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Volume 3, No. 2 - May/Mai 2006
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Greetings from the ChairBonnie Patrick* Greetings from Windsor and welcome to Spring! There is quite a bit of interesting content in this newsletter for you to read and share with your colleagues. Again, I implore you that if you like what you read, let us know. If you don’t like what you read, let us know. If you want to write something that you want us to read, let us know. If you would like to write the next “Greetings” for the next newsletter, let us know. We aren’t proud people on this Section Executive. In fact, we are wonderful people to work with and if anyone out there would like to join our Executive, the forms to do so were sent out at the end of March. We meet approximately once a month, by phone, at 1:10 p.m. on a day convenient to the majority for approximately one hour. If you would like to help out the Sole, Small Firm and General Practice Section please return the documentation you received to the OBA offices. If you cannot find the nomination documentation, you can contact Peter Guennel (pguennel@oba.org) at the OBA for a copy or you can download a Section nomination form from the OBA website. Our Section’s Annual General Meeting is coming up on 15 June 2006 at 5:30 p.m. at the offices of the OBA. As of now, most of our members have agreed to be there...even those from the “regions”. I promise to try and keep the meeting short and the networking over food and beverages afterwards as long as you would like it to be. So check your calendars and if you can make it, we would love to have you attend. You should be receiving information about this event soon! Finally, the material presented by our Section at the Annual Institute 2006 (as well as the material presented at the Annual Institutes for 2004 and 2005) is on the OBA website. We have now covered the topics of precedent retainers, to precedents to secure your costs and finally to a discussion and list of cases where costs were awarded against such Parties as the Crown, Children’s Aid Society, Family Responsibility Office, Administrative Tribunals, etc. I encourage you to take a look at this material and you can do so by clicking here (link to Melville paper and link to James paper). And last, but not least your OBA is bringing the concerns of its members with respect to Bill 14, the one about regulating paralegals, or should I say “providers of legal services rather than persons who practice law” to the members of the provincial government. If you have any comments or concerns, please share them with us. The OBA is not opposed to regulating paralegals, as some would try to lead you to believe. If you would like to read the position of the OBA follow this link. There has been a lot of work put into this submission and I suggest you take a look to see what will happen if the legislation, which your Law Society approved, passes in the form it now exists and what the OBA is trying to do to ensure that the interests of the lawyers in this province are protected once this Bill becomes law by requesting amendments to it at Committee. * Bonnie Patrick, Goulin Patrick, Chair, OBA Sole, Small Firm and General Someone Told Me ...Peter Hrastovec* A few weeks ago, I met with a client on a problem. No surprises, it’s what we do. After listening to a host of facts, he asked me for my opinion. Given the situation, I was able to provide some summary advice that would, in the fullness of time, allow him to correct a potential legal issue without attracting significant legal consequences. Sounds familiar (so far, I don’t think I have broken solicitor/client privilege)? What was startling to me is what he said after hearing my advice. “Someone told me”, he began and then came the recitation of some ill-conceived opinion by “someone” who, if he was a practicing lawyer, was desperately in need of a research assistant or a refresher course in LAW 101. I knew better. “Someone” wasn’t a lawyer. “Someone” usually isn’t. “Someone” doesn’t have an office, or a web site or a law degree. “Someone” doesn’t have partners with whom to consult, a desk to sit at or a law library full of books to support an opinion. “Someone” doesn’t even have a name. My stock answer to the proverbial “someone told me” scenario is very simple. I just say, “There are approximately three hundred thousand people in this county who like to practice law and they all have an opinion.” It’s true. Go down to your favorite coffee shop, retail store or just mosey down the street. You can run into almost “anyone” and they will talk to you about a legal case (usually a celebrated one) and not hesitate for one minute to give you their opinion about it. This was especially prevalent during the long and almost insufferable year we all spent listening to the daily raconteurs debate the latest strategies in the O.J. Simpson case. During the recent Gomery debacle, we even mixed politics with law and got a hearing that became another vehicle for Average Jane and Run-of-the-Mill Joe to state their opinions on things. Everyone and everyone’s uncle –all of whom are related to “someone”—has a legal opinion. This is not to say that they are correct in their opinions (“let he who is never wrong never live in a glass house”, etc.). And not “everyone” actually practices law for a living (but many mistakenly wish that they could or boldly say they ought to). With all of these legal opinions floating about, it is difficult if not
impossible at times to get clients to see your point of view. Things are tough
enough as it is without “someone” putting in their two cents worth. It’s much
more difficult if the “someone” is identified as “someone” you know. It is much
more difficult if “someone” is a friend. Imagine putting a friendship on the
