Keeping Your Hardware and Software Up to Date
In continuing to talk about the third area of the five areas that make up every business in the world, we would be remiss if we did not talk about the software that we have in our office, and in particular, the software that we use for our law library. It is nearly impossible to "get the work done" if you do not have adequate software and law library access. You can get "clients" or "customers," you can put in place a system of "administration," you can figure out ways to get the "bills" out, and you can follow up with your attempts at "collecting," but you must "get the work done" in order to justify your existence.
If you have been following my business philosophy in all of these articles, you will realize that I am always trying to sniff out what is the next development and scurry after it (concepts from the book: Who Moved My Cheese?). But, I always temper trying to stay on top of what is new and helpful with the counter balancing concept of "keep is simple stupid."
I was recently at a meeting of my state bar association board of governors regarding orientation of new members, and the IT manager for the state bar association made the comment that in dealing with an association that has almost 30,000 members, the hardware and software needed to do a competent job was somewhere between antiquated and cutting edge. I thought his description fit my law firm to a tee.
When you look at a list of the computer hardware we have available in our office, you will see at least one sixty-four megabyte RAM, ten gigabyte hard drive computer. Yeah, I know we are still in the dark ages regarding this computer. On the other hand, we now have seven Pentium 4 computers, one with 512 megabytes of RAM and an eighty gigabyte hard drive and the other six with 256 megabytes of RAM and forty gigabytes of hard drive. We are also still using three celeron computers with 128 megabytes of RAM and twenty gigabytes of hard drive each. Our server is Intel Pentium 4 with one gigabyte of RAM and forty gigabytes of hard drive. As you can see, our hardware is adequate, but certainly not cutting edge. Also, I believe you can see that we are not afraid of spending some money in order to get some computers to help us do the job, but it is important to remember that the majority of what we do on a day-to-day basis really comes down to just word processing. You do not need the latest and greatest amount of RAM and hard drive to have over ninety percent of the activity on the computer be word processing.
The software that we are using on each of these computers at this time is Windows XP. Three of the computers still have Windows 98 on them. The Windows version that we have on our server is the 2003 version. Next week we will discuss additional software programs we have available at our office.
We also have a 20/40 gigabyte tape drive on our server for backup purposes. We keep a copy of the tape in our fireproof safe and it is run automatically on a daily basis.
We have tended to stay away from the CD Rom capability on most of these computers because now almost everything we need is available online. All of the computers have USB port capability.
Obviously we have a small law firm, and the needs of the solo practitioner regarding hardware may be less than our needs. Conversely, the needs of the large law firms may be substantially greater than ours. What I have always tried to figure out a way to do is to seek out the best advice I can from the best local computer services company that deals with as many law firms as possible, so I can know what is happening in the marketplace. I then try to make realistic decisions based upon what we really need and what we can really afford and not a lot of whistles and bells that allow the computer geeks to get a buzz. I have found that the computer services company that we use in Kansas City is exceptional with regard to their advice, their prices, and their services. We use CyTek Corporation at 1627 Main Street, Kansas City, Missouri. Rick Bernauer is their President.
Find the local computer services company that services all the law firms, shows up at all the various bar meetings to talk about computer services, buys a booth at the Solo and Small Firm Conference run by the Missouri Bar Association, buys a booth at the Bench Bar Conference run by the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association or by the bar association of Metropolitan St. Louis, and you probably will have found the company that you want to work with.
Next week we will be talking about the software we use in our small law firm office. I think you will find it interesting what I have to say about some of the software we have been using for quite some time as well as the newer software programs we have begun to use.
Talk to you next week!
Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.