Ross Kodner’s Legal Techno.Tips

January 1999

Year 2000 Dates and Other Scary Things that Go Bump in the Night.

The actual transition from 12/31/99 to 1/1/2000 is not the only scary set of date changes technology has to deal with--there are several other problematic dates we have to deal with!

Leap Years - While your PCs and other electronic equipment might be ready to handle the 1999-to-2000 transition, they may still not recognize that 2000 is a leap year--talk about double whammies! This means they may fail to recognize February 29, 2000 and would then be off an entire day--even if you reset the date, the day of the week may be off by one day! This can be easily checked (backup first!!!) By doing a "rollover" test with the test PC set to February 28, 2000 at about 11:58:00PM - let the system tick over to see if it properly rolls over to the "leap day." Some Y2K testing software will check this for you. If your system doesn’t recognize the "leap day", you’re not technically Y2K compliant and you need to pursue getting an update or fix from your PC manufacturer or BIOS manufacturer.

Special Dates - Some older programs assign special meanings to certain date sequences that seemed unlikely to occur during the life cycle of the software. For example, one that stands out is 9/9/99 which some programmers used as a special code to note data for some kind of special occurrence--such as deleting data, testing a "condition", or trapping errors. While this is not likely to occur on PCs as opposed to more likelihood on larger mainframe systems, it is still something to be aware of.

Miscellaneous Date Gotchas - All sorts of software has been written with internal date limitations. For example, it is commonly known that 32-bit programs, like many on your current Windows 95, 98 and Windows NT PCs have a date calculation failure point in the year 2036. This affects the massive body of software written in the popular C++ programming language. Certain programs like Microsoft’s widely used Excel 95 can’t handle dates past 2078, Windows 95's Win32 runtime library fails after 2099 and the NT 4.0 File System will fail in the year 29,602. The good news is that we would expect that you will have upgraded your PCs and software by the time these date problems happen--or that you’ll upgrade now if your present data would be affected! God help the poor computing public in the second half of the 21^st century (.

Get a Copy of TopDesk - And Access Your Desktop Shortcuts Anytime.

While Windows 98 makes it possible to add taskbar access to your desktop shortcuts while you are running a program in full-screen mode (and thus obscuring the desktop), there’s a much better way to do it that also works for Windows 95 and Windows NT users. Get a copy of the freeware product called "Topdesk 3.0" from Snadboy Software (download it from the publisher at http://www.snadboy.com/TopDesk.shtml or from many shareware/freeware sites like http://www.shareware.com). This nifty little program puts an icon in your system tray. A single click brings up a menu that lists all your desktop shortcuts as well as giving you access to My Computer, Network Neighborhood, the Recycle Bin and Dial-Up Networking--incredibly handy--a utility I use many times every day!

Network Faxing on the Cheap - Look into WinFAX Pro v. 9 and its New FAX Sharing Function

WinFAX Pro has been the mainstay and benchmark of the wotkstation PC FAX software marketplace for years (info at http://www.symantec.com/winfax/index.html). But for network FAX capabilities, even for smaller firms, it has meant spending money on often expensive and complex dedicated network FAXing hardware and software. Not any more! With the ver. 9 release of WinFAX Pro, Symantec has added simple network FAX sharing, even for your smaller peer-to-peer networks. With the help of a setup wizard, WinFAX Pro ver. 9 guides you through setting up a FAX/modem-equipped PC as a FAX "host." You then can install WinFAX Pro ver. 9 on any PC on the network and send FAXes through the FAX/modem-equipped PC--even though you don’t have a FAX/modem in your own PC. The software "queues" the FAX requests and sends them out on a first-come, first-served basis. And all this capability runs in the background of the "host" PC, only nominally affecting its performance--most users won’t even notice. Save thousands of dollars with this new feature of this inexpensive software!

Conduct On-Line Discussions and Conference with Your Clients and Colleagues . . . For Free!

