Firstly, and most importantly, you can attach files (images) to an e-mail directly from the app. Not only can you attach images, but you can even sketch and draw something while you are composing a message. The sketch will be saved as a PNG and automatically attached to the image.

Watch a demo of this free app in the screencast below.  What e-mail app do you use on your iPad? Please leave a comment below.

Then I tried to program my own solution from scratch. I realized very early on that it is no small task to build an entire practice management solution from nothing. So I continued searching.

Fortunately there was some discussions going on in the SOLOSEZ list-serve newsgroup for small firms and solo practitioners. Lawyers were discussing cutting edge software as a service (SaaS) solutions that were coming out for lawyers. The top two contenders at that time were Rocket Matter and Clio. The folks over at Rocket Matter were kind enough to give me a telephonic real-time demonstration of their product. However, they did not offer a true test drive account where I could take the wheel and give it a spin on my own. Clio, on the other hand, allowed me to sign up for a free 30 day trial on their website. It was quick, easy, and painless to get started.

As I began to tinker around in the system, the thing that impressed me the most was how simple and elegant Clio’s design was. Everything made sense. Nothing was confusing. I did not have to go to a help file to figure out how to do what I wanted to do. I didn’t have to call tech support. I was presented with a clean and simple interface that allowed me to do all of the major tasks that lawyers do in a typical practice management solution.

Then I began entering my real data. Client contact information, case information, calendar items, my to do list, my accounting, and even uploading my documents. I was confident that this system is just as safe and secure as any other system done another way – for example, a local installation on a laptop can be stolen probably more easily than the data secured on this secured web server. The information I was tracking was in a broad range of practice areas, from bankruptcy to personal injury.

After using the system for about one week, I was completely hooked. Clio was always open in a web browser window on my second monitor. It kept me on task from day-to-day, kept me organized, and gave me a sense of calm that I was not misplacing, losing, or forgetting any important information about my practice. Clio took the dread out of time tracking and billing for my time, as Clio has an easy way to manage both.

I never have to worry about backing up my Clio data. Clio does it for me. I never have to worry about installing software updates. Clio does it behind the scenes, seamlessly. I am able to access my information from anywhere with Internet access – which is almost everywhere these days. Everywhere I go I have Clio in my pocket – because it is on my iPhone as well.

With its modest monthly fee, excellent and friendly technical support, and an ever-increasing set of features, Clio is a bargain. I would recommend everyone give it a try – at least to see how it compares to other solutions. Finally, the owners of the company are completely friendly and professional. They will personally return your e-mails and phone calls very promptly. Rian and Jack have provided the best constomer support experience I’ve ever had in a software solution.

In sum, I am a very satisfied customer of Clio as my practice management solution.

The guys over at Clio are cranking updates out constantly.  I am excited to see future AJAX search features and the continuing evolution of an already great product. What I love about the SaaS (Software as a Service) model is that these new features and upgrades are completely painless. I just log in on a new day and see the new features right there in front of me. There’s no software to update or upgrade, and there’s no wondering, “should I bother to pay to upgrade my software this year for the new revision.”

By the way, if you’re wondering how to take a screencap off of your iPhone, as I did to the left, simply press the home button and the top power button simultaneously. You will hear the camera sound and the screencap will be automatically stored in your pictures.

JkDefrag:  This utility is supposed to be better and faster than Windows’ own defragmenter.  A defragmenter makes your hard drive speedier by organizing the data bits on your hard drive platter.  This utility comes in both a 32 bit and 64 bit version (for those Vista 64 users, like me).

Audacity: this program is a powerful audio recording and editing studio.

CCleaner: gets rid of all the junk files that will undoubtedly start collecting on your hard drive.  Safe and intelligent cleaner.

Notepad++: replace Windows’ default text editor with this one. It’s much better — especially if you ever edit PHP or HTML code. After installing, unzip this file at ‘C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++’ to make it more aesthetically pleasing. This path applies to Vista (not XP).

Rocketdock: make your Windows experience a little more like OS X with Rocketdock. Quickly access your favorite folders on your hard drive or computer programs.

FileZilla: this is a must-have FTP client.  Fast, easy, and free!

paint.net: a suprisingly powerful and fast picture editor.  I used it to edit the icons used here while writing this blog article!

7-Zip: the fastest and easiest way to unzip or decompress archived files. Faster than Vista’s own native zip handler.  Make sure to download the 64-bit version if you have Vista 64 to get the right-click pop-up menu.

OpenOffice: a Microsoft-Office-like suite of tools that are surprisingly powerful.  A word processor, spreadsheet application, slideshow presentation, and even database application are all free in the OpenOffice suite. One very useful feature is the ability to save files as PDF documents.  You can also open / save .DOC files.

Thunderbird 2: Download and archive your g-mail messages with this free e-mail program. Has free plug-ins to do things like manage your schedule and calendar (Lighting).

Many court systems, including the Federal Bankruptcy Courts, are using ECF (electronic filing) now.  The documents to file electronically must be in PDF format. Being able to save, manipulate, and edit the PDFs quickly and efficiently is the biggest reason you need Acrobat Professional in your law practice.  You will find out, as you use the software more, that there are many useful things you can do with Acrobat Pro.

But first, one way to save some money on the full retail price of Adobe Acrobat Pro is to buy something like the Fujitsu Scansnap s510 Scanner, which comes pre-bundled with Adobe Acrobat Standard.  Then you can pay the greatly reduced upgrade price for the most current, professional version of Acrobat (currently 9.0).

So what’s so cool about this program?  First, after you’ve scanned in a document to PDF, it will perform OCR (text-recognition).  This allows you to copy-and-paste text from scanned documents (very useful when quoting from depositions). The OCR also allows you to quickly perform a search through the document for keywords.

One practical use of this OCR / search feature was during one of my trials.  As a witness was testifying, he began to contradict earlier deposition testimony. I could not remember where, out of the 500 pages, this contradiction could be found — but I knew it was there somewhere.  I did a search in Acrobat (the deposition was scanned and saved as a PDF with OCR) on my laptop in-between questions, found the impeaching portion within a matter of seconds.  I proceeded to use this information in the usual lawyerly manner.

Another practical use of the software is search-and-replace redaction. For example, striking out social security numbers in documents.

Version 9.0 Professional also quickly and automatically can produce unique Bates labels.

There has been an entire book written called The Lawyer’s Guide to Adobe Acrobat.

In the end, whether you pay $100 for an upgrade or $400 for a full license, it will be money well-spent in your practice.

One of the best things about this very affordable SaaS program is that you can link it up to your own custom domain name. For example, YourName@YourLawFirm.com can be the e-mail address for your gmail account.  The world will not know what e-mail system you are using — and it looks a lot better than the free and ubiquitous @gmail extension. If you have support staff, they can get their own account under your business site.

Gmail has proven itself to be one of the top e-mail services available. Top-notch spam filtering, lighting-fast search, and POP access has made this e-mail service one of the world’s most popular for a reason.

I am very happy with my decision to buy a Google Apps account.

As of today’s date, there are only two reviews of Quickbooks Professional Services 2009 so far on Amazon.com, and both gave the product 1 out of 5 stars. Ouch. However, for whatever reason, Quickbooks Professional Services 2008 has 4.5 / 5 stars from 3 customer reviews.

I would probably give it 2 out of 5 for the following reasons:

1) It is bloated and slow software. It takes a while to load and it gobbles up a lot of RAM if you leave it open while you work.

From the time to double-clicking on the application launch icon until the time this screen appears:

takes 20 seconds on my Quad-Core Desktop running Vista 64.

2) It is confusing software.  I bought two books apart from the software purchase to try and make sense of it all. And I am a former computer programmer! First I bought Quickbooks 2008 for Dummies. That helped a little bit with the set-up process and understanding the flow of the program. However, it left a lot of open questions as to how to do things like properly set up client trust accounts.  To answer these questions, I bought Law Practice Accounting Using Quickbooks. I was willing to spend at least $100 trying to make the most use of my $300+ investment in Quickbooks.

I still don’t get it.  Things have become so messed up that I started to do my trust accounting on good, old fashioned line paper.

If I were to say something good about Quickbooks, it is indeed feature rich. It is also the industry standard with accountants and CPAs.  Almost all CPA firms will accept your Quickbooks data file for review. There are hundreds of reports, and the software allows for a great deal of customization.

I won’t go in to all of the features, you can check the more-authoritative Amazon.com description for that, but this author is seeking a better, easier accounting solution in the meantime. One alternative I’d like to check out is LessAccounting. I’m also looking at ClairtyAccounting. Finally, SaaS Law Practice Management programs like Clio are rolling in accounting functionality.

Comments on this subject, and what you use, are welcome and appreciated.

This article focuses on PCs, not Macs.  The Mac Lawyer is better qualified to speak about the merits of the Mac in the practice of law.

One general principle is this: don’t skimp on your computer. You’re going to be using it more than anything else in your practice for 1) producing documents, 2) performing research, and 3) communicating with electronically savvy clients. You don’t want to waste your valuable time waiting for programs to load, rebooting a slow PC, etc.  Loading a computer up with big (some would call bloatware) software will make an average PC crawl at a snail’s pace.

Some lawyers wonder whether they should get a laptop in lieu of a desktop. I think that’s a bad idea. You want to keep your client data safe, in one place, and not easily lost or stolen. It’s too easy to drop, have stolen, or comprimise the data on a portable computer. I do think that a lawyer should have a laptop as a secondary computer, but not as a primary.

As of this date, quad-core CPUs are becoming much more common and affordable.  64-bit operating systems like Vista 64 will take advantage of these multi-core processors.  I recently upgraded from a dual-core to a quad-core Intel CPU, and noticed a tremendous performance increase. Be aware, however, that several software packages and drivers are not yet compatible with 64 bit operating systems. For example, the Fujitsu ScanSnap requires you to obtain the 64 bit drivers directly from the manufacturer (Fujutsu).

Likewise, RAM is becoming much more affordable. It’s not cost prohibitive to get between 6 to 8 gigabytes of RAM.  RAM helps your computer run quickly when you have a lot of big applications open, like Quickbooks and Microsoft Office. Note that you cannot exceed 4 GB of RAM unless you have a 64 bit operating system (discussed above).

Dual-monitors (or more than two!) can save you a lot of time. Many PCs have dual video-outputs, which can support more than one monitor. One practical use of two screens is that you can view one document on the right screen, while you edit another document on the left screen. Imagine having a deposition transcript open on the right as you write your motion for summary judgment on the left. It saves a lot of time, space, and headaches.

If you ever want to upgrade to 3+ monitors, make sure that you have room to add an extra video card inside the PC.

I have a secondary Dell monitor that rotates to portrait mode (taller than it is wide). This is great for viewing 8.5×11″ documents. HP makes an affordable portrait-mode monitor as well.

You’ll probably want to make sure your PC has a DVD burner. This will allow you to make CD or DVD backups of important data. Put an entire client’s file on one disk.

Most computers have at least a wired ethernet (network) port, but you may want to get a machine with built-in wifi (Wireless Networking). That way you’ll have less cables running around the office.

You need UPS battery backup. Suppose you’re in the middle of your 30 page motion and the power goes out. You just lost hours of work.  Don’t let that happen.  A UPS will keep your computer on and running in the event of a power shortage.  I use the Tripp Lite UPS for this purpose, and it has worked great.

There’s a lot of choices out there. Now you should be better equipped to go get shopping:

The ZAGG invisibleSHIELD is “an exceptionally clear and virtually indestructible film that will protect your iPhone 3G from unsightly scratches.”  I bought one for my phone and it has lived up to its promises.  This is no ordinary, cheap, “regular” plastic.  A careful installation while following the instructions produced incredible, as-promised results. A couple bubbles worked their way out after a few days. The touch screen is still as responsive, and there’s only a very slight visual difference. The tactile feel is less slippery, but still aesthetically pleasing.

Check out the demo video below:

$20 is worth the investment in protecting you phone’s screen from key scratches or dings. Here’s the link to the ZAGG invisibleSHIELD on Amazon.com.

Installing the ZAGG invisibleSHIELD:

Participating on Avvo carries an inherent risk because when providing legal tips or knowledge, it may be construed as forming an attorney-client relationship, and could even lead to claims for malpractice!  However, this is not common, but something to be aware of before you “dive in” to participating on avvo.com.  Some states have ethics rules against participating on sites like avvo.com. Check your state’s ethics rules before you join.

As far as search engine optimization, adding links from Avvo to your website may boost your search engine ranking.

To get started, you just have to “claim your profile.” Avvo automatically scrapes the web for all listed attorneys. By default, your profile will be mostly blank except for information provided by the State bar. Your score starts at 5.0 / 10. After you claim your profile, you will be able to add pictures, case information, client reviews, peer reviews, questions and answers, legal guides, and more.

A good way to quickly boost your avvo rating is to get some of your lawyer friends to write you a positive review. While avvo does not fully disclose its ratings formula, it has been shown that a positive peer review increases an avvo lawyer rating quickly.