Today's Tech: A Transactional, Virtual Attorney And Her Mobile Devices

How can mobile devices give lawyers the flexibility and 24/7 access they need to run their practices on the fly?

One way or another, all lawyers use technology. But some lawyers use it more than others. And for certain lawyers, like Lisa Epperly, their practices wouldn’t be feasible without technology.

Lisa is a partner at Babb & Epperly, PLLC, a firm that handles transactional matters, including business and employment law cases, and also serves as outsourced in-house counsel for businesses. Lisa and her partner also appear in court for other lawyers. Her practice is a virtual one, meaning that she and her partner do not have a brick and mortar office and instead hold meetings elsewhere, oftentimes traveling right to their clients’ doors and meeting with them in their offices.

Joe Patrice wrote about virtual practices earlier this week, noting that 21st-century technologies are what made this type of practice possible. That’s certainly the case for Lisa, who relies heavily on mobile tools as part of her law firm’s technology arsenal.

“I spend on average about 3 or 4 hours per day on the road for my cases and for other attorneys’ cases. Not being able to access case-related information on the go and in a format that’s safe would be detrimental to my practice and I wouldn’t be able to do half of my job,” she explains. “That’s why I rely on my smartphone for everything. I use a Samsung Note 3 along with my smartwatch, a Samsung Gear Neo [affiliate links]. These two devices allow me to do everything no matter where I am. My smartwatch has voice-detect function and capability to ‘read to me’ so if I’m on the road and someone sends me a message and asks me to cover a case in court I can receive it safely without violating the law.”

For Lisa, her mobile devices provide her with the flexibility and 24/7 access that she needs to run her practice on the fly. “You lose so much time when you’re sitting in a courtroom waiting for your case. For that 1.5 hours — what else are you going to do?” she asks. “If you have a smartphone that allows you to edit documents, you can access documents stored in the cloud to work on. I can even print documents while sitting in court so  that when I arrive home, they’re ready for my signature. It’s really about saving time and being more efficient.”

She uses her smartphone for more than just editing documents. In fact, according to Lisa, there’s not much that she can’t accomplish using her trusty Samsung Gear Neo: “I use my phone for pretty much everything. I use Dragon Dictation’s speech-to-text capabilities to dictate pleadings or during depositions so I can create a makeshift transcript that I can review long before the court reporter gets the official one to me.” She continues, “We use our case management app, MyCase, to update files and answer questions from our clients. I can check it anytime I need to respond to my clients immediately. Also, I often represent technology companies and they tend to communicate almost exclusively via text message. So I use my phone take a screenshot of the text messages and then attach the photo to my client’s file in MyCase.” (Disclosure: this author is employed by MyCase, but many of our competitors offer apps with similar capabilities.)

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According to Lisa, her smartwatch also offers many useful functions, allowing her law practice to be more even mobile than it would be with just a smartphone: “My smartwatch is helpful when I’m appearing in front of  a judge who opposes phones in the courtroom. It helps me keep track of mission-critical details and then step out into the hallway to address any pressing issues that arise. I also use its speech-to-text functions to respond to texts when I’m on the go.”

But it’s not only about how mobile technology makes life easier for Lisa. Also important is how it allows her to provide more efficient and responsive representation to her clients. “Law firms I’d worked at before hanging my own shingle used technology that felt like it was from the 1980s. Clients could never easily reach their lawyer and spent way too much time talking to staff, etc.  My partner and I wanted our firm to be more responsive,” she says. “So we ensured that our technology choices allow us to get back to customers quickly. We use email, Skype, MyCase’s client communications portal, phone, and text messaging to quickly respond to their inquiries and we don’t bill for that time — we only bill for quality time. Also, we handle a lot of flat-fee work, so our goal is to always respond as efficiently as possible.”

When I asked Lisa if she had any advice for lawyers seeking to incorporate more technology into their law firms, she replied: “Research, research, research. Know what you’re getting into, how you’re going to use the technology, and make sure it will give you the required functionality. And as my professor used to say, there are no stupid questions. Ask questions. You could be losing functionality that could save you an enormous amount of time down the road and you won’t even know it.”

So that’s how a virtual lawyer uses mobile devices to provide 21st-century legal services to her clients. As always, if you or an attorney you know is using technology in a creative or unusual way in your law firm, drop me an email at niki.black@mycase.com. I’m always looking for new attorneys to feature in this column.


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Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and Director of Business and Community Relations at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

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