Introduction: The 'Connected' Lawyer
The "Connected" Lawyer of Today Is Wired
with Technology.
Whether armed with a BlackBerry, Palm Treo, or
Motorola Q, the modern lawyer constantly communicates
with his/her clients, colleagues, and the
court. Text messages, e-mails, and documents fly
across the airwaves and wires 24-hours a day. With
the expectation of "24x7" service comes the need
for access to information "24x7" - far more information
than the hard-drive of a PDA-Phone (or even
a laptop) can store.
The "Connected" Lawyer of Today Works on
Multiple Computers.
A lawyer's office usually has a desktop, maintained
by the Information Technology (IT) Manager. At
home and on the road, attorneys use laptops. They
also have the family computers networked together
in a home wireless network. In addition, a lawyer
may use the computer at a client site or an airport.
Therefore, when a lawyer complains that his computer
doesn't work, he could mean any one of these
computers - all of which serve a critical purpose in
the conduct of his/her business.
The "Connected" Lawyer of Today Must
Collaborate.
Collaboration requires meetings with colleagues;
meetings with clients; meetings with experts; meetings
with co-counsel; and negotiation meetings with
opponents. The teams need to come together to
make a decision. The teams need to see and review
the evidence before they can make a decision.
However, you don't have enough time in the day to
travel to all these meetings; nor can you schedule
many of these meetings for a future date. These
meetings need to happen now!!! E-mails and text
messages can facilitate scheduling the meeting, but
they cannot replace the actual meeting.
The "Connected" Lawyer Today Must Teach.
Unless you are the only lawyer in town, clients don't
just walk in the door. You "invite" them. A client
gets a referral from a friend, reads an article, finds
a Web site, or attends a seminar. The prospective
client gets to "know" the lawyer. Marketing means
more than building a Web site (everyone does that);
writing a blog (that's a lot of work); or sending out
a newsletter (how boring). You need to have a personal
touch - a connection with the client. What
better way to get connected than in a seminar?
Why not teach that seminar over the Web, and call
it a Webinar?
Going Virtual
The "connected" lawyer must "go virtual." The full
information resources that a lawyer uses at his/her
desktop must be available 24x7 from anywhere
and accessible from any device. The IT Director of
the firm must provide instant support to "all" the
lawyer's computers (not just the ones tethered by
Ethernet to the office network). And the lawyer must
have the ability to setup ad hoc online meetings, as
well as scheduled meetings.
Virtual Office
Fifteen years ago, I mobilized an army of paralegals
to haul 50 banker's boxes of exhibits to the federal
courthouse on the eve of a trial. A few years later,
we replaced the boxes with a File Server in the
Courtroom, which we brought back each night to
upload the daily court transcripts.
Today, you can bring in any laptop with a wireless
broadband connection and have access to the
same information. Using remote access software,
the attorney can have access to this information
not only in the courtroom, but also at a conference
table in settlement negotiations, at meetings with an
expert witness, or during depositions of key opposition
witnesses.
Virtual Support
At one time computers were a luxury, affordable
only by the rich. Attorneys only used the computer
supplied by the office. Today, computers are "appliances"
in every room of the typical house. The
expectation (and a reasonable one) is that the IT
Manager must provide support for all of these computers
- run the ROI. If a high-priced attorney has
to spend 4 hours fiddling with his connections to do
"office work" from home, who loses money?
Today, you can have instant support on your desktop,
on your laptop, or on your MediaCenter PC.
In one click of the mouse, you can have your office
IT Manager connect to your computer (any of your
computers) and fix it. The typical "support call" used
to take 30 minutes with a 50% success rate. With
remote desktop support, the IT Manager can "see"
the problem, and often solve it in under five minutes.
A happy attorney is a productive and profitable attorney.
For you IT Managers, think of all the grateful
attorneys you helped and how they will vote at the
partner's meeting when it comes to budget approval
(and compensation!).
Virtual Meetings
The virtual or online meeting used to be the province
of high-powered corporations and law firms. Only
they could afford to set up a special audiovisual
conference center with a dedicated T-1 line. Today,
with secure online meeting software, you can
schedule a meeting; send out invitations that include
registration, time, and conference call information;
and then conduct the meeting from your "virtual
office." You can set up your virtual office anywhere
that has an Internet connection - in your office, a
conference room, or a table at Starbuck's.
Virtual Seminars
In the past, setting up a seminar resulted in a big
production involving publicists, mailings, space
rental, and special preparation. Even virtual seminars
involved costs: securing a phone connection,
setting up the conference call, and charges per
attendee that cost upwards of thousands of dollars.
Today, secure online meeting products have "all you
can meet" and "all you can reach" plans for a fixed
monthly subscription. A single Web-console can
handle the whole process from promotion, to conducting
the meeting, to post-meeting follow-up - so
easy an attorney can handle it without assistance.
