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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
Evernote is a robust note-taking application that lawyers and
legal professionals can use to help manage their paperless,
or, more accurately, “less paper” office. Evernote is a onestop repository for capturing ideas as they occur, recording
voice memos, planning projects and presentations,
managing receipts, tasks, and to-do lists, and storing
pictures, web pages, and links.
Mobile lawyers take note: Evernote syncs across web
browsers, desktop applications, and mobile devices, so it's
available whenever and wherever you need it.
This compact E-Book explores some of the many ways
lawyers, and anyone, really, can use Evernote at home, in a
law office, or on the go.
Articles:
Power your Paperless Law Office with Evernote
Evernote Security Issues for Lawyers
5 Great Everyday Uses for Evernote
How to Increase your Blogging Productivity with
Evernote
o 8 Tips for a More Productive Evernote Experience
o Build a Firm-Wide Knowledge Center with Evernote
for Business
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What is Rocket Matter?
About the Author
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
Power your Paperless Law Office with Evernote
As lawyers and legal processes shift from paper to digital, cloudbased applications for creating, storing, and managing
information have kept pace. Evernote, the note taking and
archiving application that syncs across your computer, browser,
and mobile devices, is one of the best.
Getting started
First, download Evernote to your Mac or PC. The first time you
launch the Evernote application, you will be prompted to enter a
username and password. Go ahead and create a free user account
so you’ll have access to your documents and notes on all your
devices and from any Web browser.
Next, download the app on your phone and tablet and login using
your new username and password. Now anything you create in
Evernote on your phone, computer, or on the web will be synced
automatically.
Notes, notebooks, and tags
Evernote is organized into notes, notebooks (a.k.a., folders) where
the notes reside, and tags, which are used to further organize your
notes. Click “New Note” in the top menu bar and start typing. Just
like that, you’ve created your first note. You never have to
manually save the note as it automatically saves as you type.
If you forget to organize your notes into notebooks or by assigning
tags, Evernote’s robust search feature allows you to quickly locate
what you need.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
Store research materials for articles and presentations
Sure, Evernote is great for storing and organizing text-based
notes, but you can also grab web pages, photos and screenshots,
PDFs, emails, video and audio clips, word processing documents,
and spreadsheets –and drag them into a note.
Now, when you’re ready to work on that article or presentation,
your research materials are all set. And since it’s synched across
devices, you can work on your iPad during your morning
commute or on a laptop in the office.
Evernote is free with a premium option for $5 per month or $45
per year. The premium option gets you supersized uploads, larger
note storage, faster image recognition, note history, and more.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
Evernote Security Issues for Lawyers
On March 2nd, 2013, Evernote users were alerted via email that the
company had discovered an attempt to hack the network. The
network security team was able to block the suspicious activity,
but not before intruders gained access to Evernote user
information, including usernames, email addresses, and
encrypted passwords.
Users were instructed to login to their accounts on Evernote.com,
reset their passwords, and update their logins on all synced
desktop and mobile apps.
What does this mean for you, an avid Evernote user?
Even though password information was accessed, it’s protected by
strong, one-way encryption. In technical terms, the passwords
were hashed and salted, which renders them completely
inscrutable and unusable. This means that the passwords
retrieved by the intruders were scrambled, preventing the
intruder from accessing user accounts, including yours.
Content stored in Evernote was not stolen, as noted by the
company: “In our security investigation, we have found no
evidence that any of the content you store in Evernote was
accessed, changed or lost.” So, any client-confidential data you
added to Evernote was not compromised.
Furthermore, for those of us who have a Premium account,
Evernote assured that there was no evidence that any payment
information for Evernote Premium or Evernote Business
customers was accessed.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
What about lawyers and client-confidentiality issues?
In addition to current security measures and others in the works,
Evernote offers the ability to encrypt data contained within notes,
so lawyers can use this feature to protect sensitive client
information.
The data is password-protected, and Evernote does not receive a
copy of your password. Unfortunately, this means that if you
forget your password, Evernote can’t recover your data. And
neither can you.
What is Evernote doing to remedy the situation?
Even though Evernote’s password encryption measures are
robust, asking all users to reset their passwords provides an
additional measure to ensure your personal data remains secure.
Evernote also announced that they are accelerating plans to
adopt two-factor authentication, similar to Dropbox, Facebook,
and others.
