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. 

Upcoming iPad for Lawyers seminar in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Lawyers in Baton Rouge who want to learn more about Mobile Lawyering with iPads should sign up for our Nov. 30th seminar. It’s at the Crown Plaza hotel on Friday afternoon, from 1 to 5 pm. Here are some things Dane Ciolino and I will cover:

• Security issues, and how to avoid them when using an iPad or mobile device
• Creating documents, editing and sharing
• Digital signatures and how to sign documents on an iPad
• Deposition tools, and strategies
• Note-taking software and tips for using effectively
• Display of trial exhibits using and iPad (including wireless presentation)

The seminar is limited to 35 people and will fill up fast. We have early bird pricing in effect until November 14th. Here are some more things to know about our seminar:

• 3 hours of CLE credit, including 1 hour of Ethics credit
• Free Wi-Fi available in the seminar room
• No questions asked refunds up until the day of the seminar
• We have free giveaways relevant to our talks (e.g. books on iPads for Lawyers)
• We offer free online videos at our website (you only pay if you want CLE credit)

For more information, and to reserve your spot with a credit card click here.

To go paperless with a Mac or iPad get this book

If you use a Mac you probably have an iPad. And probably, like many people with iPads, you’re thinking it’d be nice to be paperless. If so, then you need to order a copy of David Sparks new book (Paperless: The MacSparky Field Guide) right now. It’s available in the iBook Store for $9.99.

The book is a deep dive on paperless workflows for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone. The book includes screenshots, interactive images, and short movies. Not only does this book tell you how to go paperless, it also shows you. Trust me, you can do a lot with this book. I can’t believe it only costs $10.

(Oh, and it’s a large file so don’t panic if it takes a little longer than usual to download).

Useful information for new iPad owners

The new iPad is coming out today, and no doubt a lot of lawyers will be getting one. For some of those lawyers this will be their first iPad. For those lawyers I recommend two books that they should purchase immediately.

1. Tom Mighell's iPad for Lawyers in One Hour for Lawyers (available: Apple iBook store). This is great for novice iPad users because it literally walks you through the basics in about one hour.
2. David Sparks' iPad at Work (available Apple iBook store). Not written specifically for lawyers, per se. But David Sparks is a lawyer and he used the iPad in his work, so all of his recommendations apply to lawyers. This is a must have book for anyone who owns an iPad.

For updated information on what legal apps to get (and other iPad and iPhone related news) you should subscribe to the email version of Jeff Richardson's iPhoneJD blog. Jeff practices commercial litigation in a large firm, and started his blog to discuss iPhone stuff, but everything he says (for the most part) is applicable to iPads. This is how you learn about what legal-specific apps are useful.

Josh Barrett's Tablet Legal is a good site too. As he said in a recent post, most lawyers will want at least the following two apps:

1. PDF Expert, and
2. DropBox

I'd add GoodReader as the number one app, and then whatever legal apps are relevant to your law practice (Tom Mighell's book will give you a good running start on those kinds of apps).

Book Recommendation: iPad at Work is awesome!!

I've been chipping away at David Sparks' most excellent book, iPad at Work, and thoroughly enjoying it. It's so chock full of useful information, about how to use an iPad to get stuff done, that I'm moving slower than with most books.

Sometimes I skip around when I have a problem that needs immediate solving. For instance, just now I was trying to figure out how to get OmniOutliner to work with Dropbox. The iPad version of OmniOutliner doesn't seem to hook into DropBox.

That's strange, I thought to myself. I know David uses OmniOutliner and Dropbox, so he must have figured out a way to make this happen. I searched his book (I have the Apple iBook version) for "omnioutliner" and BINGO! There on page 98 is the explanation I was looking for: use a service called DropDAV (since OmniOutliner on the iPad supports WebDAV servers) which costs $5 per month.

Ordinarily I would be hesitant to pay $5 for a service that I don't really know much about. But David Sparks said "Mixing Dropbox with WebDAV is something like mixing peanut butter with chocolate. Everything just gets better." That simple little passage of text tells me that he vetted this process carefully and found it indispensable. That's all I need to know.

I signed up for the free 14 day trial of DropDAV and I'm sure I'll keep using it. Creating a seamless workflow between my iPad and my regular computers is mission critical. Not having to figure out the optimal workflow (because David has figured it out for me) is priceless.

There are lots of books out there that will tell you about the iPad's features, but there's only one that will help you figure out quickly how to get work done in the most efficient way possible, and at the lowest cost. iPad at Work is for anyone who has an iPad and uses it to do any kind of work, but if you're a lawyer you should know that David Sparks is too. His workflow is pretty intricate, so if he can use the iPad to do his work then you'd be wise to pay attention to his workflow recommendations.

David's book is available at Amazon and other fine booksellers. If you have an iPad and you want to get more out of it get a copy of David's book.