Rosie's Ramblings

By Sandra Rosenzweig

When I began to cover legal technology for California Lawyer too many years ago, my first task was to show solo and small-firm lawyers how to "level the playing field" when up against the big guys. (Does anyone use that phrase anymore? And what kind of sport were we talking about? Croquet?) The few of us covering legal tech back then felt like evangelists for the Holy Church of the Cybermachine: "No, really," I would say, "computerizing your solo or small-firm practice will cut the time it takes you to produce briefs and bills, and will do it much more thoroughly." And some people actually believed me.
      If I were to proselytize again, I would offer the following suggestions about technology choices to lawyers setting up their first offices.
      The computer itself. Especially for your first box, don't cheap out. You'll use all the storage and features you get. Buy a tower computer with as much RAM as you can afford?two gigabytes at the very least. And try to find a system that expands beyond four gigs. Buy something with as many bays, ports, slots, and cards as you can afford. In particular, get yourself more than the usual four USB ports?eight is nice but requires a second USB card installed in the computer. Yes, you could use an external hub to expand the system's USB muscle, but hubs often cause conflicts. Whenever possible, get what you need built into the system instead of relying on third-party computer aids, each with its own fussy drivers and switches. This includes even card readers for compact flash, secure digital, and other miniature storage media. Get as many hard drives (300GB or larger) as the manufacturer will build in. In addition, buy five to seven external hard drives of 160GB or more capacity. I've seen them for less than $100. You need these for daily or weekly backups as well as special storage, such as keeping all the files of a frequent-flier client on a separate disk. You also need to make duplicates of every drive you have, including the internal ones, and then send them to someone in another part of the country?beyond Bakersfield, for example. More like Montana or Michigan or Maryland. Remember, the next disaster may vaporize your office, and all will be lost?except for the files waiting for you in Chilliwick, British Columbia.
      And don't make your first office computer a laptop or notebook or tablet. No matter how souped up one of those elegant machines is, it won't have the power and flexibility to run your entire office.
      I'm not even going to entertain the question of Apple platform computers versus Microsoft Windows?based systems. The practice of law in this country is, by and large, done on Windows. You may still?may as in maaaybeee?be able to find a new system running Windows XP Professional, but I suggest going with Windows Vista?it's inevitable anyway. Buy as professional a package as you can afford short of the Ultimate edition. (So far, Microsoft hasn't released much in the way of the Ultimate widgets and services galore it's promised.)
      The monitor. Buy yourself the largest screen with the highest resolution you can afford, and make sure your operating system can run it. Also, get a second video port and card to drive any additional digital monitors or televisions you may want to hang off this system.
      The DVD writer. Get the fastest available, preferably one that prints directly onto the disk. 'Nuff said.
      The printer. Buy a multifunction device?a color and black-and-white printer, fax, flatbed scanner, and copier, all in one behemoth. If I were to recommend one brand, it would be Hewlett-Packard (HP). I happily use the L7780. Should you need a dedicated photo printer, HP makes some good inkjets, as does Canon. Base your choice as much on the cost of ink cartridges as on the printer's picture quality.
      The word processor. You probably have zero choice about which office software suite you use. If you work for the government or its suppliers, you'll use whatever Corel WordPerfect version they specify. Otherwise, you'll use Microsoft Word, Excel, and the other programs in that Office Suite. If you use Microsoft Office 2007, you'll be able to convert your files into the formats of previous versions and of other office programs.
      Security and backup. Set up your network first and your security system second, before you install any other software. For a very small firm, Trend Micro's PC-cillin Internet Security (us.trendmicro.com, $49.95) should do the policing job admirably. It includes a firewall as well as anti-virus, Trojan, worm, and spyware protection, phishing and spam email filters, data-theft prevention, and website access controls. For backing up files, Centered Systems' Second Copy should be very workable (www.secondcopy.com). For copying entire disks to send to Chilliwick, try Symantec's Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 ($39.20).
     

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