Law Firm Tech Bio: Chris Peterson, Bryan, Texas Lawyer

1. Name, name of firm, location and practice areas.

Chris Peterson, Peterson Law Group, Bryan/College Station, Texas with satellite office in Conroe, Texas, Practice Areas: Small business law; commercial & residential real estate; family & divorce law; wills, trusts & estate planning

2.  Name 3 to 5 of the most important or frequently used software (desktop or cloud) products in your practice and describe, briefly, how you use them?

Clio (web-based SaaS law practice management solution that handles contact management, calendar management, invoicing, client extranet etc.)

ProDoc (document assembly program for Texas lawyers)

Fortis (electronic document management – we have full text indexing/OCR for every document that exists in our office)

Quickbooks Online (web-based accounting program)

HP LaserJet M 4345 MFP (scans, faxes, copies, e-mails etc)

Stamps.com (how we mail/overnight everything without the need for a postage meter)

3.  What’s your favorite tech tool under $100?

Google Voice (free is always good)

4.  Name on favorite app for phone or ipad.

LoveTwitter app, Mint.com app, Pandora radio app for iphone

5.  What do you use for legal research?

Google, Casemaker on State Bar website, Fastcase, LexisNexis (if I have to), various practice manuals; appraisal district websites

6.  And…off tech…what’s the neatest and/or most useful piece of non-tech swag that you keep on your desk or in your briefcase?

I have a good old-fashioned court deadline & per diem interest calculator that I got from a court reporter in 2000 which is easier to use than any computer software.  It is 2 concentric wheels that spin to calculate.  Inner wheel shows the number of days to be calculated; outer wheel shows the date.