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.
There are a host of reasons (and probably a host of laws) why you wouldn't expect a prosecutor in a criminal case to blog tacky comments about opposing counsel and potentially inadmissible and prejudicial information about a defendant. Notwithstanding, some recent events have prompted the San Francisco D.A.'s office to specify "that criminal cases and office business should not be mentioned on the Internet."
I recommend reading the whole interview because it clearly points to the future and may suggest to many lawyers that the future will arrive much more quickly than they anticipate.
The money quote:
9. What advantages and disadvantages do legal blogs have when compared to law reviews and other traditional forms of scholarship?
The advantages are obvious: speed, availability, and topicality. I don’t see real disadvantages.
I grow weary of the stereotypical myth-riddled responses of the power people in many major law firms giving excuse after excuse as to why keeping women engaged is next to impossible. I do not believe it and neither should you. This challenge will be met by some firms who will gain enormous competitive advantage.
Whilst Denise is blogging about blogging (and talking about it as well), 60% of the Between Lawyers gang gathered in Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW. We'll be looking for Marty here next year.
Shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, we at the Between Lawyers blog got together via conference call to do a test for what we thought might become a Between Lawyers podcast. Events intervened, the sound quality disappointed us, and the project got put aside. We will probably will never release the recording. It was a test, after all, and some of the topics are well out-of-date at this point.
I was listening to parts of it last night and found a 45-second clip of it that I really liked. I tried to clean up the recording and equalize the voice levels. I like the clip because it has all five of our voices on it and it nicely captures some of the rapport that the five of us have and the sense of humor we all share. The clip is from a point about two-thirds of the way through the recording and we had gotten comfortable with the format.
In the clip, Denise tells the story of Jorn Barger, who coined the term "weblog," and the "economic rewards" that it brought him as mentioned in this Wired magazine article. We. of course, cannot resist speculating on whether Denise will end up in the same place as a result of coining the term "blawg."
I hope you enjoy the clip (download here as mp3 (approx 750K)). It's short and it will give you a different view of the five of us.
If you like the clip, let us know. We still toy with the idea of creating a Between Lawyers podcast from time to time.
I've gotten a number of inquiries on my recent post about whether lawyers might use podcasts, videocasts or other audio and video recordings as samples of their work that might be heard or viewed by clients and pootential clients.
I'm personally not aware of any examples of this, but would appreciate it if people might let me know by way of a comment to this post or by email of any examples where this is now being done. Thanks.
A Reason for Lawyers to Podcast Their Oral Arguments?
An interesting post from Rees Morrison talks about clients who want to hear recordings of lawyers in action before deciding which lawyer to hire as a trial lawyer.
It does make sense. If you are hiring a lawyer for his or her advocacy skills, wouldn't you ideally like to hear (or see) some examples of the lawyer in action? Event planners routinely ask for samples from prospective speakers.
Might a podcast be a way to create that kind of "sample of work" for prospective clients?
The Korea Times reports on efforts in South Korea to use blogs or other Internet tools as an alternative to physical appearances in courts.
The money quote:
"Korean courts are now experimenting whether they could operate court trials and hearings just through Internet postings, saving everybody the trouble of actually entering the courtroom," the Korea Times reports. "The Seoul Administration Court recently designated one of its court units,which rules on labor-management relations and industrial accidents,to develop a prototype model for Internet-based trial models by the end of this month. Although the court has not yet decided on a detailed framework, it plans to allow the parties in lawsuits to submit their list of evidence, legal documents and other data on Weblogs or Internet message boards to be operated by the court."
There's been a lot of discussion in recent days on the latest round of associate salary increases at large US law firms, Bruce MacEwen does a nice job of summarizing the issues here.
The Wired GC stirs the pot with a couple of must-read observations, but here's the money quote:
(We of course know it’s not about price-fixing.)
Hmmm, there's that one hyphenated word.
I remember an earlier round of associate salary increases back in the dot-com era when I was on my firm's hiring committee. As we considered, all the issues you read about in the discussion of the economics of these issues and the need to raise salaries to attract new lawyers, a good number of my friends in small law firms kept using that hyphenated word - "price-fixing." I never bought their arguments.
The category of this post is called "Provocations." Here comes the provocation and we'll see what discussion we get.
In recent months, I've noticed a ratcheting up of the "protections" of the legal profession from within - stories about lowering the rates of bar exam passage, decisions that law firms can't use certain types of advertising (pit bull ads anyone?), other efforts on preventing "unauthorized practice of law," and and now law firms all over the country raising starting salaries by same amounts in all but unison.
Is the legal profession begging for outside (governmental) investigation, intervention and antitrust regulation?
I'm just raising the question to see what people think, not necesarily as a reflection of my own opinion.
Thanks to the Wired GC for asking some tough question. I highly recommend his post.
I loved Dennis' last post and the posts it referenced. More in the same vein was discussed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, specifically an article by William M. Bulkeley called The Inside View (subscription req'd), on corporate America joining the blogosphere. Among the companies and blogs discussed are Thomas Nelson Publishing and its CEO Michael Hyatt:
[Mr. Hyatt] posted a proposed company policy on blogging on his personal blog and then changed it in response to posted suggestions, cutting the rules to 10 from 14 by combining several into "Obey the law."
Mr. Hyatt's March '05 post on the subject and the revised policy are available on his Working Smart blog. Thomas Nelson doesn't host its employees' blogs (see the policy on that point), but it does aggregate them, here.
[Update:] Jeffrey Treemconsiders the WSJ article, and points out the distinction between corporate and employee blogs (noting the largish and potentially legally challenging fuzzy area between).
He concludes with a suggested one sentence corporate blogging policy:
When blogging: better to be a smart ass than a dumb ass.
You might have a little trouble getting your lawyer to sign off on that one, but Julian's discussion will help you think through what approach you do want to take.
It's not necessarily any one policy that concerns me but that, taken together, they seem to represent a fear of allowing employees to blog. As if to say: "we don't really want you to blog, but if you must, follow these vague rules". Telling people not to violate agreements they have signed? Duh! You can't disclose proprietary information? Duh! No obscene material? Wait while I delete a post I've been working on. I guess my position is that if you need to spell it out for people this plainly, you really don't trust them to blog in the first place and/or you need to raise your hiring bar. Are you trying to scare them off blogging? Giving yourself something to point to if you don't like what they say? I'm not trying to criticize any one company; I just don't buy into these extensive blogging policies.I prefer the "don't do anything stupid" policy, which assumes (hopefully based on proof) that you hire smart people.
Excellent contributions to the ongoing discussion of corporate blogging policies in the real world and the hidden dangers of adopting "standard" and draconian policies.
Wired Magazine's April '06 issue has an appropriately engrossing series of articles about videogames. Particularly interesting for anyone who realizes that popular "recreational" technologies inevitably come to have critical significance in other arenas, including the workplace, a.k.a. (beam me up) The Enterprise:
You Play World of Warcraft? You're Hired!: "The day may not be far off when companies receive résumés that include a line reading 'level 60 tauren shaman in World of Warcraft.'"
When Virtual Worlds Collide: "All virtual worlds require a communication protocol that lets you talk with other people, a software platform that lets you build things on top of it, and a currency that enables trade. These three elements share one thing: a gravitational pull toward a common standard."
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
