Category: Law Office Management
Finally! Here’s What To Do With All Your Old Technology!
Posted by Alison Lukan in Financial Management, Hardware, Law Office Management, Other Stuff... Wednesday, 21 July 2010 09:26 1 Comment
As technology enthusiasts, we often find ourselves wanting (and buying!) the latest gadget which leaves us with a lot of hardware we no longer use. How many old cell phones, cameras, computers, PDA’s and other personal computing devices do you have no idea how to get rid of?
Well – there’s a cool new solution in Gazelle. Think of Gazelle as an “eBay-like” solution for technology. You go online, select the item you are looking to sell, answer a few qualifying questions, and receive a 30-day guaranteed quote. Gazelle will mail you packaging to send in your technology that arrives quickly and once your package is received, the promised money is en route to you – either via check or Paypal (when I recently used Gazelle, you could also select gift cards from certain vendors that offered an additional percentage of your total payment). Should you feel extra generous, you can also select to have the proceeds of your sale donated to charity.
Gazelle not only offers a valuable service, they also pride themselves on being eco-friendly and have special offers for groups that are looking for volume related offers. I can’t say enough about their quality of service – Gazelle kept me updated every step of the way, emails to generic customer service email addresses were answered quickly and professionally, products were processed efficiently and payment was received as promised.
An important caveat, while Gazelle advertises their focus on cleaning all your hardware before resale, you should definitely take any and all necessary steps to clean your hard drive, database, phone data before shipping your equipment away. Remember, that you need to be sure to securely wipe all data from your device – simply deleting data doesn’t remove it completely. Feel free to contact us for tips or resources on how to accomplish this if you are not sure how. Also, if you choose to send your equipment in to Gazelle on your own, consider if it is worth it to you to ensure and/or pay for tracking on the package (if you use USPS).
All in all, using Gazelle was a pain-free, professional way to put my old personal electronics to good use. I recommend it to anyone looking to get rid of your old devices and perhaps even make a little money along the way!
**If you are considering using this service for business asset, please consult with your IT specialist before making your equipment available to Gazelle
Is Coffee a Law Firm Management Issue?
Posted by Scott Bassett in Law Office Management, Other Stuff... Friday, 16 July 2010 11:12 1 Comment
One of the most intriguing posts I’ve read recently is Lifehacker’s report on its interview with author/researcher Stephen R. Braun. Braun wrote a book published in 1997 called Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine.
We don’t make alcohol regularly available to our ourselves and law office staff as a matter of course, but most law firms do have an ever-present pot (or two or three) of caffeine-laden coffee brewing each morning and often throughout the work day. I personally did not begin drinking coffee until, as a brand new associate in a medium-sized law firm, I was assigned the chore of wading through discovery responses in complex litigation matter. The work was tedious and I wanted a little boost to help me stay awake. I remain a regular coffee-drinker, but typically limited to two cups each morning.
So how is coffee a law firm management issue? Well it turns out that caffeine is not a simple stimulant. It’s impact on the brain is much more complex, and that complexity can affect productivity for you and your staff. Assuming you have not already built-up a tolerance for caffeine (surprising easy to do over a very short period of time), a cup or two of coffee will not make you sharper or faster at tasks that require abstract reasoning (which includes much of what lawyers do). But it may increase speed (not necessarily quality) of simple and routine tasks (perhaps things like folding billing statements and stuffing envelopes).
Once you read the Lifehacker post, and the more detailed full email interview with Stephen R. Braun, your firm may want to revisit its policy on making coffee readily available to staff at all times – or at least circulate this information so lawyers and staff can better understand how caffeine works and impacts their job performance so that they can make a truly informed decision about their coffee-drinking habits.
Free Mini-Book on Green IT for Dummies
Posted by Scott Bassett in Law Office Management Tuesday, 29 June 2010 07:40 No Comments
IBM is offering via free download or shipped hard copy its mini-book called Green IT for Dummies. Although the first 2/3 of the book are geared to IT professionals in mid-sized to larger organizations, the last three chapters (7-9) are interesting reading for small and mid-sized firm lawyers for the tips provided on how to save energy.
