Criminal Defense Law With An Apple

There is a tendency, in the legal community, to abide by the saying, “The nail that stands up, gets pounded down.” However, in criminal defense, attorneys seem less concerned with the fear of standing apart (and sometimes strive for it). Using a Mac already sets you apart from the crowd. Still, for Mac using attorneys there are a number of inexpensive choices for giving your classic aluminium Macbook a new, stand-apart look. Speck has some customization if you want a solid color. And for interesting textures (including wood grain!) go to iamhuman. Finally for the truly daring there are Gelaskins.

So the last of the list..for now. I am consantly trying new programs but only the best make it to the Dock. Here is a list of the rest of the programs I use on a daily basis. A program I did not think I would use was Skype. I enjoy Skype for long distance calls when I am at the office and I am getting low on cell minutes. Generally speaking, Skype is still rough around the edges and, as a whole, the program leaves a lot to be desired on the Mac platform. Still, I use it daily.

I also use MS Office for word processing. I have heard great things about Pages lately but it frustrated me. I think after years of using MS Word, I was trying to be open-minded, but it just did not work. I intend to give it a try again in the future and provide a proper review. I have a feeling that with the proper time spent, it could be a great program.

I use Adobe Acrobat to create all my forms (including phone call forms, client info sheets, and court event record sheets) to place in Circus Ponies Notebook for my less-paper office. I used our previous forms, in MS Word, that were printed up weekly and then filled out by hand. I placed the MS forms in the Acrobat “edit forms” program. It was fairly easy program to learn and now I do a great deal of my case management in PDF forms to create digital files. I also use Acrobat to transfer my Word docs for faxing. This is just the tip of the iceberg for what Acrobat can do. To get a more in-depth look at Acrobat 8 see this Macworld article.

For faxing, I send all my faxes via Maxemail. It is a bit early in my relationship with this company to give a full recommendation. More to come.

I use Safari for the web. I know, “Firefox/Camino/Opera rules. It is way faster” but I really like the consistent UI of Mac products.

I use AppZapper to get rid of programs that I have tested and determined I will not use. Unlike PC, Mac does not have a Uninstall program built in. Mac users suggested I could just drag and drop the application in the trash when I was done. However, remnants of the program are left all over your machine. Appzapper handles this by finding all the related files and deleting them all at once. However, even with Appzapper, some programs leave behind their “linked in” integration (I am looking at you Marketcircle).

A few other notable mentions (not in the Dock but I use them): Google Earth, Onyx, .Mac and Stuffit.

That is it for now. Next up: Where do you get your information?

Kasper Jade at Apple Insider reports that a prisoner at South Carolina Correctional Facility claims that OJ Simpson has been Steve Jobs hitman since 1985. Some of the highlights from the article:

Filed September 21 in the United States District Court Middle District of Florida, the 3-page handwritten complaint alleges that Simpson has been Jobs’s “hitman” since the “1985 MOVE house bombing in Philadelphia, which Jobs started with borrowed pyrotechnics from Great White.”

As for his other roles in the legal escapade, Jobs is charged with aiming nuclear missiles at Riches’ brain and Lance Armstrong’s bicycle, as well as price gouging iPhone customers. “On May 10th, 2007, I bought an Apple iPhone for $922.01 at the FCI Williamsburg commissary,” Riches wrote. “Now Jobs sells that same iPod for $199.”

“A cursory review of the complaint is sufficient to establish that it is nothing more than fanciful nonsense,” US District Judge Gregory Presnell wrote in his order for dismissal. “The whole thing reads like a cross between Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ and a Dr. Bronner’s soap label, if Dr. Bronner had been a first-year law student with untreated paranoid schizophrenia.”

I made it work: He is a former criminal and Steve Jobs is Apple. Throw in OJ and I had to post it. Read the full article here.

As I suggested in my previous post, I have tried a number of different programs that would emulate what was being used in my previous (all paper) case management system. Along with the Apple programs Address Book, ical and Mail, I use Circus Ponies Notebook in combination with Adobe Acrobat for case management and trial preparation. This might be a very practice specific choice.
Notebook, much like other great programs for the Apple, takes some time to realize its full potential. A great starting point are the videos on this page. For a testimonial on the power of this program (in combination with other progarms) see this promo.
I have two different templates. One is for trial and the other is for case management. The one for case management is the same as our previous paper file management system. I am happy to share either one. Just send me an email or post a request in the comments.

Edit:
I forgot to include this tutorial that convinced me to purchase Notebook. It is a bit long but really showcases the value of this program.

Nothing was more illustrative to the amount of paper that law firms go through than working on a civil case. I was involved in a high profile case in Washington where two huge law firms were exchanging telephone book size motions on a daily basis. In an article on Law.com blog they refer to an article by the ABA saying, “a typical lawyer uses 20,000 to 100,000 sheets of copy paper a year.” Just one more reason to embrace electronic documents.

A tip from Randy B Singer (The Original Mac Attorney) saying, “TimeNet/Law, a time and billing program that is designed to take the place of Timeslips for law firms, has just undergone a significant update.” The program is available now and costs $199 dollars. There was a recent update to the UI giving TimeNet/Law a slick new look. Time providing, I will download this program and give it a try. I am open to the idea of an integrated case managment system.

The Apple Trinity

For Outlook replacement(s) I use: Apple mail, iCal and Address Book. I know, “Wow, built in applications for the Mac, how cutting edge.” However, these programs are far superior to any application I have found for the Mac so far. It is strange using three programs that were previously housed under one program on my PC before. It took some getting used to, but they are each independently stable, useful and have more under the hood than what first appears. There is nothing I could do in Outlook that I cannot do with each of these programs. They are cogged together and you can send information from one to the other without a hitch. It is also easy to get information to other programs I use in my day-to-day practice. I am able to sync all the information with my Blackberry via PocketMac Blackberry. I am able to make calls from Address Book using Skype. I am also able to get google directions directly from Address book. I can even have ical email me reminders for business appointements.

I cannot say enough about how well these programs are integrated with each other and how stable the programs are on whole. I have never had any buggy issues with these programs. The final thing I would say is that these programs all seem far more simple than they really are. The more you tinker around, the more things you discover.

• For a passionate look at what is available in Apple Mail visit Hawk Wings

• For interesting links to subscrible to on ical, visit icalshare (not really productive but cool)

• For those of you in love with all things Google there is an interesting calendar solution being developed at Spanning Sync

• For a look at the integration of Apple’s Address book with other programs see this article in Low End Mac.

• Some cool add-ons for ical include menu/calendar/clock and preconfigured calendars.

I know a number of people have been extremely satisfied with Daylite, Lawstream,Entourage and Filemaker Pro programs, to name a few. Many of these solutions go beyond Outlook and how it would be used as a full case management system. For me, none of these solutions quite worked. I spent roughly 30 days with each of them. It is a taste thing. If you don’t like cilantro, I can’t make you like cilantro. On some programs, like Daylite, I think I could learn to love the program. However, when I transferred my 243 contacts it was going to require quite a bit of reworking to get the tags fixed. This coupled with the inability to transfer over my ical just made the program difficult to embrace. There are a number of attorneys who think Daylite is the software solution for case management and Outlook replacement. I strongly suggest taking advantage of the free trials offered by many software developers in this area and see whether they work for you.

The easiest solution to all concerns about leaving the PC and not having the software you need is that a Mac can easily run PC software. Here are some of the most popular solutions.

First up, Bootcamp. I loaded Bootcamp on our iMac the day after it came out. It was a great way to retire the last remaining PC in the house. My wife needed a PC because she had started a design project in Quark with certain fonts that were only available on the PC. It did take about an hour to get everything up and running but it was not a big hassle. Whenever we wanted to run the PC on the Mac, we just restarted the computer and held down the “option” key. The PC loaded right up. The downside, we could not run any Mac programs while the PC was going. Nevertheless, it ran lightning fast and we had no stability issues whatsoever.

Next up, Parallels. I only recently put this on my Macbook Pro. It is a fine piece of software. There is an audio program that is used by the Washington Courts that only works on a PC. Parallels is very intuitive and opens in a separate window right on your Mac. Personally, I do not have enough RAM in my computer to make this the most productive program. It slows things down considerably and my Macbook runs pretty hot with only one gig of RAM. That said, it runs about as well as Virtual PC ran on my old Mac. I have talked to other attorneys that use Parallels with two gigs and they say that it runs like butter.

Finally, there is VM Ware’s Fusion. The most recent player to enter the market (from beta), they are heavy hitters with big-time backers. I have not used the software but the spec’s are impressive. The program has 64 bit support (Parallels currently does not). However, Parallels has graphic card support for 3d gaming. Both companies claim that they will meet or beat the shortcomings that are used to compare the two. Mac World has written good article comparing them both.

Mark Bennett dropped me a line today, welcoming me to the the land of blogs and positing in the comments, “There are several other Mac-using criminal defense lawyers out there. I think it’s because criminal defense, done properly, is a creative endeavor.”

I agree with Mark and it is incredibly apropos statement. When I first moved into my new office, I mentioned to the IT person I would not need much help setting up or maintaining my computer, “I use a Mac.”
He cocked his head and said, “You are an attorney.”
“Yes?” I replied.
“I thought Mac’s were for creative-artsy-types.”
I didn’t have much of a response. “I guess so…lawyers like them also.”

Really, criminal defense is a creative endeavor. And frankly, I am a very creative criminal defense lawyer (not really “artsy” per se). I don’t know if it is the exact reason I chose a Mac. But it is pretty cool not to need any help from the IT guy.

The first question most attorneys ask is, “how can I replace the programs I use on PC for a Mac. I use this, that and the other. They don’t have that for Mac.” The answer is you can’t. There are some interesting solutions/alternatives/work-arounds, but no silver bullets. I have found some programs that are better than the PC counter-parts and some programs that, in combination with others, are as good or better than the PC alternatives. Although this program list does not match to my own, there is a great article by Grant Griffiths that explores the programs used by their firm to fill the gap.

Next up, Part 2 (Virtualization)