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"Presence is one of those things you don't really understand the value of until you've lived with it for awhile." — SHANE CALLAGHAN, MCINNES COOPER set when they enter a call or scheduled meeting, or set manually — is anoth- er key feature of UC that helps lawyers be more responsive. "Presence is one of those things you don't really understand the value of until you've lived with it for awhile," says Callaghan. One benefit, he says, is "more real-time communication." McInnes Cooper lawyers and staff are talking more on the phone or IM and using e-mail less because they can see when someone they need to communi- cate with is available. Even if someone is on the phone, he or she may IM that person to get an immediate response. This is definitely a good thing, believes Callaghan, despite the perception of e-mail being super efficient. Real-time communication reduces delays and the possibility of misinterpretation. "If we have three or four points to discuss, it could take days using e-mail. But if we pick up the phone, it could take three or four minutes." He is surprised at how many of the system's advanced features such as video and web conferencing — everybody has a webcam — have caught on. Many more than he expected are using the web con- ferencing features for online, real-time collaboration on documents, for example. Drake uses videoconferencing for intra- office committee meetings. Video cuts meeting times by as much as half, he believes, because participants can no lon- ger multi-task as they did when the con- ferences were audio-only, and they can pick up important visual cues. Callaghan has also been pleasantly surprised at how broad the user base is for the new features. Younger, tech-savvy lawyers like Drake have been "all over it," he says. "They love it." But even older lawyers are using features he would never have expected. One lawyer whose office is on a different floor from his assistant uses video to bid her good morning and good- bye at the end of the day, for example. He doubts it's possible to calculate a hard-dollar return on these kinds of ben- efits, but since the system pays for itself in exis_CL_Aug.indd 1 other ways, it doesn't matter. It may also be impossible to calculate the return from one final benefit Drake mentions. "Whenever I'm in the boardroom talking about the phone system with my clients who are tech geeks," he says, "there's always one word they utter: 'Cool!' And they're right, it is cool." Gerry Blackwell is a freelance technology writer based in London, Ont. Read his blog at http://afterbyte.blogspot.com. Practice Management PCLaw™ LexisNexis® Accounting software that LEGALESE. SPEAKS PCLaw™ billing and accounting software combines what you need to track your time and money all in one system — from time and billing to trust accounting, cheque writing, financial statements, client identification and verification, automatic backup, offline file management, advanced reporting tools and more. Best of all, it's easy to use and ready to go to work instantly. For more information, call 1-800-328-2898 or visit www.lexisnexis.ca/pclaw. Download and Try PCLaw for FREE* * Download PCLaw free for 30 days. Certain conditions apply. LexisNexis and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used under licence. PCLaw is a trademark of LexisNexis Practice Management Systems Inc. © 2010 LexisNexis Canada Inc. All rights reserved. www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com A UGUST 2010 25 7/13/10 11:27:26 AM