It’s hard enough for most of us to remember our passwords and manage our online accounts. What happens when we aren’t around? As more of our key information and assets migrate to online formats, the question of what happens to our “digital estate” upon our death or incapacity has become a more pressing, difficult and common question than ever before. In this episode, we discuss how important our digital lives have become, the growing number of issues that arise after death or incapacity, and current approaches to “digital estate planning.”
Link to the episode: Planning for Your Digital Estate
Segment 1: Planning for Your Digital Estate
- What Your Will Should Say About Your Digital Assets – Ride the Lightning
- Postmortem Life Online – Naomi Cahn (PDF file)
- 19,000 Facebook Users Die Each Day…. - Death Reference Desk
- State Legislation on Digital Assets - Digital Estate Resources
- How to notify the major social networking sites when a member is deceased
- Facebook – Report a Deceased Person’s Profile
- Twitter – How to Contact Twitter About a Deceased User
- LinkedIn – Deceased Member – Verification of Death Form
- Digital Asset Services
- LastPass - Tom’s preferred online password manager
Segment 2: Revisiting - wherein we revisit the topic of our last episode, Lawyers Go Mobile.
Segment 3: Parting Shots
Facebook recently revealed that approximately half of its more the 800 million users access the site from their mobile phones. People are increasingly using smartphones to view websites of all types. What might be the implications of the move to mobile for the standard law firm website? In this episode, we discuss the impact of mobile devices on web design, the web design movement known as Mobile First, and what you can do to optimize your website for the mobile era.
Link to the episode: Law Firms Go Mobile
Segment 1: Law Firms Go Mobile
- Mobile First – Luke Wroblewski
- Mobile vs. Full Sites – Jakob Nielsen
- Nielsen is Wrong on Mobile
- Services that can create a mobile version of your site:
- Mofuse
- Mippin
- Wirenode
- Google’s GoMo - also includes list of mobile site developers
- Barrister App - create an app of your firm’s website
Segment 2: Revisiting - wherein we revisit the topic of our last episode, OMG! Lawyers are Texting?
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- Mophie Juice Pack and other charging products from Mophie
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams
- The Bradshaw Foundation
Twenty years ago, lawyers were debating whether to use email in their practices. It’s now impossible to imagine lawyers practicing without email. Today, people send more than a trillion text messages each year. Will we see texts and instant messages (IMs) becoming as integral to law practice as email? In this episode, we discuss the growing use of texts and IMs by everyone, how these technologies are starting to play a role in the everyday practice of law, and how lawyers should prepare for the use of these technologies in the future.
Link to the episode: OMG! Lawyers are Texting?
Segment 1: OMG! Lawyers are Texting?
- Apple’s iMessage – from Wikipedia
- Trillian – great instant message aggregator
- IM+ for iPad and iPhone
- GroupMe - group messaging for iPhone
Segment 2: Revisiting - wherein we revisit the topic of our last episode, Turning TECHSHOW Topics into a Technology Agenda
- ABA TECHSHOW 2012: Jim Calloway and the Future of the Practice of Law
- 60 Apps in 60 Minutes 2012
- #ABATECHSHOW 2012 Run Down
- 2012 ABA TECHSHOW Takeaways
- Dispatches from ABA TECHSHOW 2012
- ABA TECHSHOW 2012: What Went Down – Trends and Photo Album
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- Nomophobia – the fear of losing or being without your phone
- Adobe Acrobat Typewriter
Each spring, ABA TECHSHOW takes center stage as one of the premier legal technology conferences. While there is great value in attending legal tech conferences, all lawyers can benefit simply from seeing what’s on the agenda at TECHSHOW and other events. Show organizers put a lot of thought into show agendas and we can all learn where to put our technology focus by seeing what topics these shows cover. In this episode, we use TECHSHOW 2012 as an example of how you can assess your current technology agenda, talk about the major topics being covered at TECHSHOW, and suggest ways you can use the TECHSHOW topic list to help set your technology priorities for 2012.
Link to the episode: Turning TECHSHOW Topics into a Technology Agenda
Segment 1: Turning TECHSHOW Topics into a Technology Agenda
- ABA TECHSHOW 2012
- ABA TECHSHOW Blog
- #ABATECHSHOW hashtag on Twitter
Segment 2: Revisiting. Wherein we revisit our topic from Kennedy-Mighell Report #77: New iPad, New Decisions. Tom reports on his experiences with the new iPad, and Dennis laments having delayed his purchase.
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- New Technology Books from the ABA Law Practice Management Section:
- The How-To Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume
Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” represents and new direction in Internet search, where social elements become part of our search results. Bringing our social media world into search results indicates both the growing importance of social media and the need to find new ways to get relevant results. Can we make use of what our friends and connections find on the web to get us better search results? In this episode, we take a look at Search Plus Your World, whether bringing social into search might help us, and whether this approach might work for you.
Link to the episode: Search Plus Your Legal World
Segment 1: Search Plus Your Legal World
- Search Plus Your World from Google
- FAQ: What’s the Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?
- How to Turn Off Google Search Plus Your World [Video]
Segment 2: Revisiting - wherein we revisit our last episode, Ultrabook Benefits for Attorneys, and don’t find much to say.
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- ABA TECHSHOW 2012 - the best legal technology conference you can attend – early bird registration ends February 17!