What can you do to protect your data?
Evernote provided the following steps to ensure that your data in
Evernote and other sites is secure:



Avoid using simple passwords based on words found in a
dictionary.
Never use the same password on multiple sites or services.
Never click on “reset password” requests in emails – instead
go directly to the service by typing the address into a
browser address bar or using a bookmark.
We’ll add another tip: Change the email address associated
with your Evernote account. The intruders did get 50 million
email addresses and can use that to spam you at a later time with
fake password-reset emails.
If you’re having trouble keeping track of your passwords across all of
your cloud services, we encourage you to take a look at 1Password,
which can help you manage your security.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
5 Great Everyday Uses for Evernote
How great is Evernote? It’s the one application I have open all day,
every day on my computer. I open it in the morning when I power
up my computer, and it’s the last thing I shut down.
Here are some of the ways Evernote helps me to – and can help
you - get through the day more productively:
1. Content creation– If you blog, write articles, send out
newsletters, or create other content, Evernote makes your job
much easier. Create a “newsletter” or “article” notebook and as
ideas occur, compose a note for each. When you come across
related images, links, or references, add them to the note. You’ll
never be at a loss for topics to write about.
2. Meeting notes – Before a Skype, GoToMeeting or in-person
meeting, open a note in an Evernote “Meetings” notebook and
start typing. No more unrecognizable scrawl or lost slip of paper.
Notes can then be sorted by date created, date updated, or title,
and searched by keyword.
3. To-do lists – There are so many great to-do list applications out
there, but who has the time to conquer yet another app? Since
you’re already in Evernote, create a “to-do” folder which can have
a “daily” note, “bucket list” note, “to read” note, and so on.
Evernote has a great checklist option, so you can add checkboxes
to your to-do lists and check them off as you go along.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
4. Project management – Creating folders in Outlook or
dumping them into a big “archive” folder means that they will
probably never be read. Instead, create a “projects” folder in
Evernote and forward related emails directly to the folder with the
unique email that Evernote provides. Find a few related websites?
Use Evernote’s Web Clipper or import browser bookmarks into
the project notebook.
5. Expense reports – Going on a business trip? Use Evernote to
capture your receipts as you get them by snapping a picture with
the built-in camera. Add notes and email the completed report to
your accounting department, right from Evernote. I now do this
on my way back from luncheons, meetings, and business trips.
Never miss another business reimbursement. If you own your
business, it’s great for when tax time rolls around.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
How to Increase you Blogging Productivity with
Evernote
The benefits of blogging are many but it can be a time consuming
effort. Evernote eases the burden. It can be used to store blog post
ideas, links, images, quotes, and drafts of posts, whenever, and
wherever inspiration strikes.
1. Create a blog notebook in Evernote– Create a “blog”
notebook for your blog post ideas. Come across an interesting
blog post or article, Twitter update, or Facebook conversation
you’d like to expand upon? Inspired while reading a book,
watching television, or having a conversation? Open your laptop
or phone, create a new note in the “blog” notebook, create a
working title, and quickly capture your idea. Before long, you’ll
have dozens of ideas waiting to be explored.
2. Add research materials to post ideas– Some of us take a bit
longer to research and compose a post. Add web pages, links, and
text to your blog notes as you come across them. Add images too,
as searching for the perfect one can often be a time consuming
process.
3. Compose a draft post – Write the first draft of the post in
Evernote without regard for formatting. When you transfer the
post to your blogging platform of choice, such as WordPress,
you’ll format and edit. Remember to copy and paste the Evernote
draft into WordPress’s HTML editor and not the WYSIWYG
window.
Evernote has become the most productive blogging tool.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
8 Tips for a More Productive Evernote
Experience
As you increasingly use Evernote to store information and
organize your daily life, finding efficient ways to use it makes for
an even more productive experience.
Here are a few tips:
1. Clip only portions of web pages – Firefox’s and Chrome’s
extensions for Evernote are great for clipping content from across
the Web right into the app. But you may be interested in only a
portion of the page. To clip just the part you want, simply highlight
it, then click the Clip Selection option.
2. Encrypt sensitive information – You probably won’t need to
encrypt blog post ideas, but client information, login credentials,
and financial data can be encrypted. To do so, highlight the text to
be encrypted, then right click (control + click on a Mac), and
choose “Encrypt Selected Text.”Enter a password and hit enter.
