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Click Once for LawyerSpeak
Onset Technology puts disclaimers for law users one click away.
By DAVID SIMS
TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist
Enterprise access software for handhelds vendor Onset Technology is announcing the availability of a new version of METAmessage -- Legal, designed to provide lawyers using the BlackBerry with what it describes as "comprehensive features essential to mobile attorneys."
New capabilities include the ability to insert a variety of regulatory disclaimers into correspondence, a vital feature with the recent revisions of IRS Circular 230. The product's new billing timer provides "immediate ROI" with a forms-based way to generate updated time-and-billing information, according to Onset officials.
The ability to insert regulatory disclaimers anywhere in a BlackBerry-generated email with one click not only means substantial time savings, it also means that correspondence meets compliance standards. IRS Circular 230 -- wait, I've got one right here -- dictates that disclaimers must be independent of any footer, which is why appending text at the SMTP gateway is not an option in most law-firm environments.
And if you understand that you're either a lawyer or you play one on TV.
Officials note that "attorneys can choose from a list of custom disclaimers if needed."
In addition to the insert disclaimers and time-and-billing updating capabilities, the new Legal product adds spell checking with a legal dictionary; forms-based access to the FindLaw case law database and billing updates from phone logs.
The big deal is that the ability to push custom disclaimers, according to information on Singlefin's home page, to individual users or groups "has proven to be a hugely powerful deterrent for unauthorized communications between employees."
The example they give is "Imagine the maturity level of your own IM conversations after receiving an IM at work that reads: 'This is a message from the company's network administrator. You are hereby advised that your IM session is being monitored and logged for possible review by the Internet Advisory Board.'"
Presumably at that point they stop exchanging Michael Jackson jokes with friends and get back to work.
Custom disclaimers' benefits are that they generally reduce inappropriate communication over IM, give employees a chance to change behavior before warnings and/or penalties are imposed, limit corporate liability and "keep employees productive, safe and lawful."
So let's see if the insert-a-disclaimer-with-a-click works: (click) This article may or may not include information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about any of the companies mentioned herein and their growth and business results in future quarters. Although we believe the information reflected in such forward-looking statements is based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviations will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the effects of general economic conditions, the companies' ability to grow�
Yep, it works.
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David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles by David Sims, please visit:
http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/columnists/columnist.aspx?id=100005&nm=David%20
Sims
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