_BACKUP.txt]

Terrabyte sized external drives at < $1000 a pop make backing up to disk the preferred method for small to mid-sized firms. What's more, we are able to test our backups on ANY Windows XP Pro machine (in the office, in my basement, or on any other XP machine out there). Plug in the firewire, run a quick batch file to map some of the directories to mirror our network drives and we can run Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Time & Billing and Document Management in less than 3 minutes. Is it as smooth and fancy as the some of the online backup solutions? Nope - but it doesn't cost tens of thousands a year, either. I challenge any other backup solution to match the level of assurance we have that our data is safe and accessible.

And still - the usefulness of RoboCopy extends far beyond nightly backups. Whenever an attorney departs the firm, they typically seek to take all of their clients' files with them - as well as copies of any workproduct they created for other attorneys' clients. Giving them their own client files is pretty straight forward since our document management program (PerfectLaw) neatly stores all client and matter data in self contained directories.

But what about the individual files that the attorney created over a span of 10 years - for someone else's clients? Using Excel's external data function, we are able to create a quick SQL query against the document management database and pull a number of document fields directly into Excel - including the doc path, doc name, date, author, etc. Using one of my absolute favorite Excel functions (concatenate), we are able to create a RoboCopy command line for each and every file - then paste the text into Notepad, save as a batch file and fire for effect.

We once had an entire section depart the firm - and using RoboCopy, we were able to quickly dump out all of their files onto an external drive with MINIMAL effort. If the attorney was actually pleasant to you over the years, you could even do a couple concatenate and hyperlink tricks to give them a Excel spreadsheet linking to all of their documents and all contained on one neat little DVD.

In all, RoboCopy is an essential weapon within any law firm's IT arsenal. Because of its power and flexibility, you should have at least one member of your staff well versed in it's use.

Management Reports: Identifying Serial Slashers and Inefficient Timekeepers

One of the most illuminating Management Reports I've crafted over the years generates a matrix to more easily identify "Serial Slashers" and "Inefficient Timekeepers".

A Serial Slasher is a billing attorney who utilizes a wide base of timekeepers, but then cuts that time dramatically before sending the bill out to his or her clients. There are several reasons why billing attorneys become Serial Slashers - some reasons are legitimate, most are not. The end result is that firm resources are squandered by effectively rendering free legal services. Typically, a Serial Slasher will cut everyone's time ... except their own.

An Inefficient Timekeeper takes substantially more time to accomplish a given task than his or her peers. There can be several reasons for the inefficiency: inexperience, incompetence, and laziness - to name a few. Whatever the reason, the report helps identify the problem so that corrective action can be taken - and sometimes the cure has nothting to do with the timekeeper and everything to do with case managers and mentors.

The report pulls together serveral sources of information from the SQL database - relying heavily on temporary tables and "case when" statements in order to get the information into one clean report. First, all timekeeper's hours as originally entered are summed and categorized by billing attorney. Next, you conduct the same operation for hours that were actually billed out the door. Finally, you display the delta between those original hours and the billed hours and display the results in a matrix. The Billing Attorneys are on listed the X-Axis and All Timekeepers are on the Y-Axis. Drop in a variable that prompts you for a date range at runtime.

In the table above, the Serial Slasher is highlighted in red. The Inefficient Timekeeper is highlighted in blue.

Disaster Recovery You Can Use Every Day

Several years ago, we were scouting out anti-spam solutions and ended up selecting FrontBridge Technologies to help reign in the spamathon. The attraction to FrontBridge was that they had the lowest false positive rate in the industry. Since our firm has a heavy practice in labor and employment law with plenty of defense work for management in sexual harassment cases, it is not uncommon for sexually explicit references to appear in emails to and from the client. The last thing we wanted was to have legitimate emails blocked - even at the risk of having more spam make it through the filter.

Since then, FrontBridge added an anti-virus component - using three engines to search all inbound and outbound mail. The interface provides administrators with the ability to block certain attachments, limit the size of messages, block email from certain addresses and does it all before the messages get anywhere near our network. We host our own Exchange Server in house - but everything comes and goes through FrontBridge. Thus, we could open port 25 on our firewall ONLY for the IP addresses of FrontBridge's servers - rather than being open to the whole world.