An option to select a password recovery hint appears. I’d include a
hint, as Evernote does not store your password. The text you
selected is now encrypted and shows up as dots with an arrow
indicating that you can enter a password to access the text.
3. Streamline the dashboard –Among the columns in the
dashboard that you can view at a glance are: Author, Created,
Notebook, Size, Sync Status, Title, and Updated. Unclutter your
dashboard by unchecking all but Created, Title, and Updated
columns. That’s all you’ll need.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
4. Quickly share your notebooks by connecting to Gmail –
Evernote allows you to share notes with your friends using
Facebook, Twitter, and email. So connect Evernote to your Gmail
account: it makes the process of sharing notes much more
efficient.
5. Use the voice recording feature – This feature is handy when
you’re on the road and need to drop a thought into Evernote but
don’t have time to type. Hit the microphone icon and start talking.
6. Share notes on social media – Share notes directly from
within Evernote to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn by clicking on
the arrow in the note panel.
7. Checklists – We love checklists. Although Evernote has a
checklist option in the tool bar, you had to insert checkboxes line
by line. Now you can highlight the entire list and checkboxes will
be inserted at the beginning of each list item - a time saver for
checklist lovers.
8. Switch between accounts – Switch between professional and
personal accounts from the menu. This feature is available for
premium accounts only.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
Build a Firm-Wide Knowledge Center with
Evernote for Business
Sure, Evernote is great for note taking, storing information, and
recording the chapters of your life, but until now it hasn’t been so
great for collaborating with friends and colleagues or building
accessible, firm-wide knowledge centers.
That all changed with Evernote for Business, which introduced
two new concepts. First, there’s Business Notebooks that allow
you to store and share company information, as well as
collaborate with coworkers. Then there’s Business Libraries, a
collection of Business Notebooks containing policies, documents,
forms, and other commonly needed information, made easily
accessible to all employees running the Evernote standalone or
web app.
Create a company account and add employees using their work
email addresses. A few simple dashboards help you manage users,
notes, tags and billing information. Administrators can view and
manage Business Notebooks created by members of the firm.
Personal notebooks and access to data – In Evernote Business,
organizations have the right to access, use, manage, and modify
any Business Notebook and its contents. Your personal
notebooks, however, are completely private, but the user has the
option to share them with anyone in the company.
Firm-wide Business Library – The Business Library is a
collection of Business Notebooks that are available to all team
members; a place where employees can share, discover, and
leverage the collected knowledge of their colleagues.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
This is where the magic happens with firm-wide access to
meeting notes and recordings, HR documents and forms,
presentations, research, and much more. Over time, the Business
Library becomes a robust resource center for current, and
especially, new employees.
Cost is $10 per user per month.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
What is Rocket Matter?
Rocket Matter is the leading web-based practice management
and time and billing application for small to mid-sized law firms.
When we launched in February of 2008, we were the first legal
technology available for running a law firm online. We were
surprised at the number of attorneys who immediately joined our
service, looking to manage their matters, clients, and invoicing
from any computer at any time.
Since then, amazing mobile devices, such as the iPhone®, iPad®,
and Droid®, have transformed attorney access to information.
Rocket Matter built its own native iPhone app that makes the lives
of lawyers a whole lot easier.
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
In addition, the global economy has declined, putting new
pressures on the operational efficiencies of law firms and altering
the makeup of large, traditional law firms.
In that time, via the Rocket Matter product, plus our blogging,
video, Rocket Academy, webinars, and contributions to legal
trade publications, we’ve helped law firms navigate these new
waters.
We’ve introduced new ideas for marketing, operations, and
technology to help legal professionals adapt to the ever-changing
professional environment. So, please enjoy this book and become
part of our cutting-edge community if you’re not already! Follow
us and spread the good word!
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How to Use Evernote In a Law Office
About the Author
Tim Baran is the community manager for Rocket Matter. From
serving as a law firm librarian to starting a continuing legal
education venture, he has spent years getting to know the unique
needs of those working in the legal profession.
Tim is now part of an awesome team delivering Rocket Matter
content via the Legal Productivity blog, Rocket Academy
videos, webinars, and other channels including Facebook,
Twitter, and Google Plus.
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