The "official" launch of the book will be at the ABA TECHSHOW 2008, where Tom and Dennis will be speaking on the topic of collaboration tools, and will be happy to sign your copy of the book.

The book reflects the idea of collaboration that underlies the Between Lawyers blog.

Here's the book description from the ABA Web Store:

This first-of-its-kind guide for the legal profession shows you how to use standard technology you already have and the latest "Web 2.0" resources and other tech tools, like Google Docs, Microsoft Office and SharePoint, and Adobe Acrobat, to work more effectively on projects with colleagues, clients, co-counsel and even opposing counsel. In The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, well-known legal technology authorities Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell provide a wealth of information useful to lawyers who are just beginning to try these tools, as well as tips and techniques for those lawyers with intermediate and advanced collaboration experience.

Collaboration technologies and tools are the most important current developments in legal technology and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Explained with minimal technical jargon, the book focuses on highly practical and usable ideas that you can put to work straight away.

With practical advice on how to use specific tools and concrete action steps to take, lawyers and law firms at all levels will benefit from working together better.

You'll learn:

+ The basics of collaboration and collaboration tools

+ How to select and implement tools and strategies

+ The best ways to collaborate on documents, cases, transactions, and projects

+ How to collaborate inside and outside the office

+ How to collaborate using tools you already have or own

Technology now makes it easier than ever to work with others -- this is the first guide dedicated to the special requirements of the legal world with the practical steps it takes to do it right.

I encourage you to preorder now and take advantage of the 15% discount or to consider ordering the book here if you are reading this at a later date.

As an example, consider using a digital camera or cameraphone as a document scanner in a pinch (or sending a document as a fax to a nearby fax machine when you aren't able to print it any other way).

I'm looking for some good examples and wanted to get a little help from the readers of this blog.

Remember, the idea is not something like using the top of your laptop as a cutting board, but ways to use software and hardware in unexpected, but logical and useful ways, in a pinch when you don't have the normal tools available. Another example: using a video iPod to run your PowerPoint presentation when your laptop won't work with the projector. I'm also looking for something that the average lawyer would be able to do with gadgets, hardware and software (or Internet apps) readily at hand for most lawyers.

However, I'm not looking for examples like this one, because it requires that you have a specific device available.

You get the idea.

Let me know your best ideas by leaving a comment to this post or joining the Between Lawyers Facebook Group and leaving your recommendations as a response to the discussion thread there.

On an unrelated note, be sure to take a look at a great roundtable article on legal podcasts and lawyer podcasting in the latest issue of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine, with Denis Howell, Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy among the participants.

In this episode, Dennis and Tom discuss the use (or potential use) of Facebook by lawyers, giving some potential benefits and risks, practical tips, and observations about their experiments in using Facebook. They also talk about how they use the Google Reader for RSS feeds and Google Docs and Spreadsheets for simple collaborations. They also talk about the other podcasts they listen to and how they listen to them.

It's a good introduction for lawyers and other legal professionals to these topics.

You'll find the podcast episode here and there's an archive of earlier podcasts.

It's also a good time to remind you to check out Denise Howell's podcast - This Week in Law - on which you'll find some of the authors of the Between Lawyers blog appearing from time to time.

And, for Facebook members, we invite you to join the Between Lawyers Facebook group.

Shun Web services, you simply can't control the data?


Use Web services only when you have specific, confidentiality and reliability guaranteeing service level agreements?


Use Web services liberally, but acquaint yourself with the applicable terms of use and make sure clients are amenable?

Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy have posted the latest episode #5 of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, in which they cover the recent ABA TECHSHOW, legal technology trends for 2007, current developments in electronic discovery, and their upcoming book on collaboration tools for lawyers.

Denise Howell has posted the latest episode of This Week in Law, which includes fellow regular Ernie Svenson. An earlier episode feature Between Lawyers' Marty Schwimmer.

Technorati tags: legal technology podcast electronic discovery between lawyers

Nearly every lawyer finds that colleagues, co-counsel, clients and even opposing counsel use the Internet and technology to collaborate and work together on documents, projects and cases. In the simplest scenario, lawyers and clients use the "track changes" feature in Microsoft Word to work together on a document. Technology today lets lawyers take collaboration to the next level. Many legal technology tools now include collaborative elements.

At the same time, lawyers increasingly use the Internet in many ways to work together. From document sharing to videoconferencing, there are more tools than most lawyers can imagine for working together, online.

Two key trends are at play here. First, for years lawyers have understood the clear benefits of collaboration and working together as a routine matter. Second, the availability of simple, inexpensive (even free) collaboration technology has created an environment where working together makes sense to nearly every lawyer in nearly every firm. The push forward on both trends is likely to continue.

Two other important factors also come into play. First, business clients are routinely using technology to collaborate and will expect their lawyers to follow. Therefore, collaboration tools illustrate a classic example of a client-driven technology. Second, events in the world from increased travel costs to possible pandemics make it even more likely that these tools will be adopted by necessity.

To the extent lawyers have experimented with these tools, they may have the nagging feeling that they are simply touching the tip of the iceberg of what might be available to them and how they might use these tools to their benefit. We believe that they are right to feel that way, because it is undoubtedly true.

The book will provide intensely practical advice for lawyers and law firms wanting to take better advantage of these tools and the benefits they bring. It will take a look at how to use these tools wells, focus on both categories of tools and specific individual tools, and provide concrete action steps and techniques so that even the least tech-savvy lawyer can catch up with the early adopters and successful innovators.

Collaboration Tools for Lawyers: Essential New Ways to Work Together with Colleagues, Clients and Even Opposing Counsel, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell (expected publication date: early 2008)

The money quote:

By the end of 2007, we will be talking about a clear and growing digital divide between technology-forward and technology-backward lawyers and firms and a subtle restructuring of the practice of law.

Link to article

Ron and Ross are on top of their games and you'll get some fascinating insights into the ways law firms are using outsourcing and insourcing. We talk about Law 2.0 on this blog on a regular basis and this podcast will give you some practical ideas about what Law 2.0 might mean and what it might look like.

The money quote:

My concern is that the results of the survey, while accurate, can be used by law firm management to thwart innovative ideas offered by lawyers, CIOs, marketers, knowledge managers, and others.

Tons of good ideas - I especially like #10.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Then: consider how a virtual law firm (or a very forward thinking conventional one) might be in the perfect position to leapfrog ahead by eliminating the CRM (customer relationship management) line item from its technology and marketing budgets, and instead adopting a client driven, "vendor relationship management" approach to business development.