If you occasionally work on your laptop in a coffee shop, an airport, a meeting room, any public place, is your work protected from the curious eyes of the people around you? Adding a privacy filter to your screen will narrow the viewing angle so that only the person looking directly at the screen has a readable view. These filters also help protect the screens from damage and reduce glare. The filters are available at most office supply stores and from online retailers in a wide range of prices.

Optimize your smart phone efficiency by installing and using a smart phone dictation application. These applications do more than enable digital dictation–they also make it easy to attach your dictated file to an email or send it to an Internet storage location like Dropbox. Using either of these options, your transcription assistant has easy access to the digital file. The file can also be processed by a digital transcription application.

Some of the most popular digital transcription applications are listed here:

• Dictamus (iPhone, free and $14.95)

• Pocket Dictate (iPhone, iPod, iPad, free)

• Voxie Pro Recorder (iPhone, $4.99)

• DictaNet Mobile for iPhone ($11.99, control by tilting your phone)

• FlexT9 Speak-Trace-Write-Tap (Android, $4.99, 4 input options)

• Dictadroid (Android, free and $1.99)

If you are a Mac user, you may have noticed that the trojan Flashback, a malicious software program, is making the news. The difference between Flashback and earlier Mac attack applications is the way your machine becomes infected. Flashback is known as a drive-by download–all you have to do is visit a website that is hosting Flashback and the application can install itself. Macword magazine has published a very thorough article outlining the steps to take to minimize the risk of drive-by malware infections like Flashback. If you use a Mac in your practice or at home and haven’t yet taken the time to get up-to-speed on drive-by malware risks, make the time today.

Billing is probably the least favorite task on an attorney’s to-do list. This often leads to an erratic billing “system” with unintended consequences. One factor you may not have considered is when it’s best to send out your statements. If you bill once a month, when should the bills be mailed to your clients? Ed Poll, author of The Business of Law, recommends that “Billing statements should be mailed so that they reach the client on or before the first day of the month.” Since many people pay their bills on or shortly after the first of the month, you want your bill to be on the top of the pile! According to Mr. Poll, “All statements received after about the fifth of the month are usually considered for payment in the following month.” Establish a date around the 25^th of each month where you reserve time to do your billing. Billing predictability, combined with an end-of-month arrival date, will help reduce the firm’s receivables.

Additional resources to help you develop billing policies for your firm: Winning Alternatives to the Billable Hour, Strategies That Work by James A. Calloway & Mark A Robertson; How to Draft Bills Clients Rush to Pay by J. Harris Morgan & Jay G. Foonberg.

Clio, the web based practice management application, is consistently adding and improving the functionality of the application. They recently made several improvements to the calendar functions. One that is especially useful is the ability to add the statute of limitations date to a matter. You can also have the system remind you of a date by either email or a popup. Clio also has added the ability to have all statute of limitation dates that you have set viewed in your monthly calendars. Review the Clio announcement of the new calendar features and explore how they might be useful in your firm. Spend some time learning how to implement adding the statute of limitations date to a matter and set up the auto reminders. This new feature could help save you from a very serious oversight!

Randall Ryder, writing for Lawyerist.com, makes an excellent case for investing in a Dymo LabelWriter 450 Twin Turbo Printer. These handy label printers can be used in a variety of ways to increase the efficiency in your office. The 450 Twin Turbo prints both address labels and postage labels. There are a lot of uses for these handy little printers. Some offices have a label printer set up to print appointment reminder labels–print a label with the date and time of the client’s next appointment, stick it on the back of a business card and give it to the client as the appointment reminder. Having a quick way to create file labels will increase the likelihood that files are properly labeled as they are created. The ROI is measured in efficiency and saves your regular printer from damage when label printing goes bad.

Jim Calloway’s column, Sites for Sore Eyes, in the latest GPSOLO eReport entitled Beyond the Basics of Google, is guaranteed to provide every reader with an “Ah Ha” moment. This article not only points out some of the most often overlooked features of Google that everyone can use, but also provides tips designed specifically to help attorneys make the most of Google. Google Alerts, Google Scholar and Google Patents are all covered in this lively article.

Did you know that you can make sure your firm appears in the results of a Google search for “attorney + your zip code”? Read this column to learn how to maximize this Google marketing tool for your firm so you can reap the dividends.

Send an old fashion, snail mail note to someone once a week.  Make it a Friday afternoon, winding-down-the-week scheduled task.  Every week someone has done something which helped, motivated or touched you. Send them a note!  If you encountered someone who needs encouragement, send them a note.  If the court clerk was especially helpful or the security guard at the court house extended you a helping hand, send them a note.  Ending your week with a random act of kindness is uplifting and good marketing!

Jared Correia, Practice Management Advisor for the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program, wrote Law Practice Management Software a Holistic Remedy for the website Attorney at Work.  This short insightful post is a really good place to start your research into practice management applications.  It contains links to reviews of many applications and other valuable resources to help you understand the potential of practice management applications.

Susan L. Traylor, Practice Management Advisor from the State Bar of Arizona has written another excellent and very thorough resource to help you understand the power of practice management software applications.  Identifying the Best Practice Management Software  also contains an excellent listing of applications, sorted by primary purpose, which includes descriptions and pricing.  This article is a must read for anyone just starting their exploration of practice management software.