From cell phone records to emails to internet history to GPS trackers to Facebook message to text messages to smartphone data and beyond, the best family law attorneys will know what to look for, where to find it, how to legally and properly access it, and when to best use it in your case. It is not uncommon for attorneys to involve other experts, such as private investigators and forensic examiners, to help collect or access such potential evidence.

Knowing what to do can yield helpful information a case, but not knowing what to do and/or how to legally do it could result in you being criminally prosecuted. It is vitally important to discuss these types of issues with your attorney early in your case, before you make a tragic mistake. When choosing a family law attorney, you would be wise to consider your attorney’s experience with these tech issues and determine how helpful it will be in your case. If our firm can help with your divorce, you are welcome to contact us at (864) 598-9172 to schedule a consultation.

It should take less than 5 minutes to complete, and finishing the survey enters you into a drawing for a brand-new iPhone 5s or one of two iPad minis. You can participate by clicking HERE, and the results will be announced at MILOfest next week.

iMore published a comprehensive guide that tells you everything you could ever want to know about iOS 7. If you want to learn some tips/tricks or discover more goodies, check it out. Best of all, it’s free.

Source: “iOS 7 Review” by Rene Ritchie, published at iMore.

ForLater (forlater.net) allows you to enter your message, an email, and a date/time, and it will email you an reminder at the designated time. Best of all, it’s free.

Simply type in your message and the recipient’s e-mail address (whether yourself or someone else), select the date and time you want the reminder to be sent, and click “Remind Me!” ForLater will then send the e-mail reminder at the designated time.

This nifty case easily organizes and protects those hard to pack and easy to lose items, such as adapters and cables, thumb drives, portable hard drives, power cords, and other accessories.

Measuring approximately 10″ x 6″ and weighing next to nothing, it quickly rolls closed to a much more compact size. An internal zipper pocket inside enables you to store the tiniest of items safely and securely. This is one of those “why didn’t someone think of this before” items that can make your travel much easier.  To find out more about the Cable Wrap, click here.

“Let’s Start a Law Firm” aspires to be everything you wished law school had taught you and nothing you wished it hadn’t taught you. This short-run podcast explores the topics of whether starting a law firm is right for you, the logistics of starting and running a business, finding and hiring clients, setting up an office, technology in law offices, and finding legal and nonlegal help. 

Two Kentucky attorneys – consumer lawyer Ben Carter and criminal defense attorney Annie O’Connell – host the show. They decided to do this show to help law students, lawyers who can’t find work, and attorneys looking to get a better boss (themselves) navigate some of the non-legal aspects of starting and running a business. 

The fourth episode, “Finding and Hiring Clients”, premieres later this week, and it will focus on important questions that every start-up attorney must answer: How do I find potential clients? How do I help potential clients find me? Once we’ve found each other, how do I know whether to take a case? Under what conditions will I take the case? How do I get paid?  Topics include: attorney advertising, “networking”, social media, attorney websites (and attorney non-websites), fee arrangements, invoicing, and retainer agreements. 

You can subscribe in iTunes and find links to the products, websites, and services they mention in the show notes available at bencarterlaw.com/letsstartalawfirm.

The faculty at this conference features several ABA TECHSHOW favorites as Catherine Sanders Reach, Bruce Dorner, and Steve Best.  The conference will be held at the Charleston Marriott on Lockwood Boulevard, and I will be giving presentations on Riding the Cloud: How My Firm Uses Cloud Case Management and Practical Practice Pointers and Terrific Tech Tips. I appreciate this opportunity, and I look forward to seeing everyone there.

The best keeps getting better. It’s no secret that Rocket Matter has long been the leading online case management and billing software for lawyers. Today, it released it’s latest update (code-named “Kirk”), which includes several exciting new features:

• Clients can now log into the user portal to access and pay their accounts online (through an integration with Law Pay) and their ledgers are automatically updated.
• Users can now send ICS invitations to clients to schedule meetings.
• Clients can update their contact details through the portal, which can be configured to show the law firm’s logo.
• Integration with Copy2Contact enables users to complete contact forms automatically simply by copying and pasting blocks of contact information.

