Effective January 29, 2007, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin approved On-Demand CLE for Wisconsin attorneys. The original petition was filed by the Board of Bar Examiners and was amended after discussions with the State Bar of Wisconsin. The new rule provides:

Section 1.  31.01 (6m) of the Supreme Court Rules is created to read:

31.01 (6m) "Repeated on-demand program" means an on-line program delivered over the Internet, repeating a program previously approved by the board, and given at a time of the attendee's choosing within twelve (12) months of the approval of the on-demand on-line program.

Section 2.  31.05 (5) and (6) of the Supreme Court Rules are created to read:

31.05 (5) (a) A repeated on-demand program may be used to satisfy the requirement of SCR 31.02, if all of the following conditions are met:

1. The repeated on-demand program is approved prior to being claimed for credit by a lawyer on CLE Form 1.

2. Sponsors of the approved on-demand on-line program must maintain a roster verifying the attendance of all attorneys logged-in and paying for the program and provide the roster to the board if requested.

(b) No more than 10.0 credits may be claimed for repeated on-demand programs during a lawyer's reporting period.

(c) No legal ethics and professional responsibility credit is allowed for a repeated on-demand program.

(d) Repeated on-demand programs may not be used for reinstatement, readmission, or reactivation.

(6) Each hour of service on the office of lawyer regulation district committee or as an office of lawyer regulation special investigator may be used to satisfy the requirements of SCR 31.02, to a maximum of 3.0 hours of legal ethics and professional responsibility credit per reporting period, provided that the office of lawyer regulation maintains a roster verifying service and provides the roster to the board if requested.

 

Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional promises a number of new and useful tools for legal professionals. According to Adobe’s New Features for Legal Professionals page, features that will be beneficial to lawyers include:

•           Permanently remove sensitive information (redaction)

•           Metadata removal

•           Built-in support for Bates numbering

•           Easier, more accurate export to Microsoft Word and other formats

•           Enable forms saving in Adobe Reader 8 and auto-recognize form fields

•           New, intuitive user interface

•           Combine multiple files into one PDF package

•           True batch printing

•           Support for PDF/A archiving standard

•           Archive Lotus Notes e-mail

•           Manage shared reviews

•           Faster Adobe PDF creation and rendering

•           Improved OCR engine

The built-in support for Bates numbering is worth the $159 upgrade price from previous versions just by itself in my own opinion.  From my own use of Acrobat 8 Professional, this new version has a much “cleaner” user interface and on program launch, opens much faster.

A word of caution before you upgrade: do not upgrade to Adobe Acrobat Version 8 Standard: you will not be able to create me numbers, permanently remove sensitive information, create billable forms for use in Adobe Reader 8 and the other items shown in the list of legal features at the top of this post.  For a comparison of the various versions of Adobe Acrobat click here.

For those of you considering this upgrade, or for those of you who've already made this move, the latest Adobe Acrobat Legal Resource Guide contains the links posted below.

These resources include a white paper on Acrobat 8 for lawyers authored by attorney David Masters (author of the ABA Book The Lawyer's Guide to Adobe Acrobat); links to online web seminars and recordings demonstrating the new features (including those specifically for lawyers), and much more.

Free Downloads & Trials

Acrobat 8.0 Professional Trial Download –

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html

Acrobat 7.09 Update for Faster PCL Printing - http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3566

Adobe Document Center Free Trial - http://www.adobe.com/products/onlineservices/documentcenter/features.html

Acrobat Connect Free Trial –

http://www.adobe.com/go/freewebconferencing_2006

Acrobat 8.0 Customization Wizard Download - http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3564

Adobe Reader 8.0 Download –

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Adobe Reader 8.0 Enterprise Edition (for Enterprise Deployment) - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrdistribute.html

Training

Acrobat 8.0 Teaching & Learning Resources - http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/teach/acrobat.html?tab:acrostdpro=1

Acrobat 8.0 Experience Flash Demo –

http://www.adobe.com/go/acrobat8exp_uk

Acrobat 8.0: What's New for Legal Professionals OnDemand eSeminar (recording) - http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p17441268/

Acrobat 8.0 For Legal Podcast (20 minutes) –

http://www.lawbiz.com/podcasts/rick_borstein_final.mp3

Acrobat 8.0 for IT (Deployment and Adobe License Manager) - https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a227210/p50379167/

Acrobat Online Legal Events –

http://www.smallurl.info/?r=vh

Adobe Events in Your Area –

http://www.adobe.com/events

Resources

Acrobat 8.0 Enterprise Deployment; Step-By-Step Instructions - http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2007/01/enterprise_depl.html

