MILOfest 2011 is behind us now but I wanted to share a few thoughts and highlights from the conference.

The conference was an absolute delight – meeting new Mac-heads, catching up with friends, listening to awesome presentations, and generally soaking up as much legal-related Mac-ness as possible.

The most substantial takeaway for me was simply the creativity and unique-ness of the presentations at the conference. I attend scores of legal technology conferences and CLE seminars around the country, and nothing comes close to the originality of the presentations I see at MILOfest.

I was so impressed with the presentations that I now declare MILOfest the “TED talks” of the the legal technology world. I was blown away by everyone’s use of Keynote (no PowerPoint bullet points were to be found). The slides didn’t drive the content – the speakers did, and the slides were simply the brilliant framework for each presentation.

Plus the topics that Victor Medina incorporates into the conference are just innovative and refreshing. One hour we’re digging into the guts of PDF files, and the next hour we’re hearing about marketing and podcasting.

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I can’t believe that MILOfest has crept up so quickly this year, but it’s next week and I am so excited.

This will be the third MILOfest spearheaded by the indomitable Victor Medina who runs a full-time law practice and STILL manages to host one of the most engaging and enjoyable legal technology conferences of the year.

MILOfest is the outcrop-conference from the Macs in Law Offices (MILO) e-mail listserv on Google Groups. Victor launched MILOfest in 2009, and I’ve had the joy of watching the conference grow every year – both in attendee numbers as well as sponsors.

On the sponsor side, Clio, Rocket Matter, and Marketcircle (Daylite) have been with Victor since the first MILOfest, and I believe they are all returning this year.

In addition, this year I know that more sponsors will be at MILOfest showing their products and talking with attendees. These include Clarity Legal (John Callis is speaking too), Deskspace Attorney (who will be publicly launching at MILOfest), and TrialPad (who will be demo’ing their TrialPad app).

On the education side, Victor has put together a fantastic agenda, and I am honored and thrilled to be participating again. I’ll be giving a ton of tips on both of my sessions: “MS Word Tips, Tricks & Tweaks” and “Mail.app Ninja Tips.”

It’s admittedly getting a little late to sign up for MILOfest, but if you use a Mac, and there is ANY way you can get down to Orlando for even one of the three days next week, do NOT miss the opportunity – I guarantee that you will walk away with a new tip for your practice, and you’ll have a renewed vigor for how to get the most out of your Mac.

Here are more details from Victor on MILOfest: http://milofest.com/milofest-2011-announcement

 

I am thrilled to announce that I’ll be presenting “iPad for Legal Professionals” for the Ohio State Bar next week in both Cleveland and Columbus.

Along with my good friend Paul Unger of Affinity Consulting, we’ll be giving attendees a three-hour tour of the iPad including 10 must-have apps for lawyers, a “day in the life” of an iPad-using lawyer, recommended settings, and a slew of suggested apps, tips & tricks.

I’ve spoken about the iPad in the legal profession many times by now, but this will be the first time that we’ll be going into this much detail and actually demonstrate in-depth how to get the most out of the amazing iToy. The response to the seminar so far has been phenomenal.

Even more, every attendee for the iPad presentation will receive a copy of Tom Mighell’s book “iPad in One Hour for Lawyers” (this is a link to iBooks version).

On Monday, Nov. 7, the presentation will be at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Cleveland.

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, the presentation will be at the Ohio State Bar Office in Columbus.

I’ll be talking iPad all morning at the seminar, and in the afternoon, Paul Unger will be going in-depth into all things “Adobe Acrobat for Lawyers.”

You can download the PDF brochure for more information. Don’t miss “iPad for Legal Professionals” as I guarantee you’ll walk away with a headful of great tips on integrating your iPad into your everyday practice.

UPDATE-November 19, 2011: The Cleveland and Columbus events were SO successful that we’re doing an encore session in Cincinnati! Paul and I will give the same presentation in Cincinnati on Thursday, December 29. I’ll post more information when it’s available.

UPDATE-December 22, 2011: Paul and I will be giving the “iPad for Legal Professionals” in Cincinnati on Thursday, December 29. You can also download the PDF brochure for more information.

We will also be giving the presentation in Perrysburg on Wednesday, January 25, 2012, and in Akron on Thursday, January 26, 2012. I’ll provide more details when the links are live.

I look forward to seeing you there!

I spoke with Evan Koblentz last night, staff reporter for Law Technology News, about a new report from Forrester Research entitled “People Are Bringing Macs To Work — It’s Time To Repeal Prohibition.”

The Forrester report addressed business in general, but Evan was looking for some targeted information on how Macs are infiltrating today’s law firms.

Even wrote a great overview of the report and gives a brief history of some of the major developments in Mac history.

He also points out what I consider to be the main tectonic shift as to why Macs are starting to appear more in law practices – when Apple shifted to Intel processors, This opened the possibility for many lawyers to use Macs, but still run their Windows-only software in a virtual environment with the use of VMware Fusion or Parallels.

Link: “People Are Bringing Macs To Work – It’s Time To Repeal Prohibition”

 

I’ve been negligent to post about my recent speaking engagements on Macs & iPads, but it’s only because I’ve been so busy presenting! And there’s more on the way!

First, I’m indebted to my good friend Chad Burton who runs the virtual law firm of Burton Law down in Dayton, Ohio.