For example, Chapter 7 on “Collaborating for a Greener World” offers such common-sense tips as not printing hard copies of email (an oft-violated rule in many law firms), delete email you don’t need or are not required by law or firm policy to keep because old email takes up growing digital storage space somewhere, when replying or forwarding, delete whatever portion of the message is no longer necessary to the conversation to save time for the recipient and also save storage space, and offload old email onto archival media that is not “always on” and consuming energy. Telework (aka telecommutiing) is also advocated as a way to work from home or a remote site while still remaining connected to what is happening at the office. This saves energy in a variety of ways, including reduced office space to heat and cool, reduced travel, etc.
Chapter 8 addresses the always interesting goal of going paperless. As correctly stated in the book, “Paper documents are time-consuming and costly to create, process, distribute, file, store, retrieve, reproduce, and dispose of.” Digital documents, on the other hand, are easy to search electronically, are much more portable, and can contain audio, graphic and video content. For paper you must have, change printing habits by defaulting to duplex (two-sided) printing. avoid printing PowerPoint presentations as hand-outs, and put your printer into its “power-saving” mode so that it idles using less power until it receives a print command.
Chapter 9 focuses on buying and using technology wisely. This includes buying products that are easy to recycle, shop from manufacturers offering take-back programs at the end of the product’s life cycle, and look for machines that can be upgraded rather than replaced. Also, extend the life cycle of older machines by reassigning them to users with less-demanding technological needs. Or donate older technology (after a completely secure wipe of hard drives) to nonprofits.
While much of the book is not directly applicable to law firms, the last three chapters alone make it worth you while to sign up for the free download.
New IRS Mileage Rate is $.50 per mile for 2010
Posted by Scott Bassett in Financial Management, Law Office Management, Time/Billing/Accounting Software Tuesday, 26 January 2010 09:56 No Comments
In case you missed the early December official announcement, the 2010 IRS business mileage rate is reduced to 50 cents per mile to reflect lower transportation costs – mostly a drop in gas prices from 2009. You may need to manually change this rate in your time/billing/accounting software. If you need assistance with this task, contact your Affinity Consulting Group office.
If it is part of your job to stay up to date with changes in IRS rules, you can subscribe to IRS email updates here.
Passwords – The First K3y to Security
Posted by Ed Emmerson in In The (Legal Technology) News, Law Office Management, Uncategorized, Web/Tech Tuesday, 6 October 2009 20:06 No Comments
by Ed Emmerson, Affinity Consulting Group of South Florida
In light of the recent disclosure of some 10,000 Hotmail account passwords being posted on the internet I am reposting an article here that I wrote for another blog about a month ago.
I often read articles or posts about web apps, off-site data storage or backup where the main issue raised is security or data privacy on the providers end. As Dennis Kennedy pointed out in his recent article “Working in the Cloud”, ‘Attorneys often worry about security and confidentiality issues with SaaS providers while employing practices in their offices that are all but laughably unsecure.’ Perhaps I should have titled this “Security Starts at Home”.
There is plenty to read out there about cloud standards and API security and things that most of us , quite frankly, have little to no control over. So, let’s talk about being able to use some of the efficiencies of web apps with the things we can control; good password policy. Since there has to be a balance between password strength and the ability to remember it. One of the most common recommendations is using mnemonics. A system of letters and symbols matching up to an easily remembered phrase.
Here are some examples of password policy:
Password policy and generation in it’s current state exists on a “first level” basis for most things. Your Twitter I.D., Gmail, even some bank accounts are just one good guess or phishing email away. So, before worrying about a cloud or SaaS providers back end security and privacy factors take a look around the office. Better yet, just look under your keyboard where you have taped that index card with all of your usernames and passwords.
In a subsequent post, we can discuss second level or two form authentication.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Affinity Consulting Group, LLC or any of its partner organizations.
