The Oklahoma Bar Journal May 2024

Artificial Intelligence Shaping the Future of law practice July 12 | Embassy Suites | Norman

If you’re interested in learning more about Microsoft Copilot and how to integrate it into your practice, Ben Schorr, senior content program manager at Microsoft, will be speaking Friday, July 12, on navigating Microsoft Copilot. His session will be held during the Artificial Intelligence Conference in conjunction with the OBA Annual Meeting at the Embassy Suites in Norman, July 9-12. Mr. Schorr is the author of several books and articles on technology, including Microsoft 365 for Lawyers and The Lawyer’s Guide to Microsoft Word .

do not work with the new Outlook, which can be a major inconve nience. Unfortunately, Microsoft insists that this new Outlook will replace the classic Outlook by the end of the year. Hopefully, most of the PMS companies will replace their old integrations and add-ins with new ones to be reinstalled into the new Outlook. Classic Microsoft Outlook Tools These tools are available to use with classic Outlook. Meeting Insights . If you haven’t noticed a blue button in the top right corner of your calendar entry called “meeting insights,” then you are missing out on a valuable tool. The meeting insights feature is offered within the Microsoft 365 calendar. Meeting insights helps users get ready for meetings by finding related content from their mail boxes, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint sites. It shows all the documents and emails that might matter for the meeting. It also rec ommends materials that users may need to look at or review so they can be well prepared for the meeting.

The once complex ribbon has been streamlined to reduce clut ter, allowing users to select from different density options to adjust the layout to their liking. Settings management has been made more efficient, with a prominently placed “Settings” cog in the top right corner, making account, email and calendar configurations more intu itive. The new Outlook also offers personalization options, accommo dating individual preferences with layouts ranging from “roomy” to “compact.” However, there are drawbacks. The new Outlook, despite its simplicity, lacks support for some features vital to legal workflows, such as tasks, notes and the full functionality of classic contacts. Additionally, there may be com patibility issues with specific add ins and integrations. For lawyers, a significant lim itation of the new Outlook is its compatibility with practice manage ment software (PMS) add-ins. These add-ins, such as the Clio add-in, are crucial for many law firms to man age their cases, clients and billing effectively. Most of these add-ins

responses. It provides suggestions based on the context and content of the email you are replying to, helping you compose more effi cient and effective messages. Teams Microsoft Teams Copilot has all the same features as above, and Microsoft keeps adding more to Teams. In Teams, you can get sug gestions for prompts to improve your outcomes. MICROSOFT 365 TOOLS Microsoft 365 subscribers have had to learn that there are two ways to access your tools. We have Word, Outlook and the rest of the Office suite installed on our computer. But we can also log in to the web version of Microsoft 365 and access many other tools provided by Microsoft. If you have used the online version of Outlook, you may be comfortable with the new Outlook. The New Outlook The updated email and calendar app has a simpler interface like the web version of Microsoft Outlook.

82 | MAY 2024

THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL