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Sharon Nelson and John Simek Featured in Attorney at Work

May 21, 2019

Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek were recently featured in Attorney at Work’s “Your Tech Toolkit: One Thing In, One Thing Out” By Joan Feldman

In this article, Joan reaches out for advice on what to add and what to let go from the practice management pros. With the “one thing in, one thing out” idea in mind, we asked the practice management technology experts, “What’s one new thing lawyers should add to their practice to be more efficient and profitable — and what should they let go?” Here’s good advice from Heidi Alexander, Sheila Blackford, Natalie Kelly, Sharon Nelson and John Simek, and Lee Rosen.

Excerpt: Sharon Nelson and John Simek: Add Encryption, Give Up Fax Machines

One thing all lawyers should have is the ability to encrypt their electronic communications. ABA Formal Opinion 477R, issued in May 2017, says that if client information is of sufficient sensitivity, a lawyer should encrypt the transmission and determine how to do so to protect it sufficiently. But we still see many solo and small firms that don’t use encryption — ever.

These days encryption is cheap, simple, fast to use — and it no longer slows your machine down. Here are some of the products you should be looking at:

Proofpoint is an excellent encrypted email solution for solo and small firm lawyers. It is very affordable and there are options for Office 365 as well.

  • If you are an Office 365 user, check your subscription level to see if encrypted email is included in your plan. (It’s included with the E3 plan.) Most likely you will need to add Azure Information Protection to your subscription. It’s only $2 per user per month.
  • If you have a need for secure, encrypted group, text, voice, video, document and picture messages, install the free Signal messaging app.

As for letting one thing go, let go of your fax machine. This dinosaur doesn’t seem to know that its time to die has come and many small law practices still have them. Here are our recommendations for electronic fax solutions whereby the fax is delivered to your email:

  • HelloFax is a top-rated service for as little as $9.99 per month.
  • Ring Central Fax is another highly rated service starting at $12.99 per month.
  • MyFax has plans starting at $10 per month.

Read all the tips here: