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Steps Toward a Paperless Law Firm

Everyone is going green. It’s good for the planet and it’s good for your firm’s bottom line. Law firms traditionally generate an awful lot of paper. Let’s explore a few ways to reduce the need for paper and steps you should take to go paperless.

1. Know what can Go

Find out what records you are required to keep and how long you need to keep them. Know what documents can be shredded, when they can be shredded, and which need to be converted to digital files (and how much time has to pass before this becomes an option) before you can shred them. Get organized around these parameters and then put a plan into practice. Be diligent.

2. Embrace Technology

Rekall writes about a lot of fantastic technology. Much of this technology can create efficiencies for your business. But you have to know how to use the technology before it can benefit you. Programs like Acrobat, Word, and Outlook offer seemingly endless tips and tricks that can help you reduce your paper load. But those tricks are only going to do you good if you’re using them. Invest the time (and perhaps money) in getting trained on the tools you’re already paying for in order to cut printing and faxing, go electronic. Rekall can of course help here.

3. Print Management Systems

Did you know that there are systems out there that will track each print and scan associated with a client or case and add a cost to each item? These systems to exist a literally ad money into the pockets of law firms. Look into Equitrac by Nuance.

4. Print Selectively

Ink is expensive, and color ink or toner is even more expensive. Consider that every time you go to print a document.

If you implement one of these solutions, I bet you’ll see an almost immediate reduction in paper, and with that an almost immediate reduction in the expenses associated with printing paper.

Steps Toward a Paperless Law Firm Pt. 2

We recently offered a few tips on how to reduce the paper in your office. Why not get rid of the mess and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time? Here we present a few additional tips.

1. Go Digital – We’re in the age of smartphones, tablets and superfast computers. Why not look at your subscriptions, newsletters, bills, and anything else you can on these devices? Do you prefer ripping open envelopes, giving yourself paper cuts and generating lots of trash? I doubt you do. Purchase digital subscriptions to trade magazines instead of traditional paper ones. Pay bills online instead of sending out checks with envelopes and postage.

2. Implement Paperless Billing – I bet you prefer to review your bills by email. Consider this: your clients do too. Implement paperless billing by using PDF files and digital letterhead (see our recent articles for more info).

3. Faxing is so 1990 – Why bother with fax paper when you can use a desktop scanning solution instead? Scanning and emailing documents is not only more environmentally friendly, it’s easier and neater too. With faxing through email faxes all backed up via your mailbox so you know when and to whom you sent a fax, the best part, you can send and receive faxes from your mobile device.

4. Use a Document Management System – what better way to manage your documents than with a document management system? A proper document management system is a must for any successful law firm. We’ve written about a variety of options and are happy to advise you on what is best suited for your needs. The process of taking your physical paper documents and scanning them into a database is time consuming and can be expensive when done right. The end result is a digital repository of all your documents in client or matter order that can backup onto a flash drive that fits in your pocket. How can you beat that?

Going paperless is going to take is a series of small changes. Commit to making some minor adjustments to how your firm functions and you’ll have less paper on your hands in no time. Think of it this way, paper can be lost, burned, stolen and destroyed. A digital file can last forever with a good backup system in place.

Law Firms Can Create Beautiful Custom Letterhead in Word

Do you get your letterhead professionally printed? Professionally done business cards are probably unavoidable but think about it – these days most correspondence doesn’t even get printed. This means that you probably don’t need to bother with fancy paper or expensive designers, especially if your a firm looking to cut costs. Microsoft Word is powerful when it comes to word processing and the creation of letterhead is no exception. Here are a few tips to get your started.

Consider making the first page or cover sheet of your document a mostly blank page that contains just the name and address of your firm. This adds security and makes your work look polished. If you go this route, you’ll want a different header starting on the second page of your document. After going to Insert > Header, the Different First Page option under the Design Tab is how you’ll achieve this.

Headers don’t need to be at the top of the page. In fact, although the name doesn’t quite fit, you can have a “header” that appears as a column along the left or right margin of your page. Envision your logo and contact information running along the side of the page and your message in the center.

Keep your images looking sharp. By default, Word will want to compress any images you include in your document, which will reduce their quality. However, to maintain the quality of images, you’ll just go to File > Options > Advanced > Image Size and Quality and select the box that says “Do not compress images in file.” Then, from the same page, set your target default output to the maximum dpi in the list.

We encourage you to play around with headers in Word. The program really is getting easier and easier to use while increasing its capabilities. We suspect you’ll find the headers feature in Word to be easy to use and creating your own letterhead could prove time and cost-effective.

Rekall Cloud Welcomes Mac Law Firms

It’s a shame that more law firms software is not made for Mac computers, but with Rekall Cloud Mac users can work with any software under the sun. While Rekall Cloud is a Windows based private cloud. We have many Mac law firms who utilize our cloud services to run their Windows based firm applications such as Quickbooks, PCLaw and Time Matters just to name a few.

On Rekall Cloud attorneys can connect from anywhere at any time and from any device. Rekall Cloud utilizes simple remote desktop protocols in addition to 256bit encryption for security. In this way Apple devices  can connect to the cloud with full security while utilizing firm specific Windows based applications, all on a Mac.

