Email attachments are wonderful things. Long gone of the painful and inefficient days of snail-mail and sending faxes (Perhaps dating myself here.) With just a few clicks, you can almost instantly send a document, picture or computer file of umpteen other different formats to one or more people located anywhere on the planet. This is truly amazing – and we do take it for granted.
And thankfully, our e-mail administrators have increased attachment size limits. Do you remember when you could only send attachments that were under 1Meg or even 500k? (Probably dating myself again here.) You still can’t send …

As Hurricane Sandy barrels down on the east coast and BC is still gently trembling from last week’s earthquake, we can’t help but advise you to think about what would happen if a disaster were to take place in your city, to take a look at what plans you currently have in place to cope, and to make changes if needed.

Busy law firms  seldom think about the possibility of an office fire, but the effects of a fire could devastate your law practice.  The fire doesn’t even have to start in your office suite; down the hall or one …

Today’s tip is a simple reminder…read the screen. When you are doing legal research, the best gift you can give yourself, and your client, is careful attention to detail. For electronic research services, that means paying attention to everything that is going on – content and functionality.…

While there is something to be said for a face-to-face meeting, you can get just as much or more done at a virtual meeting, especially if you use some of the new tools that let you collaborate across the web. Virtual meetings have several benefits: you can hold them on an ad hoc basis without leaving your desk, and you don’t incur the time and expense of traveling to an in-person meeting.

You can easily “meet” your clients virtually, either by phone or by video. The phone is effortless – everyone knows how to use a phone. Video conferencing, too, …

Today’s Tip is for those of you who may be thinking of buying a sports car through eBay and shipping it long distances and cross borders so that your partner has a excellent birthday. Really, it is about the wealth of fantastic databases that exist and may not necessarily be considered legal research, but fill that role.

Take, for instance, the Road Safety Recalls Database provided by Transport Canada. This database, freely available through a government website, makes it very easy to find vehicle recalls for virtually any make and model of cute little sports car that you may choose.…

Windows 7 introduced some really neat new keyboard shortcuts for manipulating windows. Here are some shortcuts that every Windows 7 user should know:
Windows key + Up and Windows key + Down: If a window isn’t maximized, pressing the Windows key + Up arrow key will make it fill your entire screen. Windows key + Down arrow on a maximized window will restore will restore the window to its previous dimensions filling only part of the full screen. Pressing it again will minimize that active window.
Windows key + Shift + Up and Windows key + Shift + Down…

Many lawyers are fearful of moving away from hourly-rate billing because they are concerned that alternative-billing will be a risky bet.  Is there a way to ensure that you, the lawyer (or the “house” in betting parlance) will win the majority of the fixed-fee bets?

Of course there is, but you have to lay the groundwork before moving to this type of billing.  Here is one suggested method.

First, track or review your actual time and amount billed for all files of the type for which you are considering moving to fixed rate billing.  You should probably review not less …

I posted to Slaw yesterday about the AALL ILTA White Paper project: The New Librarian.

There is an excellent article included in that digital white paper called Generational Divides: Paper and Electronic Resources by Jocelyn Stilwell-Tong of Nossaman LLP. The article talks about research preferences and using print and electronic commentary.

When you are doing legal research today, think about the content and the format it comes in and ask yourself about function and form. I would love to hear stories about what you discover.…

Most new devices sold today will include USB 3.0 connectivity. At home or work, many of your older devices will have USB 2.0 (or even 1.0!). So how does USB 3.0 compare with USB 2.0?
USB 3.0 is faster – mush faster! USB 3.0 data transfers have a theoretical maximum speed of 5 gigabits per second. This compares to a theoretical maximum speed of 460 megabits per second for USB 2.0 devices. Of course, you won’t get close to 5-gbps transfers during regular daily use, but you will find that you can move files significantly faster between USB 3.0 compatible …

Someone once said: “Life is a series of interruptions interrupted by interruptions.” No one recorded who said it… the person doing the recording was probably interrupted when they were about to write that down…

But as practising lawyers, we are interrupted all the time.  When it comes to recording your billable time, being interrupted before you capture that time can be costly.

You get to the end of a crazy day. You’re wiped. You’ve been running around like a maniac all day, responding to and sending e-mails, talking with clients on the phone, putting out fires and drafting …