A Quick Tech Update

This post is going to be necessarily short, as I have to be up to teach Business Law to a bunch of college students tomorrow. I thought I'd update you on what I've been doing to prepare the infrastructure of my brick-and-mortar practice for the eventual launch of a VLO.

One major advantage to operating a law practice in the cloud is that you can work from just about anywhere. With that in mind,  I did some research last week on utilizing a VoIP telephone system to give me the flexibility necessary for a true VLO. I've purchased a firewall for my home office and have set up a VoIP system that will allow me to make and receive my work calls anywhere through a "virtual office" website on my PC and an app on my Android phone. The system I went with includes 3 desk phones, the ability to set up webinars, and an eFax system. It's really robust and, I think, will be a real asset to both my brick-and-mortar practice and my VLO. If you'd like more information about the system I chose, feel free to leave a comment and I'll send you some links.

Another thing I did last week was make some major technology purchases. I upgraded both desktop computers that we currently use at my office. This was a pretty important change, since both PCs were more than 10 years old. My assistant's computer tends to take as long as 10 minutes just to open multiple levels of file folders, so even a slight upgrade will be a significant improvement.

I also purchased a hardware firewall for the office, to augment my software firewall. This will also give me the freedom to create a VPN network to the office from my computer at home. More flexibility is always better. The last important purchase I made is a two terabyte (2 TB) external hard drive which I will use to back up my clients' files. Coupled with an encryption program (which I have yet to research - stay tuned!), this will help me more adequately meet the security and confidentiality obligations of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility while providing me plenty of room to increase the amount of data I retain in my client files.

Check back tomorrow for another link round-up, this time of VLO blogs, and my initial thoughts on drafting a business plan.