LegalTechBlog - Travellin' Light Part 1

Travellin' light. For those of a certain generation this sounds like a song from Bad Company.

I'm travellin' light,
through the night
to see my baby etc etc

But in fact this part of my brief guide, to working mobile at a low cost, discusses the new breed of small computers which are actually rather good company.

I have been globetrotting lately. Before my trip I decided that lugging around a full size laptop with all its accessories was becoming really tedious. It is not enough to end up with a disfigured body that is permanently bent to one side. Nor that you are constantly apologising for depositing the side (always the side with the sharp bits) of the tank sized bag in people's faces as you try to negotiate the aisle of the plane which may be wide enough for you (barely in the case of yours truly) but not you and the bag. Even when you get the bag open after remembering in which of the fourteen zippered pockets the laptop is hidden, setting up the laptop in a limited space is difficult to say the least. It is a task that even David Blain is just too scared to try.

So was my switch to a netbook a success? Before I divulge all, what is a netbook? It is a small laptop at its most basic and alternatively can be called web-books, mini-laptops or most recently and cutely "laptots"! Although small, these netbooks in many of their versions have plenty of power and capability to run normal office software and access the internet. If you fancy decoding the genome or devising nuclear algorithms, these are not for you. Nor will they play your latest DVDs for the rather pertinent reason that the small size means there is no CD/DVD drive.

But these omissions are simply irrelevant compared to the joy of travelling with a machine weighing a kilo and which can fit easily in a woman's handbag or a thin document folder. In airports where they still demand to see the laptop at security it is soooo much easier. Using the laptop in a train or in a hotel is child's play.

While in the UK the netbook can be simply tethered to your mobile phone if that has a data connection. Alternatively with modern high speed mobile broadband available from as little as £10 a month the whole arrangement provides internet on the go at a really low cost.

So what use is this to lawyers? Well a lot actually. Enabling staff who are accessing office systems all the time means that it is far safer to provide them with such a set-up than asking them to connect from their home machine or an internet cafe. Lawyers who go to court can quickly deal with work or the outcome of a hearing while waiting at the court or travelling to and from the destination.

It is the cost and facility that makes these netbooks a boon for lawyers; they allow increases in productivity for a much greater number of people working in the legal office as well as enabling home-working and the like.

These netbooks are selling in droves but I am not sure that they are being taken up by lawyers as yet. Why? A lot of IT managers have shied away from these devices believing them to be too limited or lacking in power to do a "proper" job. Provided that a model running Windows XP is purchased, you can put these concerns aside. Some might baulk at the small screen but in normal use this is not a problem. You can be up and running with a decent model for under £250.

As I mentioned before if you are crunching numbers for your next nuclear installation or editing a film online then these netbooks are not for you. But I cannot think of a task that a lawyer or paralegal would normally have for which a netbook would not be absolutely fine.

Lawyers (well especially those selling to them) argue that they are a special group when it comes to IT needs. To a degree that is true but mostly it is rubbish. These netbooks appear to me to support my view that legal practices (wherever possible) should use ready made or widely available solutions rather than specialised solutions from suppliers or IT departments (perhaps who need to justify their existence).

Actually the fact that the netbooks use Windows XP (which remains the platform of choice in most locations) makes any adaption for specific legal needs pretty simple. On the assumption that the netbook lasts two years and the monthly broadband link is £10 it means that any person within the legal practice can be travel or homeworking enabled for £20 a month. Even at modest charge out rates it means that such a setup would only require to generate about 15 minutes extra productivity a month to justify itself.

Seems pretty good to me. Now how does that song go

I'm travellin' light,
through the night
to give my baby a look
at my brand new netbook..

UPDATE 1: In a curious (and personally rather interesting to me) turn, Psion has started to assert its ownership to the term "Netbook". I had one of the Psion Netbooks (well the consumer version) which cost me £700 in around 2000. In some ways it was well ahead of its time and in other ways it failed to build on the opportunity that it trailblazed. Psion was famous in the 90's for small personal devices but its value quickly became concentrated in its operating system which was to become devolved into a company called Symbian. After Nokia saw the potential of Symbian they ultimately (with others at the time) bought out the software and it is now the basis for over 50% of the mobile phones sold worldwide. I don't think my article is going to offend Psion but if it does - sorry.

UPDATE 2: I have bought a bigger battery for my netbook. It adds to the weight somewhat but I now have over 6 hours use on one charge. It makes travelling and working that much easier.