Is your technology interfering with your life? Please join us by registering for this free webinar!

When: Thursday, July 14th at 12PM EST
Speaker: Larry Port of Rocket Matter

Description:

Lawyers in the 21st century need to be connected. Clients demand quick turnaround on issues, social media is essential for marketing, colleagues collaborate online, and news and events are disseminated rapidly through the Internet.

However, we’re starting to see the risks of 24-7 Internet usage, including distracted driving, constant intrusion of personal time, confidentiality risk, and even fundamental changes to the way our brains work. This completely original session, created for MILOFest 2010, explores the hazards of constant connectedness and what attorneys can do to manage their risks.

Please join us for Responsible Connectivity – How Not to Be Consumed by Technology.

Productive social media engagement requires some restraint.

It sounds simple and obvious enough but execution is often lacking on the part of legal professionals. Lawyers get in trouble and even get fired for saying the wrong things on Twitter.

To keep yourself clean and not in danger of getting sacked or disbarred, take a look at these examples of what not to tweet: (more…)

20 Minutes Can Change Your Life

Host: Nora Riva Bergman
When: Thursday, April 21st at 12PM EST
CLE: Accredited in Florida. 1.0 Hours of General CLE
Description:  Do you ever feel like your day is one, long series of interruptions?  You start the day with your to do list in hand, or at least you have an idea in your head of what you want to accomplish.  Then you turn around and it’s 6:00.  The day is gone and you’re left wondering what you did.

Limited Space!  Register Now! (more…)

I recently had the honor of writing a piece for ILTA’s Peer to Peer magazine on mobile security and presenting a webinar on the same topic. One piece of research blew me away: in a six-month period in Chicago, over 20 THOUSAND (yes – THOUSAND) cell phones were left in taxis.

Sure, maybe Chicago’s taxi seats are stickier than most, and perhaps the cold forces people into taxis more than in, say, Boca Raton, FL. The point is, you’re apt to lose a phone. And these days, with large amounts of data storage, functionality, and computational power on these things, that spells trouble for attorneys protecting client data.

So based on research gathered in the production of my article and webinar, the following items will help you keep your smartphone data safe:

1) Remote Wiping: Consider having the ability to destroy data from a distance. Larger law firms can employ solutions like Blackberry Enterprise Server or Good For Enterprise. If you have an iPhone, a simple MobileMe plan can do the trick.

2) Use Password Lock: You have no excuse not to set your phone to lock automatically after 15 minutes of idle activity. This tech is adopted by all small smartphone makers in one form or another. Use a code to unlock the phone and set the phone to destroy data if the wrong passcode is entered 10 times.

3) Use Web Applications for Sensitive Data: Instead of cradle-synching apps where data is saved both on the desktop and the mobile, consider using web apps that deliver information wirelessly. You’ll find it easier to stay in synch, but more importantly, a simple logout will keep the information from falling into the wrong hands.

4) Know Wifi Rules: Make sure if you’re connecting to a public WiFi spot at Starbucks, Panera, or the courthouse that any sensitive data is viewed over 128-bit encryption. A web app can do this if you notice the browser connecting over the “https” protocol.

5) Don’t Over-App: Some apps, such as Dropbox, enable you to work with data stored on another computer. These apps are potential security holes, since a malicious party would be able to gain access to this data via your mobile. Make sure you’re aware of the apps you download and what they give exposure to.

Also, if you’re in the wild west of the Google App Android marketplace, only download apps you know can be trusted, since there’s no verification that those apps are not malicious.

6) Standardize: Get everyone on the same page. Make sure everyone in your organization is aware of mobile security risks and adheres to the same policies. Remember that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

We all did stupid things in college, and now Facebook is there to help us broadcast those youthful indescretions to the world. Even the founders of the social media juggernaut themselves have skeletons in their closets, including Eduardo Saverin’s famous chicken cannibalism incident.

Not only that, there’s all sorts of talk out there in the world, and now you’re a professional with a reputation to manage. So what measures can you take when anyone you’ve ever known, at anytime, can post whatever they want about you to the online world? (more…)

RocketCLE is excited to bring you Sean Carter’s “Thou Shalt Not Lie, Cheat and Steal:  10 Commandments For Avoiding Ethical Problems As a Lawyer.“

Sean, a Harvard Law School Graduate, is a dynamic and fun speaker.  You may have attended one of his sessions as each year, he travels cross-country to present more than 100 CLE programs on such topics as legal ethics, stress management, constitutional law, legal marketing and much more.   He has is also the author of the comedic legal treatise: If It Does Not Fit, Must You Acquit?: Your Humorous Guide to the Law. (more…)

Strict adherence to ethical standards is a fundamental piece of the legal profession.   The vast majority of lawyers are extremely conscious of ethical obligations and highly concerned about avoiding even appearances of impropriety or misconduct. However, in any large sample there are always outliers, and the legal profession isn’t exempt.  There always seems to be an example in the news; just recently a former BigLaw lawyer entered a guilty plea in an insider trading case.

Examples like that are stark, and tough to read, especially knowing how they can unfairly reflect upon a profession that is comprised largely of dedicated people who continually strive to provide the absolute best service to clients possible in an ethical, principled manner.    Nonetheless, some violations – extreme and otherwise – can also be instructive.    Looking at specific incidents can be a useful way to brush up a little on the Model Rules.

Attorney and educator Stuart I. Teicher teaches Ethics and Critical Lawyering Skills to attorneys througout the country.   He’s been a practicing attorney for over 15 years and his practice focuses on advising lawyers and law firms about ethics issues and defending lawyers who face ethics grievances or other disciplinary matters (in NY & PA only).     An engaging speaker, Stuart put together an informative presentation: “Amazing Ethics Violations, Vol. 1.“
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Sine Qua Non – If you’re a BattleStar Galactica fan, you know how this concept, ‘that without not’, can be a romantic ideal.

If you’re a lawyer, however, you’re probably more familiar with it being the worst sort of detail: the wanted nail that cost the battle.

This post deals two Sine Qua Nons for lawyers in solo and small practice face every day: the Lawyer Trust Account and a branded email account.

Lawyer Trust Account

Most states have adopted an IOLTA best practice guideline for small practitioners.  To put it simply, I’ll quote from the California Bar, as their description of an IOLTA account puts it best:

“Lawyers who handle small amounts of money for their clients, or money that is held for a short period of time, must participate in the program by depositing these funds into an Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account (IOLTA). (When lawyers hold funds from one client that are large enough or held for a long enough period to earn interest for that client, the funds are segregated so that the client receives the interest.)” (more…)

If you attend a presentation given by someone from Rocket Matter, you’ll notice we’re not keen on traditional PowerPoint-style presentations. Rather, we subscribe to the “Presentation Zen” style of slide communication popularized by Garr Reynolds.

Instead of killing the audience with bullet points, we believe in strong visual composition and communication to tell the story. Granted, it makes presenting a whole lot trickier when you can’t read your slides, but your listeners will thank you.

Last night I ran into a graphic designer who informed me about a couple of genuine PowerPoint disasters where the medium muddles the message.

In one instance, Nasa blamed the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, (more…)

Guess what: According to the majority of practice management experts we spoke to, odds are you’re managing your trust accounts incorrectly. And this makes you at risk for disciplinary action.

Join me and the fine folks at the Alaska Bar this afternoon/evening depending on where in the world you are. I will be guest lecturing on Trust Accounting in Plain, Non-Boring English. (more…)