Law Technology News featured Rocket Matter’s new release today, which included the following quote from me:

Ben Stevens of The Stevens Firm, P.A. Family Law Center, concurred with Gilbert. “While other programs also offer the ability to share data with clients, Rocket Matter has taken this to the next level by offering clients the ability to view their invoices and to pay them online,” said Stevens in an email. “Smart lawyers know that time is money, and this streamlined process can’t help but make them more profitable.”

P.S. This release is so good, that even Kirk’s nemesis, Kahn, was reportedly quoted as saying, “This release from Larry and his crew is not too bad… not too bad at all.” ;-) 

1. Have the technology “talk” :: Develop an “acceptable use” policy for your home, perhaps with input from your children. Make sure that your kids clearly understand your rules and expectations for their technology use, and that if they don’t abide by your rules, they lose the ability to use it. Be mindful that tech-savvy teens may find ways around your built-in controls and that no app or setting can keep them safe online. You should check their phones and computers on a regular basis, both in front of them and behind their backs, to ensure that they are following your rules.
2. Use parental settings wisely :: Macs have Parental Controls preferences that enable you to control your kids’ access to the computer and the Internet and even to specify times that they can and can’t use the computer. While iPads and iPhones have fewer parental controls, you can still control your teen’s ability to install apps, make in-app purchases, and prevent access to age inappropriate movies and music, as explained here.
3. Friend your children on social networks :: The best way to keep an eye on your children’s activity on social networks is to “friend” and monitor them. They should understand that anything they do or say online is highly visible, lives forever, and can never ever be erased. Take steps to ensure that only their friends can see what they’ve posted on Facebook, and explain that tweets live on in cyberspace forever. Give your kids examples of real people whose reputations have been damaged by something posted online. Basically, if they wouldn’t say it at the dinner table in front of you, they shouldn’t say it online.
4. Be the holder of the passwords :: When your children understand that they have waived any expectation of privacy, they will more easily accept that you will know all of the passwords for their email, Facebook, and other social media accounts at all times. Being friends with them isn’t enough, as they may attempt to block you from seeing certain posts. You can decide how often to log in and read everything, but they need to know that you can at any time. One idea that’s become popular is to change the wi-fi password in your home every day and only give it to the children when they’ve done their chores, complied with your rules, etc. Another option is to configure your router to set restrictions on a per-device basis, as explained here for an AirPort wireless network.
5. Don’t let your teens sleep with their phones or computers :: A lot of trouble starts after the sun goes down, so don’t let your children be a part of it. Set up one central location where phones and laptops are charged overnight, and impose punishment for their failure to comply. Also, consider whether it is a good idea to allow your kids to have desktop computers in their bedrooms. If they must, then you should configure access privileges to control nighttime use, or even take the power cord away at night. You will obviously want to make a point of checking their computer regularly so that you know what your child is doing.
6. Be a good role model :: If you have a rule that prohibits cell phones during certain “family time”, then that rule should apply to parents as well as the children. The central charging station idea referenced above can apply to parents too. Perhaps even consider establishing a daily “device-free time” of just 10 or 15 minutes at the breakfast or dinner table to see if it has a positive impact on your family. 

Things that do affect battery life:

• Screen brightness is the single most significant contributor to battery depletion. To check or change your screen’s brightness, tap Settings –> Brightness & Wallpaper –> adjust the Brightness slider.
• Maps and directions can seriously drain an iOS device’s battery, particularly if the device is searching for GPS and/or giving driving directions.
• Airplane mode helps preserve your device’s battery life by turning off multiple wireless features, including Wi-Fi, cellular antenna, GPS, Bluetooth, and location services.
• Using iTunes Home Sharing to stream video from a Mac to an iOS device will drain your battery much faster than watching a movie that is already on your iPad.

Things that do not affect battery life:

• Calibrating your battery will provide a more accurate estimation of your remaining battery life, but it doesn’t actually help preserve battery life itself.
• Utilizing Location Services doesn’t expend much battery itself, so long as your device isn’t being actively and consistently used for maps or driving directions.
• Battery utilities may provide helpful information to help you manage your battery life, they do not do anything themselves to do so.
• AirPlay streaming did not take a significant toll on battery life, even though it seems like it should.
• Turning off equalization during audio playback had little to no affect on battery life (despite Apple’s tip suggesting that it does).

Source: “Fact or Fiction: Nine iPhone and iPad Battery-Saving Techniques Tested” by James Galbraith, published at Macworld.com.