FrontBridge then began offering what it dubbed as "Active Message Continuity" - which is basically a 30 day rolling archive of all email you have sent or received (external as well as internal). If our in house Exchange Server goes down, users simply log in to what amounts to an Outlook Web Access interface hosted by FrontBridge.

We thought this technology was impressively cool - and so did Microsoft - who bought FrontBridge not too long ago and added even more features - such as the ability for individual users to restore their own emails, the ability for administrators to "declare an outage" in order to test the reliability of the disaster recovery solution, and the ability to generate reports on everything from top spam recipients to detailed reports of all emails sent and received by any user.

A disaster recovery solution that doubles as an anti-spam and anti-virus blocker? A solution that can work as web mail without opening your network to unnecessary vulnerabilities? What's not to like?

Our only complaint? It would be nice if there was an integrated Blackberry Enterprise Server tied in with Active Message Continuity.

Shepard's Brief Suite is Sweet

LexisNexis finally got it right - and it only took them a decade or so. With the recent release of Shepard's Brief Suite, they have finally made the process of getting a brief out the door infinitely easier to accomplish.

We were the first firm to download and purchase the Brief Suite program. The suite contains BriefCheck, FullAuthority, StyleCheck and the cool new tool dubbed "Shepard’s Link" which locates all of the citations in your Word document and marks them as hyperlinks to the source material - and also creates a link to the Shepard's treatment for that citation.

Thankfully, the old tools finally have the bugs worked out in this release. It seemed that whenever Lexis would update its CiteCheck software, they'd take two steps forward and one step back - adding new features, but dropping off something you had come to rely upon. With the new FullAuthority, it is now easier than ever to generate a table of authorities.

I've been lobbying Lexis for well over a year to make briefs more accessible via Pacer. How cool would it be to find a case on Lexis and then simply be able to click a button in order to load a copy of the briefs that resulted in the opinion you are now reading? The technology is all there - so why hasn't it happened? It seems this is one area in which WestLaw seems to be making the greatest strides.

The Mattress Principal

If you're lucky, you spend at least 8 hours a night in bed. With 1/3 of your life on your back, buy a good mattress. The same logic applies to monitors. If you're going to stare at something all day long, spend some money, splurge and save your eyes.

The SyncMaster 214T by Samsung is, simply, the best monitor I have ever encountered. The image is crystal clear, bright and so easy on the eyes that you will never be content with even the best conventional displays. The 21 + inch screen can rotate into a portrait position for more easily scrolling though web pages, documents and virtually anything other than spreadsheets. I actually run two SyncMasters on my primary desktop computer - one in landscape and one in portrait mode.

The cost is reasonable - at just over $500 a pop if you hunt around. Our Dell rep actually beat the best deal we could find elsewhere - and even threw in free shipping. With the exception of perhaps our Blackberry rollout, I have received more positive feedback from attorneys and staff on this particular product than anything else we have deployed.

Blackberry Updates

T-Mobile has released a free Blackberry OS update for their 7290 series - which includes some minor, but pleasant improvements. Addressing emails is easier than ever since name selections now appear as you type directly in the "To:" field. There is a vastly improved calculator which doesn't require you to use the wheel - and there is also a free Instant Messaging client that allows you to IM on AOL, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo.

It is disappointing that Blackberry hasn't come up with a rich email client yet. That plain text signature is a sure fire giveaway that you're not at your desk - or (gasp!) not even in the office.

We recently applied Service Pack 3 to the Blackberry Enterprise Server - and BES Alert began taxing the server's CPU - keeping the processor in the 40-60% range. The solution, for now, was to simply turn off the BES Alert service. It reminds me of a problem we had with GroupShield for Exchange a couple years ago - where McAfee was tapping out the processor at 100% until the Exchange Server would crash.

The Perfect Martini

"Martinis are like women's breasts: One's not enough, and three's too many."

