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Lawyer unplugged, on the go
KAUKAUNA, Nov 18, 2008 (The Post-Crescent - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Kevin Davidson is a lawyer on the go and then some.
In the words of Lawyers Weekly, which featured him in its Nov. 7 issue, he's an Ultra Mobile Lawyer. He performs about 80 percent of his duties of his general civil law practice outside of his office using the latest in laptop, cellular and electronic technology.
"I've always preferred working from a laptop," he said. "For me, it was always a kind of natural thing to keep pace with [and] to avoid all of the tethers that kind of slow us down a little bit."
As with any law practice, he juggles rafts of information, and the computer is the ideal way to keep it all organized and accessible.
Davidson's workhorse is a custom Dell laptop that ran him $2,300. A built-in Verizon card provides the wireless capability. He's arranged for callers to reach him anywhere through a "virtual assistance" service, in which they speak to a real person.
He figured his total outlay at $3,000 to go completely mobile the past year. He only set up an office here in late summer. He works from home and has been known to occupy quiet spaces in courthouses and hotels to get things done.
"On any day, I'm shuffling less than two dozen pieces of paper," he said.
Davidson, 41, taps resources available to any mobile professional who demands a flexible schedule and work place without sacrificing the quality or timeliness of their work and still do it affordably.
One of the newest devices aimed at mobile professionals is called a netbook.
"It's also called a UMPC, or ultra mobile PC," said Carl Hogue, marketing director at Milwaukee P-C in Grand Chute.
Cheaper and smaller than a laptop -- prices for the units range from $350 to $600 -- yet sharing some basic Microsoft software, their beauty is their portability.
Just plop the unit in a briefcase. No extra carrying case needed. You're ready to enter data and correspond. Optical devices can be hooked up via USB cable.
Mobile workers may want to explore a newer option: Windows Home Server.
"You can set it so you can access your home data and your home computer and home network from the road," Hogue said.
Business people want to be able to access their work e-mail remotely, if nothing else, and a blackberry alone is up that task and much more.
"You can look at the blackberry as a regular laptop that doesn't open up," said Chad Kobiske, a sales representative at Suess Electronics, Appleton. "It'll do everything a computer will do via wireless."
Expect to pay from $100 to $300 for new ones after rebate, he said.
To see more of The Post-Crescent, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.postcrescent.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Post-Crescent, Appleton,
Wis. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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