Take a glance at any general business publication these days and chances are you'll come across the term 'SWOT Analysis,'referring to your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Although SWOT is used ubiquitously in the business world, it's not often heard in law firms. Despite the fact that many accomplished attorneys react with blank stares when asked about it, SWOT can be one of the most powerful ways for lawyers and their marketing staff to create an effective strategic business development plan. What is SWOT?

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In an article entitled What's Hot and What's Not in Law Practice, which appeared in the December issue of Marketing the Law Firm, CRM (customer relations management) was listed as the second 'hottest' technology in the 'Marketing Strategies & Tactics' section. The comment that followed was, '[b]ut there's a lot more involved than just having the right software: It must be used.'

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When a lawyer writes an article for a journal, newspaper, legal newsletter or other kind of collective work, the publisher typically asks the lawyer/author to assign the copyright in the article to the publisher. On occasion, the lawyer, or his or her firm, will insist that the lawyer retain the copyright in the article and instead will offer the publisher only a one-time license to publish the article. If this gap cannot be closed, the publisher will lose an article that would have benefited its readers (and its subscriber base) while the lawyer/author will lose a valuable marketing opportunity to reach potential new clients. Fortunately, when both sides understand the nature of what they are seeking and what they are giving and getting, and when both sides refuse to stand on ceremony, the copyright question should not be a bar to publication.

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Recently a business associate of mine recorded a TV tech spot called 'Death of the Floppy.' When my friend told me the title of his program we laughed, but we started to talk about how far we have come in the type of removable media storage products that are now available to consumers.

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Although the concept of concept searching has been around for at least 2,000 years in philosophical circles and was first realized in the software world in the 1970s, it is making big news in today's electronic discovery and automated litigation support world. Over the past year, a series of vendors have introduced software solutions they claim can take us far beyond the results we get using tools built around searching full text or coding data using key words, strings of text and Boolean search algorithms. Whether it is through mimicking the thought processes of high-level aquatic mammals, developing libraries of semantically and geographically related words and terms or displaying documents as masses of dots within sprays of bubbles, these software programs, we are told, are the automated litigation support equivalent to Big Blue, the computerized chess champion.

Payne Consulting of Seattle has announced the release of Metadata Assistant for Microsoft Excel, which cleans out hidden information from Excel documents. Following the positive response for Metadata Assistant for Word, this new software extends the same functionality to Excel files, which have even more hidden data than Word files.

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Miller Nash is one of the Pacific Northwest's largest multi-service firms and has always been a technology leader in our region.

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This is Part Two of a two-part article. Last month, Mr. Pizzolato discused hardware and services and their relevance and significance for implementing a proper technology solution. This month he will continue to discuss the importance of choosing the correct software and utilizing the correct methodology and project plan. Together, these two articles should provide the essential information to make a sound business decision when planning and purchasing legal technology.