Dropbox and You

You know Dropbox made it to my top apps of 2011 list for attorneys. Well, the reason it makes the list is because of the number of robust features, and its usefulness.

If youre an attorney who wants to mobilize your practice, Dropbox is a must-have. Its the critical (and cheap) component to a cloud system. My primary reasons for loving Dropbox are collaboration and storage.

I use Dropbox to collaborate and share documents with coworkers, clients, and other attorneys. The great advantage is that a shared folder in Dropbox acts like a server to maintain the files, and check the files in or out when necessary. I can edit a document pulled from my Dropbox account, and others can view or add changes. Most often I edit a PDF document with comments and redlines, then save it back to Dropbox for sharing.

Since Dropbox provides a significant amount of storage to begin with, and the upgrade plans for more storage are affordable, you can store a lot of information. My preferred method of using Dropbox as a storage venue is to drop commonly-used documents, such as intake forms, contracts, and medical releases, into my forms folder for use when Im on the road. I can access the intake form (usually PDF), and fill in the appropriate information. When Im finished filling in the document, I save the document in Dropbox for pick up by one of my support staff or myself later.

The Duct Tape Marketing blog has this post with some great suggestions for add-on applications that will extend Dropboxs usefulness. I havent tried any of the add-ons, and I suspect that some will only work on a desktop or laptop machine, but theyre at least worth a try.