Most small law offices require 3 elements to perform substantive work:
- Phone
- Internet
- Case Management System
Each of these presents a unique challenge because there are a variety of options presented which claim to meet the needs of such small offices. The fact of the matter is that there is no complete and comprehensive solution which will work for all offices.
What follows is how I, as a technologist who has done legal work, would tackle such a challenge…and if not tackle, at least grasp at.Phone
We know that a phone is essential…I may have not checked my voicemail at the office for 9 months, but we could probably agree a phone is indispensable. Next question is, in a small environment, how do we address this need at a low-cost but high value proposition (value also includes small office staff time).
- Google Voice: Google Voice provides immediate PBX-like functions and rules based call routing to help you weed callers out. Additionally, if you have a Gizmo account, you can add your Gizmo configured phone as one of the many phones you have registered with your Google Voice number. Furthermore, you can, for now, make free outgoing calls from your Gizmo configured device (preferably a SIP phone, infra).
- SIP Gate: SIP Gate is an outsourced IP PBX which, for the oxymoronically larger-small office can provide extensions and, most importantly, resolves your FAX issues/needs. There is a free starter account which doesn't permit outbound faxes but will get you a traditional phone number so you can test the service. One of the nicer options is the facility of adding extensions from the web-based interface.
To use either of the above services you would need a SIP-compliant VOIP phone or a softphone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softphone). As far as SIP-phones go, I'm a big fan of the Cisco/Linksys phones such as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833150069&cm_re=cisco_phone-_-33-150-069-_-Product –
One elemental factor in your phone solution is making sure your facility is cabled adequately.
Internet
Apart from using the internet for email, in this scenario, we're also using the internet as the technology which will provide phone service…apart from cellular service. We will assume the phones in place will be using an external power adapter. If the goal is to have the phones without an external power adaptor, then the solution would be a PoE network switch which is not covered here.
To share your internet connection with your phones and computers, you'll need a router. Here are a couple of router suggestions:
- Cisco/Linksys router with wifi and virtual private network: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspxItem=N82E16833124334&cm_re=vpn_router-_-33-124-334-_-Product –for many offices, the ability to have up to 4 wireless networks is going to be overkill as is VPN support. VPN is a virtual private network…what that does is allow you to get into your network and access resources on that network. In many small offices, VPN support is truly gravy because files can be shared using Google Apps for domains and/or Dropbox. This Cisco router costs about $90/$100.
- Therefore, a more practical approach to the router/switch issue could be an Asus router. The Asus router is a commodity router which means it's probably not as reliable as the Cisco device but it will get the job done for a fraction of the price. My suggestion would be to flash the Asus router with DD-WRT micro. This device is ~$50 and provides a print-server: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320032&cm_re=asus_wrt-_-33-320-032-_-Product –
I'm partial to solution number 2 because most small offices won't need the sophistication of solution number 1. Caveat: small office person should bribe a technically inclined friend to flash the Asus router with DD-WRT firmware.
Another option, but not so viable in a small office environment, is to have a router which can take 2 external interfaces for a redundant internet connection…the reality is that even some large offices don't have a good backup connection so this might be gravy.
Case Management System
Personally, I'm a fan of Pika's case management system (CMS). Problem is that Pika is built for legal service/aid and not really for the small practitioner. That leaves the small practitioner with the option of purchasing a system from We$t or Lexi$. A different approach is running a case management system through:
- Salesforce.com –great, requires set-up/customization
- Civicrm.com –good, requires set-up/customization
- Open-source hosted solution of something like: http://www.lcm.ngo-bg.org/en –though depreciated, the small office could probably use this in it's current iteration.
I meant to keep this shorter but figured I'd knock out something I've been meaning to do for quite a while.
PS: make sure to get a duplex printer!
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Images in Email Signatures
Jul 16
2010
At my job they've decided that we should have an image in our email signature to strengthen our brand…problem is, we're a non-profit where brand-loyalty doesn't really have the same financial benefit it does for companies like Apple or Nike.
Fellow techs from the legal services technology community provided these gems…all of which failed to impact our development/communications people:
- make them deal with it on a dial up ISP
- force them to explain what the program actually gains from this
- this branding thing has gotten way out of control…what are we – shoe salesmen?
- lack of a consistent look and feel
- you email recipient is probably going to experience your email displayed different from what you expected
- it's too expensive (network payload wise)
My initial reservations were:
- it's cruft (e.g. it doesn't add any value)
- it's insensitive to low bandwidth and maybe even mobile devices
- it doesn't adhere to 508 usability (508 aims to make websites accessible to the "disabled")
- not many people do it
Either way, it seems that none of the above held sway…moreover, when I circulated a post from Web-Worker Daily, there was immediate push-back as to how communications folks…who aren't web savvy, were going to make the call. Made me regret sending that email because at least there was a little ambiguity before I forced their hand.
Anyhow, such is life in the NPIC.
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Foucault’s key aim #fb
Jul 13
2010
Found this in a utah law review article;
“…is not to recover our lost identity, or to liberate our imprisoned
nature, or to discover our fundamental truth; rather, it is to move
toward something altogether different” Per footnote, from The Use Of Pleasure.
“…is not to recover our lost identity, or to liberate our imprisoned
nature, or to discover our fundamental truth; rather, it is to move
toward something altogether different” Per footnote, from The Use Of Pleasure.
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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Jacki Esposito
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 09:27:35 -0400
Subject: [Dwnmembers] What You Can Still Do…
To: dwnmembers@lists.detentionwatchnetwork.org ***Apologies for cross-posting*** LogoBlack.JPG AMENDMENTS: UPDATE CALLS TO SENATE OFFICES STILL NEEDED! THIS MORNING, THE SENATE WILL RESUME CONSIDERATION OF HR 4899, EMERGENCY
SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS. THERE WILL THEN BE UP TO 20 MINUTES FOR DEBATE
IN RELATION TO THE ENFORCEMENT & DETENTION AMENDMENTS. THE SENATE WILL THEN
PROCEED TO A SERIES OF VOTES IN THIS ORDER: McCain Amendment #4214 Kyl Amendment #4228 Cornyn Amendment #4202 Early estimates demonstrate that we were able to generate at least 25,000
phone calls and faxes to Senate offices. Hill staff indicate that they were
inundated with calls and information yesterday. THERE IS STILL TIME TO URGE THE SENATE NOT TO INCREASE DETENTION OR BORDER
ENFORCEMENT BUT RESTORE FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE TO THE IMMIGRATION DETENTION & DEPORTATION SYSTEM TELL DEMOCRATIC SENATORS TO VOTE NO ON THE FOLLOWING HARMFUL AMENDMENTS: 1. Call these target Democratic Senator(s) (Phone Numbers Below) or
click here
for a full list. 2. Tell them: . You OPPOSE Cornyn Amendment #4202 which adds enforcement
personnel, 3,300 new detention beds, and National Guard to the Southern
Border; . You OPPOSE McCain Amendment #4214 to add 6,000 more National Guard
to the Southern Border; and . You OPPOSE Kyl Amendment #4228 which fully funds Operation
Streamline at the Southern Border
&h=523 Jacki Esposito Policy Coordinator Detention Watch Network 1325 Massachusetts Ave, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20005 (o) 202.393.1044 x 223 (f) 202.393.7408 www.detentionwatchnetwork.org
From: Jacki Esposito
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 09:27:35 -0400
Subject: [Dwnmembers] What You Can Still Do…
To: dwnmembers@lists.detentionwatchnetwork.org ***Apologies for cross-posting*** LogoBlack.JPG AMENDMENTS: UPDATE CALLS TO SENATE OFFICES STILL NEEDED! THIS MORNING, THE SENATE WILL RESUME CONSIDERATION OF HR 4899, EMERGENCY
SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS. THERE WILL THEN BE UP TO 20 MINUTES FOR DEBATE
IN RELATION TO THE ENFORCEMENT & DETENTION AMENDMENTS. THE SENATE WILL THEN
PROCEED TO A SERIES OF VOTES IN THIS ORDER: McCain Amendment #4214 Kyl Amendment #4228 Cornyn Amendment #4202 Early estimates demonstrate that we were able to generate at least 25,000
phone calls and faxes to Senate offices. Hill staff indicate that they were
inundated with calls and information yesterday. THERE IS STILL TIME TO URGE THE SENATE NOT TO INCREASE DETENTION OR BORDER
ENFORCEMENT BUT RESTORE FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE TO THE IMMIGRATION DETENTION & DEPORTATION SYSTEM TELL DEMOCRATIC SENATORS TO VOTE NO ON THE FOLLOWING HARMFUL AMENDMENTS: 1. Call these target Democratic Senator(s) (Phone Numbers Below) or
click here
for a full list. 2. Tell them: . You OPPOSE Cornyn Amendment #4202 which adds enforcement
personnel, 3,300 new detention beds, and National Guard to the Southern
Border; . You OPPOSE McCain Amendment #4214 to add 6,000 more National Guard
to the Southern Border; and . You OPPOSE Kyl Amendment #4228 which fully funds Operation
Streamline at the Southern Border
&h=523 Jacki Esposito Policy Coordinator Detention Watch Network 1325 Massachusetts Ave, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20005 (o) 202.393.1044 x 223 (f) 202.393.7408 www.detentionwatchnetwork.org
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From Sara Vanegas Coveña
Mar 25
2010
This is a book I picked up with my uncle, who I loved deeply, in Ecuador in the 1990's. He took me to the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana and, after talking to some folks, and based on my very superficial, as an adolescent, knowledge of Rimbaud…Pound…Whitman…they said you might like this woman.
Volume 172 of the printing press is her, Sara Vanegas Coveña's Personal Anthology. It begins thusly:
Of all my voyages
what is loved most and remembered is that aroma
imprecise from afar, foreign
a loneliness
a dream
and what I miss the most
Yes, she's not as effective as Ritsos in conveying profound mystery in a short stanza, but I'm reading her because a) she's from Ecuador and, b) I never told my uncle, a blacklisted labor organizer/leader how much I loved him in spite of his many imperfections…or maybe it was a different manifestation of perfect…
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Doxology by Yannis Ritsos
Mar 25
2010
This is the Kimon Friar translation of Doxology.
Doxology
He was standing at the far end of the street
like a bare and dusty tree
like a tree burned by the sun
glorifying the sun that can not be burned
I wonder how different this would be with "praising" instead of "glorifying" in the last line: in mechanics and intimation…
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Women by Ritsos
Mar 22
2010
Women
Women are very distant. Their bedsheets smell of good-night.
They leave bread on the table so we won't feel they've gone.
Then we understand we were to blame. We get up from the chair and say:
"You've overtired yourself today" or "Don't bother, I'll light the lamp myself"
When we strike a match, she turns slowly and goes
toward the kitchen with an inexplicable concentration. Her back
is a sad, small mountain laden with many dead -
the family dead, her dead, and your own death.
You hear the old floorboards creaking under her footsteps,
you hear the dishes weeping in the dishracks, and then that train
is heard taking soldiers to the front.
-trans by Kimon Friar
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Succession by Ritsos #fb
Mar 22
2010
Succession
The sun does not consider any of your hesitations -
naked it wants you and naked it takes you,
until night comes to dress you.
After the sun, there is repentance.
After repentance, the sun again.
-trans by Kimon Friar
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Some Choice Words From MLK re: Compassion
Mar 7
2010
I was reading the UU World magazine this morning and was struck by the following section attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
I'm a bigger fan of abolition and not restructuring, but the point is that individual assistance without systemic change ensures there will always be individuals who need assistance.
Something to think about for those who do direct services in the non-profit world.
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It might only be at Anthony's house..but it's possible I lost my volume of Gorostiza poems. That should teach me to not bring a tome with sentimental value to a night of drinking.
I found a site with selections of his poetry. The page is here: http://amediavoz.com/gorostiza.htm — (the end is near: i'm sending people to web pages with a *.htm extension!).
This is a poem by Jose Gorostiza called, Water, don't flee from thirst, pause…
Water, don't flee from thirst, pause!
Pause, oh clear insomniac, in the vastness
of this uninterrupted dream which hurries
the febrile language of the current.
The simulacrum of your mind lies to you,
between rumors, live; immature,
that deep tension loves that thirst,
with which dodged your arrow from the fountain.
Pause, water, you rush, why in so much
i blinded you and strangled the song,
you should dictate to the dead zones;
that by your own calculated death,
all you leave me is hardened skin
oh movement! brute which you abandon.
These are always more difficult than I believe when I start…so many subtleties and the use of reflexive verbs is something I can't really do in English…wow, i was going to write that in spanish…as inglish…like ingles…
Anyhow, I hope I find my Gorostiza book which a friend bought for me in Mexico City about a year and a half ago. I also hope that I someday am able to do a worthy translation of Death Without End (Muerte Sin Fin).
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