Features

So, based on the advice given last month, you've developed a strategic, firm-wide plan and coupled it with strong research efforts. Your firm has adopted approaches that will help differentiate it, not merely through expertise, but also through client service, and you've placed attorney training and coaching at the top of your 'must-do' list. Now it's time to tackle some nagging concerns ' globalization and a flagging economy ' and to consider implementing new tactics (and adapting existing ones) to improve your client acquisition and retention efforts.

Practice groups are a common fixture in most mid- to large-sized law firms. Many firms use them in administrative or 'traffic cop' roles. However, marketers can use PGs to help market not only the attorneys within those groups, but the firm as a whole.

Features

News and developments in legal tech.

Very seldom does a new product come from the computing industry that can make a strong impact on the legal profession. However, all that is soon to change with the advent of the Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 from Hewlett-Packard! Without question this new and exciting PC will soon be turning heads in the legal community, as well as turning your office workload into a new and more functional way to work!

Founded in 1890, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P. is one of the largest U.S.-based international law firms with more than 750 attorneys and 26 offices strategically located around the world.

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What could be duller than a law firm's docketing system, especially one for an intellectual property (IP) firm that has to keep track of deadlines and facts for hundreds of thousands of patent and trademark filings in hundreds of countries? While docketing ' the recording of critical information and events surrounding intellectual property ' is an essential part of any IP practice, most firms think it does not have to be fancy, just reliable. At Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione, we thought the same, until we realized that by upgrading to a state-of-the-art system, we could deliver a better, more technologically-savvy and efficient product that was more in line with the way we deliver all of our other services. We chose to be one of the first firms to utilize new software that allows access up to 100 concurrent users at once, and allows clients access to their data from the Web as well. While upgrading the IP software for one of the largest IP law firms in the U.S. was certainly not an easy task, it has brought tremendous benefits not only to our lawyers and staff, but to our clients as well.

AutoText is a very powerful feature in Word. AutoText entries are used to store frequently used text, graphics, graphic letterheads, tables and other items that you want to quickly and easily insert into a document. It also ensures that frequently repeated text is keyed correctly. Word's Auto-Complete feature allows you to insert AutoText entries by typing only the first few characters of the AutoText entry name. When Auto- Complete recognizes an Auto- Text entry, you automatically see the full text of the entry displayed on your screen. To accept the entry, all you need to do is press the Tab or Enter key.

Readers of this publication know that technological advances continue to revolutionize the practice of law and, in particular, the presentation of cases at trial. Not a day goes by without another article, essay, CLE seminar, jury poll, or billboard extolling the benefits of using technology to develop effective demonstrative evidence, and help present your case at trial. But for the lawyer facing a looming trial date, there is a threshold question that the pundits often overlook: 'How technical should I get, and when?'