Criminal Defense Law With An Apple

It is hard to get people excited about Widoze releases with Leopard running wild. However, the kids over at MS have thrown up some screen shots of the new Office Suite. It looks interesting. Some of it might not be my cup of tea but, for now, I am still an MS Word guy.

I had plenty to say about Mdansby Legal Suite. I had written a very extensive review of the product. However, I really did not have very many nice things to say. With that said, I hope this program is given some more development on the OSX side. It is truly created for with an attorney in mind. A 30 day trial is available but I was only able to last 10 days before giving up.

Between the different court sites, listserves, professional associations, email, networking programs and more, I have a lot of passwords. Up until a month ago they were all the same password (I know, I know). I decided that was not a safe practice for an attorney. Enter Password1. This program is great. It allows you to set up different identities. For example, I have a home profile, a work profile and a I-don’t-know-if-I-trust-this-website profile. For each identity you can place all your contact info, internet info and credit card info. Adding credit card info sounds a bit risky at first but if you know that Amazon.com is not going to burn you and the application is locked down on your computer, why worry? The program runs on the desktop but is cogged into Safari, Firefox and Camino. There is a cool pull down menu for when you visit sites that allows you to sign in in with a click. If it is a new website or sign-up, provide the identity you want and the application fills in the form. In addition, it has a password manager that keeps track of all the sites you visit with the corresponding passwords. Finally, it has a password generator to create new passwords or (in my case) to change all the passwords that you have that are the same (I can’t be the only who did this). The program itself requires a master password to open and use. This software has a number of other built in features worth checking out. For a quick overview go here.
I paid full price for this product after the 30 day trial. Completely worth it.

Some of the best blogs belong to people passionate about Macs. I follow all of these Blogs and Sites. Each one provides me with great information and all of these sites are worthy of a bookmark.

Type “Mac Lawyer” in google and the first face (or half face) you’ll see is Ben Stevens – The Mac Lawyer.
Ben knows Macs and if you spend some time on his blog you will find that it is rich with information from a wide variety of sources. It is hands down the best blog for lawyers looking to set up a Mac-Firm.

Sister site to Ben is Home Office Lawyer
This Blog is a great resource. Grant Griffiths blog covers a more diverse area of discussion but they are all areas relevant to me (Macinhtosh’s, Blogs and the Business of being a Lawyer).

I discovered this blog as a link on Ben’s site and it is a must have for Adobe Acrobat users: Acrobat for Legal Professionals. This site covers all things Acrobat and is great to help you realize the full potential of this program.

For simply Apple blogs that discuss all things Apple I visit The Cult of Mac, Apple Insider, Macnn,and Macspark. Finally, there is the Fake Steve Jobs. A comical look at what Steve might say, if he had a blog. Good for a laugh on a lazy Sunday.

There are some really great sources for information on setting up a practice and using a Mac. My first two are, much like any great Mac program, unassuming at first. They are listserves and they give excellent insight on the good, the bad, and the ugly in Macintosh Software and Hardware. A listserve is a membership of a number of people who simultaneously send messages to all members of the group. Usually, a listserve is based on some topic or commonality, here, Macintosh for the law office. You can view the listserve via email or search a topic of interest in past posts on the web.

These listserves are an excellent resource if you are having some trouble with a particular program or seeking a template for a program (such as Filemaker or Daylite). Often times the software developers themselves will post responses to questions or comments. In addition, people posting will provide their own reviews of different products. I have found that the following two listserves are very helpful and cordial to the less tech inclined.

Mac Law. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MacLaw/

MILO (Macs in Law Offices) http://groups.google.com/group/milogroup

Both sites require that you sign-up and provide your email.

Hints: When you first set up, I suggest you enable the “digest” option. This prevents your inbox from getting hammered. Also, if you use Apple Mail, go to “preferences” and set up a “rule” so that you will receive all your list-serve groups in a separate folder.