So a lot of Mac users who use a Fujitsu ScanSnap are having problems once upgrading to Snow Leopard. The main problem seems to be the upgrade breaks the ability to scan to a folder from the Quick Menu. While there is a workaround to the problem, we’ve found that not using the Quick Menu and using Profiles to scan to a folder is not only a fix to the problem, it’s the most efficient way of scanning your documents.

Larry Port, co-founder of RocketMatter, mentioned this tip and there were a lot of questions on Twitter asking how to set up these profiles. So since I can’t attend MILOfest due to my ankle, I decided to create a quick screencast showing you how to set up profiles in the ScanSnap Manager so you can go back to scanning to folders like a pro. I hope this helps everyone. You may download a higher resolution version here.

Appearances:

To read the briefs, please visit Kentucky Law Review.

Lately there have been a growing number of stories of jurors doing in-trial internet research into the parties of a case, the attorneys and the witnesses. Now we are seeing jurors providing play-by-play information through Twitter and defendants texting witnesses during trial.

As reported in the Portland Business Journal, Judge Youlee Yim You in Multnomah County Circuit Court has run into these problems since taking the bench. During her first trial, a case involving a domestic violence issue, she discovered that the accused defendant was texting the victim during the trial while she was on another floor waiting to testify.

In two other cases in Arkansas and Pennsylvania, mistrials are occurring as a result of jurors announcing the results of jury deliberations prior to returning to the court room. As one tweeting juror put it, “I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”

Obviously, such behavior can be detrimental to our judicial system but the question is how to stop it? Some jurisdictions have gone as far as banning the use of all cell phones and computers from the courtroom. In the United States District Court of Eastern District of Kentucky, cell phones must be left at the door when entering the courthouse except by explicit permission granted from the presiding judge. Such draconian measures seem outrageous, however the question remains as to what other options are there?

One option is already being explored in Britain: cellphone signal blockers. These devices, currently illegal in the United States, are used in public places where cellphones ringing are a major annoyance, such as theaters, as well as where security is an issue (to prevent remote detonation of explosive devices through cellular phones). While this would obviously prevent issues of twittering jurors and defendant’s threatening witnesses, this would also prevent lawyers from receiving phone calls while within the radius of the cellphone blocker (a true ‘cone of silence’). Perhaps it is a necessary evil, but perhaps we just need to get back to a time where individuals respected the judicial system and understood the ramifications of their actions. Unfortunately, technology has become another magnifying glass to the degradation of our collective society, with this being just the latest sign of the times.

The case involved a family hike at the Haleakala National Park in Hawaii in 2003. While on the trail, Kevin and Elizabeth Brown were washed away by a flash flood. Dr. Holly Brown brought the lawsuit against the federal government in an attempt to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. At the time of the incident, a flash flood warning had been issued for the area; however, authorities did not notify the park’s visitors of the danger.

To see what TechnoEsq Presentationscan do for your case, check out some of our examples at TechnoEsq Presentations. For more information on this specific case WLKY has local news coverage of the settlement here.

Since the site has to be completely rebuild from scratch, we are in the process of completely overhauling it and hope you can bare with us. We have a number of new trials we have digitized and will be back and better than ever within the next few weeks.

PaperShow is similar to the LiveScribe pen in that it consists of a pen which has a micr-camera embedded in the pen which determines the position of the pen tip on a page of interactive paper. On this paper is an area for drawing as well as an area to change pen colors from a color pallet, a line width selection tool, tools to draw filled in and empty shapes as well as other options. As the user draws on the interactive paper, the pen wirelessly transmits what is being drawn on the paper to your computer and it is immediately displayed on your computer screen on a white background. As the user changes colors on the color pallet, the resulting lines being drawn on the interactive paper change to that color on the display. The best part is that no additional software is needed on the computer. The pen works with a USB key which handles the Bluetooth connection to the pen and houses the PaperShow software, so it truly is portable to any PC.

Even more interesting, it is possible to use looseleaf interactive paper supplied with the PaperShow kit to print an image so that the user may draw directly onto a pre-existing photograph. This is especially useful in a motor vehicle collision where an overhead image of the intersection has been printed and the deponent may then proceed to draw on the image, allowing the deponent to show on the screen exactly what they experienced during the collision.