Chad serves on the Law & Tech Committee of the Dayton Bar and invited me down to speak at their event last Friday: iPad Apps for Lawyers. Chad and I had a great time speaking to a wonderful group at the Bar offices in downtown Dayton.

Immediately following our appearance at the Dayton Bar, Chad and I zoomed over to the University of Dayton School of Law to give the same presentation to a group of law professors. We were there at the invitation of Kelly Henrici, the Executive Director of the Program in Law and Technology at the school.

I was thrilled to be back at UD – it’s been 11 years since I graduated from the law school there!

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I was thrilled to be invited as the guest for the 46th Edition of The Digital Edge Podcast hosted by Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway. I’ve been listening to the podcast since they first launched so it was an honor to talk about “All Things Apple for Lawyers.”

The podcast is less than 27 minutes, but we managed to highlight all of the main questions that lawyers have about using Macs, iPhones & iPads in their practice. Jim & Sharon also provide all the links to everything we discussed in the shownotes.

You can listen to the “All Things Apple for Lawyers” podcast right from your browser, or you can subscribe through iTunes. I recommend the subscription option so that you don’t miss an episode of this great podcast.

In fact, Jim & Sharon also recently interviewed Tom Mighell on their 42nd Digital Edge Podcast who authored the book “iPad in One Hour for Lawyers.” Lots of great tips in that book and well worth a listen.

With Lion getting ready to roar out the door soon (looks like tomorrow!!), I wanted to share a few thoughts on what’s going to be important and appealing to Mac-using lawyers.

My thoughts are based on the WWDC keynote and all of the blogs and reports that I’ve been reading over the last month – I have not downloaded or used Lion … yet.

I also plan to share some separate thoughts on iCloud and iOS 5 in the next two days.

Mission Control & Launchpad
Mission Control and Launchpad are interesting to me, but I will have to get hands-on before I decide whether they’re useful. I rarely interact with the Dock anymore because of Launchbar.

But I do LOVE Exposé as it is a brilliant way to find the window I need, or switch between running applications.

I see Mission Control as an awesome update to Exposé, but the proof will be in the pudding when it’s released.

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For the past two years, I’ve had the privilege of overseeing the “Mac Track” at the ABA TECHSHOW. Four years ago, Reid Trautz convinced the TECHSHOW Planning Board to incorporate Macs into the curriculum.

Now, four years later, we’ve more than doubled the number of Mac speakers, and we saw record attendance at every session throughout the first day of TECHSHOW which was Monday, April 11.

The first session was “Going Beyond Microsoft Word on the Mac” with David Sparks and Victor Medina.

David started the presentation with what he called a “love affair with text”. His tongue-in-cheek series of slides made some powerful points as David described the joys of simple text. It’s nice to be able to apply fancy formatting to text, but David emphasized the importance of getting thoughts down in text first, and then worry about the formatting later.

Victor spent most of his time providing the audience with an excellent overview of Apple’s own Pages, which is part of the iWork suite of software. Victor is a self-professed “Pages junkie” and it showed as he shared his excellent tips with the audience on generating beautiful documents with something other than Microsoft Word.

Victor also talked a little about how he has incorporated the ideas from the Typography for Lawyers book into his practice, which generated a little bit of discussion among the audience.

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If you’re hungering for some top-quality legal Mac education, the annual ABA TECHSHOW is the place to be on April 11. This year happens to be the 25th anniversary of ABA TECHSHOW and it’s delivering with a bang.

Four years ago, Reid Trautz convinced the TECHSHOW Planning Board to include two sessions that focused on lawyers using Macs.

Four years later, the “Mac Track” has expanded to a whole day of Mac-focused education, with several more sessions now covering the iPhone and iPad.

This year’s “Mac Track” takes place on Monday, April 11 featuring spectacular sessions taught by some the “rock stars” of the Mac-using legal community:

Going Beyond Microsoft Word on the Mac – 8:30-9:30
Focuses on the tools available on the Mac that give you the most power over text and composition. Victor Medina practices in New Jersey and is the tireless organizer of MILOfest. David Sparks (MacSparky) practices in California and just finished a most helpful tome entitled “Macs at Work.”

How Do You Manage Your Practice on a Mac? – 10:30-11:30
Covers the practice management options for Mac-using lawyers presented by Victor Media and Ben Stevens who practices in South Carolina and is the indomitable author of The Mac Lawyer blog.

Managing Your Documents on a Mac – 2:30-3:30
Provides a ton of tips and options for managing your documents on a Mac. Mark Metzger practices in the Chicago suburbs. Finis Price practices in Louisville, KY and also provides trial consulting through TechnoESQ.

Mac Power Users – 4:30-5:30
The last session where Finis Price, Ben Stevens, and myself (Brett Burney) will cover a slew of “power user” tips that will help you go beyond the basics of using your Mac.

The ABA TECHSHOW is just a few days away so if you use a Mac in your practice now, or are considering using a Mac, you should make all possible attempts to get to Chicago at least for Monday, April 11 so you won’t miss the “Mac Track.”

Not too mention that you’ll also have an amazing opportunities to talk face-to-face to folks from Clio, Rocket Matter, Daylite (Marketcirtcle) and more!

That same Monday of TECHSHOW also features the show’s keynote from Larry Lessig, who, by the way, is a huge Mac fan and uses Keynote very effectively in his talks.