These are occasional comments from the folks at LawStream. As Chief Information Officer (a title that sounds more impressive than the official corporate title of “Secretary”) of PowerSoft Innovations Corporation, I can claim the authority to speak on behalf of the folks who develop, market, deploy, enhance and support LawStream.
Apart from contractors and the occasional “big project temporary person”, there are four of us. I am one of two owners, and the primary developer of LawStream. Most of the comments in this blog reflect my own view of development of legal vertical-market software. Although LawStream is designed as a dual platform (OS X and Windows) application, many of the comments you find here will reflect our primary (Mac OS X) market, and the joys and challenges of that environment.
“Where were you in ‘92?”
PowerSoft Innovations Corporation was developing the predecessor to LawStream several years prior to 1992, but it was in 1992 that the development of law office software became a serious business for us. Looking back at the last 16 or more years, I think it would be nice if I could have “blogged” all the work in the development of our software. Such is not the case, though; instead, I’ll try to provide a mix of current status, future plans, and the occasional look back at what we’ve done.
CREDENTIALS
It’s difficult to know where to start (or where to finish), but here’s a bit of a start:
- more than twenty-five years as a lawyer
- Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
- system-level programming for online airline reservations systems
- systems analysis positions, including training of programmers
- more than fifteen years actively programming in the legal vertical market
- one-on-one advice to hundreds of lawyers, relating to office management
- experience as an associate, partner and sole practitioner in law offices
- knowledge of early Macintosh computers (starting with Mac Plus)
- continuing experience with Mac OS X
- experience with Windows 95, 98, XP and Vista
- ongoing education in computer science, law, business development, accounting, and practice management
- unfailing dedication to development of software solutions for lawyers who use Macintosh computers in their offices
