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Running a Law Firm on Linux

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Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#61

Post by actually_a_dog »

terminalcommand wrote: post #13

Also a lawyer here, I think the biggest hurdle is MS Word. MS word is the defacto IDE of the law world. We spend most of our time in Word. The drafting of documents won't be a problem with libre office. You can send a PDF to the client. But working with other lawyers/parties could be a challenge. I am not certain how Libreoffice could handle a 500 page memo being worked by 50+ people including thousands of track chan…

Interesting. I know back in the 80s, law firms were in love with WordPerfect for some reason. When did the switch occur from WP to Word, and why?

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#62

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tiahura wrote: post #45
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically all of these things are teething problems. The early adopters have problems, the problems get solved, then they're solved for everybody. What's going to be interesting is how attorney client privilege interacts with the third party doctrine and proprietary systems increasingly moving your documents to The Cloud, often without telling you or making it obvious that it's happening. That could drive early adopt…

“What's going to be interesting is how attorney client privilege interacts with the third party doctrine” Not really. If I take a file to Kinkos to get copied, it’s still privileged. Contrary to the thinking of many technophiles, for almost every “How is the law going to deal with X technology?” there are useful analogies that were figured out decades ago.

> Not really. If I take a file to Kinkos to get copied, it’s still privileged.

What happens if you take a file to Kinkos to get copied and don't notice that the service agreement allows them to keep a copy of it and sell the contents to third parties or use it for advertising?

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#63

Post by smhenderson »

jjice wrote: post #50
smhenderson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it Ken Thompson who did the game thing? I mean, I know they worked it all out together but I thought it was Ken who wanted to do the Space Travel game... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Travel_(video_game)

That's what I was thinking as well. There's also an interview somewhere on YouTube with Ken Thompson talking about this game and he goes off on a bit of a tangent talking about it. Really fun to hear him talk about it.

Yeah, seems they had a lot of fun with it and at the same time they were making history. It's a great story! I've always been quite fascinated by computer history, Unix history in particular.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#64

Post by afavour »

Shadonototra wrote: post #56
mavhc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the key was to make a load of cash and/or help people with their lawyery needs

if your endgame goal is solely more money and have a slave like life where you can't make any choice, then i don't think any of that matter at all anyways but you can still save money by not being dependent on their bloated (now you need better hw) and more expensive offering (now you dependent on their bloated cloud infrastructure) but hey, that's just my opinion, we can still have choice, right, right?

> have a slave like life

Everything is relative. It’s been a long time since I ran a Linux desktop (use it on the server plenty, though) and I could describe a “slave like life” where I had to endlessly fix driver issues, updates that broke functionality, etc etc. I expect my life would have been easier if I bought hardware specifically intended for Linux but then we’re back to “you can’t make a choice”. Linux saves money in the most straightforward sense: the software is free. But if it ends up being more work to maintain or to train people to use then it is costing you money still. Your time is worth money.

IMO it’s healthier to see pretty much every tech decision we make as boxing ourselves in some way or another. Use Windows PCs, you’re boxed into Windows. Use Linux PCs and MS cloud products, you’re boxed into MS cloud. Use Linux through and through you’re boxed into dealing with subtle LibreOffice bugs when handling documents. Which box fits you most comfortably is a matter of opinion rather than fact.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#65

Post by massysett »

terminalcommand wrote: post #13

Also a lawyer here, I think the biggest hurdle is MS Word. MS word is the defacto IDE of the law world. We spend most of our time in Word. The drafting of documents won't be a problem with libre office. You can send a PDF to the client. But working with other lawyers/parties could be a challenge. I am not certain how Libreoffice could handle a 500 page memo being worked by 50+ people including thousands of track chan…

I’m glad this is working for him, but it’s only been three months. The most important thing Word gets me is an excuse. If someone sends me a Word doc and I open it in Word and something is screwed up, I can say “oh, um, maybe something is wrong on your end.” If I’m using anything else—LibreOffice, Pages, Google Docs, anything—then there’s a possibility that it’s the software’s fault. I can’t be messing around with that in moments when it counts. Like it or not, Word is the standard, and anyone using software that is not the standard is carrying a burden.

I’m an attorney and it’s my job to practice law, not be ideological about my tools. I keep a Thinkpad with Debian on my desk and use it to track my tasks in Taskwarrior, because it’s the best tool for the job. For document exchange, there is absolutely no substitute for a Windows PC with Microsoft Word. I say this as someone who hits Word bugs and loathes Word. But I’m a lawyer, not a professional Linux tinkerer.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#66

Post by david422 »

bbqmaster999 wrote: post #14

Libreoffice subtly reformatting the documents sent to me by my divorce lawyer was not the most fun thing let me tell you.

A long time ago I was using linux and created my resume in Libreoffice and sent it to various job postings as a Word doc. Never had any luck.

Then years later I learned that what looked perfect (my resume) in Libreoffice looked pretty terrible when opened with official MS Word. I always wondered if that impacted my application. A guy that couldn't bother to format his resume appropriately.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#68

Post by jedimastert »

I guess I might have to try using Libreoffice again.

Then again, I haven't made a "document" on anything but Google Docs for a pretty long time. If I'm writing for my website, I'm usually physically writing or using Docs so I can have it on my phone to fiddle with when I get a random minute. After that I'll transfer to markdown directly on my server.

Does anyone know a reasonable way to edit text files from a server on mobile? I'm looking for the lowest friction possible, but I don't mind editing raw text files (in fact I prefer it).

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#69

Post by RNCTX »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #47
tubby12345 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The early adopters have problems > LibreOffice Initial release: 25 January 2011; 10 years ago don't think it's getting solved mated

Different populations have different problems. When was the first time it was adopted by a major law firm? Example: The OP cares about "redlines" because lawyers use that all the time and most others don't.

I worked for one of the online legal databases for several years. They had a Windows desktop app in addition to the website for accessing content.

I managed to get the desktop app working in Linux after messing with Wine and permissions (it had some cache files written to a relative directory and what not) and after telling management about it they figured the potential market for such a thing would be small enough that they could just send any support requests about it directly to me for setup help, and likewise tell the sales reps to forward inquiries to me if Linux came up on a sale or demo install.

In the decade I worked there I got exactly one call from a Linux admin at a law firm asking for the docs on using the desktop app.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#70

Post by smoldesu »

tiahura wrote: post #52
Shadonototra wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have no excuse nowadays.. MS Word? Setup QEMU and boot the VM whenever you need MS Word And look for alternatives You stuck with an OS that spy on your because you made yourself depending on their software -- I think there is a huge open market for open cloud based office suite Microsoft is stuck with their local software, we gotta be quick

I need Word all day. I need to copy and paste from excel and acrobat. I need merge from Outlook, etc. Most of what many many attorneys do involves Word. If everything you’re doing is in the VM, what’s the point?

> If everything you’re doing is in the VM, what’s the point?

"Your honor, with all of the evidence we've leveled today, my client would like to motio- hold on, what's this? Wait, no I didn't tell you to install updates now! Cancel, cancel, does anyone here know how to stop a Windows update?"

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