What Lies Ahead

By Tom McNichol

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Easy for FDR to say. Sure, he had to grapple with a global economic depression, but at least he didn't have to decide whether to slash his firm's technology budget on top of it all. Still, Roosevelt's overall message holds true: The worst thing to do in a crisis is panic.

When it comes to office technology, the panic move is to get out the chain saw and start hacking away at the IT budget. The expense of buying, maintaining, and supporting computer technology often looms as a conspicuously fat number on the balance sheet, making it an irresistible target for the cost cutters. But there's a better way to ride out a downturn: Make your office technology smarter and more productive, not necessarily simpler and cheaper. That doesn't mean you can't cut spending on some technology, but the cuts you do make shouldn't hurt the firm's productivity. Firms that are smart about using technology will not only be in a better shape financially, they'll also position themselves to widen their tech advantage over competitors when the economy bounces back.

The point is to get more out of the technology you already have. A surprising number of firms underuse their billing or practice-management software packages--or don't use them at all. Law firms are notorious for having supply closets filled with software and other tech tools still in their original shrink-wrap. These sad little studies in waste and mismanagement can be converted into opportunities.

A downturn is a good time to take a detailed inventory of the technology you have on hand, to get a better handle on how to squeeze more out of it. The idea is to look for software applications and hardware that either help cut costs (better calendaring and document management, for example) or make it easier to generate revenue (more efficient billing and tracking client leads).

It's also a good time to be on the lookout for technology that can hone legal skills to open up new practice areas and revenue streams. For example, if you've got an iPod, you can use it to continue your legal education. The online Apple Store will guide you to downloadable podcasts on many legal topics. Soon you will even be able to buy an iPod preloaded with American Bar Association CLE programs featuring leading legal experts (details at www.abanet.org/cle/podcast/). Imagine galloping on a treadmill at the gym while listening to MP3 files such as "The New Form 990: A New Era of Transparency and Compliance" or "Perspectives on Various Practice Settings from Young Tax Lawyers Who Have Been There" while that loser beside you is huffing and puffing to the '70s' greatest hits. For iPods with video capacity, you can also download CLE videos, including such CLE video gems as "Avoiding Retirement Plan Disaster" and "Ethical Issues in Representing Children in Custody Proceedings: Super-Parent, Potted Plant ... or Something in Between?"

The growing number of CLE video courses and law-related video podcasts available online can now be viewed on your living room television, thanks to a recently released universal media player called SlingCatcher (www.slingmedia.com/go/slingcatcher). SlingCatcher lets you pull up any video from your PC or the Internet and display it on your television. This comes in handy when you're slogging through a long CLE video course: Instead of hunching over the tiny screen of your laptop, you can kick back on your sofa, pour yourself a glass of wine, and watch "Understanding and Documenting Commercial Loan Transactions: A Beginner's Guide." And with the SlingCatcher remote, you can pause and then resume playing the video. If you must, you can even connect a SlingCatcher to your bedroom TV and access the live televised and recorded programs from your living room DVR. A few other companies sell products that are similar to SlingCatcher: A start-up called ZeeVee offers a set-top box, and Apple TV has some of the same features. But the SlingCatcher is probably the most flexible way to watch Internet video on your home TV. And at about $300, it's relatively inexpensive.

Robust computer security is another must in a down economy. Like termite infestations, hacker and malware attacks are never welcome. But computer fraud of all kinds tends to increase during hard economic times, so look for 2009 to be full of glitches. (Here's a fearless prediction: By February 1, Microsoft will have released at least one security patch that "fixes" a previously unseen flaw in the new Internet Explorer 8.) Considering the reams of confidential data and "holy shit" documents residing on the computers of most lawyers, it's surprising that the legal profession has never been in the forefront of information security.

Small firms and sole practitioners with just a few computers to worry about might want to invest in the latest edition of Norton Internet Security. The soon-to-be released 2009 version of the industry's leading security package offers critical safeguards: browser protection for both Firefox and Explorer, anti-bot protection to prevent your PC from being taken over by an outside hacker, and a system-recovery tool for deep infections. Best of all, the new Norton package is especially easy on computing resources. Norton's programs have frequently been criticized as performance hogs, slowing down PCs with their Sasquatch-like memory footprint. Norton Internet Security 2009, by contrast, requires just 7MB of memory and loads in less than a minute, according to the manufacturer's tests. And a license for the new edition includes a year of technical support via phone, email, or online. At $69.99 (for up to three PCs), Norton Internet Security 2009 is an inexpensive way to avoid a costly computer crash.

A start-up called ZPower (www.zpowerbattery.com) aims to let computer users get more out of what they already have with a markedly longer-lasting laptop battery. ZPower's newfangled silver-zinc battery will be rolled out in a yet unnamed "major notebook computer" sometime early next year. According to ZPower, the silver-zinc battery will provide up to 40 percent more running time than the lithium-ion batteries that now power most laptops. Silver-zinc batteries aren't exactly new--because they're lightweight and long lasting, NASA used them in the 1960s and '70s to power Apollo spacecraft. But they never caught on; the first generation of silver-zinc batteries could be recharged only a few times before having to be replaced--hardly a good selling point for a laptop battery. Now ZPower says it's come up with a silver-zinc laptop battery that can be juiced up as many times as a lithium-ion battery. And perhaps just as important, the silver-zinc units are said to be more chemically stable than the lithium-ion ones, which have had a bad habit of exploding on occasion and causing laptops to burst into flames. The silver-zinc battery is also greener: 95 percent of the battery is recyclable, and the company will offer discounts to customers who trade in their old batteries.

There is at least one downside: The silver-zinc batteries run at a different voltage than lithium-ion batteries, so you can't just slap the new batteries into any computer. But if the technology catches on, other laptop makers will probably tweak their machines' power systems so they can handle both lithium-ion and silver-zinc. The thinking is: Build a better battery and the world will beat a path to your door.

If things get really dire, you'll soon be able to take comfort in downloading your favorite Beatles song from Apple's iTunes Store. Sometime in 2009, Apple will, for the first time, add the Fab Four to its vast iTunes catalog, ending the longest holdout in digital music history. What does this have to do with law, you ask? Well, it will also end one of the longest and most convoluted legal battles in history (Apple Corps, Ltd. v. Apple Computer, Inc., EWHC 996 (Ch. 2006)).

Apple Corps is the Beatles' holding company, known to billions by the logo of its record label, a bright green Granny Smith apple. Apple Corps first sued Apple Computer for trademark infringement in 1978. Cofounder Steve Jobs had already screwed the pooch for his lawyers by revealing in interviews that the Beatles label had inspired him to name his fledgling computer company Apple. Nailed to the wall, the computer maker agreed in 1981 to pay $80,000 to the Beatles' company and to never enter the music business.

Nearly a decade later Apple Corps sued again, this time complaining that the software included on Macintosh computers for musical instrument digital interface, or MIDI, violated the terms of the 1981 agreement. Apple Computer again settled, agreeing in 1991 to pay $26.5 million for the rights to use the Apple logo for selling computers and software, while Apple Corps would exclusively retain the Granny Smith apple logo for producing and selling music.

But the legal battle flared again in 2003 when Apple Computer began selling music through Apple's new online iTunes Store. Once again Apple Corps claimed the agreement had been breached. Finally, in February 2007, the long and winding legal battle was settled once and for all when Apple Computer reportedly forked over between $50 million and $100 million for the rights to the Apple name and logo.

The resolution of the lawsuit finally cleared the way for the iTunes Store to offer Beatles music. No date has been set for when the Beatles officially go online, but some have speculated that Jobs will make the announcement during his semi-annual address at the MacWorld Conference & Expo in early January.

So get ready to plug in your iPod earbuds and enjoy the fruits of an expensive legal battle, which took a sad song and made it better. Now, that's as good a motto as any for surviving 2009.

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