One of the fun things about being a lawyer is going to seminars. That is where I'm typing this.
The presenters today are good, the facility great, the food more than adequate, including macadamia nut and chocolate chip copies and individual bottles of imported sparkling water.
Yet, this is only Day Two, and there is another day to go thanks to the MLK weekend. To renew your license in California, a lawyer needs some of this - not a lot, however. As a certified specialist in family law, I'm required to have about 12 hours a year of high end family law seminars, on average. Because this is an average spaced out over 5 years, and we don't tend to keep track on a regular basis, it's important to have extra hours.
Right now, I'm learning a well prepared divorce lawyer needs a $5000 large capacity scanner to turn paper into electronic files [hope my $3500 scanner is sufficient], Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 [$300+, but I have that], and an Extranet [$1-5000 for your IT guy to set up IF you already have Small Business Server 2003 or later - fortunately I have that too]. Early in the presentation, they suggested an 11" x 17" color printer for charts and exhibits and a 42" color plotter to make blow ups for court, as well as a video projector.
I'll be back tomorrow, for Day Three. Hope they don't spend any time telling me how much more money I need to spend. At least I'd be boosting the economy if I upgraded everything I own. I'm glad they didn't tell me I had to have an "S-series" Mercedes, or I'd be really depressed.