- Google’s Account Dashboard
Has it really been three years since the introduction of Windows 7? Surveys indicate that Windows XP users still outnumber Windows 7 users. And we’ll be seeing both Windows 8 and a new Mac OSX update called Mountain Lion in 2012. In this episode, we discuss what we have now learned about operating system updates, the current state of operating systems, and what our future operating systems might look like.
Link to the episode: Future OS: Windows 8, Apple Mountain Lion, and Beyond
Segment 1: Future OS – Windows 8, Apple Mountain Lion, and Beyond
Segment 2: Revisiting - wherein we revisit our last episode, Search Plus Your Legal World.
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- iTunes University
- Digital Detectives – Best Resources for Staying Current in E-Discovery
The big story at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show was “ultrabooks.” This new category of computer stole the thunder, at least for a few days, from tablet computers. Should lawyers be considering ultrabooks in 2012? In this episode, we take a look at the new world of ultrabooks, whether tablet computers like the iPad are taking over the computer market, and what it all means for traditional notebook computers and desktop PCs.
Link to the episode: Ultrabook Benefits for Attorneys
Segment 1: Ultrabook Benefits for Attorneys
Segment 2: Revisiting – wherein we revisit our last episode, Making Collaboration Tools Work in 2012, and answer the question, are there ways to subtly or unsubtly push people into using collaboration tools?
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- Take the LastPass Security Challenge
- Bill Taylor – Are You Learning as Fast as the World is Changing?
People are collaborating more than ever before. There are more collaboration tools and technologies than ever before. Yet, the actual adoption of collaboration tools seems to lag behind the desire to use them. In this episode, we discuss the gap between tools and people in collaboration, the common challenges faced when implementing collaboration tools, especially ones used by lawyers, and our best recommendations for improving the adoption of collaboration tools and technologies in 2012.
Link to the episode: Making Collaboration Tools Work in 2012
Segment 1: Making Collaboration Tools Work in 2012
Segment 2: Revisiting – wherein we discuss some legal tech issues that we left out of our last episode, Pardon the Legal Technology Interruption 2011
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- IFTTT (If This, Then That)
- AppsGoneFree – RSS feed and iphone app
Did technology rock the legal world in 2011, or was it a sleepy little year for legal tech? What were the tech highlights and lowlights for 2011? In this episode, we pay homage to one of our favorite shows, ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, and offer up a wide-ranging, fast-paced and highly-opinionated review of what transpired in legal technology during the past year.
Link to the episode: Pardon the Legal Tech Interruption
Segment 1: Headlines and Oddsmakers
- Headlines
- eDiscovery
- Social Media
- Using Social Media for Non-Marketing
- Not Your Marketer’s Social Media: Ten Ways Lawyers Can Benefit from Non-Marketing Uses of Social Media
- Cloud Computing
- iPhones, iPads and Macs
- Oddsmakers – what are the odds that:
- 2012 will be the year the Blackberry loses its place as the smartphone most used by lawyers?
- Tom: 25%
- Dennis: 40%
- Lawyers will be using LinkedIn more than their Outlook contacts in 2012?
- Tom: 15%
- Dennis: 30%
- Lawyers will start bringing their own computers to work next year?
- Tom: 25%
- Dennis: 40%
- Most lawyers will still be using Office 2007 in 2012?
- Tom: 75%
- Dennis: 100%
Segment 2: Word Up
- Lawyers should think of new software development like predictive coding and IBM’s Watson as ______
- Tom: Salvation
- Dennis: Friends
- A recent survey reporting that 94% of the AmLaw 200 law firms plan to use blogs in their social media marketing initiatives is ______
- Tom: Interesting
- Dennis: Hallucinatory
- The day of doing most of your legal work on a smartphone is ____
- Tom: Distant
- Dennis: Here
- Keeping up with all of the developments in legal technology has never been more ______
- Tom: Exhilarating
- Dennis: Daunting
Segment 3: The Big Finish
- Dennis: 7-inch tablet may be the big thing in 2012.
- Tom: Biggest Tech Lesson – social media playing a part in the overthrow of governments around the world
- Dennis: Trend to Watch – mobile technology/smartphones
- Tom: Best iPad app for lawyers – TrialPad
- Dennis: Best Blawg of 2011 – Adam Smith, Esq.
- Tom: Biggest Legal Tech Development – big acquisitions in e-discovery and legal technology
Many social media users have been surprised recently by changes to the design and user interface of the web pages and apps they have been accustomed to using with these services. These kinds of changes have been happening for quite a while, but this round of changes seems to have created a backlash from longtime users. Are these kinds of changes fair or foul? In this episode, we discuss recent interface changes by Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others, the response to these changes and the rollout of the changes, and the implications for users as they rely more and more on cloud services.
Link to the episode: Who Moved My Social Media Cheese?
Segment 1: Who Moved My Social Media Cheese?
Segment 2: Revisiting Our Gift Guide
- One more plug for Sonos
- Powerstick – quick charges of your mobile devices
- Prankpack Gift Boxes
- Amazon Prime
- You can get laser printers under $100
Segment 3: Parting Shots
- Wolfram Alpha – Lawyer’s Professional Assistant for iPad
- Cardmunch





