Author: Damon Chetson (page 4 of 4)

by Damon Chetson

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

Author website

If you want to build a paperless law office, then avoid the practice of criminal law. While other parts of the legal system are slowly, but surely, moving into an electronic and paperless future, all important documents in a criminal practice need to be produced in hardcopy form.

And so I do have to maintain and secure client files.

Still I’m finding ways to minimize the paper flow. My discoveries may make sense to you in your real estate business, so I’ll share them here from time to time.

Today: The scanner.

I need something that is fast, produces good quality scans (but need not reproduce the Mona Lisa in all its glory), and is inexpensive. Right now my firm is me. But later I expect to add a support person and additional attorneys.

So I want something that can be networked so that colleagues can share the scanner.

I think I’ve found a solution: The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. I got the S1500M – the “M” is for Mac. It’s roughly $400 from Amazon, although I bought mine slightly cheaper. For the $400, Fujitsu throws in the latest version of Acrobat Professional, which itself runs more than $250 retail.

I haven’t fully exploited Acrobat Professional, but I’m sure it’s got some features I could incorporate into my workflow.

But I have worked with the ScanSnap for the past two months, and it’s been nearly flawless. It’s fast – Fujitsu claims 20 pages a minute – and handles a pile of documents of all sizes, automatically adjusting the scanner to accommodate different sizes.

Very rarely the multi-document feeder jams on a document that’s folded or wrinkled. But fixing the jam is painless. Most of the time the scanner powers through like a champ. Just put the documents into the feeder, and press the scan button. The scanner handles the rest.

This is a color scanner, but I have not used it to scan in photos so couldn’t say whether the scan quality is good enough for anything but the most basic color scanning.

Best of all, the scanner is only 12 inches by 6 inches, so Read more

by Damon Chetson

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

Author website

Greg’s written: “The trouble with free software, is that you don’t really explore what you’re getting with it.” When I read that, I thought, “True, but…” The “but” being Google, a company whose free products I’ve (mostly) explored to death, even when they’re not very good. I’m looking at you, Google Docs.

When Google announced that it was entering the telephony business with Google Voice, I was excited, and applied for an “invitation” that came in July in the midst of preparing to take the North Carolina Bar. I couldn’t seriously play with it until August. But now I’ve spent two months with it, and here’s my take: I’m not sure Google Voice is ready for primetime.

Here’s how it works: At sign up, a user selects a phone number. That number can become the new primary number, which the user gives out to family, friends, clients, and so on. Google Voice allows the user to set which phones will ring when people call the Google Voice number. (Outside callers have no idea they’re calling a Google Voice number. To them it’s just another phone number.)

The setup was a cinch. Within a few minutes I was up and running with a new phone number that now rings my cell phone, but could also ring an office phone and home phone all at the same time.

Eric Bramlett has posted about Google Voice’s killer feature: Voicemail Transcription. Since I spend a good deal of time in court, where answering a phone will get you tossed out by an annoyed sheriff’s deputy, being able to glance down at my iPhone to read a voicemail that’s been transcribed for me is fantastic. Even if the transcription is not perfect, getting the gist of the voicemail without having to leave the courtroom saves a ton of time.

I’ve found transcriptions to be marginal at best, but still good enough to give me a sense of the message. Maybe it’s the southern accent that Google has not yet nailed, but Google still has a ways to go.

There are other nifty features: the ability to route calls to specific phones, Read more