My upcoming Louisiana CLE seminars (Baton Rouge & New Orleans)

I'll be doing three live, all-day CLE programs in late December: one in Baton Rouge and two in New Orleans. Each program is 6 hours of CLE credit, with 1 hour of Ethics and 1 hour of Professionalism. If you want to sign up use the promo code ERNIEATTORNEY to save 10% off the price of the program.

Here's a brief summary of the programs.

Digital Lawyering & Tech Tips (Baton Rouge) - Click to Sign-Up

When: Friday (Dec 21st) - 6 hours total CLE (1 hr Ethics; 1 hr Professionalism; 4 hrs LPM)

Executive summary: All lawyers will learn how to use technology to work more productively while out of the office, and to more efficiently handle email in and out of the office. Litigators will learn how to gather information (including social media information), and to better organize that information. All lawyers will learn to avoid ethical problems and how to present a more professional online appearance to potential clients and others. We'll also cover the latest law-related tech tools, and tell you which ones are truly useful and reliable, and easiest to use.

Digital Lawyering & Tech Tips (New Orleans) - Click to Sign-Up

When: Thus (Dec 27st) - 6 hours total CLE (1 hr Ethics; 1 hr Professionalism; 4 hrs LPM)

Executive summary: All lawyers will learn how to use technology to work more productively while out of the office, and how to more efficiently handle email in and out of the office. Litigators will learn how to gather information (including social media information), and to better organize that information. All lawyers will learn to avoid ethical problems and how to present a more professional online appearance to potential clients and others. We'll also cover the latest law-related tech tools, and tell you which ones are truly useful and reliable, and easiest to use.

Paperless Lawyering & Tech Tips (New Orleans) - Click to Sign-Up

When Friday (Dec 28st) - 6 hours total CLE (1 hr Ethics; 1 hr Professionalism; 4 hrs LPM)

Executive summary: All lawyers will learn how to lessen the reliance on paper, and to set up systems that allow them to work with documents more efficiently while out of the office. We'll explain how to create complex documents more easily, ways that allow those documents to be reused later as forms. Litigators will learn to be more effective in advocacy by using tools that help them create compelling visual presentations. We'll finish with a rapid-review of interesting tech tools, focusing on the ones that actually help you get more done in less time, with less stress. 

The week in review - October 1st

Here are the highlights from my Twitter posts for the last week (Sept 24–28), with some additional commentary.

• New Orleans attorneys who wish they could manage their email better (using automation and tools that increase efficiency and lower stress) should attend this CLE program on October 19th.
• If, like me, you’re not getting an iPhone 5 but want something that will dramatically improve your old iPhone’s performance how about a Mophie Juice Pack Air case? It doubles your battery life and wraps your iPhone in protective case. Yes it makes it slightly larger and heavier, but extra battery life doesn’t grow on trees you know.
• If you did get a new iPhone, or upgraded (like me) to iOS 6 then stop worrying about Apple’s new maps. There is a much better free GPS navigation application called Waze, which has been growing steadily. I have been using it for almost a year, but I notice that many of my tech-savvy friends are discovering it too. It’s probably the best GPS app for the iPhone and it’s free. That’s a powerful combination.
• If you have a Mac and want to run Windows you can, but you need the right software. What’s the right software? Almost certainly it’s Parallels. The Wall St. Journal’s tech columnist Walt Mossberg reviewed Parallels and favored it over VMware. I’ve switched to Parallels and so far I’m impressed.
• I’ve been trying out the new Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac and I’m not ready to pronounce this program a game-changer, but it’s much better than the prior version. If you struggle with typing, or if you just want to turbo-charge your text input, then you should investigate Dragon Dictate. Windows users should definitely get the PC version, which has been more fully developed and is feature-rich and quite reliable.

To get these news tidbits as they come out follow me on Twitter. For tweets about technology follow me at the PaperlessChase Twitter page, and if you’re a Louisiana lawyer interested in technology come to one of our live CLE programs.

3 hour CLE seminar on iPads for Lawyers in New Orleans

Lawyers have adopted iPads with surprising eagerness, but many of them don’t really know how to get the most out of an iPad in their law practice. Dane Ciolino, Jeff Richardson (of iPhoneJD.com fame) and I plan to offer a 3 hour CLE course in mid-September to show New Orleans lawyers the magic tricks for being super-efficient with an iPad.