Many law firms who prefer Apple devices have found a home with Rekall Cloud.

Incident Response Planning for Law Firms

An incident response plan is just what it sounds like, having a plan in place to deal with isolated incidents that threaten the security of your law firm. The most common type of such a serious incident to which you’ll need to respond is a data breach like Ransomware. Other incidents include security alarms, unauthorized access by employees, and so on.

The American Bar Associate recommends creating an action checklist should you have to deal with a serious incident.

1. Verify what happened
2. Determine who is in charge of the investigation
3. Communicate the start of the investigation
4. Solve the immediate problem while preserving evidence
5. Determine whether you should call in outside help
6. Follow any steps the law requires you to take
7. Re-evaluate your security so that an incident like this doesn’t happen again

This is, of course, just an oversimplification of what you should consider when developing an incident recovery plan. Rekall can help you dive further into this crucial area to makes sure these issues don’t happen in the first place.

Create a PDF from Word

Adobe Acrobat came out with its Portable Document Format (PDF) file to allow for consistency in viewing and printing, irrespective of how a document was created or what type of computer it is being viewed on. With a PDF, the peace of mind comes in knowing that what you see on screen is what you’re going to get when you print.

Adobe used to really own the market when it came to the creation of PDF documents. However, today there are many programs available for which you can convert Word to PDF. Did you know that you can now create a PDF right from from Microsoft Office?

* In Word 2013, go to File > Save As > Save as Type > PDF

* In Office for Mac, go to Save As > Format > PDF.

The downside of the PDF is, of course, the inability to easily edit what you see in this type of file format. If you’re looking for the ability to edit an already created PDF, you will want to explore a Pro or paid version of Adobe Acrobat.

Does Your Firm Have a Written Internet Usage Policy?

You’d be amazed how many attorneys & paralegals shop, watch porn, and look for new jobs while at work. Some users do this all-day-long. From our experience, 30%-40% of firm users utilize the firm internet inappropriately. Many of our clients pay us to morning their internet usage and report on anomalies while others request a monthly report that is audited internally. The internet is awesome but it’s filled with time wasting material and material that is inappropriate for the workplace. We recommend a rock solid internet usage policy that will increase your firm’s efficiency.

STREAMING AUDIO & VIDEO  We recommend our law firms limit or forbid the streaming of audio and video files within the office. The reason for this is twofold: first, there’s the bandwidth issue. Streaming files eats up bandwidth and can really slow down your network. That, in turn, slows down the people who are trying to get actual work done. Second, if people are watching YouTube videos, how hard are they actually working? For this reason we recommend to block all streaming sites as well as social media. If a user needs access to these sites, a request is required. Rekall’s firewall makes this very easy. When a site on the blocked list attempts to load, a screen loads up and explains why the site was blocked with a number to call in order to contact IT for more information.

FILE DOWNLOADS & APP INSTALLATIONS  Downloading files of any kind is another aspect of internet use that should probably be monitored. After all, many users are not tech savvy, many click download without thinking. The wrong download can take down your entire network and encrypt your files, Ransomware. Rekall policy restricts end users from installing applications as well. We recommend that you develop a policy around downloads and installs. Turning these features off on your network requiring the end user to contact support is the best method that will safeguard the integrity of your firm networks. In addition an office manager can be put in charge of this policy as well. User can simply contact the office manage to allow downloads and program installations as long as that office manage is tech savvy.

INTERNET CONTENT BLOCKING  As far as Rekall policies go, some sites are restricted due to content. For example, pornography and other sexually explicit sites should obviously be off limits in the workplace. Gambling sites are clearly unacceptable. We also recommend that you have a policy forbidding employees from visiting sites that promote hate on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. With a Rekall firewall you can also block job sites like CareerBuilder.com or Monster.com so your employees can’t look for a job on your time. Alternatively you can allow these sites and have Rekall setup monthly reports listing users who visit sites like these. These reports will give you insider information letting you know who might be looking to leave your firm.

Whatever internet rules you decide upon, make sure that you communicate them clearly and have them in writing in an employee manual or another similar document. Rules should be able to be enforced and there should be consequences for infractions.

Rekall can help you establish an internet policy that’s right for your firm. In addition to that, enforcing these policies cannot be done with standard routers that you buy at Bestbuy or Staples, your firm must invest in an enterprise firewall. A firewall will not only enforce internet usage policies, it will also protect your firm data from outside intrusion.

Cloud Backup Server Images Save Law Firms

This article speaks to law firms who still have servers in the office. I won’t go off on a tangent explaining all the benefits of moving your firm to the cloud, how the cloud offers guarantees that you can’t get in your office, security, backup, endless firm growth yada, yada, yada. The truth is that we do work with many law firms in this situation, firms who have not taken the cloud plunge for one reason or another, and we have to respect their decision to stay on earth as opposed to the cloud. Due to this, we try our very best to incorporate cloud based technologies to support our earth-bound clients such as cloud image backups which are a MUST if your firm has servers in the office, here’s why.

