Technology to Change Your Life

by Tom McNichol

Hardly a day goes by that some newly released tech gadget isn't proclaimed a hot product. Trouble is, a lot of so-called hot products are more like warmed-over products, representing just a modest upgrade to something that's already out there. For lawyers, the definition of a hot product is pretty straightforward?it's something that will make their work life a little easier. Here are a few items that fit that legal definition.

WordPerfect Mobilizes
When Microsoft Word surpassed WordPerfect as the preferred word processing program for business, Bill Clinton was still in office. But WordPerfect continues to enjoy a surprisingly loyal following among attorneys, who got hooked on the application's intuitive features. It's further proof that legal precedent moves slowly, even when it comes to software.

The use of WordPerfect has become more problematic in the mobile age because documents in its format are difficult if not impossible to read on most mobile phone platforms. But no more. Now, there's an app even for that.

With the WPD Viewer for iPhone ($4.99 at Apple's App Store), you can finally view WordPerfect email attachments without having to run back to your office desktop to open them. The app is basically a translator that converts WordPerfect documents into a format the iPhone can display. Simply drag and drop your WordPerfect files into the WPD Viewer, or send them there directly from other applications or an email account. The app lets you perform a few rudimentary tasks with the file?you can search, bookmark, and cut and paste text into an email message, where the content can then be edited. That may strike some users as a bit clunky, but if you're a WordPerfect devotee, you're already accustomed to clunky. There's also a $5.99 version of the same app for the iPad.

"We Met Online"
A website called Lawbidding.com aims to do for lawyers what Match .com has done for the dating scene. Lawbidding is an open forum where businesses and individuals can solicit bids from attorneys to handle a pressing legal matter. The service is free to both lawyers and prospective clients (the site is supported by ad revenue). Aspiring clients post a description of their legal problem, and lawyers who register with the site can view a general overview of the case. The clients can post anonymously, although they must specify their location so a lawyers can know what jurisdiction the case is in. After browsing case descriptions, attorneys can make bids based on either a flat fee, an hourly rate, or on contingency. Clients in turn can scrutinize the bidding lawyer's profile page, which can be configured to show information about his or her firm, a link to a website, and additional references. The client may then communicate directly with a chosen lawyer. Lawbidding may not make attorneys rich, but it offers a potential revenue stream at a time when other work has slowed to a trickle.

Travel Light
An electronic device called Pogoplug (www.pogoplug.com) promises to let you leave your hard drive at home or the office and instead access your data over the Internet. In about a minute, Pogoplug can link up to four of your hard drives to the Internet wirelessly (or more with a USB hub) so you have complete access to your data from any Web browser, no matter where you are. It's sort of like having your own personal cloud, filled with just your stuff. You can access your case files, photos, videos, or even your entire music library?without any uploading. Pogoplug also lets you broadcast and share your digital information with anyone you designate; just send an invitation through an automated email link. Setup is straightforward: Simply plug the palm-size Pogoplug device into the network router at your office, connect your external hard drive, and get online. After that, you can access all of the content on your Pogoplug-connected hard drives from any Web browser, and even stream videos and music directly to a smartphone. Access your data with just your email address and a user-selected password.

MyCase Is Your Case
The most common complaint clients have about their lawyers is "failure to communicate." That's where an online service called MyCase (www.mycaseinc .com) steps in, offering a system that provides clients with 24/7 access to their case files. MyCase aims to do for the legal system what online banking has done for the financial industry?namely, give clients a straightforward and above all secure way to access and interact with their information. When a client logs into his or her MyCase account, a dashboard presents a snapshot of upcoming appointments, recent documents, rulings, court transcripts, the attorney's scheduled vacations, and news updates. The lawyer, in turn, gets an aggregation of all this information on an activity data stream similar to Facebook's. MyCase obviously won't answer every client's question, but it can dispense with the most common queries?and ensure that you and your client are literally reading from the same page. The cost for access is $35 to $45 per attorney user per month, depending on the size of the law firm. You can check it out for free by signing up for a 45-day trial.

Highlight the Web
A Web tool called Scrible (www.scrible.com) may have you throwing away your yellow highlighter for good, or at least giving it an occasional rest. Simply download Scrible's toolbar and add it to your browser, then use the toolbar to annotate Web pages the same way you would any hard copy. You can annotate in multiple colors and styles, search a document by keyword, and save it online to your personal library in the cloud. You can then share your highlighted Web research with colleagues working on the same project. There's no charge for the basic edition of Scrible, which is still in public beta mode, but it comes with a capacity limit of 125MB, which some data-intensive lawyers may use up quickly. The company plans to offer paid editions in the not-too-distant future that can handle much more storage.

The Sun Also Charges
Some hot products are hot as the sun - for instance, the Solio Classic Universal Solar Charger, which can recharge all of your handheld electronic products using sunshine. (The charger is priced around $100, but with a little digging you can purchase it online for as little as $60.) The Solio works by absorbing power from direct sunlight via three blades that spread out for maximum exposure. This energy is stored in the unit's internal battery. Then, once the battery is fully juiced, you can connect the charger to power your cell phone, smartphone, iPod, PDA, Bluetooth headset, GPS gadget, or digital camera. With the solar charger, you won't be just another lawyer yakking into a cell phone; you'll be a Mobile Green Attorney whose phone never seems to go dead.

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