Denise Howell is a seasoned appellate and intellectual property litigator based in Los Angeles. Denise writes one of the first and most popular law-related blogs, Bag and Baggage, coined the term "blawg" and helped pioneer podcasting for lawyers. Microcontent obsessed since 2001, she is frequently quoted in the media on legal issues involving intellectual property and technology law. "Sound Policy" is Denise's show at IT Conversations, and it's also what she hopes results from the briefs she submits to court. Email Denise at dhowell@gmail.com.
Dennis Kennedy is a computer lawyer and legal technology expert based in St. Louis, Missouri. An award-winning author, a frequent speaker and a widely-read blogger, he has more than 300 publications on legal, technology and Internet topics, many of which are collected in his e-books. Dennis has been described as someone who knows almost every rock song in existence and, more importantly, how they apply to technology and law. Email Dennis at his gmail address.
Tom Mighell is Senior Counsel and Litigation Technology Support Coordinator at Cowles & Thompson in Dallas. He has published the Internet Legal Research Weekly newsletter since 2000 and blogged about the Internet and legal technology at Inter Alia since August of 2002. With Tom's singing, Ernie on guitar and Dennis' encylopedic knowledge of rock music, we may have the beginnings of a good band, if this whole blog thing doesn't work out. Email Tom at tmighell@swbell.net.
Marty Schwimmer left a partnership in the largest trademark practice in the world and founded Schwimmer Mitchell, a full-service IP micro-boutique in Westchester County, New York, where he represents owners of famous and not yet famous trademarks. He founded The Trademark Blog, the first IP law blog and the one with the most pictures. He is the first to come in and the last to leave in his firm. Email Marty at marty@schwimmerlegal.com.
Ernest Svenson practices law with a mid-sized law firm in New Orleans, specializing in business-related lawsuits. Most of his practice takes place in federal court, especially the Eastern District. He is best known for his weblog Ernie the Attorney, which he started as an experiment. Like many experiments it got out of control. Nevertheless, he continues to practice law and, occasionally,
to seek enlightenment. Email Ernest at esvenson@gmail.com.
About this blog
Between Lawyers provides just-in-time group commentary on the issues
raised when technology, culture and the law intersect. We take you
behind the firewalls and conference room doors to show you how
experienced lawyers deal with these issues and help you prepare for
the new challenges we all face. For more, see our introductory post.
I tend to shake my head in disbelief as the entertainment industry lurches from one audience-alienating position to another on copyright, digital rights management and other issues. Recent talk about entitlement to some kind of fee or royalty on iPods seems like the "topper," but you never know how far the recording industry is prepared to go to protect their 20th century business model.
According to Michael Geist, the CRIA may have taken things a bit too far for our Canadian friends with recent efforts to conduct surveys "that seek to link seemingly all teenager problems and recording industry woes with file sharing."
Geist notes, "The claims are so over-the-top - as if a reduction in file sharing would somehow lead to less shoplifting or cheating on school tests - that the press release would be more at home as an article in The Onion, than in the traditional media."
Geist also shares this storys: "Perhaps the most telling response, however, came at the Bill C-60 Open Forum yesterday. The CRIA release was mentioned by one of the speakers. The entire audience from all sides of the copyright debate just laughed."
Stephen Friedman of Pace Universtiy Law School has written A Practical Manifesto for Legal Education. It's good summary of the big issues being raised in the discussion of the current state of legal education that has been heating up in the last few months.
Friedman, who has a background in the actual practice of law, lays out the case for a practice-oriented approach to legal education and identifies the key concerns practicing lawyers have expressed about today's model of legal education. I especially want to emphasize his point about the over-concentration on litigation in the curriculum, especially in clinical training.
The money quote:
Clarity of purpose is as fundamental to a law school curriculum as it is to most other endeavors. Learning to think like a lawyer is a technique, not the goal of law school. For me, it is clear that the educational goal of an American law school should be to educate and train effective new lawyers. To many practicing lawyers, that goal seems obvious. If it had been accepted, however, there would be an ongoing dialogue between legal academia and practicing lawyers on precisely how to go about creating effective new lawyers. There is little or no such discussion
I expect to see see much more discussion in the coming days, weeks and months. The tensions created by the current system and the expectations for that system are sufficiently out of alignment that I expect to see the beginning of innovation and change in fairly short order. Some of the changes could be quite massive and it is reasonable to expect to see new models of legal education arise.
