Chuck Newton

The AbleNook - Possibly The Ikea Of Home Office Space

I still hear it all of the time from lawyers.  I want to work at home, but there is no space.  I need to get out of the main house because the family dynamic (wife, relatives, kids and/or dog) leaves me nowhere to concentrate on my work.  In this regard, we have proposed a lot of solutions to construct a small office away from the home, whether just out back or near the house.

The new alternative being developed is the AbleNook. Sure these structures tend to be promoted as emergency housing, but it is really for any use or need you might have.

On Kickstarter, the system has already received over 150 pleadges and has raised more than $10,000.00 of its $60,000.00 goal.

Much as you would assymble furniture from Ikea, the AbleNook is intended to be put together with not much more effort. You can also dissembled it and move it with you at a later date. More sturdy than a trailer, it has a beautiful architectural aesthetic. You can back this project with a $1 minimum pledge before Monday, February 4 at 2:52 p.m. EST. at Kickstarter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jurassic Law Firm

You believe the Mayans understood the future? The patron saint of any amateur futurist is Alvin Toffler.  Future Shock and The Third Wave seem old in comparison now, but as we look around us today nearly everything he predicted has come or is coming into focus.

Toffler stated: "Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn." Citing Herbert Gerjuoy, Toffler explained: "The new education must teach the individual how to classify and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to change categories when necessary, how to move from the concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems from a new direction — how to teach himself. Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn."

In short, you can have a law degree and still be functionally illiterate by the standards of the tech age.

Sure we have a million lawyers in this country, but in the next decade or so 400,000 will leave the practice of law through retirement, death, incapacity or changed professions. To often these lawyers recognizing this fact allow themselves to get so many generations behind in regard to tech that neither they nor their practices can survive. The problem is that what use to take a generation or better to evolve now takes just a few years. The possibility of being left in a Jurassic period is neither that hard, nor takes that long.

We all know lawyers that are stuck in the fax age, which for me began in 1986. They have computers that are so old they are incapable of handling updates. These lawyers are still tethered to the walls and are overcome by an avalanche of paper. These lawyers and law firms often pretend to update to meet the new generation of practice management, but in reality they fake it. For example, I heard of a law firm that cuts apart paper documents, tapes the pieces into new documents, makes a copy of the documents so constructed, and then scans it into their computer system. This is not learning how to learn.

It is a shame really because I always thought that a law degree was the ultimate Third Wave education. When you think about it, unlike most educational programs, what a legal education essentially does is teach students to teach themselves. A law school education is suppose to be a program that teaches its students how to learn and then relearn.

These law firms too often cling to these doomed law office technologies:

1.    Fax Machines. Fax technology might not have yet died, but it is on complete life support. Most lawyers keep the technology around, like an old eight-track tape player, for the increasingly few clients and lawyers that still rely on them. It is a cheap online add on. I get about one fax a week, if that. In the last few years even my poorest and most elderly clients can find a way to scan and email, often uploading documents directly to my cloud-based client server. What must clients and lawyers think when they receive a fax (especially a fax with handwriting) from a lawyer? I vow to remove my fax number from my pleadings in the near future and eventually bury the technology altogether.

2.    Business Cards. I know, this is not really tech, but I have to admit to you that I have not had business cards printed in about 5 years. It has not hurt my business. People find you online. After I meet people, I find them online, I email them, connect with them on social media, and I set them up for email blasts. If an immediate exchange of contact information is deemed necessary, we program each other into our cell phone then and there. When I think to refer someone, I do not go looking for a business card. I look them up online and provide that information.

3.    Landlines. I have not had one since 2007. For a while I used a virtual PBX to direct calls. Now I use Google Voice, which is free. Other than that I use Skype and my cell phone.

4.    Desktop Computers. Well, maybe not entirely dead as I just bought a new one. They are cheap and they work well in supporting multiple monitors in which to put out a serious amount of work. But, they are dead in terms of being the center of the law firm. The key now is portability and connectivity. With free apps like Microsoft's Live Mesh all of my tech is synchronized with the same information.

5.    Computer storage. Hard drives and discs continue to live only because they are now dirt cheap. But, you just feel everything moving into the cloud. No more paper or document fiefdoms in law firm or between lawyers and their clients. It promotes availability and connectivity. Its the best thing since the 7-11 store decided to stay open all night long.

I was about to list outside space or a law office to my list, but I understand that sometimes you need a place to meet clients. However, If you walk into a law firm today and they still have a receptionist for the primary purpose of answering the phone, the firm has a fax machine, they have business cards at the front desk, landlines on every desk, a network server, and/or individual computers with small or bulky monitors from which to work, you are looking at a Jurassic law.

