Practice Tools

PowerLegal Helps Create U.C.C. Forms

Intercounty Clearance Corp. has released PowerLegal, a Uniform Commercial Code document assembly and management system for lawyers, paralegals, lenders, and financial professionals to manage U.C.C. lien preparation and filing systems.

With PowerLegal, Intercounty acts as an application service provider for its clients, via the Internet or by a direct dial-in connection. Both the PowerLegal application and its associated filing data are stored centrally on Intercounty's secure server.

The system can be customized to an individual client's preferences, and includes five main features: 1) Power-Forms includes all state UCC forms; 2) PowerData Entry minimizes repeat keying-in of information; 3) PowerReporting gathers information from the server and prints reports; 4) PowerFiling can file as many as 1,000 forms at once; and 5) PowerPrinting, which allows for all or parts of forms to be printed.

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CLIENT DEVELOPMENT

Interactive CD-ROM

Just Think ... About Clients is a CD-ROM from the Law Firm Development Group Inc. that is designed to teach lawyers how to expand existing client relationships and attract new clients. It includes interactive exercises and full-motion videos of real-life situations.

The CD offers lessons on getting referrals, networking and time management, the company says. It includes a template lawyers can use to create a personal business plan, plus a "hot link" to LFDG's Web site, where users can get more data, checklists and articles.

The program can be completed in about two hours in the office, at home or while traveling with a laptop. It can also be used as the curriculum for a series of in-house training programs facilitated by a lawyer or the firm's marketing director, according to the company. The CD is accompanied by a 108-page resource book.

Users also get ongoing e-mail support from LFDG to deal with any challenging questions or issues that arise in the course of the training. It requires a computer with at least a Pentium 133 MHz processor or higher, Windows 95/98, and a sound card.

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ENVIRONMENT LAW

Environmental Page

LEXIS has added an Environmental Practice Page to the lexis.com research service. It offers access to the entire LEXIS-NEXIS environmental library, including material from the Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register and Environmental Protection Agency. Also included: Matthew Bender practice materials including Brownfields Law and Practice, Courtroom Toxicology, California Environmental Law & Land Use Practice, and others.

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TAX

Ez-CFR 26

EZ-CFR Inc. has released ez-CFR26 on CD-ROM. It is intended for accountants, tax attorneys, and others with an interest in Internal Revenue Service rules and related subjects.

Content includes the tax rules and forms available for all states in a users IRS region. EZ-CFR's CD-ROMs have one CFR per disk, each section stored as two individual files, one in PDF, the other in TXT format. The search engine allows users to enter their own keywords, use "and," "or," and exact phrases.

Options include work stemming, limiting searches to specific parts, title and/or text, tax form searches, single state searches, Federal Register update searches, and more. Subscriptions are available on an annual basis, with two updated CD-ROMs sent quarterly.

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LITIGATION SUPPORT

Trial-Log

Trial-Log is a new feature of a recent upgrade of the TrialPro II Presentation System, which allows lawyers and other legal professionals to produce a record of exhibits that are being displayed during depositions and in-court proceedings.The log can be displayed in synchronization with the transcript, using a built-in viewer, explains Innovative Design & Engineering Associates Inc., based in The Woodlands, Texas.

The Trial-Log maintains a record (the log) of exhibits that includes display date and time, and witness reference data. On-screen exhibit mark-ups and annotations are automatically included, it notes.

To view an exhibit, the lawyer merely points and clicks on an exhbit icon in the transcript text, and the corresponding exhibit is displayed.

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CourtCD

CourtCD is an e-filing service for appellate attorneys practicing in any state or federal court that accepts briefs in electronic formats. It can convert any brief into searchable Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format, says CourtCD Inc., based in Boca Raton, Fla.

The service can create hypertext links throughout a brief to original record material, cases, statutes, law review articles, and Web pages on the Internet. Bookmarks can also be created to assist a judge or law clerk in finding relevant points in the brief. When opened, bookmarks are displayed automatically and correlate to the table of contents in the brief.

Court CD also makes it possible to electronically sign a brief using digital signature software.

Court CD Inc. will also label each CD for a given appeal according to the local rules of the jurisdiction.

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CourthouseDirect

Plan Three Solutions and Courthouse Specialists, both of Houston, have joined forces to create CourthouseDirect.com, a new Web site that offers Internet access to public records. The site will allow legal researchers to research and retrieve federal, state and county records, it says.

It will provide access to real property and official record images, via the Internet, including documents such as deeds, abstracts of judgments, releases, assignments, federal and state tax liens, oil and gas leases, etc.

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CONTINUING EDUCATION

Law TV

The Rutter Group, a division of West Group, offers continuing legal education lectures on LawTV in conjunction with Multicast Media.The Rutter Group content will be available to Multicast Media's partners, which include colleges, universities, office buildings, and DSL providers, via a network that covers the continental United States, southern Canada, and South America.

Through Multicast Media technology, real-time streaming media content also can be delivered over satellite directly to the subscriber's desktop through an existing connection to the Internet.

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