Alternative Dispute Resolution


5 4


3 2 1 47 Tasks:9 E-mail received through Gmail can be easily


converted into any of your To Do lists (for example, work or personal). Also, you can configure your tasks


to automatically synch into Google Calendar. Te tasks can be accessed from your smartphone. Tey are easy to create, prioritize, print, copy, and check off.


Alerts:10 You can set up automatic instantaneous, daily


or weekly Google searches on any search term. Google will perform these searches and e-mail the results


directly to you. Te searches can be limited to blogs, news, videos, or simply the entire world wide web. Tis is a terrific way to keep an eye out about your name or your law firm, specific clients or defendants, and even target products for product liability lawyers.


Chrome: If you’re still using Internet Explorer as your web browser, you owe it to yourself to try out Google Chrome, which featured tabs long before it


was popular. It is a simple, streamlined and secure browser, and the powers behind Google are continuously upgrading its features, including the addition of extensions,11


which are


powerful tools to help you quickly perform everyday web tasks (for example, share web pages with friends, update your Amazon wish list, and monitor your e-mail).


Google Reader:12 Most up-to-date legal information is


available in on-line secondary sources, and the majority of those secondary sources are blogs. Google Reader


allows you to compile all of your favorite blogs into one convenient location. New blog posts are automatically placed into your reader, which allows you to quickly scan the posts you want to view and discard those that don’t interest you. You can create separate folders for various blog categories, and mark blog posts as “favorites” to share with your friends, or mark them as read to remove them from your reader.


Google Desktop:13 Te best Google service is Google


Desktop, an application that you install on your computer to allow you search your hard drive as easily


as the internet. You can pre-determine what aspects of your hard drive are searchable, but I opt for the full index which includes e-mail, documents of all types, instant messages and web history. Tis allows you to easily resurrect deleted and find old e-mails in seconds. I find the program particularly useful when I get a phone call from someone whose name I can’t immediately recognize. If that person’s name has ever


9 http://www.mail.google.com/tasks 10 http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en 11 https://chrome.google.com/extensions 12 http://www.google.com/reader 13 http://www.desktop.google.com


crossed my computer, I can identify him or her before my secretary transfers the call to me. And if you are paranoid about other people searching your computer, you can lock the desktop search function when you leave your desk. Certainly, there are other Google applications out there—


Google Analytics is great for tracking your web traffic, Google Maps rivals the old familiar MapQuest, Google Earth is an office favorite for finding bird’s eye views of accident scenes for deposition and trial, and Google Sky is just plain cool (try the Mars view). Others, such as the mostly defunct Google Buzz and Google Wave, are not as well designed or popular. Whatever your technological need, it is likely that Google has, to borrow a slogan, created an app for it.


Biography John J. Cord (Plaxen & Adler, P.A.) graduated from


the University of Colorado School of Law. He concentrates his practice on assisting victims of automobile negligence, medical malpractice, and defective products. He is licensed to practice in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Minnesota. He is a member of the American Association for Justice and is a former chair of the MAJ Technology Committee. Follow him on Twitter at @ johnjohncord.


Trial Reporter / Fall 2010 47


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