50 Tips in 50 Minutes- Jim Calloway, Catherine Sanders Reach, Brett Burney at the Oklahoma Bar Association Solo and Small Firm Conference in Durant, Oklahoma:

1. Cheap and easy Screen Sharing - www.join.me from macsinlaw

2. Factory Reset Wiki http://factory-reset.com/wiki/Main_Page @catherinereach

3. Create your own QR Codes – login into Google Account, go to url shorenter and Google will set up codes @jimcalloway

4. Google + Business Page – unlike other social networks, Google search picks this up @catherinereach

5. PureText – paste text special into any program (Paste the text not the formatting), set up keyboard shortcut stevemiller.net macsinlaw

6. Watch Me - free download, multiple timers to cover all your tasks, especially good for multitaskers @catherinereach

7. TheFormTool – simply document assembly, cheap, http://www.theformtool.com/ @jimcalloway

8. mypermissions.org – takes you to the point in social media to see what permission you have given app @catherinereach

9. Add Evernote to Google Search Results through Chrome web clip tool @catherinereach

10. Scan documents with your phone macsinlaw ScannerPro for iPhone from Readdle $6.99 http://bit.ly/MJJkpH

11. Defeat Microsoft Word __ Orphaned text syndrome – paragraph options > line and page breaks . keep with next

I had a client ask this question recently. The short answer is that the bankruptcy proceeding does not allow someone to stay in their mortgaged home. For that reason, people in foreclosure don’t always choose bankruptcy protection. Let me explain this a bit further.

Filing for bankruptcy protection temporarily stays all collection activity against the debtor. For a mortgage holder though, the process works out a bit differently. The mortgage holder is allowed to ask the court to lift the automatic stay and allow the mortgage holder to proceed directly against the property, although not the individuals who are occupying the property. Practically, this means that shortly after a bankruptcy petition is filed by debtors who own a mortgaged home, the attorneys for the mortgage company will request that the court lift the automatic stay and about 99% of the time that request is granted and the foreclosure proceeding can continue in Oklahoma state court. The ultimate judgment that the mortgage company gets is only against the property though and not against the people that own the property and probably have individual liability to the mortgage.

The reason many homeowners are able to stay in their home for so long after foreclosure is that even after mortgage foreclosure cases are filed, the owners are usually allowed to stay there until the sale of the property is completed at the end of the case and sometimes until the sheriff literally kicks them out of the house.

There is another reason that some people don’t just file for bankruptcy after foreclosure starts: bankruptcy law limits a person’s ability to file for bankruptcy protection to one time during each seven-year period under each chapter of the bankruptcy code. That means that if a person files for bankruptcy protection in April 2010 under Chapter 7, that person will not be able to seek the same type of protection under Chapter 7 again until after April 2017 (this is of course assuming that the discharge in bankruptcy is actually granted to the person, if the case is dismissed then the limitation on every 7 years probably does not apply.)

I don’t normally write about mechanical and procedural issues of the legal system because most people have no interest in reading about them. However, electronic filing of court documents is something that should have a substantial impact on the Oklahoma judicial system. Eletronic filing means that documents are filed digitally, usually using PDF, with no paper and no one traveling to the courthouse. Electronic filing also probably means that the public will have online access to all documents filed in a court case, like one has in federal court now.

Federal Courts have required that documents be filed electronically since 2003. Some documents in some cases in some counties are available for Oklahoma state court cases. While the Oklahoma state court system has wanted to go the direction of the federal courts for many years, a number of factors including lack of resources has held up any progress. In Oklahoma 77 county courts, paper still rules. This might be changing though:

Last week the Oklahoma Supreme Court annouced its “OKLAHOMA RULES FOR E-FILING IN SELECTED PILOT COURTS”. You can see the Supreme Court’s opinion and the rules here or take a look at the rules below this post.

The rules are necessary so the courts know how to handle electronic filing and it done uniformly throughout all 77 counties. It looks as if the Court will be rolling out test programs in several county courts soon. This is a good sign since the tests are necessary before the Oklahoma Supreme Court allows at least some of the larger counties to host electronic filing (or participate in the system). The stated goal is to bring all 77 county courts and the appellate courts under one, uninfied, searchable electronic system.

Lest you think the only benefit of electronic filing is me not having to leave my office chair, I can think of several others:

1. A huge saving on paper;
2. Less stress on an already overburdened court system; and
3. Greater transparency through online access to court files, for the public.

The rules and pilot program are excellent signs of progress.

Download (PDF, 363KB)

Image: CNET

Joshua Topolosky writing on The Verge about Microsoft’s Surface “PC”:

There is a gray area that exists for me with the iPad. I love using it to read, to browse the web, to share content, to occasionally create content. But there is a moment when I have to put the iPad down and grab my laptop. I travel with both. I keep both nearby when I’m at home. And I think this is true for a lot of people (it’s certainly true for a lot of people I know in the tech press).

That is almost exactly how I feel about the iPad.

Read the whole article entitled With the Surface, Microsoft just started writing its next chapter