Citrix Online Offerings
Citrix Online has built a suite of services:
- GoToMyPC for Virtual Office
- GoToAssist for Virtual Support
- GoToMeeting for Virtual Meetings
- GoToWebinar for Virtual Seminars
Each of these services is offered on a subscription
basis (monthly or annual). Each has an "all you can
use" plan, charging only per "organizer" or "host."
According to Citrix Online, they all offer: standards based
cryptography with true end-to-end encryption,
a high-availability hosted service infrastructure,
and an intuitive user interface combined to maximize
confidentiality, integrity, and availability. In other
words, your information remains secure, available
upon request, and easy to access.
A "desktop screen sharing" client functions as the
core of the system, combined with a hosted distribution
service with easy setup and maintenance.
The Citrix Online offerings stand out because of the
combination of (1) security, (2) ease of use, and (3)
price. My comments below stem from extensive use
of this suite of products over the past five years. At
Basha Systems LLC, we use all of these products to
communicate with and support our clients numerous
times every single day.
Each of these services is offered on a subscription
basis (monthly or annual). Monthly prices per user
start at $19.95 for GoToMyPC; $49.95 for GoTo-
Meeting; $99.95 for GoToWebinar, and $300 for
GoToAssist. These numbers can quickly add up,
unless the right business-case is made for their use
of these services. You can, of course, get discounts
for annual plans and multiple users, plus special
promotions. The pricing is competitive compared
to comparable offerings from other vendors. As the
expectation of clients and colleagues for instant
collaboration and the need for law firm marketing
increases, these fees will soon become just part of
the cost of doing business.
Disclosure: As a consultant I have used a courtesy
copy of GoToMyPC, GoToAssist, and GoToMeeting for several years.
I have served as an unpaid advisor first to ExpertCity and then
Citrix Online to give advice on which features would make the service
attractive to lawyers. In addition, I beta-tested GoToMeeting
prior to its launch. This has given me a unique insider's perspective
on the technology.
GoToMyPC
This program will get your feet "wet" in virtual computing.
Get GoToMyPC Pro or GoToMyPC Corporate
and install it on your office computer and on your
home PC. Be sure to assign a high quality password
(text and numbers). With a Pro or Corporate
account, the IT Manager can manage the installation
and the access rights from a central Webpanel.
Once installed, GoToMyPC enables the attorney to
login to their PC from anywhere, and work on their
desktop, the same way they would in the office. You
do not need to install special office files on each PC
and configure them for access to the network. By
controlling your desktop PC, you can see everything
you see at the office, without being there.
If you want to impress your colleagues about how
late you stayed at the office, you can remote in from
a late night Internet Cafe and send an e-mail from
your office computer. If your child's school declares
a last-minute snow day, you can continue your work
from home.
Most often, this means grabbing a file or two from
your office to work on your home PC. GoToMyPC
has an excellent built-in File Transfer Utility. In addition,
it has a remote printer setup that enables
you to open up a file on your office desktop, but
then send it to print on the printer in your Hotel's
business office. The benefits of "remote desktop access"
include added security since you do not need
to transfer the file to the hotel computer. You can
also use GoToMyPC for invitations for one-on-one
collaboration. However, GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar
will serve you better if you need to connect with
more than one person.
GoToMyPC has had security issues in the past.
The security of a PC with an active GoToMyPC client
on it is only as good as your passwords. While
there are 3 levels of passwords: GoToMyPC login,
Remote Access login, and Network login (if you lock
your desktop), any failure to rotate your passwords
or the use of obvious passwords will put your
computer at risk. In addition, accessing GoToMyPC
accounts from untrusted computers (i.e. airport,
Internet cafes, Kinkos etc.) can subject you to risk
of keystroke logging programs recording your login
information. This happened at one Kinkos in New
York. However, there was a happy ending. Because
Citrix Online records connection information
(time, location, IP address), their fast response team
was actually able to identify the offending PC and
aided the police in arresting the culprit.
Another drawback of GoToMyPC occurs when you
go on vacation. When your client calls asking you
to review a document or check on the status of
his case, you no longer have excuses. He knows
you have GoToMyPC, and expects you to find a
HotSpot and login into your desktop.
GoToAssist
This program is a must for any IT Manager. You
can set up an Remote Desktop Connection (RDC)
in Windows to enable you to support computers
inside the office (tethered to the Ethernet). However,
you should avoid setting up an RDC for a home
PC or laptop. It takes too much time, and is often
done wrong. Moreover, you should not take a highly
anxious senior partner through the steps of properly
setting up the RDC at the time of the support call
(when the crisis is brewing).
