ABA TechShow: Day One review

By Mitchell Zoll and Mark I. Unger –

Mark and Mitch, Council-Members with the State Bar of Texas Computer and Technology Section, sat down (virtually) for a quick chat about Day One of the ABA TechShow. They miss the engagement, personal connection, and even happy hours normally associated with TechShow and tried to recreate the feeling with a sad dance break before they talked.

Mark: Hi Mitch, what are you up to this week?

Mitch: Well Mark, as you might expect, I’m chasing the TechShow Tiger with you again this year.

Mark: Well Mitch, I hate to tell you but for the first time in history, this year is Virtual so there is no free breakfast.

Mitch: The breakfast was never free, but the price was always worth it. I met legal tech leaders at the coffee bar and learned so much during the informal morning hours. I am still hoping to recreate that experience this year, but it is tough. In previous TechShows, the conference organizers used an impressive app to enhance the conference experience. The schedule was dynamic, and you could see class overlaps, session tracks, and even where other attendees might be if you are looking to meet up.

The previously used app has gone online, holding a lot of the features that the conference planners knew to put in our hands. The online schedule lets attendees walk through various learning tracks, plan the classes they want to attend, and acts as a virtual “lobby” where you can find up-to-date information.

Mark: Yes. l loved the Apps for conferences, and we used one of the first ones used by TechShow for the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting years ago. There are always some shortcomings, but the online version seems a little ‘sandboxish.’ To integrate with my schedule, it requires several clicks to download to my calendar and then open and assign it. Fortunately, the materials are a more easily accessible download.

Mitch: Agreed. It took a few clicks to realize I could add the sessions to my outlook calendar. Unfortunately, like many lawyers in an “online” conference, I am trying to stay engaged with the real world between sessions. Blocking the time on my calendar lets me also add in client calls and client emails. It dilutes from the TechShow experience, but it lets me be two places at once… from my chair.

Mark: From where I’m sitting Mitch, we’ve got a pretty good view.

Mitch: Mark, you are a TechShow veteran. What sessions did you pick and what did you enjoy about the presentations?

Mark: Every year, there is some of the same, usually, it’s core stuff that I forget so fast that the repetitive nature of it is invaluable. I’ve often said I sleep slow and that my brain leaks. It’s fantastic to be able to fill up again somewhat each year and this goes for my other yearly staple — State Bar of Texas’ Advanced Family Law seminar in the summer.

This year there were 18 tracks with an additional emphasis being placed on ‘well-being’ and ‘demo’ tracks, which are essentially what used to be vendor lunch n learn topics to sell their wares. The tracks are – Core Concepts, Cybersecurity; Disruptive Innovation, Well-Being, Micro Demo (Vendor presentations), Ethics, Diversity, Collaboration, Marketing, Virtual/Remote, Future Proof, Leadership, Industry, Next20, Business Plan, Automation, Lessons Learned, and Litigation.

Mitch: The tracks were helpful, but I planned my day by selecting the specific presenter or topic. The first session we attended was Collaborating: What is the Best Tool? (and is that the right question) presented by John E. Grant and Kenton Brice. It was a great lead off-topic as the speakers reframed their subject to move away from a feature-list shoot-out and more to the questions that we, as lawyers, need to ask ourselves before we start trying to choose technology. Not to miss the point of TechShow, they ultimately provided the session with a double-secret tip for choosing the right platform. Lucky for you, Mark and I met with John and Kenton and they gave us permission to share the tip with you in our recent interview.

Mark: I’m right there with you Mitch. I have known these two cats for several years now and as you astutely mentioned, while they addressed the Slack v. MS Teams choices they went off-script to delve into the esoteric, an exercise that shows their big intellects but also their focus on Teaching (Bryce) and Coaching/Consulting (Grant).

Grant is known as the ‘Agile Attorney’ (He likes to say, “Kanban is my jam,’) Brice is likewise focused on process improvement and it made for a great presentation. They touched on things like the bottlenecks in the legal office process, (i.e., If you can improve flow at bottlenecked stages, like client homework, you will improve the flow in all). They also talked about handoffs of casework. Grant referenced three types of handoffs that are killing your productivity–

1. Internal Resource (between you and associate),
2. External resource (outside co-counsel or client); and
3. Future Resource (tricky because it’s usually yourself).

His point worth noting, that it is not about handing things off more quickly but reducing the total number of handoffs (i.e., requiring people to hold the baton until they’ve done the most they can do, not the least they can do). I have found this particularly true in document construction and drafting.

Mark: What was next up?

Mitch: TechShow provides high-level thinking about technology as well as opportunities for deep dives into specific products. The second session we attended was Wrapping Your Mind Around Microsoft Teams presented by Ben Schorr and Josh Leporati. The session was more of a working session on how to use Teams and explored tips lawyers might use in their day-to-day practice.

Mark: Again, as we seem to approach these things similarly, I was in this session as well. I remember getting ready to present one year on Creating documents on iPad. The session was slated for 2:00 p.m. At noon, Microsoft held a press conference and launched Word for iPad, now a part of their suite that allowed us, iPad users, to do (almost) everything we needed to do but from iPad. Microsoft has for the last five years simply destroyed the business model and made enormous inroads into ‘legal’ beyond Word on a desktop. They telegraphed this 6 or 7 years ago at the ILTA convention and simply have not let up. Ironically, I think we are back where we were 7-10 years ago when the big players were attempting to sandbox us into their word (and other) processing software. This was before the switch to a subscription model for software. Well, here we are again, and since that time, MS has not only launched Surface tablets to compete with Apple’s innovative touchscreen tech but owns the basic editable document assembly space.

My long story-short point is that Ben Schorr is an old-school veteran of TechShow and through his drill-down knowledge of MS systems (he went from law to consulting to now being with Microsoft), his two tracks on Day one “Wrapping your head around MS Teams” and my favorite “Secrets of MS Office 365” was invaluable.

Mitch: Ben is one of the reasons I love attending TechShow. You have experts in their field presenting on the apps that we use every day. Ben and others only had 30 minutes, but then went to a breakout session where they answered specific questions from attendees. If you have the time, you will get answers to questions you didn’t even know you had (ironically a topic for later in the week!)

The third session I attended was Adobe Acrobat DC: Exploring the Newest Features. Dan Siegal, presenter and author, provided a step-by-step walkthrough of Adobe in the ways that lawyers use the application. The tip per second count was as close to a 1:1 ratio as any session I have ever attended.  While there are presentations where it is best to sit back and listen to learn, Dan’s presentation had me working both screens to try to keep up with the settings and selections he was teaching.

Mark: Once again, agree, though I’ll be honest and this floats across all tracks– the degradation of the video or PowerPoint is more than distracting. It’s very hard to follow and learn when things are fuzzy. Adobe, like Microsoft is also killing it, especially as digital signatures become even more of the norm during Covid last year. While I use HelloSign v. Adobe Sign or major player DocuSign, Adobe tools are becoming absolutely necessary, especially given the virtual exhibit creation workflows for litigators during zoom hearings and trials. Signing is an add-on, but for Orders and agreements, everyone has to do it.

His coverage of what’s new or changed was particularly helpful, though at times a little hard to follow. His inclusion of Redaction (Professional version only), Protected Mode (to prevent security breaches), and Remove Hidden Information (i.e., metadata-ish stuff), is telling, especially as our legal workflows require uploading and exchanging PDF’s literally all the time. The focus on Bookmarks, a long-forgotten but incredibly significant function given Zoom hearings and direct or cross-examination, is significant. Sigel’s references also to new functions in signing, printing, and Sanitizing, really highlight Adobe’s hold on the majority of the market, not unlike Microsoft.

Mitch: Dan’s presentation is one I need to go back and watch again. The great thing about attending the full week of TechShow is that you have access to re-watch the programs after they complete. After leaving Dan’s presentation, we attended Secrets in Microsoft 365. Rather than diving into a single application, this presentation provided a high-level overview of the different Microsoft 365 items and important ways the applications work together for lawyers.

Mark: I agree. Ben Schorr (Microsoft), along with Annette Sanders (BigHand) touched on multiple functions, including Projects (in passing), Stream for internal video training, Planner, as well as the super sexy “Power Automate” (creation of automated flows from repetitive tasks, though once again limited saves mostly to One Drive, MS’s cloud Document Management System (DMS). They also mentioned connectors (automation akin to triggers and actions similar to IFTTT, Workflow, Zapier, and the like, which have been ramping up efficiency (even if we forget what we setup) for easily the last 3-4 years. One power tip – keep an eye out for Transcription, available on the Web now and coming in all modes, that seems to do what Apple has often tried to do and ‘sherlock’ or bake in the functionality of third-party apps like Dragon, or even Speakwrite (Austin transcription upload service) to allow you to have a true voice to text and transcription creation.

Also, and no less stunning, is the functionality of using ‘Ink Editor’ (ability to draw in documents first launched only on iPad in its PowerPoint version). And pay attention to “Sensitivity Labels,” which allow admin settings to be created to either lockdown files that contain sensitive or protected information or provide the option to do so to the user. For example, while Tyler Technologies finally rolled out a form of redaction in eFiling about two years ago, it’s still on us to protect this type of info, as we are the ‘covered entity.’

Additional playthings like Presenter Coach in PowerPoint, to give you tips in your practice sessions of a presentation; and Insights, which in Excel will allow you to highlight information and will then suggest a particular type of chart, pivot table, or the like to create graphics and be more persuasive.

They ended with a caveat — use the Templates feature and stop reinventing the wheel.

This, in and of itself seems to be a thread in the blanket of TechShow 2021, given all of the focus (again) on document assembly and automation, both in the Startup competition and baked into the software is legal.

Mitch: Working remotely, automation, and using the tools you already have were consistent themes in many of the presentations we attended.

Well, that’s our day one report.  We will be connecting with some of these impressive presenters and bringing you additional chats and interviews to be posted on the Computer and Technology social media accounts. Stay tuned for additional information soon.  If you missed this year’s TechShow, make sure to put next year on your calendar!