Sometimes you can't help notice life's little ironies.
NASA astronaut turned likely Jerry Springer Show guest Lisa Nowak, will soon be released from jail after a Florida judge set her bail at only $25,000 on charges of attempted murder and attempted kidnapping.
It seems the judge found that the NASA astronaut was not a flight risk.
Anyone else see the irony here?
If you have not looked into Internet phone service, you owe it to yourself and your practice to do so -- and quick ! ! !
Skype, one of the leading companies in Internet phone service is offering an incredible deal until the end of January. Sign up and you get unlimited calls, including long distance throughout the United States and Canada, for $14.95.
That is NOT $15 per month. That is $15 for the ENTIRE YEAR.
To sign up, just go to www.skype.com Because it is a British company, you'll see the price listed in Euros. But don't let that scare you off. They take good ol' American.
If this sounds too complicated, or simply technically too far out there for you, it is not. Look into it, and you'll see it is no more complicated than dialing your own phone. In fact in some ways, it's a lot more simple.
I already have an office phone and a cell phone. What good is this to me?
Try this. I have two lines in my office. I'm always concerned about missing calls if both my secretary and I are on the phone at the same time. But adding a third line is a huge investment in equipment and installation, in addition to the extra $$$ per month for the line charge.
But by adding Skype, I have nearly eliminated the issue. I make my calls on Skype, and soon I will have my secretary doing the same. Our two phone lines are left for incoming calls.
How about this. NO long distance charges on my office phone. EVER. I can call Toronto or San Francisco for the same fee as the pizza place down the street. And that would be a big $0.00
Adding Skype is simple. Just go to the website and download the software. You actually pay after you install the software. That's it. For a better quality, I suggest buying a headset with a microphone -- an investment of about $20-30. That's it.
Oh, and all those contacts in your Outlook? They automatically show up in your Skype contact list as long as your Outlook program is open.
And if none of this has convinced you that you have to try this, just remember . . . We've all blown $15 on stupid stuff more time than we can count. If you end up not liking it, so you blew another $15. But if you find it works (which I think you will), you will be amazed at yourself for what you did
for the price of 3 thick burgers at Hardees.
You gotta hand it to New Orleans. Even with all the trauma that city is dealing with every day, it still has kept that essential quality that makes it different.
For 40 years of futility, New Orleans has stood by and cheered its beloved Saints. But Sunday, for the first time in the team's history, The Saints are playing for the NFC Championship. And everyone knows that after the game, all of New Orleans is either going to be parading down Bourbon Street with to-go cups in hand, or drowning its collective sorrows in a vat of Abita Amber.
Either way, Orleans Parish Civil District Judge Ernest L. Jones has recognized that nobody in the Big Easy is going to feel like sitting in trial for a couple of days. So he granted a recent motion for continuance on the grounds of "party aftermath."
Judge Jones was scheduled to preside over a trial scheduled to start on the day after the Bears-Saints game. But the defense moved to delay the trial for two days "in order to accommodate all fans, including the great majority of the jury pool, the parties involved in this case and the counsel involved in this case."
Guess the motion sounded better than "Judge, we're all gonna be hung over."
GEAUX SAINTS ! ! !
I just installed a new Fujitsu ScanSnap S500 desktop scanner in my office, and it may be the best piece of office equipment I have ever purchased. It is absolutely amazing.
Let's start with the most fundamental issue -- price. This little desktop wonder costs just over $400. But that INCLUDES a full copy of Adobe Acrobat, which alone will cost nearly $300. Plus it also includes ABBYY Finereader OCR software so you can scan documents directly into your word processor. It's like you just buy the software, and they throw in the scanner for free.
But this scanner is the star of the package. It is small -- with a footprint smaller than a standard sheet of paper. It will quietly scan nearly 20 pages a minute directly into pdf format -- scanning both sides at once for 2-sided documents. And the quality of the scan is outstanding.
If you're not a "techie", don't worry. Just load the software, which takes only 2 or 3 mouse clicks. Then plug in the scanner in, then plug in the usb cable, and you're ready to roll. And operation is, well, a snap. Just push the big green button that says "scan". That's all there is to it.
In my solo office, I have the scanner hooked directly to my secretary's computer, which is also the "server" for my TimeMatters data base. My secretary can scan a 10-page document and save it directly into the case file on TimeMatters in less than 90 seconds.
If you have a need for scanning -- and in this electronic age every lawyer does -- check this out.
No, its not some new secret spy plane. It is simply the coolest and most useful free program you can download to your computer. Did I mention -- it's FREE!
X-1 allows you to find anything on your computer -- files, email, contacts, calendar dates -- just by typing in a word or name. And it does so almost instantly. In fact, it works so fast that instead of opening my contacts folder for information, I just type in the name in X-1, and the entire contact card pops up. SmallBizPipeline says the program isn't just a great desktop searching tool -- it will change the way you work with your computer. For their review, CLICK HERE. For a review of X1 by PC magazine, click HERE
Until I attended the ABA National Solo & Small Firm Conference in Milwaukee, I had been using Google's desktop search. But X-1 has three big advantages -- two of which are apparent, and the other is not.
The first is that you can choose what you want to search. If you are looking for an email that you know you have, but just can't find, you can search just email. You can do the same with documents, files, folder, pictures, etc.
The second advantage is the preview pane. On the left side of the screen, you have a listing of all the documents that match your search. But on the right side is a preview of that document so you can see exactly what the document is.
The third advantage, and one that is not obvious, is confidentiality. A little known disclaimer on the Google desktop search (at least it wasn't known to me until I heard about it in Milwaukee) is that Google may store the index of your computer contents on its own computers. It's something they include in the "fine print." For those concerned with confidentiality -- and all lawyers should be -- the idea of an index of what is on your computer being in someone else's hands is disconcerting.
So checkout X1. You will be amazed. For the download site, just click HERE.
Planning for the 6th Annual Indiana Solo & Small Firm Conference is at full speed. The Conference is set for May 31, June 1-2 at the Sharaton Hotel at Keystone-at-the-Crossing in Indianapolis.
While attending the conference is a 2 or 3 day commitment, planning takes nearly the entire year. And while there is much yet to be done, it looks like the 2007 Conference is going to be another outstanding event.
This past week, three members of the Planning Committee's Executive Committee traveled to Milwaukee for the ABA's First National Solo & Small Firm Conference. We spent two days evaluating topics and presentations, networking with outstanding national presenteters and potential sponsors, and schmoozing with them about coming to Indiana. We're not ready to announce our speakers yet. But let's just say we think it was a VERY successful trip.
Additionally, I picked up some great tips while at the conference. I'll use this blog to pass some of those along in the next couple of weeks.
So mark your calendars now for the 2007 Indiana Solo & Small Firm Conference in Indianapolis.
Last week I read of the recent passing of Judge Wesley Ratliff. He died at his residence in Bloomington at age 80 after a full and rich career. He leaves behind a rich legacy of wisdom and decency. He was an outstanding judge both on the Henry Circuit Court bench and the Court of Appeals. But he was even a better person.
I first became acquainted with Judge Ratliff during the horrible ordeal of losing a good friend to a fiendish rape/murder. Judge Ratliff tried the case. Years later, after I got to know him while clerking at the Court of Appeals, Judge Ratliff told me that it was the most difficult, gut-wrenching case he ever tried. But through that trial, he maintained the best of our judicial system -- giving the defendants a fair trial while displaying humanity and decency to the victim's family as they sat in court, day after day.
Judge Ratliff always displayed the best of what a judge should be. The profession -- and the citizens of Indiana -- are so much richer for his public service.
President Bush, who has already named two justices to the Supreme Court, has apparantly sneaked two more justice onto the Court while no one was looking. Supreme Court observers are perplexed at how the two new Justices got on to the Court with no one looking.
The story was broken in the September 8 issue of the Indianapolis Star concerning the oral argument in the Seventh Circuit on the issue of the opening prayer in the Indiana General Assembly. In discussing a leading U.S. Supreme Court case, the always-reliable Star reported:
"In Marsh v. Chambers, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 8-3 that prayers may be said as part of the Nebraska Legislature's official actions after references to Christ had been removed."
Yep, that's what they reported. Last time I looked, 8 plus 3 equals 11.
After a summer hiatus of working on my practice, I'm back to blogging.
Sometimes you wonder what people were thinking when they formed an organization and decided to go by the initials. I was just doing some research in a auto accident case, and came accross the following in a Montana case.
"According to the standards of the American Society of State Highway Officials (ASSHO) construction of inslopes on that scale is in accordance with good engineering practice."
Modrell v. State, 587 P.2d 405 (1978)
Never been to the organization's meetings, but I've met a few of its members.
By the way, since then the organization has changed its name to the more familiar American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Wonder why?
This year's Indiana Solo & Small Firm Conference wrapped up Saturday in Bloomington. The consensus opinon seems to be that this was the best small firm conference ever. It was certainly the largest, with nearly 300 people attending.
Photos are available by clicking the link on the left hand column, or just CLICK HERE.
National speakers Jay Foonberg, Ross Kodner and Dustin Cole lived up to their reputations. Their presentations were simply outstanding. The NITA sessions with Appellate Judge Nancy Vaidik and New Hampshire trial attorney Bob Stein were simply outstanding, and Chuck Kidd from the Disciplinary Commission did a fantastic job with his Ethics and Advertising session.
One session that particularly caught my attention was the Lessons from a Century of Practice, with Doug Church, Rex Henthorne and Tom Berry. I stopped in just to take a few photos, and ended up staying for the entire session.
So now we take a deep breath -- and start planning for next year.