Some Ideas About Our Postal Service

You know, I have never understood the vileness that many conservatives, and especially many Fox News commentators, have heaped on the Postal Service, and especially the people that work for the service. I have always had a good relationship with the friendly people at my Post Office and the people who deliver my mail.

Mistakes happen in delivery from time to time but, facing the truth, the Postal Service is often blamed many more times for delivery issues that are just not its fault. ("The check is in the mail"). The point is that many conservatives have a political narrative to fulfill.  And, hard working, non-partisan, people who work for the government, and get insurance and retirement benefits, often draw the ire of these types.

Besides, the Postal Service has been vital to the establishment of free speech, communication and the growth of our country. We should be proud of it and proud of the people who work there. Did you know, for example, that upon the establishment of our country that the Postal Service had to deliver all newspapers for free to everyone that wanted one, regardless of the political persuasion of the paper. The reason was that everyone wanted speech to be as free and available as possible, and so that diverse opinions would be available in our marketplace.

It is beyond the fault of the Postal Service that the federal government of both parties pull out funds for other purposes, hindering its self-sufficiency. Is short, postage is more than cost of use. It is a tax and the government cannot live without the additional revenue.

It is a shame that this type of misinformation and bombast has been allowed to penetrated the debate over the future of the Postal Service, and whether it should stop service, reduce service or be privatized.

First, let me say that it should not be privatized. I think the privatization of everything is a problem in this country. In order to have free markets, available to everyone, the government's obligation is to keep the backbone or avenues of commerce open and affordable for everyone to use and especially to use in the establishment of businesses (competition). The issue related to the denial of access by cable TV, the net neutrality debates, restrictions of access by phone companies and utilities illustrates the problems of for-profit companies controlling these backbones.

Second, with all of this said, there is nothing wrong with admitting that technology has simply (and rapidly) overtaken much of the needed mechanisms of the Postal Service. It does not have the same need or demand that it once had.

But, this does not mean that there is no need or demand for services from the Postal Services. It is just to say that the Postal Services does not need to go high tech as much as it needs to go all tech.

When I get mail, it is mostly advertisements, magazines, speciality newspapers, and bills.  Occasionally, I receive a check.

I do not open much of the advertisements, I can have most of my bills sent to me via email if I really wanted to.

Magazines are the real problem. They will have to likely go fully digital in order to survive if their main source of distribution is the Postal Service, and this they are resisting.

As for bill collectors, it is probably their lifeblood. But, then again, I do not like or care for bill collectors.

Sometimes there is money sent via mail. Much of this can be handled by banks now, but to the degree it cannot, there has to be reasonably simply high tech systems for the deliver of funds to someone via the mail other than by a check stuck in an envelope. Most of the settlement funds to my law firm come via wire transfer or by overnight delivery not involving the Postal Service.

Then, for course, there is certified mail. I receive it. I send it. It is the most important task of most professionals like me. What is interesting, however, is that most of the certified letters I send and received are compiled, packages and mailed automatically through various online services.

Packages and hand delivery are no longer the problem. I can send something UPS ground that gets where it is desired within a day or two. I can track my packages, confirm when they were delivered, and it is typically cheaper than certified mail.

So, what can be done?

You still need the Postal Service because it is the agency that define addresses for everyone. Most industries, websites and services depend on the this division of the government to define this necessary information.

I would simply suggest this:

Magazines will be forced to change their method of distribution. Bill collectors will be forced to comply with the new system.

The postal service can create its own giant mail server that will be based upon, not individual email addresses of people, but on email addresses dedicated for each of the property addresses in the country. A true electronic mailbox for every propery, and not every person.

I am sure techies can figure out how to let people claim their addresses and exclude mail from the email address, and redirect mail from email address, as people move about.

This will eliminate the need for postage, and post office building in every community.

There will undoubtedly have to be some changes in the law enacting the same protection for the emails posted and sent through this system in way of privacy and fraud, as with the regular mail. But, the system will allow everyone to mail an address and a particular person, even if we did not know a persons personal email address.

It would allow me to send a certified letter, which the person can claim and sign for with an established PIN wherever they are at a computer.

The system might actually better than the current physical system of delivery because it should be possible for someone to tell if the mail sent was actually opened or accessed.

Some people might not pick up their certified letters, but that is no different than today. There just has to be a presumption that people will check their mail. In the physical world of mail, checking the mailbox is just a habit that has been reinforced with each of us over the years. The same will be true for this type of address-based email.

It does not require someone to maintain a computer, but they can check and print off their mail at libraries and any place they can get to a computer.

