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Running a Law Firm on Linux

decoded.legal

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Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#81

Post by tiahura »

smoldesu wrote: post #70
tiahura wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

It happens all the time. In the middle of medical malpractice cases, divorce cases, murder cases - a virus update, an acrobat update, an email notification, etc. Everybody deals.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#83

Post by stonemetal12 »

OJFord wrote: post #34
b20000 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are editing a 500 page document you should use other software for writing, perhaps use latex, and put the document in git. but i get that there are lots of lawyers who don’t want to learn any new tools. for all the other stuff you mentioned you have solutions for linux that work and conferencing software has clients these days for linux. you can use diff or visual diff tools for comparisons.

Git (VCS in general) seems like this absurd accidental secret of our profession. I use Fusion360 occasionally for hobby stuff, and its version 'control' is a joke, it's unfathomable to me how (especially since they're fellow engineers, technical people!) people can use and collaborate with it to build serious stuff. I think there's a lot of money to be made and a potential huge turning point in end user software for…

If your product would be made better by version control, Fossil works really well as a white label VCS mechanism. It is BSD licensed, and the repository is just a sqlite db. While it has basic UI, ticketing, and collaboration tools no one says you have to use it. I have seen it used where a fully custom UI with proprietary diff tools was provided instead of the default setup.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#84

Post by tixocloud »

OJFord wrote: post #34
b20000 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you are editing a 500 page document you should use other software for writing, perhaps use latex, and put the document in git. but i get that there are lots of lawyers who don’t want to learn any new tools. for all the other stuff you mentioned you have solutions for linux that work and conferencing software has clients these days for linux. you can use diff or visual diff tools for comparisons.

Git (VCS in general) seems like this absurd accidental secret of our profession. I use Fusion360 occasionally for hobby stuff, and its version 'control' is a joke, it's unfathomable to me how (especially since they're fellow engineers, technical people!) people can use and collaborate with it to build serious stuff. I think there's a lot of money to be made and a potential huge turning point in end user software for…

There's a plethora of opportunity for version control for almost every other domain. The technology is already there. The key to winning the market is in process change and sales/distribution.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#85

Post by hpcjoe »

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…

Not a lawyer. Zoom client on Linux works and is IMO more reliable (e.g. doesn't BSOD me) than windows, about the same reliability on Mac.

Teams is unreliable on every platform (having used it for years on Linux, Mac, Win). Would recommend against it.

Clearing documents metadata in Libreoffice, yes. It existed as far back as 7 years ago when I was running my own company, and my lawyers and I would be exchanging documents with potential investors.

This said, I also (when needed) run windows 10 in a kvm window, with Office installed, when libreoffice, or office365 is simply inadequate. This is ... rare. I mostly boot the kvm to patch it these days. Haven't needed its capabilities in at least a year (then again, I am not a lawyer).

Dongles (yubi-key, etc) all work great on Linux/Mac. YMMV though, if they aren't common systems. Again, you can run windows on a VM, and pass through that specific port (USB, etc.). It works, though sometimes the software is buggy so that it sends a reset, and you have to unplug/replug the dongle. This is from my Yubi-key experience on my windows kvm running on my linux laptop.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#86

Post by syats »

Silly but honest question: why hasn't google docs taken over the legal world?

I find g suite's collaborative editing waaay better than sending around docx/xlsx files with dates in the filenames.. and don't even get me started with that office365 thing.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#87

Post by jedimastert »

ghastmaster wrote: post #67

I would love to do this at the small firm I work for. The biggest problem is the attorneys and staff not willing to learn new systems or methods. It is not a software capability or compatibility problem.

I remember working as a Systems Analyst for city government. It was always super hard to predict who would and wouldn't like change. for the most part it didn't matter what the change was, they either had an affinity for it or not.

Our 70-odd year old archivist learned how to use the new OCR software and was ingesting tax documents faster than with the old system in under a week. The 30 year old finance guys would dig their heels in. The mayor always followed instructions, the city manager had no clue how computers actually worked but had no clue they had no clue. You just never know.

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#88

Post by thepete2 »

jedimastert wrote: post #68

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…

I find the Markor app (open source) great for editing text files, you can also customize it quite a bit. Then for uploading possibly syncthing would work.

(I do this to sync my text files between my PC and phone, works great)

Re: Running a Law Firm on Linux

#90

Post by MerelyMortal »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #61
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?

My dad was a lawyer. I think it's because WordPerfect worked in DOS.
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