PaperShow also has the option to save whatever is displayed on screen as a PDF file at any given time, thus allowing a sequence of events to be captured as a sequence of PDF files. This is particularly useful to save drawings as exhibits to attach to a deposition or to enter into evidence at trial.

I successfully used PaperShow during a deposition as well as a hearing in court and can tell you that it is as easy as drawn on a piece of paper. The software used to display what is being drawn is incredibly easy to use. It is simply matter of entering into presentation mode from the software.

Some of the downsides of Papershow is the distance between the PaperShow pen and computer can be no more than 6 m and the product is currently only capable of running on a PC. Additionally, the interactive paper must be purchased through Canson and cannot be printed on a color laser printer such as the LiveScribe Pen’s interactive paper.

Despite these minor shortcomings Canson’s PaperShow is an amazingly useful and affordable product for any lawyer in litigation. Priced at only $199 at CostCo and Staples, it is an affordable tool that any litigating attorney would be remiss to pass up.

It doesn’t matter whether you develop lots of WordPress sites for clients like I do,  are just getting started with WordPress, or are somewhere in between you are going to fall in love with the power, flexibility, ease and control that the Headway premium theme puts at your fingertips. Headway makes complex design changes – things that until now have required messing with html, css, php and all that complicated stuff  – as easy as clicking and dragging with your mouse.

Combine that with its power Search Engine Optimization (SEO) control and I’m confident your competition will soon be using Headway even if you’re not.

Why Listen to Me?

First here’s a little background about me before I get into this review so that you can decide if I know what I’m talking about or not.

I’ve been working with WordPress for going on 4 years and it’s been a significant part of my full-time income for over a year and a half. In addition to consulting on new media strategy and training I have built dozens of websites for clients with WordPress, WordPress MU, and BuddyPress.

If you Google the term “WordPress support” (as of this writing at least) you will find our WordPress Support page on the first page of results. Pretty much the only pages that rank higher are for the various WorPress help forums and the like, which means that SuccessCREEations is about the first place listed where someone can pick up the phone and get personalized help to with their specific WordPress problem. And trust me, we do get calls!

My recently launched all-video site ChrisCree.TV is gaining attention as a go-to source for folks to learn about how new media can help them grow their businesses. I speak at national conferences and have contributed to books and periodicals as an author on new media and blogging topics.

I have worked extensively with, and am an affiliate for, several of the most prominent premium WordPress themes and regularly recommend the most appropriate one directly to my clients depending on their specific needs. I know several of their developer/owners and consider them friends. And of course I am using an affiliate link to Headway in this review.

For those of you who don’t know me, reviewing a premium WordPress theme is not something I usually do. Look through the three years of archives here at SuccessCREEations and you will not find blog post reviewing any other premium WordPress theme. Not even the ones with higher affiliate payouts. That’s how impressive I think Headway is.

But enough of my credentials. Feels too much like bragging anyway. On to the review.

Chris’ full review is available here. We highly recommend reading the rest as it describes exactly what Headway can do for you and your practice.

However, the feature list of Headway is not its main selling point, but instead it is the ease of use in building and customizing your blog. As I said, we had completely re-built TechnoEsq’s website after installing WordPress in under 2 hours. The only thing which was exported from the old site was the post content and images. Under normal conditions, it would take a considerably more time in re-creating a website to keep the look of the prior one. As we mentioned, there are built-in options for custom sidebars and image rotation boxes which are called leaves (as in the leaf of a table). These leaves are boxes inserted into the layout of your blog just like leaves in a table and are customizable to include text, video or any other code you would like to insert.

For those technically inclined, resizing containers and leaves is as easy as clicking and dragging from within the layout editor. Colors can be chose for backgrounds, links, text and any other editable object using a color wheel.

Headway is truly an amazing product and anyone even considering a blog should seriously consider Headway. You can save a considerable amount of money creating a blog using WordPress and Headway instead of hiring a firm and you retain complete control over your site.