Handwritten letters and cards can be scanned, if needed.  It has to be cheaper to have a computer or two and a scanner in every community than to maintain a post office building and people. If we can manage to get some many public locations to install and maintain machines to sell and record lottery tickets, then we should be able to do the same for people checking and mailing via the Postal Services internet.

Again, if someone does not pick up their mail, then the sender can be informed via autoresponders.

As for packages, were are now reaching a point where FedEx, UPS and smaller carriers have this covered, track each package online, and reach even the most isolated areas of the country.

There will be a cost for this kind of broad deliver service, especially for services such as certified mail.

There is always a problem with overseas mail, but I would suggest that as goes the United States will go other governments, and there might just need to be private services to print and ship overseas.

Now Even Begging For Change Goes High Tech

There are still lawyers that refuse to use email in their practices, or to do their banking online. However, now we have the invention of Don-8r to replace panhandlers on the street.

Pronounced "donator", the computer is programmed expressly to collect change and be adorable.

The coin-fueled robot was created by the University of Dundee student Tim Pryde to help raise money for charity.

Amanda Congdon On Coworking

Stick A Fork In Me And Call Me Apple Cobbler - I'm Done!

They say that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". The corollary to this statement is a coronary.  I almost had a Mac-daddy heart attack when I saw the prices Apple has placed on its MacBook Air.

Starting at $999.00 (or over a grand counting taxes, shipping, etc.) for the 11-inch version to $1,599.00 for the 13-inch version.

And, then on top of this the MacBook Air is apparently glitchy as all get out.  This might be a mere aggravation if you use the thing for just shits and giggles, but you would not want to use it for serious, time-sensitive work and for taking the bar exam.  Can you imagine needing to constantly reboot this damn thing during the bar exam?

A HP Mini 210 costs $329.99.  It is a great machine.  The Dell Mini 10 starts at $449.99. Even the Sony Vaio W Mini (and Sony is usually the PC version of expensive) starts at $449.99.

The ultimate problem with Macs are they sell because they are sexy. But, Apple's pricing is pornographic.  As for me, I really do not care if everyone in Court sees me caressing the Mac.  I want a reasonable machine that works.

And do not tell me about your 2008-Obama-type of enthusiasm for Macs.  They are nice machines, but just like Obama in 2010, they have lost their luster just like everything else in this World, and you are left $400.00 to $1,200 broker than what was necessary.

Macs remind me of the story about the Junior Leaguer who always wore leather skirts because she wanted her butt to smell like she had been sitting in a BMW.

It is all perception.

Glasses-Free 3-D HDTV

It is a mouthful, but Toshiba should get compliments on the hyphens.

I do not cover tech that much, but I think this is significant. Toshiba has unveiled the first 3-D HDTV in which the viewer does not need to wear glasses.

I have been skeptical of the 3-D trend. It is too expensive to watch, I hate the glasses, most movies are not suited to it, I do not understand why newspapers and magazines are playing with it. And, I still share most of those sentiments. But, I also remember when I first fully transitioned to HDTV in the right way to enjoy it. I bought a large HDTV set to mount on the wall, with a premium sound system, and I got rid of Comcast, which turns out had the worst HDTV quality. Not only were movies and football games unbelievable, but just watching news shows and HGTV on HDTV was more enjoyable. It seems to me that true, effortless 3-D HDTV could be the next epiphany, even for those who only watch Glenn Beck scratching on his chalkboard.

This is not to say that I am going to go out and buy any of these units presently. There are too many problems. First, they are apparently rolling these units out in Japan initially. Second, they are just too small. Third, they are just too expensive. Fourth, there is not enough 3-D programming to make it worth having.

But, all of these arguments miss the bigger point. As millionaires and billionaires spend their tax cuts on these products, and they become more universally accepted, there will be even more competition an innovation. The technology will become invasive, and it will begin to creep its way into consciousness and our tech. When it creeps into our tech, it will creep into our law practices.

It seem like it has taken forever, but that is what HDTV has done. It has had an effect on almost everything, and this might be true for this technology as well.

(Video) 5 Gadgets The iPad Has Killed?

Enjoy the CNET video below concerning a poll in which iPad owners state what they can live without now that they own an iPad. You will notice I placed this video under category of "fun and humor" because although I think that tablets will eventually revolutionize the tech market, there is a lot of evolution that needs to take place before that happens. What I tend to love about Apple Kool-Aid drinkers is that these are the same people that must have believed in Obama or the Tea Party. They just want to believe so badly that they project their hopes and dreams on the product whether deserved or, for that matter, factual. They tend to check reality at the door.

Post Law School Drip

Of course I am referring to drip marketing.