Use Microsoft’s latest conferencing software called "Netmeeting" (download it from http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting), PeopleLink 2.1 (http://www.peoplelink.com), I-Chat (http://www.ichat.com) or America Online’s free (that’s the operative word with all of these! () AOL Instant Messenger that now comes with Netscape Communicator (http://www.aol.com) to conduct multi-person, private online conferences with friends, colleagues, expert witnesses and your clients. Just type what you want to say and everyone else conferenced in through their Internet connection sees what you type and can then type their responses. These are very much like the "chat" groups on private services like America Online or the forums Compuserve but they offer privacy and more features, like the ability to save the "conversation" of all parties as a text file for later recall. With Netmeeting, you can even voice conference, share documents transfer files and share a "whiteboard" over the Internet.

Think about how you can use this capability for marketing . . . how about signing up existing clients for a one hour a week "free chat" on a scheduled legal topic, moderated by one of your lawyers? My clients have tried this and invariably get tremendous positive reaction from their clients and inevitably generate business . . . in addition to spreading lots of good will for very little cost.

Year 2000 Testing Products - Many are Free!

The bottom-line with Year 2000 compliance is whether your PC hardware is ready to handle the date challenges ahead. Since your PC software gets its dates from the PC hardware, if your hardware isn’t up to the task, your software will fail. The good news is that there are a number of free testing products to check the Year 2000 readiness of PCs. Some examples follow:

National Software Testing Labs - the de facto standard among Y2K PC testing products. Originally developed by the Canadian government, the Ymark2000 software from the National Software Testing Labs has been endorsed by many major hardware makers--it tests a PC’s real-time clock and its BIOS for Y2K compatibility. This product can be downloaded from http://www.nstl.com/downloads/y2000.exe. There’s also a raft of Y2K info at their site at http://www.nstl.com/html/nstl_y2k.html.

Test2000: get it from http://www.rightime.com

Millenium/Pro Check: get it from http://www.unicore.com/millenium.html

Check 2000: http://www.gmt-uta.com/welcome.cfm

Lots of other important and useful Y2K info, news and links to vendors’ Y2K sites are accessible from the mother of all Y2K megasites: Peter de Jager’s Year2000.com (http://www.year2000.com).

Small Firm Networking Resources

Building a network in a small law firm need not be a daunting or expensive task. While it usually makes sense to avoid the offers of "free" help from your AOL-whiz brother-in-law geek and seek professional help, there are several interesting resources to help you become the most educated possible network consumer. The first is Intel’s great information about creating Peer-to-Peer networks--the online article is called "Networking with Windows 95 - A Primer" (find it at http//support.intel.com/support/inbusiness/24057.htm). While focused primarily on Windows 95, much of the information is applicable to Windows 98 as well--easy to understand and very thorough in a methodical, step-by-step approach.

Next, be sure to check out Novell’s high-value NetWare for Small Business 4.2 suite. This is an aggressively-priced bundling of the company’s vaunted NetWare 4.11 network operating system, the terrific GroupWise 5.2 networked calendar/e-mail/scheduling/to-do list system and a slew of other useful utilities including ToBit’s great network FAX software. This package is priced at roughly the price of NetWare alone, saving thousands of dollars in some cases--with a setup routine that keeps your costs down, although use of a pro is recommended--this is not a hobbyist’s evening project. A dedicated server is required, but that’s always better anyway and in this age of super-cheap hardware, is practical for even the smallest firms.

Small Firm Networking Horror Story - avoid Microsoft’s counterpart to the NetWare for Small Business Suite. Avoid it like the plague, actually. Here’s something I recently wrote on a legal technology listserv about my own experiences with this product that clearly falls into the category of "crapware": " . . . .NT Small Business Backoffice Server. This is the biggest piece of junk I have ever seen. While unethical or greedy consultants could look on it as a full employment act, it's so bad the collection of patches for this thing take up 865 meg__two CDs__so massive that of course a download isn't possible__you have to order it and wait two weeks to get it. That's obscene!! How about a server suite with a crippled older [Microsoft] Exchange [Server] that refuses to allow a persistent Internet connection for the network if you are on an ISDN [line]__one of my clients experienced 505 reconnects in a week__at 20 cents each. Microsoft's answer is to throw up their hands and say "we didn't think it would be a problem" but you can upgrade to Exchange Server 5.5 for about $1800 (more than the cost of the entire Microsoft NT Small Business Backoffice Server Suite for that client) and that will "fix" the problem. How about a myriad of other things that just plain don't work__like supporting two network adapters in the server _ no patch available but a Microsoft tech admitted they have an unofficial "hotfix" that we can download. All in all, we had to download four of these "hot fixes" _ fixes to known problems which the public does not and will not know about unless you spend hours on the phone with Microsoft network technicians. Please tell me how that is a "good product". NT Small Business Backoffice Server Suite is nothing more than a badly slapped together collection of software in response to the marketing need to meet and compete with NetWare for Small Business Suite which is a nicely integrated mix that we can usually install and fully configure in about 2 hours or less." Get the picture?

Backing Up Windows 95/98 Critical System Files - You NEED to know how to do this!

Anyone who uses Windows 95/98 and has installed new software has or will eventually experience some sort of a system meltdown. Software that doesn’t play by the rules can devour your system, optimizing everything for its own operation, but rendering the rest of your system totally unusable. There is a cheap and easy homegrown way to protect yourself--aside from religiously backing up your entire system and performing all-important regular data restore tests (hint, hint (). You can create a batch file--remember those from the DOS and Windows 3.x days of yesteryear? This batch file--with a single mouse click--can protect all your critical Windows 95/98 configuration and system files before you install potentially roguish software. Here’s what’s in the file--you can create it with the Windows 95/98 Notepad utility and save it in a new folder that you might call C:\SAFE as in our example below (or even better, to also store it on a floppy disk so that you can copy it back to your system when needed):

Call the file something easy to remember like SAFETY.BAT or SAVEMYBUTT.BAT:
copy c:\autoexec.bat c:\safe
copy c:\autoexec.dos c:\safe
copy c:\config.sys c:\safe
copy c:\config.dos c:\safe
copy c:\windows\control.ini c:\safe
copy c:\windows\system.ini c:\safe
copy c:\windows\win.ini c:\safe
attrib -r -h -s c:\msdos.sys
attrib -r -h -s c:\windows\user.dat
attrib -r -h -s c:\windows\system.dat
copy c:\msdos.sys c:\safe
copy c:\windows\user.dat c:\safe
copy c:\windows\system.dat c:\safe
attrib +r +h +s c:\msdos.sys
attrib +r +h +s c:\windows\user.dat
attrib +r +h +s c:\windows\system.dat

Running this file will protect your Windows 95/98 Registry files, your older 16-bit Windows INI files if you have them and your boot-up files if you have them--they’re neatly tucked away in the C:\SAFE folder and can be copied back to their original locations if needed. Just put a Windows 95/98 Shortcut to this batch file on your desktop and protection is one-click away--practicing safe computing never got easier!

Windows, Windows Everywhere . . . But how do you know which version you have?

Sometimes it is very important to know precisely which version of Windows 95 or 98 you have. This may bear on how you install new software, or which patches or fixes you might acquire from the Microsoft website to "tune" or update your Windows operating system. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely obvious as to which Windows 9x version you might have. Note that you can find your Windows release number by right clicking on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop, selecting "Properties" from the menu that appears, then looking at the "General" tab--the version number will be listed in the upper right-hand corner. The following is a quick table to help you figure it out:

"Change the Oil in your PC every 3000 Miles" - In other Words, A little Preventative PC Maintenance Goes a Long Way

Everyone knows that our cars run better if we take good care of them--regular preventative maintenance can keep our mortgaged rolling pride and joy in tip-top condition so that it lasts as least as long as our payments are still due (. PCs aren’t any different--well cared for PCs simply work better, crashing less often, working when we need them to. The following are some simple self-maintenance tips to keep your PC working at peak abilities-you should consider performing these tasks monthly ideally, or quarterly at a minimum:

Delete all files and folders with dates older than one week from your C:\WINDOWS\TEMP folder

Purge your web browser’s history and cache files - they take up space, slow browser performance and can also pose a security risk

Run SCANDISK (located in Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools). Select the "Standard" option and also turn on "Automatically Fix Errors." Click on the "Advanced" button and under "Log File", pick "Replace Log"; for "Cross-Linked Files" select "Delete"; click "Free" under "Lost File Fragments"; under "Check Files For" pick "invalid dates and times" and finally, disable "Check Host Drive First" unless you have a compressed hard drive - then let ‘er rip

Empty your Recycle Bin--it can be a real space hog (be sure and undelete any files you need to recover from it first!)

Run "Disk Defragmenter" (located in Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools) - the program will tell you if your drive needs defragmenting or not - at least once a quarter for a heavily used PC is recommended

Update your anti-virus software (you DO have anti-virus software, right?) By downloading new virus databases or signature files from your software’s website - do this at least monthly in order to be able to detect and kill the latest damaging viruses that might infest your system

Perform a "test restore" with your data backup system at least once a month, or more often if you have time (you can’t do it too often). Backup systems that aren’t working properly have the insidious characteristic of looking like they’re working just fine. It’s just plain too late when you need to restore from a backup and you get nothing more than "tape empty" messages--talk about a Rolaids moment! To test your backup system--regardless of type, try and select perhaps a few documents and restore them to the system (move the originals first to a safe folder or a floppy so that you have an "empty" area to restore to) and then see if you can access them--i.e. pull up a WordPerfect document in WordPerfect. If this works, the likelihood is that your entire backup session is restorable when the chips are down. By the way, the next time you test it, test restore different files than the previous time.

Keep your PCs and printers clean! Dust and paper particles and other miscellaneous PC-hostile gunk trashes PCs and cripples laser printers. Use a can of compressed air which you can get at any office supply store to blow out the crud from inside your laser printer--do this monthly if possible or at least quarterly. Take the covers off your PCs and blow them out as well--quarterly or bi-annually should do the trick.

Consider keeping some spare PC parts on the shelf for the components you would feel comfortable replacing on your own. For example, you might keep a spare mouse and a spare keyboard handy--those devices are very mechanical and do wear out--usually at the worst possible time. Make sure the replacements are precise replacements--either identical to the most common keyboard and mouse you use in your office and with the same kinds of connectors. You might also keep a network card, some network cables and perhaps a video card on the shelf as well--all pretty inexpensive, but sometimes days away if service is needed and your vendor doesn’t carry them in stock.

Finally, have a plan--be ready for disaster by knowing what to do if key parts of your system fail--such as your PCs, your printers, your network system, etc. This means knowing what diagnostic steps to take, who to call, having a list of all your key software and hardware with version numbers and serial numbers. Be prepared--it WILL happen to you one day!

New Employees Claiming All Sorts of Computer Knowledge? Make them Prove It!

As an employer there is nothing more frustrating than hiring a new employee who has claimed to have a raft of computer skills and then to find out they were merely blowing smoke. One way to head off this expensive problem before it happens is to test their skills as part of the interviewing process. For example, there is a company called Know it All, Inc. (http://www.knowitallinc.com) that has a series of testing software products called, not surprisingly, "Prove It!". These are interactive programs that you can install that test knowledge in actual common PC software systems and also gauge general technical knowledge. Whether it’s Microsoft Word 95 or Corel WordPerfect 8 or Microsoft Access 97, the list of testable products they offer is significant with costs ranging from about $200-$600. While this is not an insignificant amount of money, it pales in comparison to the wasted time and money that results from recruiting, interviewing and training a new employee, only to find out after the fact that their skills were misrepresented.

