Web-based PIM may work for some solos and small firms

I remain absolutely convinced that practice management software is much more useful to a law firm than the much more limited category of personal information managers such as Outlook or Palm Desktop.  The principal shortcoming of PIM's in a law office setting is that they organize information around contacts and events, not cases, matters, or files like practice management software.  Yet, there remain some solos and small firms that opt to stick with PIM's for a variety of reasons including cost and simplicity. 

Unlike practice management software which offers group and individual calendars and contact lists that can be shared over a network with everyone in the firm, many PIM's not network enabled, don't offer a group calendar function, and will run on only a single PC.  Even Outlook does not let you share information such as a calendar or contact list unless you are also running an Exchange Server (or third-party folder sharing software).  Many solos and small firms don't have a server at all, much less run MS Exchange.  And the Palm Desktop, for all of its simplicity and understated elegance, cannot (absent a few tricks) be shared over a network with other users.  This creates a problem when a lawyer's assistant needs to see the lawyer's calendar to schedule a deposition or court date but that calendar resides only on the lawyer's PC or when a contact's information needs to be updated firm-wide.

I love Palm-OS based PDA's, and to permit an assistant to be able to view the lawyer's calendar, I've gone so far as to set up remote access from the assistant's computer to the lawyer's computer using GoToMyPC or LogMeIn (which has the added benefit of allowing the lawyer to log-in from home when the assistant is not logged-in).  But that process is very disruptive to the lawyer when the assistant essentially takes control of the lawyer's PC to check a calendar item or edit a contact's telephone number, for example.

Now there is a free Web-based PIM service that synchronizes with Palm PDA's (with or without syncing with the Palm Desktop), as well as Outlook and Pocket PC devices.  It is called AirSet.  There was a recent article about AirSet in Laptop Magazine.  AirSet lets you create and keep individual and group calendars on the Web and share them  with others in your firm.  This also works for contacts and to-do lists. Best of all, this information can be synchronized with a Palm (or Pocket PC) device using free software that is downloaded from AirSet's web site.  In order to view an individual or group calendar, simply open your Web browser and log-into your AirSet account using your mobile telephone number or email address along with your password.  AirSet also offers nice features such as the ability to send reminders of appointments or to-do's to your email address or your cell phone (via text messaging).  AirSet's Web interface lets you send group emails to all or a selected firm staffers using your default email application or its own Web mail function, as well as send text messages to multiple cell phones at one time.

The downside is that no Web-based interface is going to be as fast as a desktop application.  So there is some minimal lag when entering new contacts or calendar items (depending on the speed of your Internet connection).  Of course, you can also add items locally in the Palm Desktop or Outlook and then run the sync program to automatically transfer them to the Web-based calendar or contact list.

I created a free account and set up a family group.  Then I downloaded and installed the desktop sync software and transferred many calendar items and over 10,000 contacts to AirSet simply by running a HotSync with my Palm device.  As might be expected, that many contacts take some time to load into the Web interface, but it does work.  And searching for a contact by name, even with over 10,000 to search from, was almost instantaneous. 

I added my wife and daughter as members of my family group and included their cell phone numbers (my son does not have a cell phone, so I left him out of this experiment).  When a calendar item involving them approached, AirSet sent them a text message reminder.  I use a Treo 650, so I opted for email notification instead.

There are many more features to AirSet than what I mentioned above (including the ability to display calendar and contact information on a variety of cell phones for a small monthly fee).  I plan to continue testing this service, but AirSet may be a viable alternative/supplement to stand-alone PIM's for solos and small law firms, especially those with multiple offices that need to share calendar and contact information.  As noted at the beginning of this post, a true network-enabled practice management program (Amicus Attorney, Time Matters, etc.) is a better choice for most firms.  But for those solos or very small firms that are not inclined to go the practice management route, this is worth checking into.