It is another thing they do not teach you in law school. Of course, law school really does not teach you how to practice law, or run a law firm, or find clients, or choose a practice area that excites you, or make money, or find a job, or draft pleadings, marketing, or . . .

I digress.

When one graduates from law school or leaves to start a new practice the question is how do you effectively, but cheaply, solicit clients, qualify prospects, and follow them until they decide to try the services offered. And, do it in a way that does not take every waking hour of your time. (You know, so some time is left over to represent the people who retain services and pay money). Outside of the practice of law it is called "lead generation".

One effective way is drip marketing.

The term is derived from the phrase "drip irrigation", which is a technique in which small amounts of water are fed to plants over long period of time. In a marketing sense, it concerns "drips" or a consistent set of pre-written messages to prospects over time. These are often in the form of email, but direct mail and social media is often employed as well.

Email autoreponders are used to send a drip of emails at crucial intervals to those who have shown an interest in the legal services offered. Typically these prospects will complete a form for some reason, such as to obtain an ebook from your blog or website on a practice area, and then the autoresponders will do the rest to follow up with crucial information these prospects likely need to make a decision to contact the attorney -- and hopefully retain legal services.

Drip marketing can also employ direct mail, although this is more expensive. However, in this age digital printing can allow for cost effective low-volume print runs to help justify the expense.  Also, variable data can be merged to personalize each drip message.

Then there is social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the like. Some tools such as HootSuite allow attorneys to time messages and disseminate messages at regular intervals over social media.

Just like with referral based marketing in which the attorney courts a group of referrals sources, drip marketing relies on repeated contact or 'touches" with your prospects or referral sources. The key is to carefully plan and target a series of communications or touches that will keep the law firm's name top of the mind while these prospects move through the stages of a sell cycle.

Best of all, drip marketing does not have to be bold, naked advertising. It is best used as an education tool to bring the prospects up to date with what they need to know in order to follow through and retain in small rememberable bits. These touches both inform and remind.

The problem with many legal services is that they are high-value services (meaning they are not low dollar), and often they have a long sell cycle as a result. Especially if rates are not published the fear of costs can cause anxiety in following through. Therefore, prospects are out there probably longer than you think trying to decide what to do. These prods can remind prospects of the need to seek advice, the ease of obtaining advice, and the low cost to get some initial direction.

Drip marketing relies on a good deal of automation, but that automation is generally cheap to maintain. More importantly, that automation allows you to kiss fewer frogs than might have to be kissed normally if you do not have such a system. What is meant by this is that you generally have to spend a lot time talking to people who do not qualify for your service, do not have the funds, or just do not understand what you do. A good drip marketing program will weed these out and leave you with more qualified leads -- leads that better understand and probably want the legal service offered.

So, make sure you start adding drip marketing to what you do in a meaningful way.

The Law Firm Of Home, Broadband, Google & Free

Yes, it is a play on how most people expect a law firm to be named, but it does make the point.

Of late I have read a number of articles and have watched a video of the "No Money Man", who has lived for 14 months without any money.  Now I am not that extreme, but I have often thought that someone can start up and run a law firm with no extra money should they so wish.  And, in fact, most of the money that I spend, as with most law firms to varying degrees, is for services perceived as luxuries.  Most often I and the other law firms are wrong in our analysis of need, but the money is spent, the earnings are lost, and we are not better off personally as a result.

The first place an attorney would start in the quest of the no money law firm would be to cut the office overhead to nothing by moving the office home.  It is true that an attorney is likely paying rent or a mortgage and taxes, but creating a small space for a law firm at home adds little if anything to what it already costs the lawyer to live away from the office.

The same is true for office furnishings and a computer. A lawyer likely has a computer, and furnishings for a surface on which to work and sit are easily available at home, from a garage sale, of with the castoffs of relatives and friends.

Broadband is necessary. It can be expensive. But, the truth of the matter is that most of us have broadband in one form or the other at home already. After all, we cannot be expected to miss the big game, or our favorite cable show. Those lawyers who are right wing fanatics cannot miss Fox News, for example, or for liberals MSNBC is a must have. For me and my girlfriend, it is HGTV and Food Network all the way. Many of these broadband services now provide you a wireless router. If wire is what you need, it is not impossible for you to string some Cat 6 through the walls to the router.

With the overhead annihilated, the thing to worry about are ongoing monthly cost. These costs can add up quickly. In almost every instance there is a low cost or no cost solution that will provide you 90% or what you think you need.

