Bob Blacksberg delivers Technology Training, including CLE qualified courses, on a variety of topics.
These build on courses first delivered at the law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath. In 2009, the firm dramatically expanded its training program for arriving first year associates. In the face of the economic struggles in law firms, the firm opted for a rigorous and comprehensive program of training instead of postponing the arrival of the new class of associates.
The training program included a significant expansion of topics devoted to the role and use of technology in the practice of law. Developed, documented and delivered a program of 10 thirty minute to one hour classes devoted to the power, concepts, skills, methods and concerns associated with the technologies of contemporary law practice. Topics included:
- Practice Safe Computing – observing the cautions required for secure computing that protects the confidentiality of client information and communication. A student exercise challenged the class to find information hidden as metadata in Microsoft Word documents.
- Mastering messages – a focus on the limits of e-mail communication, and strategies for managing the flood of messages that arrive daily.
- Power in Presentations – with and without PowerPoint, demonstrating clarity in presentation, and the critical role that illustration and graphics play in narrating facts and data.
- Comprehending Excel – from its heart of automating the arithmetic of rows and columns to a tour of the complex and often hidden world of information in large Excel files.