Law Hacks - 101 Tips and Tricks

A phenomenal list of “law hacks” for lawyers who are looking to be more productive. Great for non-lawyers too!

Thanks to Jason Krause

Some of my favorites:

1 Empty your e-mail inbox daily.

9 If you don’t feel like following any of the suggestions above, move from Outlook to Gmail. “E-mail nearly consumed me,” says legal tech expert Rick Klau of Naperville, Ill. “I got back into good e-mail habits when I switched to Gmail.” Klau says Gmail has a smarter organizational scheme and searches through archived messages faster than Out­look. Gmail can even rec­ognize keywords in a mes­sage that signal it may need your immediate attention.

12 Find a desktop search tool that works for you. Google’s search is the most pop­ular, but know how to find what you need on your system. The major search engines—Yahoo Search, Ask.com, MSN —and others all offer desktop searching, as do some other companies like Copernic. The new Microsoft Vista operating system has an improved search, which can be downloaded separately if you’re not a Vista user.

21 Do the thing you dread the most first thing each day.

25 Sick of beating your brains out trying to get your co-workers coordinated? Use Doodle, a simple tool that sends an e-mail polling people on when and where they are available for a meeting. It then blocks out that time on a calendar. (I haven’t tried it yet, but I will!)

28 Find productive ways to procrastinate. If you’re going to put something off, do something else you’ve been putting off in the meantime.

42 Switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Firefox is less vulnerable to viruses and hackers, and it lets you use neat tools like…

45 Collaborate with Basecamp, a Web-based project man­agement system that handles to-do lists, online workspaces and project communication.

52 Speech-recogni­tion programs—such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking—can be a godsend for poor typists or attorneys who prefer dic­tation. And some find dictating to their computer easier than typing. “I really find I’m less tired after spending the day dictating all afternoon than I am if I’m pounding on the keyboard,” says Jim Calloway, director of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Manage­ment Assistance Program.

61 Get file folders for your paper­work and bills. The Getting Things Done tickler file system (see the sidebar, “Cult of Productivity,” below) calls for keep­ing track of 43 folders—12 monthly and 31 daily—in order of when things need to be done.

70 Think before sending an e-mail. “This might be a radical notion, but think about whether you should pick up the phone and talk to somebody instead of just clicking ‘send,’ ” says Catherine Sanders Reach, director of the ABA’s Legal Techno­logy Resource Center in Chicago.

96 Alternatively, small law offices might like software such as Backup My PC to automate the backup and restore functions, or try online backup like Mozy to save files to a remote location.

100 The Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In Support Site has information for making Outlook work with the GTD system.