Using WordPerfect 8 With Style!

Microsoft Word users hardly have a corner on the concept of using "styles" to change text appearance in their documents. WordPerfect 8 has a really cool feature that most of us who cut our teeth on "Reveal Codes" may not know about: it’s called "QuickStyles." These let you save all sorts of time creating a heading in a particular layout or changing the appearance of whole blocks of text. To use this feature, first format the text as you want it. Then click anywhere in the text, then select Format | Styles from your menu. Click the QuickStyle button, name the style when prompted, then pick OK | Close. To use your new QuickStyle, click in the document where you want to use it or select the text you want affected. Then simply pick your style from the Select Style drop-down list on the Property Bar--fast, consistent, effective and very cool. Take that Microsoft Word (!

Mobile Lawyers: Load up on the Latest Portable Computing Accessories

Let’s be honest. Those of us who use laptops as our daily PCs tend to be gadget nuts--we just love our techno.tools and one can never have enough portable computing goodies to play with . . .er . . . work with. Two great sources of portable gear for the legal road warrior are Mobile Planet (http://www.mobileplanet.com and be sure to get on their mailing list for their great print calendar too) and 1-800-Batteries (http://www.1800batteries.com). Both companies offer a raft of portable gizmos ranging from batteries for every laptop that ever existed to modem savers to test phone lines, to carrying cases, to GPS systems to keep you from getting lost, to surge protectors in every size, shape and flavor imaginable, to portable ZIP drives and portable CD-writers, to laptop security systems and everything in between. Be sure you have plenty of room left on your charge card when you visit these sites!

America Online Diskettes, Part 356

Some of us have accumulated enough of those mega-ubiquitous America Online diskettes and CD-ROMs that we could pave a road from here to Jupiter . . . and back. Most simply get thrown away--or turned into coasters . . . or frisbees. But there actually is a really good reason to carry one of these with you even if you don’t have, don’t want and don’t really need an America Online account. If you’re like many of us, your practice lives and dies with the ability to get e-mail. If you’re away from the office with your laptop and you can’t seem to get any kind of Internet connection to get that critical document your biggest client absolutely, positively needs you to see--yesterday, what do you do? Cry? Whine? Change your identity and move to an island in the South Pacific and hide out (well, actually, that last one doesn’t sound like such a bad idea ( . . . ). No, you take out that irritating little AOL disk and you take advantage of their free 30 day or 100 hour deal! Instant e-mail without doing anything other than loading the software, baring your charge card number and getting online! A perfect emergency backup--you can cancel it as soon as you’re done and do it all over again with another of those 99,000 disks you have back at the office!

The Web is Not all Free: So Complete Web Searches Aren’t what you get if you’re not careful

For some reason, the Internet has become synonymous with the word "free." Many people think that once you’ve paid your monthly fee to your Internet Service Provider, it’s a free ride from that point forward. The reality is that as much as 40% of the content available via the ‘Net is not free--it’s locked away in paid websites that range from newspapers like the Wall Street Journal to technical databases that you might need to view for that environmental claim on that real estate lawsuit you’re handling to some information about a cardiological procedure for that PI case you’ve taken on. So what happens if you do an AltaVista search and it says that nothing is found? What kind of lawyering are doing if you tell your client, "sorry, it’s not there"? Potentially, malpractice methinks. But to try and sign up for and pay for every fee-based website that might contain the information you’re looking for would be impossible. That’s where a cool website called Northern Light comes in (http://www.northernlight.com). This is a search engine with a difference. In addition to the expected searchability of free web info, Northern Light can also search a "Special Collection" of over 5000 fee-based journals, publications, periodicals and databases. You pay for what you read--from $1.00 to $4.00 per viewed article. The attraction is that you don’t need to sign up for and pay any of those services directly--Northern Light has already done that--all you do is open an account with the search engine provider and all that additional information is unlocked. Well worth it and perhaps even necessary to conduct proper legal/technical research on behalf of your clients.