Among the things we’ll cover are:

• How to avoid security issues & client-confidentiality issues
• How to view, edit & share documents from an iPad or iPhone
• How to sign documents, and manipulate PDFs
• How to gather legal information (caselaw, statutes) with an iDevice
• How to take digital notes and recordings
• How to display exhibits wirelessly at trial

The three presenters will use iPads that are wirelessly connected to a projector, so you’ll see firsthand how powerful the iPad could be as a display device in court. The program will include an hour of Ethics credit. For more information, or to sign up click here (I’d sign up early, first to save money and, second, because it will definitely sell out).

If you sign-up but need to cancel our policy is to always give full refunds, immediately and without questions, if you cancel at least 24 hours before the event. So, if you want to attend I’d sign up now, to lock in the low price and ensure you have a spot.

Siri rocks!

I’ve been testing Apple’s new service called Siri, which is only available on the new iPhone, for the past week. To sum up my overall review in one word: Wow!

In fact, I’m dictating this entire review using the Siri application on my iPhone. Although I have tested Dragon Dictation’s voice recognition software for the Mac for several years, I find that this Siri service is actually easier to use on my iPhone than the Dragon Dictation software was to use on a computer.

Yes, you read that right, I prefer dictating using my dinky little iPhone than using my more powerful computer. As I dictate this review right now, I’m holding the iPhone in my hand and dictating using the Apple your phones so that I can speak into the headset in the ear headphones while I watch as Siri dictates what I say.

Siri is not perfect. Periodically, I have to stop to make minor adjustments when it misses a word or mis-capitalizes something. Still, it’s far easier to do this on my iPhone tend to use Dragon Dictation on the computer.

You can use Siri to dictate into the iPhone anywhere you would otherwise use a keyboard. So, for example, you can dictate emails very rapidly and easily by using the Siri dictation app instead of pecking out things awkwardly on the tiny virtual keyboard. If Siri mis-transcribes a word you can often select an alternative by tapping on the word, at which point the iPhone will suggest other words that might be appropriate.

Although the pure dictation mode is useful, we are Siri really shines is in serving as a virtual assistant.

For example, if I wonder what time it is in London I can say “what time is it in London?” And Siri will return an answer immediately. I can also ask Siri to suggest nearby restaurants simply by saying “are there any restaurants nearby?”

Gee, I wonder what the weather what will be like for the next few days? All I have to do is hold down the button until Siri prompts me with a cute little ping, and then say “what’s the weather going to be like for the next few days?”

If I don’t want to have to navigate to my email program and then fire it up just to send someone an email I don’t have to. I can say “Siri email Dane Ciolino.” Siri will then prompt me and say “okay, what do you want to say to Dane Ciolino?” (By the way, as I dictated that name, Siri had no problem spelling it correctly because Dane’s name is in my address book). After I tell Siri what I want to say to Dane it will ask me if I want to send the email, and, if I confirm, the email will be sent without me ever having touched the keyboard.

This is purely magical.

I have tested Siri and a number of situations. For example, you would expect it to only work effectively while using Wi-Fi. However, it seems to work very well in 3G environments as well. I was in a crowded restaurant the other day and the question came up about how many engineering graduates Stanford put out each year. I queried Siri, not expecting it to understand what I said, but it transcribed my question perfectly. (It wasn’t able to answer the question, but it did offer to perform a web search which returned some promising results on Google, but I wasn’t able to quickly get the answer I wanted).

My conclusion, after having used Siri for about a week, is that Apple is expecting this to be a major feature in all mobile devices going forward. Granted, it’s not necessarily going to become a major feature in the next iteration, or even in the next two years. Getting people acclimated to using voice recognition is a tricky process. But, Apple’s implementation of this feature on a small mobile device, is truly amazing.

I presume that many people will dismiss Siri has a novelty, and some people who find it interesting will get bored with it after awhile. But for those who see the true power of it, and who are willing to learn how to tap into it, Siri will be a major shift in how they interact with their iPhone.