Do you hate listening to voicemail? Play the message, listen to it, scribble down the caller’s name and number. Call person back. Toss message into garbage. Waste yellow sticky notes, messages pads and the like.

Or come back to the office after a tough day in court only to find a bunch of notes on your desk. Spend a bunch of time figuring out what the heck they all say.

Pray the phone number was written down correctly.

If those scenarios ring true, then I’ve found the answer to your problems. It’s called SimulScribe, and I’ve been testing it for about month. The results are astounding. And I’m not easily impressed.

I heard about SimulScribe about six months ago and thought it was a waste. $40 to have someone write down my messages? What a dumb idea!

Then I was driving to court and called in to listen to my voicemail. A new client was on the line, leaving a rambling message. The caller left a phone number but it was so fast I couldn’t write it down. Plus I was on the highway and not really in a position to write down the number - so I had to commit it to memory. Of course, I mixed up the numbers and couldn’t call back for a few hours after I’d had the chance to re-listen to the message. It was a very good case - and someone else got it because the client didn’t get a call back from me quickly enough.

SimulScribe converts your voicemail into text messages, and sends it directly to your mobile phone or email address. The original voicemail message is attached to the email in mp3 or WAV format so you can play it back.

It’s one of those really simple, convenient solutions that makes you wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that first?”

Try it by clicking here and you’ll get a free month of service when you sign up.

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Most lawyers like to keep Microsoft Outlook visible as often as possible. This allows them to see their calendars, email, and other things necessary for keeping in control of a hectic schedule.

Until now, the only way to accomplish this was through multiple monitors. Now, a breakthrough - Outlook On the Desktop. The program places a fully-functional Microsoft Outlook Calendar on your Desktop, pinned there so no windows can get stuck behind it. Control the opacity so you can continue to work on programs in front of Outlook, which will allow you to also switch between your calendar, inbox, contacts, tasks and notes views.

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Google has finally released a way to sync your Outlook Calendar with Google Calendar.

Find out more and download the Google Calendar Sync tool from Google.

Thanks to Sam Glover at SoloSmallTech.com for tipping me off to this.

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Public.Research.Org recently published 1.8 million pages of copyright-free federal case law online, which is an incredible wealth of knowledge that has previously been beyond the reach of most attorneys without heavy Lexis and Westlaw bills. Now the company that provided it with those cases, Fastcase, unveiled an even larger free library of cases, statutes, regulations, court rules and legal forms. Called The Public Library of Law, it claims to be “the most comprehensive free resource for legal research online.”

PLOL includes all the federal cases Fastcase provided to Public.Research.Org, plus appellate cases from all 50 states from 1997 forward. In addition, it has statutes from all states, court rules from all states, regulations from selected states, the U.S. Code, the Code of Federal Regulations and federal court rules.

Thanks to Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites for pointing out this resource.

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So I’ve been a Mac user for about 60 days now, and I have to admit that the ride is pretty good. Unfortunately, it isn’t perfect. You see, I’m a consumer bankruptcy attorney. We’re a lonely group of people, wandering from place to place in search of desktop applications to help us draft our bankruptcy petitions. Sadly, the software publishers have forsaken us.

Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t case management software available for the Mac. For consumer bankruptcy attorneys there is an excellent platform-independent application known as MyThirdWave, marketed by yours truly. For those who prefer to be bound by their desktop in a closed environment, there’s Daylite - a program I have yet to try but which receives glowing reviews from many in the Mac universe.

What I’m talking about it honest-to-goodness petition preparation software. The big kids - BestCase, Bankruptcy 2007, Bankruptcy Pro, EZ-Filing and the rest - have all turned their faces away from the growing legion of Mac users and opted to produce Windows-only versions of their software. And though Windows retains the lion’s share of the market for these products, don’t they know that 8.8% of the notebook market is now taken up by machines with little glowing apples on them? And that number is growing by leaps and bounds?

Apparently not. So below are a number of links for you to use to tell the software vendors that you demand a Mac version of their product. Even if you don’t use a Mac (and I know many of you who do not), it doesn’t hurt to show solidarity with your colleagues and ask for your vendor to expand their product offerings. If enough of us join in, the noise will be too loud for them to ignore.

New Hope Software (Bankruptcy 2007)
Best Case
EZ Filing
LegalPRO Systems (Bankruptcy Pro)

Oh, and tell ‘em you were sent by Bankruptcy Practice Pro.

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