Adobe Solutions for Legal Professionals Website –

www.adobe.com/go/legal

Acrobat 8.0 Pro - New Features for Legal Professionals - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/solutions/legal/productinfo/features/index.html

Acrobat 8.0 for Legal Professionals Whitepaper - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/solutions/pdfs/Acrobat8_foLegalPros.pdf

Acrobat 8.0 Product Family Detailed Comparison Matrix - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/pdfs/acrobat8_matrix.pdf

Acrobat 8.0 Professional Feature Overview - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/pdfs/acrobatpro_overview.pdf

Acrobat 8.0 Professional Datasheet - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/pdfs/acrobatpro_datasheet.pdf

Acrobat Connect Resources –

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/

Support

Acrobat for Legal Professionals Blog –

http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/

New Adobe Annual Support Plans –

http://www.adobe.com/support/programs/

Free Acrobat Support, Tutorials and Forums –

http://www.adobe.com/support/products/acrobat.html

Acrobat Developer Center –

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/

Adobe Support Knowledgebase –

http://www.adobe.com/support/

Licensing

Adobe License Manager –  

http://www.adobe.com/elicensing/licensemanagement/alm/

Volume Software Licensing Programs –

 

 

 

Neil Rubenking posted at AppScout (which is an undertaking of PCMagazine) about how his search for a utility brought him to the NirSoft website. According to the NirSoft home page:

NirSoft web site provides a unique collection of small and useful freeware utilities, all of them developed by Nir Sofer

Neil Rubenking writes

There are dozens and dozens of small single-purpose utilities at this site, and as far as I can tell they're all free. You'll find utilities to recover a lost password or read out the passwords stored by IE. Network monitors, browser tools, command-line utilities, they're all here. In particular I'll be returning to peruse the many freeware system tools. This site is quite a find.

While many of these are for advanced users, some of his utilities for showing hidden passwords and the Microsoft Office add-ins manager can be useful to the average computer user.

As with any downloads, you always need to be mindful of the potential for spyware and other nasties hidden in the files, so it is critical that you run good anti-virus and anti-spyware utilities and make sure they are up to date. As with any of these sites and utilities, use them at your own risk.

If you are contemplating moving to the new Microsoft Office 2007 edition, here are a couple of Microsoft links that may be useful.  The first is a link to the "Get Started with the 2007 Microsoft Office system" page and the second is how to use the new navigation tools "Use the Ribbon" page. Both of these pages include demos and other useful information to help you start taking advantage of the new features as quickly as possible. From published reports, the Ribbon takes some getting used to, but after using it for a while, users reported that they believe it is an improvement over the old menu system.

Throughout my 16 years in private practice, I saw any number of good attorneys have problems in running their practices.  Often times, they were simple things such as treating their staff harshly, failing to return phone calls, delays in sending out information, etc. While I never actually took the time to create an actual list of the problems I encountered, luckily, lawyer marketing guru Trey Ryder has done some of this for us.

Trey's website contains information about his various seminars as well as links to a number of his articles that are full of useful information and tips.  Trey also has a private email list which he uses to send out to lawyers useful articles, tips and tricks on a regular basis.  While occaissionally the email may be nothing more than an ad for an upcoming seminar, the majority contain some form of useful informatoni. Anyone can join this private email list right from his website. 

A recent example of one of his private email list messages was titled " 12 Business Practices That Undermine Your Marketing Program And Ruin Your Reputation.”  I think that most will agree with this list and may even recognize that we are guilty of some of them in our own practices. There is no doubt in my mind that the following bad business practices can affect every lawyer alone or in combination at any time.

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #1:  Surprising your client by adding unexpected expenses or fees to his bill.

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #2:  Don’t pay bills until they are at least 90 days old.

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #3:  Keep employees in fear of losing their jobs. 

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #4:  Don’t worry about keeping your commitments. 

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #5:  Arrive late for appointments because it makes you look important.

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #6:  Return phone calls when you get around to it.

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #7:  Respond to requests for materials when you have time. 

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #8:  Don’t agree to buy anything until you beat up the other person on price.

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #9:  Make the other person sign his life away for a $25 deal. 

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #10:  Talk about your problems so people conclude you’re a victim. 

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #11:  Demand perfection and don’t stop until you get it.

BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE #12:  Turn your mistakes into your client’s problem.

In addition to the list, Trey also expounded on each of these bad business practices with examples and also recommendations as to how to avoid the problems these practices can cause.

I recommend that you check out the articles on his website and consider subscribing to his private mail list.