Really Cool Shareware and Freeware Makes your Legal Computing Experience Easier!

In addition to the freeware product previously mentioned called Topdesk, the following are some of my favorite freeware and shareware utilities--all widely available on the Web:

Showcalc - a terrific replacement for the pathetic Windows calculator - this one has a cool scrollable tape that makes it easy to look back at previous calculations - Get it from the author’s site at http://www.winsite.com/info/pc/win95/misc/scalcv20.zip or from just about any shareware site like http://www.shareware.com

DUNCE 2.5.2 - this is an invaluable addition to the oft-confusing Windows 95/98 Dial-Up-Networking (DUN) function that enables your Internet connections. This adds all the features you wished Windows DUN had--in fact, the program’s name stands for Dial-Up-Networking Connection Enhancement. From better redialing capability to user name/password insertion, DUNCE does it all. Get it from any popular shareware site or straight from the developer at http://www.dunce.com.

WinZIP 7.0 - it would be hard to imagine not having this compression/decompression utility. The perfect way to smash massive files down to a reasonable size for archival purposes or to make them small enough to send across the ‘Net as e-mail attachments. Better than the original PKZIP program, WinZIP is a marvel of point and click simplicity for zipping and unzipping files, including spanning large files across multiple floppy disks. Get it from http://www.winzip.com or just about any shareware site.

Paint Shop Pro - whether you use the shareware version or pony up the $70 or so for the commercial product, this is an invaluable utility for dealing with the kinds of graphics files more and more lawyers are inserting in their documents. Whether it is using the great screen capture function to take parts of PC screens and insert them into your client docs or grabbing a Web graphic, converting it to another format or touching it up, there’s no better tool to use. Available from http://www.jasc.com or most shareware sites.

Net.Medic - this is a great tool for helping you understand what’s happening with your Internet connection. Having a problem with a slow connection? Get accurate real-time info as to your connection speed, the number of "hops" between you and your Net-destination and more. Available from http://www.vitalsigns.com and most shareware sites.

Solo and Small Firm Lawyers: They’re All Talking on Solosez!

Guess what? You’re not alone, even though sometimes it seems like it. Your fellow solo and small firm lawyers, literally worldwide, are helping each other every single day. How are they doing it? They’re part of the ABA’s Solosez virtual community. Solosez is a project of the ABA Solo and Small Firm Standing Committee in conjunction with the General Practice/Solo and Small Firm Section and the Law Practice Management Section. It’s a listserv (yep, that’s spelled right!)--an electronic discussion group that takes place via e-mail. If you know how to use e-mail, you know how to use Solosez! There are literally hundreds, if not more lawyers who participate daily. Messages and topics cover such subjects as any aspect of small firm law office technology to phone systems to substantive practice questions. Even referrals have been made on the listserv! The community is warm, friendly and fun - a great place to share the ups and downs of small firm practice! Solosez is also a great place to pick the brains of others to avoid reinventing the wheel--now that’s efficiency! To sign up for Solosez (basic requirements: you don’t have to be an ABA member; you do need to be a small firm lawyer or small law firm staffer; you need to start by posting a message introducing yourself and listing your favorite pet, favorite drink, etc. (), send an e-mail message as follows:

Send to: listserv@abanet.org

Subject: Subscribe

Message: subscribe solosez (or subscribe solosez-digest) (with NOTHING else in the message body including a "signature"

Posting: Post your messages once subscribed to solosez@abanet.org

Or go to http://www.abanet.org/scripts/listcommands.asp?parm=subscribe/solosez and follow the website instructions. We hope to see you there!

Bio of Ross L. Kodner, Esq.

Atty. Ross L. Kodner is the President and founder of MicroLaw, Inc., a fourteen+ year old Milwaukee, Wisconsin_based legal technology consultancy and turnkey legal automation system provider. He is a 1986 graduate of Marquette University Law School where he was a member of the Law Review and both a St. Thomas More Scholar and Milwaukee Lawyer Scholar. He also received an American Jurisprudence Award in Unfair Trade Practices.

Ross is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin where he was a senior member of the former Technology Resource Committee and is now a member of the Board of the newly renamed Law Practice Section which focused on practice management and legal technology. He serves as the LP Section Board’s Secretary, as Co-Chair of the Section’s 1998 and 1999 Bar Convention Planning Committees (he has coordinated the Bar’s technology CLE presentations at every bi-annual State Bar of Wisconsin convention since 1989) and the official Liaison to the ABA Law Practice Management Section. He is also very active in the Milwaukee Bar Association and serves as a member of its Technology Committee.

He is also a member of the ABA and very active in its Law Practice Management Section, currently serving as 1998-99 Chair of the Computer and Technology Division. He also served as a Vice-Chair of the ABA TECHSHOW 98 Board and its Executive Committee and in the same capacity for 1999 until personal reasons required his resignation. He continues to serve as an Editor of its "Network 2d" newsletter, and as a Board member the Solo and Small Firm Division. For ABA TECHSHOW ‘98 he was also the PageMaster of the event’s website at http://www.techshow.com and is serving again in this role for TECHSHOW ‘99. He also was a co-developer of the ground-breaking "Techshow 101" Track which premiered at the ABA TECHSHOW 97 conference. He is an active member of the ABA's General Practice/Solo & Small Firm Section as well.

Periodically, he teaches courses as a Visiting Professor on Law Practice Automation to third-year law students at both Marquette University Law School and the University of Wisconsin Law School.

He has been a frequent national speaker, and also a frequent author on legal technology subjects appearing in Wisconsin Lawyer, The National Law Journal, Iowa Lawyer, The New York State Bar Journal General Practice Newsletter, Pennsylvania Lawyer (where he authors a periodic annual technology review), Legal Tech (member of the Board of Editors), The New Mexico Bar Bulletin, The New York Bar Journal, Law Office Computing (regular columnist for "The Circuit Court" along with Bruce Dorner and Daniel Coolidge) WordPerfect in the Law Office, The Lawyer's PC, Legal Tech Newsletter and also wrote an online Internet-only column for 14 months on the Microsoft website Legal Pages called "Technology for the Rest of Us" with Attys. Courtney Kennaday and Susan Ross--this column will soon be appearing on the new Corel Legal Web pages.

In 1999 he was honored as the "Legal Tech Consultant of the Year for 1998" by The Technolawyer, a widely-access and widely subscribed to combined website and e-mail discussion group run by Boston lawyer Neil Squillante.

In 1996 he received national attention, along with co_author, Atty. Daniel Coolidge for his exposé article "Unwilling Beta Testers: It's Time to Rally!" focusing on shoddy PC support and lax PC product quality which appeared first in the ABA's "Network 2d" and has been reprinted multiple times. The article is at http://www.abanet.org/lpm/newsletters/net2d/ Sp96Beta.html and the "Legal PC User’s Bill of Product Rights" that is part of it is at: http://www.abanet.org/lpm/newsletters/net2d/Sp96Bill.html.

Ross also developed and has subsequently written and presented extensively on "The Paper LESS Office™", a revolutionary common-sense approach towards managing paper in a law practice including presenting on this topic at the ALA Annual Convention in Boston in April 1998. His slideshow on this topic is available at http://www.microlaw. com/paperless/index.htm. A book on this topic is currently in process, co-authored with Appleton, Wisconsin litigator Bruce R. Olson.

His firm, MicroLaw, Inc., provides legal_exclusive automation consulting, technology visioneering, systems design and planning, specialized lawyer and law firm staff training and support to over 425 law offices throughout Wisconsin, the U.S. and the Caribbean.