Years ago, it was acceptable to simply backup the raw file level data on your server like, docs and pdf’s mostly. This means that if there was ever a crash or major hardware failure, you have to order new hardware, wait for it to ship which can take 1 to 2 weeks for servers and then begin the task of manually rebuilding your server and office network. Firms who subscribe to Carbonite risk this every day. It sounds like a lot of downtime because it is. These old style backups didn’t save any server settings or configurations, only raw firm data.

These days, now that people have awesomely fast internet we have the ability to backup whole server images & snapshots, carbon copies of your server in it’s entirety. The benefit of this is lower downtime overall. In the case of a server meltdown your backup can be restored to any type of hardware temporarily within your office. Secondly, since the backups are cloud based with Rekall, we can spin up your servers on our private cloud and give you access to all your firm data within minutes. The firm can work off of the temporary cloud server until new hardware is ordered and shipped. Once onsite, over a weekend, the server image is installed onto your new server hardware within hours, not days. Monday you come in to a brand new server and work as you did before.

The beauty of this setup assists to never lose firm data and cuts restoration time by 3/4 and there is almost zero downtime for the firm. When looking for a backup system for your firm don’t just consider cost per gigabyte or data retention. Try and figure out what would happen if your firm went down. What would be the process of getting back up? If that process takes more than 1hr, consider Rekall’s Cloud Image Backup service. In these modern times, downtime is really a thing of the past as long as you have the right solution in place.

Rekall Cloud Solution Saves Law Firm From 12 Story Blaze

One of our oldest clients had a massive office fire, and because of the technologies Rekall put into place, they are still in business and have all of their data fully intact. Managing partners and firm owners alike can learn a lot from our client’s misfortune, this is their story.

The fire occurred around 10:00pm, taking out three floors of a 12 story office building in central New Jersey. Due to the network notifications that we had in place for all workstations and servers, it initially looked like the firm’s internet was down. Their network temperature sensor in the server room was not reporting anything out of the ordinary.

Later, we realized it was because the fire started down the hall from the server room, killing the power to the entire office suite, and traveled through the telecommunications room feeding internet to the entire floor. Firefighters got there within one hour of the blaze and started pumping water into the second story windows. By the time Rekall techs were allowed into the building in the morning, everything had either burned, or was waterlogged from fire suppression. Servers, desktops, printers, everything was ready for the garbage. People often forget about the water damage factor in a fire.

Rekall was tasked with getting the 25 attorneys up and running ASAP. Luckily, this particular law firm subscribed to Rekall’s Data Backup/Disaster Recovery Solution. All firm data was backed up on Rekall’s Private Cloud, ready to restore at a moment’s notice. Within only two hours the firm was able to work via a temporary cloud solution that was quickly built and deployed by Rekall technicians. With the imminent threat of lost billable time avoided, Rekall then focused on purchasing new servers and workstations, dispatching wiring techs to wire up a new temporary office space, ordered internet, coordinated with copier and server hardware vendors, and recovered every bit of data that was lost in the fire.

This is a testament to Rekall’s proactive approach to law firm security and disaster recovery, not to mention the reliability of Rekall’s Private Cloud & Disaster Recovery services. If you’re interested in working with an IT company 100% focused on the needs of law firms with real-world experience with disaster recovery planning and execution, give Rekall Technologies a call.

Need Help Hiring Onsite IT Helpdesk Personnel?

Hiring can be tough, resumes don’t always tell the truth while hiring agencies can be a pain to deal with. Often times our larger Cloud and IT clients, over 60 users, will have on-staff IT support who can handle simple day to day support issues while Rekall does the heavy lifting on server and infrastructure support. Hiring the right person for this position can be tricky. You don’t need an IT god to handle simple support, but you do need someone who can handle support tasks without fail. Here’s a few tips to consider when hiring a low level support technician for your firm.

Helpdesk Experience Counts  Your support tech needs to know how a helpdesk works. If they have helpdesk experience that means they at least know the basics when it comes to supporting people in general. Keep in mind that we support the onsite helpdesk technicians for our clients, so we look for at least 6 months experience in a helpdesk situation. If your helpdesk technician will not have the same type of backup support, look for at least 2yrs helpdesk experience.

Education Matters  Rekall hires people with work experience or a degree from a technical or trade school. We find that trade schools better equip technicians for their IT future more-so than a standard 4-year University. Trade schools give their students hands-on knowledge and work opportunities to intern and get real world experience. Look for a candidate with a trade school education over a University.

Craigslist is Your Friend  Every good technician that Rekall has ever hired has been from craigslist. Craigslist give you total control over your hiring process, more-so than a hiring agency that just sends warm bodies. You will definitely get people who apply for your position with no technical experience, but as long as you take the time to sift through the applicants you will most likely find good people as we always have.

Pay  If your looking to hire an entry level technician to handle simple technical support, here in New Jersey, $30k – $40k annually is a standard salary depending on experience. This person should hardly touch your servers unless they are setting up a new user and this may be with supervision for the first few months.