Alternative Dispute Resolution LegalTech


Master of Your Google Domain


John J. Cord We all know that Google is taking over the world.


Te meteoric rise of the once-simple search engine giant continues to take the technological world by storm with every product they develop or acquire. Here’s my top ten list of Google services for your law practice:


10 9 Gmail:1 Nothing screams “unprofessional” to


clients like handing them a business card with an e-mail address from Yahoo, AOL, or even


Gmail. If you don’t want the standard Microsoft Outlook, you can pay a small fee to Google for the privilege of your own business e-mail address with a domain that matches your website—your clients won’t know that it’s Gmail. You get 25 GB for $50 per user per year.2


And, there’s plenty of


support for the theory that Gmail users get less spam, and have less threat of hacking and security issues than Outlook users.


Gmail is easy to use, automatically links all replied


e-mails into one chain in the inbox, and uses labels instead of folders to categorize the messages. You don’t need to pay your office tech wizard to get your e-mails sent to your smartphone, either. You can do it yourself in a few easy steps.


Searching: In 2008, Google searches comprised 63.5% of the total search engine market share, and Google managed 90% of the search engine growth.3


While it’s easy to search for most things, users can perform advanced searches with Google. You can even perform searches that exclude pages with specific words, or search for specific file types (PDF, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).4


By using


1 http://www.mail.google.com 2 http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html 3 http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/google-gobbled-up-90-percent-of-all-us-search-growth- in-2008/


4 http://www.google.com.au/advanced_search 46 Trial Reporter / Fall 2010


5 For a cheatsheet on advanced Google searching, go to http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet. html


6 http://www.docs.google.com 7 http://www.youtube.com 8 http://www.google.com/calendar


Trial Reporter / Fall 2010 46


Alternative Dispute Resolution


Photo Credit: google.com


“site:” you can limit your word search to a specific website.5 Print out a cheat sheet and keep it next to your computer to maximize your searching power.


8 7 6 Google Docs:6 Many offices are relying less on


Microsoft Office and merging to Google Docs, which features word processing, spreadsheet,


presentation (like PowerPoint), and drawing programs. Tese documents can be saved “in the cloud,” meaning on Google’s servers, and can be downloaded onto your computer like any other document. Importantly, you can work on the documents in real time in collaboration mode with other people who are online, if you give them permission to view your documents. You can even upload PDF documents and convert them to text using Google’s optical character recognition. Tese documents are easy to use and free.


YouTube:7 Still the purgatory for funny dog clips


and “what is that song” moments, YouTube can also be used for education, posting legal advertising,


and generally spreading a lawyer’s message with over two billion video views per day. Acquired by Google in 2006, it is free to upload videos, and once uploaded YouTube videos can easily be embedded on law firm websites, blogs and Facebook pages for further dissemination. Video marketing is the new legal advertising—you should be able to show your clients a little about how you can help them.


Calendar:8 Particularly if you do not have an


electronic calendaring system, Google Calendar is a free and easy way to keep constant access to


your schedule, to be able to share/synch your calendar with co-workers and loved ones, and to set up alarms and reminders. It even has a downloadable version to keep your appointments on your smartphone.


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