If you consider only one fact out of Friedman's article, consider the amount of training that PLI does. Then ask yourself this: if PLI offered its own law school, how interested would you be in hiring its graduates? Think about that one.
Red Herring, Bloggers Face the Law: "Bloggers are an unstable subset of many categories, so it’s not always clear which precedents apply." (Thanks, Buzz!)
I enjoyed B. L. Ochman's succinct summary of the recent story of the New York and San Francisco transit authorities sending cease and desist letters to a blogger who was making available iPod versions of the printed subway maps they provide for free.
She says:
Go figure. Cease and desist letters are a bit of a joke in the blogosphere. Once you see them, and how seriously preposterous they are, it's hard to take the writer seriously.
There are many lawyers who see every issue as a legal issue for which only legal options, such as cease and desist letters, are the only conceivable options. How much better it would be for everyone if the lawyers here had simply suggested that the people involved talk to each other and work together to see how they could make the useful downloadable versions of the maps available to users of the transit systems?
Since I've seen at least a half-dozen mentions of this public relations fiasco today, I'm guessing that some people might be reconsidering the wisdom of acting purely on legal advice without considering real-world consequences and common-sense alternatives.
This story also raises the issue I've seen raised on the PR blogs over the past year or so - are companies looking to public relations, marketing and other professionals rather than lawyers to handle issues with real-world implications? Would you rather have B.L. Ochman advising you on how to handle this issue or a lawyer who is firing off cease and desist letters? I simply ask the question.
A theme that comes up from time to time here on the Between Lawyers backchannel is: what will the future look like if everyone subscribes to the "Daily Me"? Will people forsake national news sources (denoted in the blogosphere with the usually pejorative term MSM), or will they seek a balance?
There is an on-going attack against MSM that it is biased. Conservatives attack liberal bias in MSM reporters, liberals attack conservative bias in MSM ownership.
One form of criticism is bias by omission or emphasis - the charge that a media source doesn't report or downplays certain stories. For example, Michelle Malkin criticizes MSM for not emphasizing a financial scandal at Air America. Instapundit and Powerline regularly argue that MSM does report enough positive news from Iraq.
On the one hand, the blogosphere has a democratizing affect on fact-checking - Rathergate being held up as the textbook example. Very often bias motivates digging (I suspect that a Democrat didn't drag up the kerning analysis) but the more correct information out there, the better for everyone.
On the other hand, the blogosphere can un-do that good work with partisanship. An unrelenting attack of bias against MSM may not have a completely salutory affect if all it does is to encourage people to indulge more in confirmatory bias - where people feel that they don't need to accept as true any fact that challenges their belief system, if the source of the information is allegedly biased.
However, who are the sources of these charges of bias?
Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Powerline and Hugh Hewitt are vocal critics of bias in MSM, and all have accused MSM of bias by omission.
All of these bloggers regularly discuss national politics and the Bush Administration. However, to the best of my knowledge, none of them have mentioned this week that a high ranking Bush administration official named Safavian, was arrested. At the time of this writing, if you put 'Safavian' in as a search term in their website searches and you'll get no hits.
Safavian was arrested for allegedly obstructing the investigation of someone named Abramoff. Of these four bloggers, to the best of my knowledge, only Malkin has reported that Abramoff was indicted.
Is this a case of pot, kettle, black?
Well, it seems that a taxonomy of blogging would be useful in order to articulate some kind of standard. The New York Times holds itself out as publishing 'all the news that's fit to print.' It may have editorial guidelines as to the ripeness and importance of a story - but if it completely ignored a news story reported by similar national papers, then it would raise eyebrows.
These bloggers aren't newspapers and don't have a similar obligation to be comprehensive - but they do cover the national beat and I'm interested in why they didn't report this story.
What are bloggers, then? Are they reporters, analysts, columnists or advocates? Or do they change from post to post?
Does the blogger identifying themselves as liberal or conservative solve everything?
Would a code of ethics help?
Maybe the 'Daily Me' of the future would be a good thing - but it concerns me that people may forsake certain forms of media because of charges of bias, and instead subscribe to sources that tell them only what they want to hear - accurate or not.