When working on a motion, bankruptcy petition or just doing some research we often find ourselves flipping between screens. Some lawyers keep their windows set to a size that allows more than one document on the screen at a time, others use programs to let them flip around using hot keys.But with inexpensive technology comes better solutions to increase productivity. That’s why so many lawyers use multiple monitors to keep their workflow in check and make their lives easier.

Consider this – you’re working on a motion and need to get some research done. On one screen you’ve got your word processor of choice, and on the other you’ve got Westlaw (or Lexis or FastCase or LoisLaw or whatever). You can see both screens at full size at the same time, allowing you to get the job done more quickly.

Or you’re preparing a bankruptcy petition. One screen’s got your bankruptcy preparation software, the other has the client’s documents that have been scanned into your computer. Your desk is clean, your work moves ahead without a hitch.

How many monitors is enough? Well, that depends on you. For me, the limit is 2 – one laptop screen and a widescreen monitor capable of keeping two windows open at 95% each. I find that having more monitors gives me free reign to indulge a lack of concentration and maximize the potential for distraction. Sure, you can have a bunch of screens sitting around and look like you’re controlling a lunar landing. But why?

The brain can do only so many things at once without losing steam, and trying to multi-multi-multitask will only slow you down.

The convenience of using two or more monitors is astounding, but at some point too much is too much.
So, how many monitors do you use?

[Source Legal Practice Pro]

As part of our weeklong legal efficiency-fest, we’re discussing the Getting Things Done productivity system in the context of a law firm. Each day this week, we’ll write guest posts at prominent legal blogs exploring the system in more detail.

Yesterday we painted an overview of Getting Things Done for the legal practitioner. As GTD adherents will say, becoming an organizational “black belt” takes a lot of time. And utilizing all components of the system may not work for you. But several of the techniques, such as the ones I’m presenting this week, are those that by themselves can really impact your productivity.

Dealing with “Stuff”

In GTD, “stuff” has a specific definition: “anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn’t belong where it is, but for which you haven’t determined the desired outcome and the next action step” (from “Getting Things Done”, Chapter 1).

In other words, stuff is anything you have to deal with that requires a plan of action, from the trivial to the complex. The problem most people encounter when they attempt to get organized is that they don’t think about their stuff and transform it into actionable plans. For example, recording a to-do called “work on matter” will not help you move forward with your work, as there’s no clear result from the activity. It’s too vague.

Capturing “Open Loops”

To achieve the stress-free part of the GTD system, one of the most vital components is capturing information. If you don’t get your stuff out of your head and collected into a capture system, your mind, consciously or sometimes less that consciously, keeps track of all of the incomplete items in your life. These incomplete items are referred to as “open loops”, and can distract you from the present moment, sap energy, and cause stress.

A huge part of GTD is embracing a capture system and eliminating all “open loops” from your psyche. Find a system that inspires you, whether a 3×5 index card system, portable notebook, dictation device, (or shameless plug, Rocket Matter’s beautiful new task functionality) and get everything out of your head.

GTD recommends a process called a “Mind-Sweep”, where you spend twenty minutes to an hour writing out each thought, idea, or project that is in your head. Capture everything from the mundane “need more dental floss” to the wishful thinking “reduce carbon footprint”.

A Well-Written Next Action Item

Once your stuff is captured, it needs to be described so that acting on it will have a measurable outcome. Before, with the “work on matter” vague to-do item example, a task with a cloudy description will not drive you forward. “Review Westlaw for similar case precedents”, however, will.

The Next Action is the “next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality towards completion” (from “Getting Things Done”, Chapter 2). Other examples might be “Call client to discuss amendment to operating agreement”, “Research web-based legal software tools”, or “Draft Motion to Dismiss for Smith Matter”.

Using action verbs to describe physical steps are crucial to describe your Next Action items. Verbs like “Call, Draft, Review, Find, Print, Email, Research” – all of these are ideal ways to describe your stuff, so that it transforms from the vague blob of an idea to a results-oriented description.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned for tomorrow, where we’ll explore organizing, the “two minute rule” and “Do it, Defer it, and Delegate it.”

Originally posted on Blog for Profit: GTD For Legal: Capturing and Transforming “Stuff” into Next Action Items.