line to ensure that someone is getting proper legal advice. It’s not like any one of us should be critical of “someone”. This elusive “someone” is not trying to oust us from our careers. You don’t have to look over your shoulder because “someone” is just about ready to steal your office, take your desk, hire your staff or take your name off the letterhead. “Honey, how was your day?” “I got fired. They hired some nut named “Someone” to take over my office.” “Where did they find him?” “I haven’t the faintest idea. The smarmy coward wouldn’t show his face”. And so it goes on. “Someone” has a lot of influence, makes people think and more often than not, misinforms the public. “Someone” is unaccountable for his or her actions. “Someone” is untouchable, a Teflon-coated wannabe legal beagle whose sole purpose is to make you work harder if not ruin your day. But really, is “someone” that much of a threat to the legal community? Clients (and it is usually the new ones) will contact you to consult about their case despite already having discussed it with “someone”. They have consulted or sought the advice of “someone” but they still seek you out. Why is that? Simply stated, “someone” is not to be trusted. They never have a name so how can there be any credibility in their advice. And usually, they are not lawyers; therefore, how useful is their advice? Finally, the advice they give can only be worth as much as the asking price. So next time you hear about “someone”, suggest that you, your client and “someone” get together for lunch and talk about it—at “someone’s” expense. After all, with “someone’s” client load, he or she can pick up the tab. And the best thing for lawyers is that you don’t have to worry about “someone” getting a judicial appointment. Now, as for “somebody”, that’s another story. * Peter Hrastovec, Raphael Partners LLP, Windsor. Roman’s 10 Laws of AdvocacyAndrew J. Roman* After some thirty years of practising as an advocate before courts, boards, commissions and tribunals across Canada, Andrew J. Roman, an Ontario lawyer and Partner in the Toronto office of Miller Thomson LLP, prepared these observations for an in-house seminar. While there is a bit of humour in them, they offer very real and practical advice. Introduction These laws are partly facetious, but their slightly dramatic excesses have a purpose: to highlight a basic truth about advocacy. Law #1 There is no such thing as “the law”. There are only winning and losing arguments. Neither a case nor a statute is “the law”, merely some support for a legal argument. Legal arguments are not a case strategy, merely the potential elements of a strategy. Until you have a clear strategy, you cannot know which legal arguments, supported by which cases or statutes you will need. Law #2 The “reasons for decision” are not the real reasons. They are the public explanation for an intuitive result. Rather than the reasons explaining the result, the result explains the reasons. That is why presenting one good argument based on sound principles is worth more than a dozen Supreme Court of Canada cases cited out of context. Law #3 There are no binding precedents. The judge’s preferred outcome determines which precedent the judge will follow. A judge whose sympathy you have gained can distinguish any case your opponent cites. A judge whose sympathy your opponent has gained can find any case you distinguish binding. Law #4 There are no hopeless cases. There are only lawyers with communications challenges. Meet the challenges and you will have a winnable case. Law #5 No case has a predictable outcome. There are only lawyers willing to predict the results of their advocacy. Law #6 There are no complex cases. There are only lawyers who have failed to simplify their arguments. Law #7 No judge is purely rational. A lawyer who appeals only to the head and ignores the heart, may well receive a heartless decision. Law #8 There is no such thing as an “objective” test. The court merely replaces the parties’ subjectivity with its own: A reasonable person is one the judge finds reasonable. Due diligence is what the judge would do in the position of the accused if time and money were no object. A patently unreasonable decision is one that is so unreasonable that even the judge can see its unreasonableness. Law #9 There is no such thing as a perfect argument. That is no reason to stop striving for perfection. An argument that is merely “good enough” is not good enough. Law #10 Effective advocacy, whether written or oral, never goes out of fashion. Be more creative and you will be more persuasive. * Andrew J. Roman, Miller Thomson LLP. Reflections on Start-upLloyd Hoffer* A little over one year ago, Joseph Adler and I took the plunge and started up Hoffer Adler LLP. We celebrated our first anniversary as a firm on October 1, 2005. While most readers of this publication have been at it as sole or small firm practitioners much longer than we have (and therefore have much more to teach us than the other way around), it may be that there is a tidbit or two some readers may gain from our recent experience. Ergo, here are a few reflections on the planning and execution of our first year. Background Our situation has a few characteristics that may be shared by some readers and not others. Joseph and I were both called to the Bar in 1990, and so had significant experience as well as existing clients. We practiced together in the Toronto office of a national firm and each felt we could better take advantage of future opportunities in the context of a small firm rather than a large firm, going forward. Our project, therefore, was to move our existing practices to a small setting, still in the Toronto market, and to proceed to develop our client bases from there. Joseph is an expert in franchising law, and so his practice is primarily commercial, with various other areas such as intellectual property that go along