Opposing counsel in Charleston, SC as she sipped the last of her second martini following a particularly grueling trial day.

The Perfect Martini:

• Chill the shaker in the ice box for 3 minutes;
• While waiting, stab two premium queen olives on a skewer and place in a Martini glass;
• Remove the shaker and put a splash of Martini Rossi Extra Dry Vermouth in the shaker - and swirl around to coat the sides - dump out any extra vermouth from the shaker;
• Fill the shaker half full with crushed or semi crushed ice and add 1 ¾ shots Bombay Sapphire Gin in the shaker, cover and shake for 15 seconds;
• Let the shaker sit on the counter for 1 minute - then shake again for another 15 seconds;
• Remove top and strain completely into glass.

Batch & Print Pro

Batch & Print Pro by Traction Software is a powerful tool that overcomes some obvious Windows printing limitations. Anyone who has tried to print a directory of files is sure to have experienced the aggrevation of tieing up your computer for hours - only to disvover the output isn't in the order you sorted prior to printing.

With Batch & Print Pro, simply drag and drop hundreds or thousands of files into the Batch & Print window, sort the list and then send the whole compilation to the printer (or PDF distiller). Batch Print spools each file and ensures the print job was successful prior to spooling the next file.

Configure the printer to select 3-hole-punched paper for the job - and you have a quick working-binder document set. Preparing trial exhibits or deposition exhibits? Set Batch & Print to send 5 copies of each document, stapled and collated - then just pick them up off the printer. Or convert all of those emails, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and web pages to PDF and then just burn the output to CD or DVD for production to opposing counsel. The program allows you to save the print list and settings - so you can quickly rerun the job - and has the added advantage of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs should you ever have a question of whether you really did produce that one particular file.

Product of the Year: Easy Bates

Rarely is a piece of software released that so perfectly accomplishes what it was designed to do. Easy Bates is one of those perfectly simple products - and an essential tool which no litigation paralegal should be without.

Bates Stamping is one of those arduous, monotonous, time consuming, anachronistic tasks that is [was] the bane of a paralegal's existence (right up there with summarizing depositions). In the old days - Bates Stamping was a manual task involving the literal stamping of numbers on individual pages so that one could track the paper throughout course of litigating a case. Over the years, paralegals moved to using Avery return address labels and Word or WordPerfect because you could then mix in alphanumeric characters to designate the source of the documents - and even which case they were related to. Easy Bates provides paralegals with a technological quantum leap forward.

The program allows you to quickly number tens of thousands of PDF pages with whatever numbering scheme you desire - including a rambling confidentiality statement, source designator, docket number, or whatever else you might want to include on the face of the document. Moreover, the program can automatically shrink the PDF page just enough so that the numbering never overlaps the text of the actual document - and those numbers are all searchable in PDF. Want to rename the files based on the bates number? How about renaming the pages? Not a problem. Oops - want to remove the numbering - or renumber? There is a handy tool for doing those tasks.

The software displays a nice screen output which includes the file names and corresponding Bates ranges for those files. Copying and pasting those names into Excel (with the clever use of the concatenate and hyperlink formulas in Excel) results in a down and dirty - and dirt cheap - litigation support program. We like to use the =LEFT(a1,11) formula to break out the Bates numbers into individual columns within the Excel spreadsheet. If you are tricky, you can create a nice little formula that shows you the number of pages in each file - and doing a quicksum gives you the ability to immediately identify how many pages were produced on what day in respond to which request for production.

Kudos to Rennie Glen Software, LLC for making an outstanding product. Most litigation copy shops charge at least $0.02 per page to Bates Stamp documents. At $199 per license, Easy Bates pays for itself in less than two banker's boxes (10K pages) worth of documents. Ask any paralegal - that's a steal!

TechnoBlawging

Welcome to TechnoBlawg - an IT Manager's perspective on the inner workings of a Washington, DC law firm ... primarily focusing on gadgetry, techno tips, tricks and traps - but also occassionalramblings into the politics of practicing law - with a few segues into courthouse war stories.