As reported on the Inquirer, the folks at Google have released a new search engine that can be personalized by you. Google wants you to place this search system on your website and then use it to make money from Google's AdSense for Search service.To see what all of the fuss is about go to the Google Co-op Beta page. You'll need a Google account to log-in. As usual, you should read the Terms of Service, including  Section 3 which provides:

3. Information Rights and Privacy. Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries may retain and use, subject to the terms of its Privacy Policy (located at http://www.google.com/privacy.html, or such other URL as Google may provide from time to time), information collected in Your use of the Service. You understand and agree that Google may access, preserve, and disclose Your personal information and the contents of Your account if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process or protect the rights, property and/or safety of Google, its affiliates or the public. Personal information collected by Google may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Google or its agents maintain facilities. By using the Service, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country.

There are too many sections of the Terms of Service to list here in detail, but you should read all of them carefully before you embark on creating your own search engine. They also include Section 1.2 which provides for acceptance of modifications to the service simply by continuing to use the search box:

1.2 Modifications. Google may modify the Terms of Use at any time with or without notice, and you can review the most current version of the Terms of Use online at any time at Terms of Use. If a modification is unacceptable to You, You may cancel the Service on the Site and terminate the Terms of Use by removing the Code and the Search Box from Your Site. If You continue to use the Code and/or the Search Box on any Site, You will be deemed to have accepted the modifications.

When creating your search engine you can add "Refinements" such as a refinement label which Google describes as follows:

A label is a mechanism for allowing users to refine their search results in your Custom Search Engine (CSE). You annotate the sites you have included in your search engine with labels that describe their content. The labels appear as links at the top of your search results pages. When a user clicks a label, sites that are annotated with this label are either given priority or shown exclusively in the results (you choose). Additional search words that you provide can also be added to the user's query, providing more targeted results.

Google has a list of existing labels here and provides a list of example search engines here.

I have to give this company credit for continuing to find new ways to innovate and to make money: it will be interesting to see how this develops and what "gotchas" show up.

For those of you within driving distance of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the ABA General Practice Solo & Small Firm Division Fall Meeting is taking place at the Pfister Hotel. The meeting is also the location for the GP Divsion's 2006 National Solo & Small Firm Conference starting at Noon on Thursday October 19, 2006.

The National Solo & Small Firm Conference will feature myself, Ross Kodner and other national speakers covering a number of far reaching and useful topics inlcuding Top 10 Ways Small Firms Commit Malpractice and How to Avoid Them, My Finances: Take your Firm's Financial Pulse, PDF Your Practice, Bloggers Speak: Why SSF lawyers Should/Shouldn't and many more timely topics.

It promises to be a feature packed meeting and walk-in registratins are welcome. So come for the entire meeting or just one day! 

There is no worse feeling than looking back and trying to determine what an entry or deposit was for especially if there is any question whether it should be treated as income or expense. Solutions don't have to be high-tech or require a lot of work to be effective; in fact, keeping things simple is oftentimes the best solution and the easiest to use.

Keeping track of information can be difficult in a law office whether large or small. Nowhere is this truer than when trying to insure proper tracking of funds received on behalf of clients to be held in trust, expenses or to pay your bills. I spoke with an accountant over the weekend who was relating to me how some of his clients had difficulty at tax time determining how way a deposit or a portion of a deposit was to be applied i.e. income, expense or something else.

This can be especially trying at tax time even if the information is been kept in QuickBooks, Quicken or another accounting program if full details of not been provided in the computer record. Often times an entry may be something cryptic which made sense at the time it was placed in the accounting program, but at a later date exactly no sense. I discussed with him a simple method that I used from the very beginning of starting my own practice and served me extremely well over the years: I photocopied all items in a deposit including the deposit slip and attached the deposit receipt to this copy after the deposit was made. This provided me with full details on the deposit as will as proof of the deposit in one easily locatable location. I also photocopied a yellow sticky note detailing any cache included in the deposit which provided which client it was received from as well as any other pertinent information. All copies were punched at the top and placed on a two prong fastener. At the end of the year, the copies replaced with the other accounting information and the process was started over again for the new year. This way, whatever question arose I could simply go to the year in question and go through my deposits to the date in question and look at all checks or cash that were included and resolve any questions. I did this not only for my business checking account but also my client trust account and have maintained those records. This is been an extremely valuable asset and one I strongly recommend to all lawyers.

For those offices looking to reduce the amount of paper they keep, this process can also be done by scanning the same information and keeping it either in a separate folder with your other banking information on your computer or computer network or using a product such as PaperPort to organize the deposits.

If you're going to use paper to keep these records, you can also use different color paper for the copies to differentiate between your business and trust accounts. For example, your business checking could be kept on white paper and trust account copies could be done on yellow paper. The exact system you use is up to you, but it should be easy to remember and to follow.