Law, like it or not, is all about drafting -- pleadings, briefing, and billing. With some adjustment, however, this can all be accomplished with Google Docs. In that this free service is in the cloud, so to speak, it allows you to collaborate on matters with other attorneys, such as in preparing things like joint pretrial orders and statements.

Law is about collaborating, but as such it is also about communication with clients, opposing counsel, the courts, agencies, referral sources, and the like. With the expansion of efiling, it is increasingly possible to greatly reduce, if not eliminate mail and postage. Here too, Google mainly has you covered. For email there is Gmail. Like most everything Google, it is free. You can attach documents in PDF an TIFF for others to view. There is software online to convert documents to PDF for free. You have been able to receive free phone calls in the past with Google Voice, but now you will be able to make calls out through Gmail. With the combination of Gmail and Voice you can conduct conference calls, including video conferencing. I presently use Skype. It is cheap, but I am cheaper. I intend to lose that service for Google in the near future.

One problem concerns those few attorneys, courts and clients that still cling to faxing. It is frustrating. Except for communicating with these people on an immediate basis, there is no reason to send on outgoing fax. Needing to provide someone an incoming fax in this day and age is just frustrating. My first thought is to simply refuse to have a fax number, but you want to be accommodating. In this day and age it is a little like relying on Pony Express or maintaining a devise to read smoke signals. You can apparently fax out with Google Voice, although I have never done it. Also, since faxing is becoming more rare, there are some free limited fax services such as FreeFax.Com, although you are limited to the number of faxes per day.

Marketing or advertising a law practice is a necessity. I still think what works best is shoe leather and networking aggressively for referrals. But, you need a way to keep in touch with referrals sources and to stand out. You need extra marketing avenues. Almost all of these are free. It just take some time and effort. It is possible to build a free blog, for example, but you do have to stick with it. Blogger and WordPress are examples of his. Then of course there is social media, including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and others. Some of these can act as advertising sources as well if you can get your organic listing on Google high enough. Then, of course, there are pure solicitation sites such as Craigslist and YouTube.

Legal research is often necessary, but in reality, unless you are in the field of drafting briefs of one kind or another on a regular basis, a dynamic research site is likely a waste of money. Believe it or not, if it is just a matter of reviewing the basis of a pleading, you can almost always find the relevant law on Google.  If not basic Google, then Google Scholar. If it is a matter of keeping up with the relevant law for general application, you can program FindLaw to notify you of relevant court decisions in your practice area when handed down, and you can get alerts from Google when a news or blog story meeting your criteria is posted. Then many bar associations and other groups of which you are already a member provide access to free or cheap legal research databases. If intense legal research is occasionally needed, there are any number of free libraries in most areas, including law school libraries, bar associations, other law firms and courthouses.

I am afraid that when it comes to office supplies I am a bit too much like the No Money Man. First, I try had not to use office supplies. You can wean yourself from this nasty, clutter task. If you learn to operate on your laptop, it might not be possible to be paperless, but it is possible to use substantially less paper, for example. I do not buy pens, pads and the like. I gather them at seminars and meetings for free.

I tend to get my CLE one of two ways. First, I take advantage of all of the free CLE credit out there, including the self study allowances. Courts, law schools and groups often host meetings in which the CLE is provided free for just showing up. My law school, STCL, often hosts documentaries or debates by the anti-defamation league and the like, which are free and  open to the public, and which results in CLE. I learn a lot and I take advantage of it. I also work for my CLE by presenting papers and speaking at CLE events. Both of these avenues also offers extraordinary marketing opportunities. Also, many bar associations have complimentary courses.

I continue to hear that meeting space continues to be a problem, but in reality there are a lot of options for free or inexpensive meeting space, if you care to be upfront with your clients. In the past I listed many of these in "Where Do You Meet With Clients When You Want To Work From Home?" Although this list is long, courthouses, coffee shops and libraries are often free and available.

The bottom line is that you spend money to start up or operate a law firm because you want to, and not because you have to. Complaining about the cost of operating a law firm is a matter of the image you hold for yourself as a lawyer. To complain about the cost of starting or operating a law firm is a little like complaining about all of the sex and violence on your DVD player. It is of your own making.

Clients are the main thing, but what you have to realize is that soliciting clients has little to do with the inner workings and cost of a practice, and it has everything to do with the lawyer doing what is necessary to naturally get their name and services before those that need them. It is kind of like recitation in law school. It is what concerns you on a day to day basis, but it has very little to do with preparing for and passing your law school exams or the bar. Soliciting clients often does not take money as it does time, intensity and purpose on the part of the lawyer. Unfortunately, lawyers convince themselves, for some reason, that things that increase start up costs and overhead can be substitutes for the hard work of finding clients. This theory, however, just does not compute.