Erik "Eloquence" Moller has a critique of the "non-commercial use only" Creative Commons licenses in a post on Kuro5hin called "Creative Commons -NC Licenses Considered Harmful." Be sure to read the extensive comments to the post, too.
I recommend the article to all who routinely apply CC licenses without reading them (I mean reading the actual licenses, not just the summaries).
I urge people to consider especially the points Erik raises in section 2 of his post. What do you really intend "non-commercial use" to mean? Is is "commercial use" when a blog is running an ad program or otherwise generates revenue? Whose responsibilty is it to enforce the provisions of these licenses? Should the Creative Commons organization take a stronger leadership role in providing interpretations of the license provisions? Well. the last one is an easy one - the answer is "yes."
As I've said before, the use of CC licenses probably will be a good thing in a general sense, but blithely applying CC licenses without considering the consequences is still not a wise move, legally or practically.
I appreciate Erik's contribution to the debate. He may or may not be right on every issue, but he's asking some of the right questions. I still question whether the Internet community is looking critically enough at the CC licenses or whether too many people see the CC licenses as a way to join a cool club. As always, I recommend reading the discussions we had on Between Lawyers about whether we should apply a CC license.
It's no secret that big law firms forcing lawyers back into waering suits and ties and dispensing with "casual days." What can lawyers do about this disturbing trend? Here's a great new idea.
There's a post on Engadget today about the Burton Ronin Espionage Jacket . The jacket has an extra feature that some lawyers might prefer over even the traditional gray suit jacket: a hidden digital camera. The possible benefits, especially in a litigation practice, are beyond calculation.
Potential downside: As this picture shows, although the camera may be hidden, people might suspect something is up when you wear the coat.
Check it out. It might become the legal fashion craze for depositions and on-site document review.
It might make for a good law school exam question to ask what legal issues might be raised by wearing and using one of these jackets, but I'll leave that project to the law professors.
You may notice that Tom and I have put our lawyer membership cards at risk by taking a creative and non-traditional approach to writing the column. We had lots of fun (another word not often associated with lawyers) writing the column in this style and hope that you enjoy the article and find the resources we list to be helpful in considering and using IM as a collaboration tool.
Blog Maverick and others had asked whether communities would 'give back' federal pork projects earmarked for them, in order to assist in the re-building of New Orleans.
The WSJ now reports (via Professor Bainbridge) that the people of Bozeman, Montana have done just that.
I think the gauntlet has been thrown down. Many communities may well be prepared to give up some gilt-glazed pork (to avoid an inflationary reconstruction plan).
Perhaps the folk in Ketchikan, Alaska will give up their 'bridge to nowhere' (reported at costing between $235 to $350 million).
For those of us who want to identify their local pork, if anyone is aware of a url listing recently earmarked pork and their locales, please advise.
Jason Krause's article "The Cisco Way" is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand some of the forces of changes in the practice of law. This article is an important one.
My point of view is that the vast majority of lawyers are unlikely to adopt significant technological changes without serious pressure from clients. As the article shows, we are now starting to see some of what I've called "client-driven technology" start to happen.
Jason's article illustrates some of the external pressures on the profession in the high-end corporate arena. There are similar forces at work in the consumer, small business and other areas of the legal practice. Changes may not come quickly, but they may be quite profound. Whether you are a client or a lawyer, you need to become more familiar with these forces and the practical and real-world changes these forces are creating. This article is a great starting place for you to learn about this subject.
Expect to see much more discussion of this topic and related matters on Between Lawyers in the coming months. Here's a recent post on the topic.
Congratulations to our friend Jim Calloway who was recently inducted as a fellow in the College of Law Practice Management. Check out Jim's blog and you'll see why he is so highly-respected and a favorite legal blogger for so many.
Here's the Supreme Court Watch Podcast from Alliance for Justice, featuring (per its press release) "live blogging [of the Roberts confirmation hearings] to provide response and commentary in real time, as well as daily wrap-up podcasts to provide further in-depth discussion and analysis available to listeners at any time, anywhere."
For those who missed it, Nico Pitney of Think ProgresscapturedSenator Grassley's comments about the nefarious blogosphere and its, in his mind, unfortunate but now unavoidable role in the judicial confirmation process. Good for a laugh. Sez Nico: "Bloggers, always characterizing documents and opining! Why won’t they just stop paying attention and let Senators hold the trite 15-minute hearings they really want?"
Weblogs Work is running a series of interviews with blogging lawyers (I was one of the interviewees, and John Day's is also up): "Weblogs seem to work well for lawyers. We tried to find out why."
"THE PRESS WANTS TO SHOW BODIES from Katrina. It didn't want to show bodies, or jumpers, on 9/11, for fear that doing so would inflame the public.
I can only conclude that this time around, the press thinks it's a good thing to inflame the public. What could the difference be?"
Powerline adds the point that 'the press' was similarly inconsistent in its desire to publish photos of soldiers' caskets from the Iraq war.
Instapundit does not provide support for the assertion that there are members of the press who had access to photos of bodies or jumpers on 9/11, that they refused to publish such photos, and that they did so so as to not inflame the public, and that these same members of the press desire to publish photos of Katrina victims (or soldiers' caskets).
It is my understanding that there were two groups of victims at the WTC. Those who were inside the building, and those who died on the plaza, as they were either jumpers or were struck by debris or jumpers.
Obviously no photos exist of the bodies of those who were inside the building.
As to jumpers, Instapundit is aware that a photo of a jumper was widely published. On September 11, 2003 Instapundit posted the most widely disseminated photo of a jumper (he took it down because of protests). He linked to a comment which itself linked to an article in Esquire about the photo. The Esquire article reported that the jumper photo was published in the New York Times and 100's of papers.
(As an aside, I agree with the sentiment expressed by a writer to Instapundit on September 12, 2003, that photos of workers trapped in the building are more inflammatory than a picture of a body).
As to the bodies on the plaza, I am not personally aware of photos existing, even on the rotten.com's of the world, but even if they did exist, it does not take much of a visual imagination as to why virtually no legitimate media outlet in the world could publish a photo of a body that fell almost 1000 feet, to the extent that it could even be called a body.
Interestingly, western media has been accused of a different bias. After CNN International showed tsunami victims, it was accused of displaying greater sensitivity to 9/11 victims because they were American, to which a CNN representative replied:
Even if Instapundit's factual premise was correct, that members of the press had pictures of 9/11 victins that refused to publish, and these same members of the press wish to publish Katrina victims photos, and even if Instapundit's inference is correct (that this is evidence of bias), then, to answer Instapundit's rhetorical question: there is a difference.
There is a public policy argument for allowing the press unfettered access to Katrina victims that doesn't pertain to 9/11 photos (that in my view are superfluous to the most-reported event in history).
Unlike photos of bodies of people who jumped from the Twin Towers, photos of bodies of people who died in nursing homes, died of dehydration, died of violence, died at Chalmette Slip after being rescued, died at the Convention Center - are evidence of what might be crimes perpetrated by people not hiding in caves.
As to the charge of ghoulishness, to the extent that such photos can potentially lead to justice, fighting for the right to take them shows respect for the victims.
"No, George Tenet did not sit there for five days with me, misleading me," he said, referring to the week he spent at the Central Intelligence Agency reviewing the evidence on Iraq before making his presentation to the United Nations. "There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me."
And then they were arrested for treason, right? I look forward to seeing the interview.
In this Weekly Standard column on the Roberts Hamdan recusal issue, mention is made of a 15 page opinion letter by Prof. Rotunda drafted at the request of Sen. Spector. If you're aware of an online version of this, please provide the link.
David Teten and Scott Allen have written "The Virtual Handshake" a discussion of building relationships online by focusing on'social software' such as blogs, email, Ryze, LinkedIn and some obscure sources such as Biography Analysis Software.
Shameless self-promotion: The Trademark Blog is featured in the discussion of blogs.
NY Times article on intra-governmental squabbling last week. Important paragraph:
"The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated."
I'm puzzled by this sentence, as incapacitation of local personnel seems foreseeable in such events.
People who know me know how much I admire law librarians. The law librarian blogs routinely give you great information. For example, Sabrina Pacifici's BeSpacific.com has information on government efforts on Hurricane Katrina that I simply haven't seen elsewhere and I recommend that you make a visit to her blog to see what I mean. In fact, long-time legal bloggers regularly refer to Sabrina as the best of the legal bloggers.
I was reading the law librarian group blog called "Out of the Jungle" and was, once again, struck by the high quality of librarian blogs.
Let me point you to the recent post on Out of the Jungle called "Practical Skills." In this post, Diane Murley addresses in a thoughtful and thought-provoking way a question that has been on the minds of lawyers and law students, but too infrequently, law professors and law school administrators: why don't law schools teach law students the practical skills needed to practice law?
Hey, that's a pretty simple question, and one that goes right to the heart of the matter.
Diane's post also goes to the heart of the matter and raises a series of questions that all of us in the legal community should thinking about and trying to answer.
When I was an adjunct law professor and taught an IP contract drafting course, I remember how much students appreciated the class where I took about 20 minutes and explained to them what they would actually do when given an assignment at a law firm to draft a contract. They told me tha they didn't feel that they were getting that information in their other classes.
The money quote from Diane's post:
"Do law school professors seek input from practicing lawyers on how the professors can better prepare their students for practice? Should they? Do substantive law professors care what lawyers think? If not, why not? Should they care more about whether students will be ready to practice law when they graduate?"
Her comments comparing what the approach of law professors with that of law school librarians will open your eyes and make you think.
I didn't think that it was possible for me to be a bigger fan of law librarians, but Sabrina and Diane and other law librarians have made me raise my admiration level even higher in the last few days.
"The PSF is Everything!" is a new manifesto from Tom Peters published as part of the excellent set of "manifestos" on the Change This website. From the description: "Tom Peters is his usual provocative self as he rants on the professional service firm."
The subtitle of the manifesto is Making the Professional Service Firm a "Lovemark" in an Age of "Managed Asset Reflation." It's on my reading list. Maybe we can discuss it here.
The Wired GC had a post a while back called "Law On Line" that deserves more attention than it seemed to have gotten initially. So, I wanted to see if I could give it a second chance to gain some attention.
The post describes an online human resources document preparation service offered by the British law firm Eversheds. The post goes on to discuss the receptivity of clients to online services offered by law firms.
The money quote:
"If one of the law firms I use sent me a link to an online solution that could deliver quality work quicker at a lower cost, I would fall out of my chair.
Why? Because it would mean this firm is thinking about solving my problems and not just about raising revenues. With a bit more focus on the former, the latter may be more likely."
Anyone else think that the key to the successful practice of law in the future might be contained in the paragraphs I quoted?
Slate.com article and WSJ Online article on whether Judge Roberts should have participated in the Hamdan appeal while he was being actively interviewed for the Supreme Court position. Judge Roberts was 1 of a unanimous 3 judge panel ruling in favor of the Government several days after he was interviewed by several senior Administration officials).
The Slate article, authored by Professors Gellers, Luban and Lubet, contains an extensive discussion of the caselaw of the 'appearance of impartiality' standard.
Adam Smith. Esq. has a commentary, noting that Boies' high-profile in corporate governance matters makes this matter particularly embarrassing.
An interesting point to consider is proper procedure for 'selling' ancillary services (note: even the act of recommending another lawyer within your firm to a client is conceivably 'conflicted' advice).
Question for discussion: The law places a lot of stock in disclosure. Is disclosure sufficient protection when a lawyer gives advice where his or her interests or not necessarily aligned with those of the client?
Volokh Conspiracy raises the interesting point that Justice O'Connor's resignation is effective pending confirmation of her successor. As Judge Roberts has now been 're-nominated' to succeed Justice Rehnquist, not Justice O'Connor, she may need to go back to work for a while.
President Bush's selection of Judge Roberts for Chief Justice removed a potential scheduling problem for Congress. Had the president nominated a sitting Associate Justice for the position of Chief, that Justice would have had to have hearings, and the nominee for that vacant seat would have had hearings, so there was the potential for three confirmation hearings at once.
Yesterday Larry Bodine announced that there is a new "King of Blawgs," and it's Patrick Lamb, of the great In Search of Perfect Client Service blog. Larry's pronouncement is based on the fact that Patrick's blog is now listed as the Number One "Most Popular All-Time" blog as measured by clickthroughs at Blawg.org.
With all due respect to Patrick (who has a great blog and who is indisputably the current "King of Blawg.org"), I don't think this is a measurement of anything other than what people are clicking on at Blawg.org. Furthermore, when I listened to J. Craig Williams' and Bob Ambrogi's great new podcast Coast to Coast this past week, I learned that they are "America's Top Webloggers in the Legal Profession." By what standard? It got me to thinking, how do you measure the popularity of a law-related weblog?
-- Back in 2003, Jerry Lawson proposed (in a Net-Lawyers listserv message, as well as Lessons from Ernie the Attorney) that one way to measure a weblog's popularity was to run a Google search, and count the links. I didn't agree then, and I don't agree now. If you create a large number of links in your blog pointing back to your blog, those links will show up as results in a Google or Yahoo! search. That doesn't make your blog any more popular.
-- Some of the blog search engines are better at judging blog popularity through link popularity. Technorati has its Top 100 Blogs list, and Feedster recently came out with the Feedster 500 (a great new tool is TalkDigger, which aggregates the results of a number of blog and traditional search tools). Are the number of links to a blog a good judge of popularity? Partially, I think. They are certainly evidence that somebody thinks enough of a blog to link to it. But just because I link to a blog one day doesn't mean that I like it enough to visit it every day.
-- And that's where I think real blog popularity lies -- readership. The best blogs are those that bring readers back on a regular basis. But measuring popularity by this standard is not easy, because currently it can only be done on a blog-by-blog basis. You can use a service like Sitemeter to measure the actual visitors to your site, but with the advent of RSS, that number is likely to be deceptive; individuals who subscribe to an RSS feed don't register as "site visitors." A service like FeedBurner helps you determine how many subscribe to your RSS feed, but those figures are not available to the public.
Until we can come up with a reliable way to measure readership combined with link popularity, it may be premature to crown a king (or queen) of the blawg world.
Blogpulse Newswire has published an interview with Ernie Svenson that tells some of his story of getting out of New Orleans and helps explain the mystery of how he was able to keep posting to his blog.
Some topical and timely law related podcasts you might want to check out:
Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi have a new show called Coast to Coast, and are off to a great start with interviews from ABA President Michael S. Greco, who addresses concerns about the relevance of the ABA to solo and small firms (which he says are the fastest growing segment of the legal profession, and already are home to 80% of the practitioners in the U.S.), and Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who discusses the Kelo case, and takes on the notion that there are any appellate jurists who do not, as part of their job descriptions, make law. Good show, looking forward to more. (Craig, fix your audio dude! Try Google Talk instead of Skype, I hear people are liking the audio quality. Also guys, your show needs its own feed.)
"'The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.' (Laughter)."
"Just think of that quote for a minute; and the laughter that followed. The poor and the black are dying, dead, drowned and desperate in New Orleans and elsewhere. But the president manages to talk about the future "fantastic" porch of a rich, powerful white man who only recently resigned his position because he regretted the failure of Strom Thurmond to hold back the tide of racial desegregation."
Ernie has a good update about an effort Ross Kodner and others are putting together to assist lawyers in getting their businesses restarted and, undoubtedly, to provide help to the wiped out court system.
For those who have asked us - the best way to learn what Ernie is doing is to follow his blog, Ernie the Attorney.
The ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center has put together a page of technology-related resources for lawyers, law firms and others affected by Hurricane Katrina. Again, let me emphasize that humanitarian efforts are clearly more important than technology concerns, but these resources may be helpful to those starting to dig out and rebuild. If you are aware of or wish to contribute links and other resources, the LTRC page will be a great place to submit them so that many resources can be found in one central place.
. . . the head of the Agency, Mr. Mike Brown, practiced law in Colorado and Oklahoma, where he served as a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court. His bio here.
This photo, taken Tuesday, after the levees had been breached, strikes me as evidence of an almost sociopathic lack of empathy in the President (and of a dereliction of duty).
Although, obviously, there are many more immediate human concerns to be addressed, I did want to point to some of the efforts being made to pool resources to help law firms, courts and other parts of the legal infrastructure in the Katrina Aftermath.
Ross Kodner has allowed me to post a copy of an email he sent earlier today to help get this effort started. Please keep in mind that we all realize the importance of current humitarian efforts and encourage donations to the organizations involved in this effort, but want to help in something where we can be of some help.
Ross said:
"Good morning everyone,
I'm sure that all of you are experiencing something similar when watching the horrible images unfold on the news in Louisiana and Mississippi. I'm finding it hard to keep my composure watching and feeling pretty powerless to do anything. Sure, we can all donate money to the Red Cross and any other agency, but as in the aftermath of 9/11 four years ago, I do think those of us in the legal technology, bar association and the legal tech media world may be able to offer more practical assistance.
Here's what I'm thinking - thousands of law practices have been disrupted, physically damaged and/or completely destroyed. The basic ability to communicate with employees likely no longer exists for many firms. Offices are not accessible, or have been damaged. I'm sure that computer systems are either totally offline, or if they were up by some miracle, there is likely little to no Internet connectivity (if they even have AC power at all). Paper documents for many are likely a total loss. All the data backups in the world aren't going to help with business continuity issues if the media is not accessible and there is nothing to restore it to anyway.
Insurers, stretched thin and strappd like everyone else involved in the restoration efforts, are likely to focus on much more basic issues than replacing computer systems for lawyers and funding business disaster recovery - people, housing, etc. are going to come first.
What I think we can do is any of the following:
* The legal tech consultants I've included on this mailing (and any others) could make themselves available as resources to be consulted with free of charge on data recovery, data access, system re-designs, equipment acquisition, PC rental resources, re-establishing communications - anything a law practice would need to know quickly (and get right the first time) in trying to re-connect with employees, clients and resume operations
* Build a centralized system for anyone to post useful, categorized information about these topics as well as provide a communication network where lawyers involved in helping can post "services available" notices and those in need could find the information they need.
* The ABA's LTRC posted on Lawtech this morning that they are building a list of links to resources - a great start - fragmentation of efforts will only dilute the overall effectiveness and accessibility to this kind of information.
* I think a Wiki may be the ideal mechanism for dissemination of this kind of information with full posting ability, categorization, etc. Opinions from those more knowledgeable than me would be helpful, quickly.
* Getting an online contact listing of all of us who are willing to volunteer our time with contact info, services listings, etc. is imperative.
* Getting the word out to the legal bloggers, Catherine Sanders-Reach at the ABA LTRC, your own bar associations and members that any such resource is available and can/should be linked to, referred to, etc. - and getting it out to the listserves like Solosez and others that all of you participate in to get the maximum reach to anyone who needs help. Solosez, for example, has a number of New Orleans area lawyers who have been reporting on the situation.
I propose we call this effort something easy to remember like "KatrinAID" or something like that. We need a domain registerered, a Wiki (or blog or whatever) built ASAP and volunteers coordinated. I am personally willing to devote any time needed to this project immediately - I intend to explain to my clients in other parts of the country that their projects may need to wait a bit. I think that by the end of the Labor Day weekend, we can get much of this work done, ready, in-place and announced.
Who is interested in helping with any aspect of this? Please say so and indicate specifically what you can help with a "reply all" to this message. I will try and act as a conduit/clearinghouse to get this initial communication working. I thought of as many people as I could right off the top of my head but I'm sure I overlooked some valuable people who could have something to offer - forward to anyone.
Immediate need --> Volunteers - a core group to rapidly brainstorm and then put in the time to execute the basic online information structure and then keep this organized. Again, a fragmented effort won't help anyone
We have an opportunity to do some significant good for people in serious immediate need.
Ann Byrne has set up two Quick Topic pages for lawyers affected by Hurricane Katrina. She says, "The idea is that lawyers can log onto the page of their choice and get in touch with other lawyers - members of their firm or opposing counsel."
In addition, note this press release from the ABA:
"THE ABA WILL HELP HURRICANE VICTIMS
WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 30, 2005 – As the eyes of the nation remain focused on the hurricane-ravaged southeastern United States, especially Mississippi and Louisiana, the American Bar Association stands ready to assist those injured by Hurricane Katrina.
ABA President Michael S. Greco has announced that he is enlisting the ABA Young Lawyers Division and lawyers from several ABA sections to assist hurricane victims in the coming days and weeks. The lawyers will assist with insurance claims, home repair contracts, wills and other documents, and related issues.
The ABA has provided pro bono assistance to storm victims since 1978, when the ABA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to utilize the ABA Young Lawyers Division in staffing a toll-free hotline open to disaster victims.
FEMA is now in the process of establishing a hotline staffed by ABA volunteer lawyers to assist victims in each affected state. A complete listing of the FEMA hotlines and other available legal resources will be posted on the ABA Web site, www.abanet.org, in the coming days."
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