This is where GoToAssist shines. Set up a link on the
law firm's Web site. The lawyer clicks on the link, accepts
a download, and you now have complete remote
access to their PC. You pay for the GoToAssist
service on a monthly or annual basis with a charge
per concurrent support technician. The support call
comes in over GoToAssist as a request for connection.
The technician sees the desktop and places a
call to the user. Assistance is immediate.
GoToAssist is expensive; the monthly charge adds
up. Realize however, since the license is concurrent,
you will likely need only a single license for the firm.
Also, the program sometimes has problems with
firewalls. If the attorneys you are supporting have
Zone Alarm or Norton Internet Security on their
home PCs, they will have to affirmatively allow
access before the session can begin. Once the
connection is made, of course, you have full remote
desktop control during the length of the session.
Finally, a high-speed internet connection is essential.
While it functions over dial-up, the delays in screen updating
make the provision of remote support
tortuous. We once had a client in a remote part of
Nebraska who had a satellite connection that made
dial-up look fast. Transferring a 15 megabyte file
took over an hour and the screen refresh delays were
10-15 seconds. These are the exception, rather than
rule. Most connections are instantaneous.
GoToMeeting
All lawyers collaborate on documents. And since
most documents are digitized, collaboration involves
hovering around a computer screen (or projector)
and discussing the document. GoToMeeting makes
meetings easy, with an "all you can meet" product.
You pay a monthly or annual subscription for each
authorized organizer; there is no fee for attendees or
per meeting.
You can start a meeting by simply clicking on the
GoToMeeting icon in your system tray, a toolbar
icon in Word, or using Instant Chat. Simply choose
(or list the attendees) and send off your invitation.
GoToMeeting includes a free conference number
that attendees can dial into and enter the meeting
ID. Collaboration could not be easier.
Once the participants sign in, GoToMeeting enables
you to "chat" with attendees, use markers and
highlights to illustrate points, and even enables you
to pass the mouse to other attendees or pass the
baton to another presenter. It gives you all the tools
found in other online meeting programs.
While most GoToMeeting connections are quick and
easy, there are some minor annoyances. When the
meeting starts, there is a control panel on the upper
right hand of the screen which blocks a view of the
desktop. The attendees need to be instructed how
to collapse the panel and then maximize the desktop
viewer. It would be far better to have the collapsed
panel and a maximized viewer as the default.
Also, from the perspective of the organizer, the
settings for allowing drawing and keyboard control
could be more intuitive. When you switch presenters,
the new presenter has to manually give
keyboard and drawing privileges to the original
presenter. It would be far better to get those issues
resolved when the presenter is passed, enabling the
presenter to show his screen, allow drawing, and
give mouse control in one click.
GoToWebinar
The online seminar product is only a few months
old; Citrix Online currently bundles it free with a 10-
user GoToMeeting account. GoToWebinar is an "all
you can reach" product. It enables lawyers to reach
their clients and prospective clients with maximum
ease and minimum cost. Like GoToMeeting, you
pay a monthly or annual subscription for each
authorized organizer; there is no fee for attendees or
per meeting.
GoToWebinar works just like GoToMeeting, but
differs in its design as a marketing and educational
tool. It includes special tools for sending out
slick customized meeting invitations. A Webpanel
enables you to describe the meeting, add graphics
and information, and conduct a pre-attendance poll
of the attendees. You can get reports of a mailing's
success, how many people registered, and what
their answers were to the poll.
During the meeting, you can have multiple organizers.
While one attorney makes a Web presentation,
another attorney can field written questions from
the users or prepare quick-poll questions to get
feedback from the attendees. The meeting control
panel even enables you to gauge the interest of
the attendees in real-time so you can liven up the
presentation.
After the meeting, you can automatically send out
surveys of the users to either test their "recall" for instructional
Webinars or to gather useful feedback for
future presentations. Attendees can even record the
Webinar for future playback. In addition, for invitees
who could not attend the meeting, you can have
a link to a recording of the meeting on the hosted
Webinar site sent automatically.
GoToWebinar is a new product, with some issues
still being worked out. Firewalls may block certain
attendees from viewing the meeting. The innovative
poll is a great feature; however, the full report
on the attendees and their responses to the polls
is not available online until 2 hours after the end of
the meeting. It would be nice if it were available right
after the meeting for instant analysis.
Further, GoToWebinar presumes that attendees do
not intend to speak during the session, assigning
a conference number that is "listen only." You can
manually override that number and supply one that
can have up to 100 speakers (sufficient for most
Webinars).
Conclusion: What Are You Waiting For
Getting the GoTo line of products may well be your
best technology investment ever. The service will
make you as a lawyer more productive and more
responsive. It will help you secure new clients and
new business. With the new business you can afford
(and happily invest in) all the other technological
productivity systems, including case management,
document assembly, or digital voice transcription
software.
Click here to download the PDF of What's the Big Deal With the GoTo Suite?