with franchising issues. I am a litigator; one of those who likes to keep his practice fairly broad. So my work involves commercial litigation as well as professional liability, intellectual property, insurance defense, communications, and various other things that come up from time to time. Planning (a) Teaming Up The conventional wisdom in the big firms these days is that you look for economic “synergies” with your practice partners. I wouldn’t call that wrong, but we didn’t look at it as a dominant factor for us. Our practices had relatively little overlap when we started. What we were more concerned about was that we had common objectives and that we get along well. We both wanted each other to have the freedom to pursue personal objectives, and we both wanted to have each other around to share responsibility and to bounce things off of. In my mind, that’s way more important than the practice synergies. As it turns out, we do things largely by consensus, and we haven’t had a serious dispute about anything, even though we’ve had our disagreements from time to time. That’s worth a lot in my books. The bonus is that the synergies are actually there, even though we didn’t start that way, and we see more and more cross-over in client service as time goes by. (b) Planning Materials There’s a fair amount of good resource material out there. The Law Society runs a program on opening your own practice from time to time and you can buy the materials if you don’t want to go to the program. It’s a good resource book to help think through the issues, including financial planning and the like. We used it as a general planning aid. (c) Accountant If you can find an accountant like this, it’s worth a lot more than just the accounting advice. Ours also hooked us up with a bookkeeper connected with the accounting firm. I’m told there are some good free-lance bookkeepers out there and I’d have no objection to that. But if you don’t have access to someone you know and can trust on a free-lance basis, getting one through your accountant isn’t a bad idea. It makes things easier when it comes time to do your financial statements, which you are going to have to show the bank, and when adjustments have to be made, if your accountant and your bookkeeper work well together. (d) Business Structure Speaking of accountants, they help on this issue as well. First you have to decide some legal issues like if you are going to use a law corporation or associate or become a partnership. We chose to be a limited liability partnership, but once we got there a second issue was whether we were going to have a management company. That’s where the accountant came in. As I see it, there are really two reasons for a management company. One is that, if you can get your space in the name of the management company, without giving a guarantee, you can limit exposure to the landlord to that of the management company, thereby protecting your law practice and yourself personally. Beyond that, a management company presents opportunities for tax advantages in a variety of ways. Typically, the management company employs non-professional staff and does your procurement and various other things, and bills your firm for it. The down side to a management company is that it is a little more complicated to set up and go with than just a law firm. You should have a management agreement between the management company and the law firm, and each needs its separate books. That’s a bit of a pain to set up, but once done, it starts to run itself, and it gives you a structure which (I’m told) if done advantageously in the beginning can make a significant difference down the road. (Caveat emptor; get your own accountant’s - and lawyer’s - advice on this!) (e) Lawyer Speaking of management agreements, even though we are lawyers we thought it handy to have one too. We retained a commercial lawyer in another small firm to do three things for us: (1) Set up our management company and our limited liability partnership, including our partnership agreement, in consultation with our accountant; (2) advise us on our lease agreement; and (3) prepare our management agreement between the management company and the law firm. We could have done a fair chunk of this ourselves, but apart from saving us a lot of time (well worth it); we got the benefit of another lawyer’s own experience and objective eye in evaluating our documents. (f) Systems Consultant Unless you are an awful lot more computer literate than we are, you need some help setting up computers for internal networking and internet access. Someone with a little experience working with lawyers is helpful, as is someone who is going to be around for maintenance and support thereafter. We found one company able to give us one stop shopping – advice re what to buy, provision of the hardware and software, set up, and then maintenance. Our consultants were very good and very responsive, although they didn’t predict everything we would want to be able to do down the road. It’s important to be able to spell out with as much detail as you can exactly what you want your system to be able to do on start-up and also down the road, so that whatever system structure you put in place will not only be ready to work when you are but also to grow when you grow. (g) Interior Designer One of the worst issues for us when trying to find space was trying to imagine what it would look like once we had furniture in it, where everyone would sit, what size furniture we should get, and where we would put supplies and this sort of thing. We are also both significantly challenged when it comes to little issues like colors for paint and carpet and the like. A designer doesn’t have to cost a fortune. We were fortunate enough to find a good small outfit whose principal had experience in a law firm (from a prior life) and designing for law firms. She was able to check our prospective space, make excellent suggestions about what should go where and how to maximize use of it, tell us what to do with the walls and the floor, and then hook us up with an excellent furniture guy to sell us the stuff that would nicely fit into the plan. When the furniture came, we knew exactly where to put it, in a configuration that would permit us to add more items and cabinets as we got set up. Our furniture guy was also excellent in providing us with loaner items whenever we urgently needed something until whatever we had ordered was actually shipped. (h) Phones Phones were one of the hardest things we had to deal with. Coming from larger, established firms we were used to stuff that hooks up to a switchboard and with certain functionality. Making inquiries about business phones always seemed to elicit efforts to sell us similar type equipment, which was way beyond our needs or budget at that point. As it turns out our solution was ultimately pretty simple. We got a basic business line for our fax and a couple of “Local Link” packages for our offices. These provide almost all of the basic functionality you need – voicemail, conferencing, etc. - to get rolling as part of the phone service, without a fancy switchboard. You don’t need a fancy “business phone” to work with it either. There are lots of screen-type phones that have all the functionality you need and just plug into the jack to work. Get one, plug it in, and away you go. One point to watch out for is that there’s going to be a lag between when you order your phone service and when they actually show up to turn it on. That’s even longer if, say, there’s been a recent labour disruption and there’s a backlog. Make sure you find out about that soon enough to plan for it. (i) Internet Getting your email set up takes a little advance thought too. Most importantly, you need a service provider, and if you want your own domain name you have to register that in advance too. My solution to the mechanics of domain name registration was to let my partner take care of it. I highly recommend that option, but if you don’t have it, chances are your computer consultant will be able to help you out. Just remember that your service provider is going to need some technical information about your domain name in order to make your email work, and you are going to need to set up your domain name so it points at your service provider’s service (don’t ask me to explain that exactly, I can’t – I just found out that you need to have some information and figure out how to do this a few days in advance, otherwise you have to wait for your email to come on line.) Chances are your service provider will host a website for you too, although you might not be ready (as we weren’t) to put up your site right away. But in the interest of simplicity, it’s nice to have your website host and your email service both in mind at the outset when you choose your service provider, so that when your website is ready to go, so is your host. (j) Website, Logo, Letterhead Speaking of websites, it’s nice to have it incorporate a logo that is going to been seen elsewhere in your practice – meaning that if you want a logo, you should think about it early. In our case, Joseph found a not too expensive designer (a university student, with a little business on the side) who was able to set up a logo for us – nothing fancy, just a stylized version of our name – and letterhead, incorporating the logo. The letterhead comes in the form of a word template as well as a print design, so we can use it either way (for fax or hard copy), and matching business cards were done as well. The same designer then coordinated with a website designer to plan a basic site for us. We had to plan the content, of course, but someone else put together the format and integrated the content into the design. The website took longer to get rolling than we’d hoped, but we had it up in about three months time. (k) Insurance Of course, not to be forgotten just because it’s item (k) on the list, is your friendly neighbourhood Lawyers Professional Indemnity Company. Switching over from your old firm isn’t that difficult; you just have to give LawPRO the details in writing; when they get their records updated they’ll send you a bill and credit your old firm with whatever it’s entitled to based on your having departed. This may take a while and because I’m a little anal retentive about insurance, I checked in periodically to make sure there hadn’t been an oversight in administration – there was one, eventually, but we got it sorted out. We also wanted excess coverage, as probably most of us do, and that’s something else that needs advance thought. To my knowledge, there are only 2 options. One is LawPRO’s excess policy. If I understood it right, LawPRO needs a lengthy period of time to implement, so if you want to go that way you need to check it out substantially in advance. The alternative is to apply through an excess broker (we used Marsh & McLennan), which was able to get us excess coverage very quickly. Finally (well, not really finally) there is necessary coverage for property and (non-professional) liability, which you need to have in place for yourself, your landlord, and your bank probably, as soon as you have possession of space and equipment. I say “not really finally” in the preceding paragraph because you can, and probably also should, be looking at life and business interruption policies as well, for the business. We did that, but not right at the beginning – just too much to tackle amongst everything else, and not an absolute must for start up. (l) Law Society Not to be forgotten. You have to keep the Law Society apprised of your practice particulars. Doing Describing the “doing” is easier than the “planning”. We found that once we got started we spent some time reacting to needs as we went, so we were then into problem solving rather than anticipating needs. Carrying on practice at the same time was a challenge. It’s not a bad thing not to be too overwhelmed with work at the outset, so you can spend some time figuring out how to make it work. (a) Supplies Figuring out how to make this work killed a lot of time for us, both in terms of figuring out what we needed and how to get it, efficiently. We spent more time than we should have physically shopping for stuff. In fact, most of the stuff we needed was available quickly and easily on line. Both Staples and Grand & Toy have fast delivery services, so once we found our way around the web-sites, it was a lot more efficient. Note to litigators: Make sure you have an exhibit stamp before your first urgent motion comes along … (b) Support Staff This is a hard one to plan out. Our approach was not to splurge on staff until we were confident we were in a position to pay for it. In retrospect, we could have geared up on this earlier than we did, but it did work out in the long run. We were fortunate enough to get early assistance on an hour by hour contract basis from an assistant who had worked with me before and who was willing to give us some part-time help. That led to bringing on another person on the same basis, and eventually we hired someone full time when we were ready (well, when we were desperate, because we should have done that sooner, too). End result, we now have 1 full time and 2 part-time staff. Two things surprised me in this process. First, we got our full time staff member without going through an agency, thereby saving a big chunk of change. An ad in the Toronto Star got us quite a few very unhelpful applications but one very excellent one- all we needed. Second, I was surprised at how many good quality people there are out there who want to work part-time. We were fortunate, in our case, that we knew both of ours previously – but I gather there are lots of high quality people looking for flexible working arrangements. (c) Photocopier This turns out to be a significant investment because the options seem to be to buy something expensive or to commit to a long term lease. The problem was, we could only guess at how much we were going to need in terms of speed and capability. We were fortunate to find a sales agent who was willing to rent us an old one on a month to month basis for a few months, so we could monitor our usage and then make a more intelligent decision about what to do next. (d) Accounting Software Perhaps I should have put this under “Planning”, because you need to have it pretty much ready to go when you start up. Learning how to use it, though, is part of practice. So far as the law practice is concerned, you need a program that will enable you to comply with Law Society requirements, so something designed for law firms. We went with PC Law. It’s probably not that difficult to learn but we found we didn’t have time to learn all that much ourselves, and so relied fairly heavily on our bookkeeper initially – not the most cost efficient way to do it. However, once we got our staff resources in play (another reason I wished we’d done that earlier) our bookkeeper was able to get our administrative staff up to speed on doing most routine tasks, so that we use less of the bookkeeper’s time now. The management company doesn’t need law firm software, so we picked up a (less expensive) program recommended by our bookkeeper to deal with that, to the same effect. A word of caution is that (so far as I understand it anyway) what the Law Society wants you to do is occasionally different from what your bookkeeper might want to do, from an accounting perspective. In particular, your trust accounting has certain requirements you are responsible for, regardless of your bookkeeper’s help. It’s a good idea to have a look at the Law Society’s bookkeeping guide, which you can download from its website, and to learn how to use the program well enough to see if your financial records make sense, even if you don’t learn how to input bills and cut cheques. (e) Library So much material is available and searchable online, we didn’t consider this a pressing issue. We did set ourselves up with Quicklaw, and other than that we tend to acquire books on an ad hoc, as needed basis. (Note to litigators, you do need the Rules of Civil Procedure …) Most of the legal publishers are pretty good about delivering stuff quickly if you have a screaming need for it. Apart from that, there is the Great Library’s research service, which will get you copies of case law on a very quick turnaround if you need it, and quite cost efficiently. (f) Professional Staff Hiring a junior lawyer was a big decision, and we did it last August. The important consideration on the financial side is that you have to start paying your junior considerably before you start receiving cash for the junior’s work product, and of course you also have to provide a desk, computer, etc., which cost doesn’t get recovered until later either – so you need to think about whether there is sufficient work to generate the cash and when you are going to get it. On the other hand, our experience was that it didn’t take long for us to realize there is a ton of stuff we were dying to have someone else take care of – so filling up our junior’s plate is taking less time than we thought. Another point to keep in mind – assuming you are looking for a first year lawyer – is the timing of the large firm hire back decisions. May or June is a good time to be looking, as there is a sudden flood of articling students who will not be returning to their firms as lawyers. In our case, we contacted people we knew in large firms as well as a friendly consultant who was well connected, with the result that we got some good candidates referred to us directly. (g) Coffee Maker Here’s another item that should more properly be in the “Planning” section above, but becomes urgent in the “Doing” section if you are like me – need the coffee and can’t stand waiting in line for it at Tim Horton’s. Conclusion This article took a lot longer to write than I expected, so I guess setting up and doing our first year must have taken a lot more thinking, planning and doing than I’d thought about when I set out to write it. It’s been a long haul but so far a very worthwhile exercise. Hopefully, a point or two in here will help someone else get there a little faster and more easily. * Lloyd Hoffer, Hoffer Adler LLP. Desktop SearchingStephen Bird* This article will be a combination book review and product review. The book is The Desktop Search Handbook1 (The Handbook) written by Peter Deegan, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Office Watch and other newsletters, while the products will include many of those mentioned in The Handbook including Copernic, Google, Windows Desktop Search, and Yahoo. Wikipedia defines this topic2 as follows: “Desktop search is the name for the emerging field of search tools which search the contents of a user’s own computer files, rather than searching the Internet. The emphasis is on data mining all the information that is available on the user’s PC, including web browser histories, e-mail archives, word-processor documents, and so on.” While Wikipedia says it is an “emerging field”, at least one Desktop Search program has been around for a decade. One of my favorites, Wilbur,3 started in 1995 as (if I recall correctly) shareware and has since become freeware. I’ve used Wilbur at my networked WinNT office to quickly and easily locate a document which has become a dim recollection in the attic (figuratively speaking) of my law practice although, usually, with a name, key word, or concept upon which to search. Deegan begins The Handbook with “Desktop Searching 101" which introduces readers to indexing – what and when, caching, rebuilding, text files and beyond, performance, and various subtleties (PDF, image, audio and other media files) – followed by a reminder of sometimes forgotten and unused Boolean search concepts. This material should not be overlooked, especially the part about “delayed gratification”. Copernic Desktop Search (http://www.copernic.com) Copernic is the program that I installed on my home WinXP SP2 system. I particularly like Copernic because it can search files on one’s system including mapped network drives, or terms on the Internet through Copernic’s metasearch function. “This means that instead of getting the best results one search engine has to offer, you'll be getting the best combined [metasearch] results from a variety of engines, and not just any engines, but industry leading engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, About and LookSmart.”4 As a test, I first searched for “Deegan” on my system. While it quickly
identified some of the instances of Deegan, it didn’t find the hard drive
location of the latest version of The Handbook which was on a subfolder of
G-drive. I thought that perhaps the index needed updating, so that was done with
all of G-drive selected. However, that still didn’t produce the location of the
file. I then selected the actual folder (PowerDesk5 was used to
locate the file in the attachment folder of my email program) where I knew the
file was located and Copernic then found the file. Identified files on one’s system are listed with or without detail – see accompanying screenshot – with the option to preview the identified file. If the file is copy protected (e.g., to prevent unauthorized changes in a PDF file), then Copernic can’t preview it although it will launch the applicable (Acrobat) program. Copernic works with Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP with Internet Explorer 5 or later. Google Desktop Search (http://desktop.google.com) Google Desktop Search Version 2 (GDS2) is currently in beta testing. Deegan plans to review/include it in the next release of The Handbook which is due out before the end of the year. GDS2 features can be found at http://tinyurl.com/dfjcr while a collection of GDS2 screenshots can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/3n9zd Ian “Gizmo” Richards, writing in the Support Alert Newsletter,6 says this about GDS2: “The latest version has a novel sidebar which, according to Google, ‘shows you your new email, weather and stock information, personalized news and RSS/Atom feeds, and more.’ Also new is a desktop find-as-you-type search box, personalized search, an application launcher, a new Outlook toolbar and the ability to search your Gmail offline. After using it for a week I'm impressed with the integrated desktop/GMail search and the search personalization but found the sidebar more intrusive than helpful.” Although Deegan identified some limitations with the current version; for example, “... GDS was designed for single user environments only; for multiple user situations (several users sharing a single computer or networks) there are various limitations and concerns.” It seems Google was listening when designing GDS2. The features list says: “To search folders that Google Desktop doesn't automatically search, just click the ‘Add drive or folder to search’ link to select one. This is handy if you want to use Google Desktop to search a network drive...” As with other desktop search programs, Deegan includes a number of helpful Tips in the 19-page section devoted to this desktop search program. He also describes some useful third-party utilities and plug-ins for GDS. Deegan says, at page 30: “It’s a simple setup, unobtrusive indexing and already familiar interface makes it a popular choice... this version is quite wonderful. What it lacks is made up for with a simple interface that anyone who has used the web will grasp effortlessly.” Unfortunately GDS only works with Windows 2000 SP3 and above. Windows Desktop Search (http://desktop.msn.com) There are a number of features Deegan likes about Windows Desktop Search (WDS); for example, new files can be quickly indexed while showing the index status while the snooze/pause option is impressive and, if the index gets too “messy” or you just want to start over, then the whole index can be rebuilt. One feature I particularly like, and which has been missing from Internet Explorer, is tabbed browsing. Unfortunately WDS can’t index the contents of PDF files without downloading a 9.66MB iFilter file from Adobe. WDS features can be found at http://tinyurl.com/ck4nr System requirements are Windows XP, Windows 2000 SP4 or later, or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. Yahoo Desktop Search (http://desktop.yahoo.com) As Deegan correctly notes, Yahoo Desktop Search (YDS) is based on X17 desktop search program which, unlike the other products in this review, is not free. YDS features can be found at http://tinyurl.com/82mac and frequently asked questions http://tinyurl.com/avgm7 Windows XP or Windows 2000 SP3+ is required. This seems to be the pick of Gizmo Richards, author of the TechSupportAlert newsletter, who says: “Google is now level pegging with Yahoo for the best free desktop search utility though I still prefer the way search results are presented in Yahoo DTS.”8 Final Thoughts For those interested in the many products in this category, visit http://tinyurl.com/5h6gl. As mentioned, I have Copernic on my system and I plan to stay with it for now – this is also the pick of Claudia Almer, chief researcher of The Handbook. When I installed Google, which is the choice of Peter Deegan, I discovered that indexing would only take place while the system was idle – I couldn’t (easily) learn how to override this for immediate indexing nor could I find the indexing controls in Windows Desktop Search while I had trouble downloading all the files needed to install Yahoo Desktop Search. Perhaps, with time, these programs will become my friends, much like Wilbur. In the meantime Deegan’s Handbook is highly recommended to those wanting to make the most out of whatever desktop search program they choose. A final “final thought” is offered by Brien Posey who writes about The Security Risks of Desktop Searches at http://tinyurl.com/apwe5 certainly, it is food for thought! * Stephen Bird is a Perth, Ontario lawyer and a Contributing Editor of
The Lawyer’s PC newsletter. He can be reached via e-mail at StephenBird@lawyer.com. A version
of this article was originally published in The Lawyer’s PC
(West, a Thomson business) on October 15, 2005.
The Three Flavors of Adobe Acrobat: A Litigation PerspectiveGreg Krehel* Adobe System’s ubiquitous Acrobat software comes in three primary versions: the free Reader, the $299 per license Standard version and the $449 per license Professional version. Which version or combination of versions is right for your organization? If you’re a litigator or litigation paralegal, the following article should help you decide. It summarizes the key features for trial team members found in each Acrobat flavor. Please note that there’s a fourth version of Acrobat called Elements. Elements is intended for sale to large organizations, and is only available in bundles of 100 licenses. Elements can create PDFs but has relatively few of the other features found in Acrobat Standard or Professional. Most large organizations use the Reader, Standard and/or Professional versions of Acrobat, so Elements won’t be discussed herein. Adobe Reader Adobe Systems has distributed over 500 million copies of the free Reader version of Acrobat as part of its successful effort to make the PDF format the de facto standard for electronic documents. Once you’ve read about the features of Acrobat Standard and Professional below, it’s likely you’ll want to purchase one of these versions for selected individuals at your organization. However, the free Reader may be a fine solution for many users -- in particular those who won’t need to create or modify PDFs. Here are the features of Reader that should be of greatest interest to trial team members: —Viewing & Printing— As its name suggests, Adobe Reader lets you view and print PDFs others have created. All versions of Acrobat, including Reader, offer sophisticated printing options with which you may be unfamiliar. One example: Acrobat makes it easy to print multiple document pages on a single sheet of paper, similar to the condensed printing option offered by electronic transcript programs. To print two or more document pages per printed page, set the Page Scaling option on Acrobat’s Print dialog box to Multiple Pages Per Sheet. —Searching— Searching is an Acrobat feature that’s critical for trial teams and available in all versions, including Reader. Use Acrobat’s Search feature to hunt through a single PDF or an entire collection of PDFs to locate all instances where a word or phrase appears. You'll find the Search option on Acrobat's View menu. Please note that in order to search PDFs they must contain text in addition to images. PDFs that are created from electronic files such as word-processing documents automatically include text. However, when paper documents are scanned to create PDFs, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) must be performed to add text to the PDFs, thereby making them searchable. —Full Screen Mode— All versions of Acrobat, including Reader, offer a Full Screen mode that transforms Acrobat into a simple presentation tool. You’ll find the Full Screen option on Acrobat’s View menu. Once a document is displayed in Full Screen mode, the arrow keys on your keyboard can be used to navigate through document pages. When you’re done presenting, press the ESC button to exit Full Screen mode. —Plug-In Support— Part of what has made Acrobat so successful is its support for “Plug-Ins” -- product extensions developed by companies other than Adobe Systems. Plug-Ins are available for bates numbering, redacting and other common litigation tasks. Some Plug-Ins require a Standard or Professional version of Acrobat as the actions the Plug-ins perform modify PDFs. However, there are also many Plug-Ins that don’t modify PDFs and can be used with the free Adobe Reader. I apologize for this self-serving example of a Plug-In for Reader, but it’s one with which I’m very familiar. CaseSoft’s "Send to CaseMap" Plug-In for Acrobat works with all versions of Acrobat, including Reader. This Plug-in lets you cull critical passages from PDFs to instantly create new facts in our CaseMap case analysis program. One click on the fact in CaseMap reopens the PDF and takes you back to the page from which the fact was sent. Acrobat Standard Here are the six features in the Standard version of Acrobat that should be of greatest interest to litigators and litigation paralegals: —PDF Creation & Modification— The primary feature that makes Acrobat Standard worth $299 is its ability to create and modify PDFs in addition to viewing, printing, and searching them. —Optical Character Recognition— Acrobat Standard can perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on PDF files that contain images, but not text. Once OCR text has been added to the PDF, it can be searched for any word or phrase. You’ll find the Recognize Text Using OCR option on Acrobat’s Document menu. —Commenting— Acrobat Standard makes it easy to add annotations to PDF documents using highlighters, sticky notes, callouts and a number of other commenting options. You’ll find mark up tools and also a special help topic titled “How to Comment & Mark Up” on Acrobat’s Comment menu. Did you know that Acrobat offers easy ways to review the comments associated with a PDF? Select the Show Comments List option on Acrobat’s Comments menu to display a summary of the mark ups in a PDF. Select the Print with Comment Summary option on Acrobat’s Comments menu to use one of four different methods for printing comments, e.g., Document and Comments with Connector Lines on Single Pages. —PDFing of Email— Beginning with Acrobat 7, the Standard version makes it a cinch to create PDFs of email in Microsoft Outlook. One click can PDF an entire Outlook folder containing thousands of emails. When you PDF email, all attachments and links can be embedded in the PDF Acrobat creates. The resulting PDF automatically organizes emails by message dates, by authors' names and by subject. Bookmarks are created that make it easy to jump to an email of interest. What a great way to review email before producing it during discovery! Please note that Acrobat’s email PDFing feature integrates with MS Outlook, not the free MS Outlook Express. That’s not a show-stopper though as email in Outlook Express can be easily moved into Outlook. —Web Capture— Acrobat Standard makes it easy to PDF web pages and even entire web sites – a very handy feature given the transient nature of web content. When Acrobat Standard is installed, an Adobe PDF toolbar is added to your copy of Internet Explorer. —The Organizer— A final important tool in Acrobat Standard is the Organizer -- a feature that was first introduced in Acrobat 7. The Organizer provides flexible ways of viewing the PDFs on your system. For example, the Organizer lets you view PDFs arranged by history -- one click displays the PDFs you opened today, yesterday, in the last week, in the past two weeks, in the last 30 days or even in the past year. You’ll find the Organizer on Acrobat’s File menu. Acrobat Professional Acrobat Professional offers the same features as the Standard version, plus many more. Of the numerous features unique to Acrobat Professional, the following three are particularly useful for trial team members and may well justify spending the extra $150 for a Professional license: —Batch Operations— Acrobat Professional supports batch processes, for example, batch printing
and batch OCRing. —Indexing— Acrobat Professional can be used to create an index of the text in PDFs. Indexing PDFs dramatically enhances the speed of searches for words and phrases within them. Without an index, searching across hundreds or thousands of PDF files can be quite slow. With an index, search results are virtually instantaneous. —Enabling Commenting by Users of Reader— A feature of Acrobat Professional, which first became available with Acrobat 7, is the ability to enable commenting by users of the free Adobe Reader. Normally, Reader users cannot add comments to PDFs or participate in the document review process in any meaningful way. However, Acrobat Professional can be used to create PDFs that will activate commenting capabilities for users of Reader. Learning More About Acrobat Let me conclude by offering three ways to learn more about how Adobe Acrobat can be used to enhance your litigation practice:
Thank you for reading “The Three Flavors of Adobe Acrobat.” I’d appreciate any and all feedback on this article. Please write me at gkrehel@casesoft.com. * Greg Krehel is CEO of CaseSoft. CaseSoft develops five software tools for trial teams, including CaseMap, its flagship case analysis product. CaseMap features tight integration with Adobe Acrobat and over 15 other litigation support tools. Additional information and full-featured trial versions are available at www.casesoft.com. New Chair of Sections OBA is pleased to announce that Roderick Flynn of the law firm of Evenson
Bundgard Flynn and Past Chair of the Education Law Section has been appointed to
the position of Chair of Sections. His e-mail address is r.flynn@ebf-law.com. The OBA and the current Chair of Professional Development, Ben Hanuka, welcome Rod. Publications
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