Create A Law Office Online
Google is not only famous for having created their world renowned search engine, it is also well known that they have made a large number of helpful web-based tools available to people. These tools are so numerous and helpful that it is now possible for many types of businesses, including law offices, to be run and function anywhere—largely from the internet. One of the most useful items created is Google Apps, which embodies a large number of free but useful web based tools.
Google Apps Tools
The web tools of Google Apps can be combined and all used together in your work routine. This allows anyone to create, manage, and share documents quickly. It can easily allow you to set up and high powered online law office that can help you handle any task. That means that you can work smarter with co-workers and clients—as opposed to working harder to keep contracts, emails, and other documents plus correspondence up-to-date and organized without having to spend hundreds of dollars in the process.
Google Voice
Phone: Google Voice is a Google telephone service with many cool features. The best known and possible the most useful of these is to give a person the ability to have their number ring multiple phones at the same time. Meaning that you can have calls forwarded to your home, office, and mobile device. This is so that no matter where you are and what you are doing you won’t miss the call.
GMail
E-mail—Gmail is Google’s well known and often used e-mail service. It can be accessed via web-browser or through your preferred e-mail client. There are many advantages to using this service. For one, cost. It is free to use. Secondly, it has all the regular web-based email features that you would expect to see, plus some extra ones that you might not expect or know about:
- Undo Send
This is a feature that allows you to cancel an email that you realize you are not happy with or didn’t intend to send at the moment. It works because there is about a 30-second delay from send time until it is sent. - Create a Document
This allows you to turn your present e-mail into an online document. - Google Voice Player
This lets you play any voice messages that you have received directly from your e-mail inbox. - Canned Responses
These basically let you repeat yourself without having to search through old messages and doing a copy and paste job.
As if the above services were not enough, third party developers also are making things even more convenient for you by creating other useful tools that integrate with Gmail in order to further increase productivity. This is no doubt due to Google’s reputation and huge popularity. Just a few among the hundreds includes Boomerang (this lets you write your e-mail immediately, even if you want to send it later), Zoho CRM (this is useful for lawyers because it helps track communications with clients), Rapportive CRM (when someone sends you an e-mail, this item aggregates their public online information and adds it to the e-mail’s margins—such as photos, job titles, and social network profiles).
Google Docs
Word Processing—Google Docs lets you store, upload, and download any type of file. There is also a Google Docs Web interface that allows you to create and save new files. This also allows you to share and collaborate on a file very easily. This is very good when you have a document that needs to be revised multiple times since it can be done without you having to send e-mailed updates each time.
Google Calendar
Calendar—if you need somewhere to make appointments and set reminders, the Google Calendar can give you all that you will need, and maybe more. The good thing about having this online is that you can access it from anywhere and anytime, so long as you can connect to the internet via web browser. You can also share your calendar with others on the web and store all the information you place there on your computer hard drive for offline access as well.
With all the items listed above, it is not hard to set up a comprehensive work station to take care of many routine tasks. And these are just a few of the options you have available to you. You can totally remove the need to have a physical location for your law office and do all your work remotely from your home office.
Be Sure To Backup
Another thing to consider is the need to safe guard the materials that you create online. It is never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket. However, if you create multiple documents using the various Google Apps and don’t store a backup for them, that is exactly what you are doing. The way that you solve this problem is by using a service such as cloudHQ to automatically replicate the information you place within sites such as Google Doc or Google Drive. That means that every file you create and store can be duplicated and sent to an online storage site such as Dropbox. If the Google servers happen to go down or if your account were to be compromised, you would still have a copy of all your files stored securely. For just $4.90/month, paying a small fee for a Dropbox account offers you total piece of mind for less than the price of a cup of coffee.
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