Tag Archives: mobile

Legal IT

The Mobile Lawyer

Leave a comment

The combination of cloud technologies and mobile devices have profoundly changed the way lawyers work. Over the years, lawyers have started using their mobile devices more and more for professional purposes, while they’re not at the office. Law firms can now be accessible to lawyers and their clients from anywhere, 24/7. While this has led to the emergence of virtual offices, those are still a minority. Instead, what we have witnessed is the rise of the mobile law firms. Unlike virtual offices, mobile law firms still have physical offices but you don’t have to physically be in them to be able to work. Using cloud technologies, they offer the convenience and flexibility to work securely from anywhere and at any time. In 2017, the vast majority of lawyers are telecommuting, or mobile lawyers.

Let us have a look at some statistics from the latest survey published by the American Bar Association:

  • 94% of lawyers reported “regularly or occasionally using a mobile device for law- related tasks at home,” while 91% reported they also regularly use their mobile devices while in transit.
  • 33% of lawyers telecommute at least once a week. Solo and small firm lawyers were the most likely to do so, at 39% and 35% respectively.
  • Surprisingly, mobile devices are the most popular devices used at the office: 70% reported using smartphones, 66% use desktop computers, 51% use laptop computers, and 25% use tablets. (61% of solo lawyers mainly use laptops at work).
  • 40% of lawyers are using specifically legal apps on their smartphones, with legal research apps being the most popular. (Note that these apps exclude the apps that are part of their legal practice management software).
  • 40% also have downloaded general business apps to their smartphones, with document storage apps being the most popular.

A survey by Legaltech News revealed that lawyers mainly use mobile devices for increased productivity and increased flexibility.

The main tasks they perform online are practice management tasks. In 2017, most providers of law firm management software offer solutions that use cloud technologies, allowing lawyers to work from anywhere, 24/7. They use these mobile tools mainly to access their mail, their calendars, their contacts, and their case files. Other popular practice management functions include time tracking, billing, and expense tracking.

Mobile lawyers also use mobile apps for legal research, to store and share documents in the cloud, to work with PDFs, to scan documents and handwritten notes, to dictate and take notes, and to organize and present evidence. Many lawyers also have a legal dictionary on their smartphones.

 

Sources:

Legal IT

Mobile Apps for Lawyers

Leave a comment

The mobile revolution changed the way we work and interact with each other. It also has provided lawyers with plenty of new, useful tools for their mobile devices. In this week’s article, we have a look at some interesting apps for lawyers. We’ll first focus on specifically legal apps, and then continue with more general apps that lawyers are also using to increase their productivity. If there are specific ones that stand out, we’ll mention them by name.

Legal Apps

Legal Case Management Software

Virtually all major legal case management software packages offer apps for mobile devices. Typically, these apps do not offer the full functionality of the package, but rather focus on the most commonly used actions: they provide access to case files, contacts, agendas, etc.

Legal Research

Many publishers of legal documentation offer apps and/or mobile access to their information. The same applies to some legal dictionaries.

Trial Presentations

If, as a lawyer, you do a lot of litigation, there is an app that can be used in court that is specifically designed to organize, annotate, and present evidence. TrialPad, www.litsoftware.com/trialpad/, includes powerful presentation tools that call out sections of documents, highlight text, create side-by-side document comparisons You can edit and show video clips, add exhibit stickers to documents, search document text, etc. (iOS devices only).

Other Apps to increase productivity

Apart from the specifically legal apps, there also are other apps that are very useful for lawyers. These are some of the most commonly used ones, arranged by the purpose of the app. Most of these apps store your information in the cloud, so it is available anywhere, at any time, and synchs between devices in real time.

Note taking

Evernote (evernote.com) and Microsoft’s OneNote (www.onenote.com) are the two apps that are most used for taking notes. Both offer excellent tools to organize, search and retrieve notes, and are available in different versions: web version, desktop applications, mobile apps.

For those who prefer to take handwritten notes, there even are apps for that, though most of them are available for iOS devices only.

PDF Annotation etc.

There are dozens of apps available that allow you to view and annotate PDF documents on your mobile device. Most offer the same core functionalities (view, annotate, highlight).

Research

One app that isn’t specifically designed for legal research, but that is frequently used to that purpose, is Feedly, feedly.com/i/welcome.  It allows you to keep track and organize content and documentation, to add your comments, and to share both (information and comments) with others. (Slack, mentioned further down, also could be used for legal research).

Dictation

Lawyers often dictate texts, and there are plenty of apps for that, too. They largely fall in one of two groups: they can either just record what you’re saying, or they can convert speech to text, in which case they’re usually language dependent.

Messaging / Communication

One of the most used apps for messaging and communication is Skype (www.skype.com). The free version allows video conferencing for up to 10 simultaneous users. Also commonly used, but only available for iOS devices, is FaceTime.

In a previous article, we pointed out that a lot of communication between lawyers and their customers (and suppliers) happens through Social Media: Facebook / Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Also worth having a look at, is Slack (slack.com): it calls itself a messaging app for teams and collaboration. You can have discussions, share documents, etc. It can also be used for research.

Storage

There are many reasons to store information in the cloud: as a backup, to be accessible anywhere at any time, on multiple devices with real-time synchronization, etc. All major cloud storage service providers have apps for mobile devices: Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.

Task Management

If you are using legal case management software, you probably won’t need a separate app to manage your tasks, as it will be included in the package. If it is not, you may want to have a look at Todoist, todoist.com.

Automation

And finally, there is Zapier, zapier.com/. If you perform certain tasks routinely, then there’s a chance Zapier can automate that process for you. It connects your apps and automates workflows. Zapier can move info between your web apps automatically.

 

Sources:

Legal IT

Accommodating your clients in the mobile revolution

Leave a comment

The mobile revolution is a fact. In October 2016, worldwide, more websites were visited with mobile devices than with desktops. Indeed, Statcounter, a research company that tracks Internet traffic, reported that 51.3 percent of websites were loaded onto mobile devices, thus overtaking traffic from desktops for the first time ever on a global scale.

How does that affect you? In this article, we’ll focus on how to accommodate your mobile clients. More specifically, we’ll deal with what this means for your website and for your interactions with your clients. In a follow-up article, we will pay attention to some new tools the mobile revolution is providing for lawyers.

Let us start with your website. The first question to ask yourself is whether your website is mobile-friendly. How does it look when viewed on a mobile device? Is the text going out of the screen? Do the images and videos fit within the screen width? Can the navigation of the site be used comfortably on a mobile device?

Gone are the days of fixed width wide screen layouts. A quick look at available statistics teaches that approximately one in three website visitors has a screen width between 320 and 360 pixels! So, your website must be accessible in these lower resolutions. You may also consider using a font size that keeps the text readable.

A next item to pay attention to is the structure of your website. Are the menus and navigation touch-friendly and is the site easy to navigate on mobile devices? Are the menu options sufficiently large so they can be tapped with fingers? Mobile visitors also expect pages to load faster. Typically, pages that are optimized for mobile usage tend to be shorter, which means that – compared with how things used to be – you may need to reorganize and split up the content of your website.

Don’t speculate that you can postpone making your site mobile-friendly, because you are already losing potential customers. People using mobile device are 50% less likely to use your services if they find you through a website that is not mobile-friendly! And search engines like Google punish websites that are not mobile-friendly in several ways. Non-mobile-friendly websites get a lower ranking in the search results, which means your website will be harder to find. That ranking is lowered even more if the user who is performing the search uses a mobile device. (As a site note, Google also punishes websites that do not have a sitemap, disclaimer, or privacy statement, as well as sites that do not meet accessibility requirements). If you want to find out how your site is doing, Google offers a website where you can test it, and see if it is mobile-friendly by Google’s standards: www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

In previous articles, we pointed out that the new legal consumer prefers to work with lawyers who offer a client portal. In it, clients can have access to their data in a secure environment, and keep track of the evolution of their case(s). Preferably, that client portal, too, should be mobile friendly.

Finally, mobile media also affect how we communicate. 97% of the owners of mobile devices use it for texting through (social media) apps like Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Skype, Google Hangouts, or other apps. Many use their mobile device for video chats. And 53 % of mobile users use their mobile devices to read and send email as well. Are the emails you send mobile friendly? Do the header and footer fit within the screen widths of mobile devices?

The mobile revolution is here. Make sure you don’t miss it!

 

Sources: