Newsletter Header, 12-2013
December 2014
End of Year Tips & Tricks for Law Firms
Last Chance to Attend OSBA Legal Tech & Practice Management Conference
Annual Tech Gift Guide
December Speaking Engagements
Word Tip of the Month - WordRake
MacCorner - Tech Gifts for Your Apple Lovers
Affinity/ALA VIP Partnership in 2014
Worldox BootCamp in February 2015
Practice Management Client Care
Newsworthy - Links of Interest (Holiday Edition)

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End of Year Tips & Tricks for Law Firms
Is it really December already? This year has flown by and with the upcoming holidays, there will be no slowing down for most of us. And even though there is a lot to accomplish, it is important to focus on the End of Year (EOY) review in your time, billing and accounting software. 

While it is always a best practice to implement monthly procedures, the fact is it's December and here we are! Don't wait until January or February to review and cleanup 2014; in the long run this will take a lot more time. With everything in order, there's no last-minute rush trying to get advice from your accountant, or paying excessive fees for hour-intensive catch-up work. 

 

Read this month's feature article for our EOY recommendations.

 

Also in this month's newsletter is our annual tech gift guide. In addition to our regular gift guide, we have a specialized Apple-user gift guide by our Apple maven, Jeff Schoenberger.

OSBA-CLE
Last Chance to Attend OSBA Tech Conference
- December 4 & 5, New Location!
The Ohio State Bar Association's Annual Legal Technology and Practice Management Conference is only a day away!  This year it moves to a new location, NorthPointe Hotel and Conference Center in Lewis Center (Columbus), OH, on December 4 & 5. Many Affinity partners and consultants will be presenting at the Conference.

Attend this Conference and learn to:
  • Move your firm toward financial success and greater client satisfaction
  • Build a technology plan that proactively improves your practice
  • Regain control over your workday and your life by properly leveraging technology
  • Use metrics to track success and "turn the dial" to where you want to be as a firm
  • Improve internal and external communications using common technology solutions
  • Use your iPad for research, prepare for depositions and give presentations
  • Avoid malpractice by building avoidance procedures into your workflows
For details, download the complete brochure here.
Annual Tech Gift Guide From Affinity's Partners, Consultants, and Staff

We asked our Partners, Consultants, and Staff for tech-oriented gift suggestions this holiday season. They answered with an impressive variety of gadgets and gear.

 

Read our Tech Gift Guide.

December Speaking Engagements
Our Affinity Partners and Consultants start December with the huge Ohio State Bar Association Tech Conference followed by the Cleveland Legal Technology Conference later in the month.  

Word Logo
MS Word Tip of the Month - Use WordRake to Improve Your Writing 
There is a reason law firms continue to use Microsoft Word in the face of less expensive (sometimes free) alternatives like Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and WPS Office. Those alternatives work well enough for general document drafting. Indeed, WPS Office can be configured to look and work remarkably like MS Word. However, there are many great add-in programs that work only with MS Word. A great add-in program designed especially for lawyers is WordRake (a great holiday gift for your favorite legal writer - including yourself!).

MacCorner
MacCorner - Tech Gifts for Your Apple Lovers
December's newsletter is perhaps the easiest and most fun for me to write because it gives me the opportunity to rattle off some great tech toys and gifts.

ALA VIP
Affinity/ALA VIP Partnership Completes Another Successful Year
Affinity Consulting Group cherishes the relationship we have built with the Association of Legal Administrators as VIP Partners. As the year draws to a close, we want to say thank you for the great events we have had the pleasure or participating in over the past year. 

Worldox Atlanta BootCamp Coming Feb. 23-24

Join us for our Worldox BootCamp, where you will receive intensive training that will enable you to tap into the full power of your Worldox Document Management System. 

Taught by our own Greg Bray and Steve Best, your instructors will detail everything from saving a simple document to creating security profiles and document retention plans. The course is great for new users, existing users who need a refresher
course, or, to "Train your Trainer." Accompanied by meticulous materials, you will go back to the office excited to unleash the full power of Worldox.

For details and to register, click HERE.
Practice Management Client Care (PMCC) Program
Affinity is proud to offer a cost-effective monthly service for our Amicus Attorney, Time Matters, PracticeMaster, Worldox, Tabs3 and PCLaw customers designed to ensure that you are getting everything you can out of the software you use every day to run your firm.

 

Affinity's Practice Management Client Care Program (PMCC) provides you with monthly access to educational feature webinars that will provide your users with real training that will enable them to take full advantage of the software that you already own. As a PMCC subscriber, you will also enjoy discounts on support, new user training and set up, and attendance at User Group meetings.

 

Click HERE for details, and be sure to contact Danielle Faries for more information.

Newsworthy - Holiday Edition
Each month we will bring you quick links to a variety of newsworthy items dealing with technology products, services, and other topics of interest to lawyers as they seek to better manage their practices. Last month we focused on Microsoft. This month we look at items related (or not) to the current holiday season. 
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