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.
The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, the new book from Between Lawyers' own Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell is now now available for preorder at the ABA Web Store. There's a 15% discount if you preorder now.
The book reflects the idea of collaboration that underlies the Between Lawyers blog.
Here's the book description from the ABA Web Store:
This first-of-its-kind guide for the legal profession shows you how to use standard technology you already have and the latest "Web 2.0" resources and other tech tools, like Google Docs, Microsoft Office and SharePoint, and Adobe Acrobat, to work more effectively on projects with colleagues, clients, co-counsel and even opposing counsel. In The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, well-known legal technology authorities Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell provide a wealth of information useful to lawyers who are just beginning to try these tools, as well as tips and techniques for those lawyers with intermediate and advanced collaboration experience.
Collaboration technologies and tools are the most important current developments in legal technology and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Explained with minimal technical jargon, the book focuses on highly practical and usable ideas that you can put to work straight away.
With practical advice on how to use specific tools and concrete action steps to take, lawyers and law firms at all levels will benefit from working together better.
You'll learn:
+ The basics of collaboration and collaboration tools
+ How to select and implement tools and strategies
+ The best ways to collaborate on documents, cases, transactions, and projects
+ How to collaborate inside and outside the office
+ How to collaborate using tools you already have or own
Technology now makes it easier than ever to work with others -- this is the first guide dedicated to the special requirements of the legal world with the practical steps it takes to do it right.
In this episode, Dennis and Tom discuss the use (or potential use) of Facebook by lawyers, giving some potential benefits and risks, practical tips, and observations about their experiments in using Facebook. They also talk about how they use the Google Reader for RSS feeds and Google Docs and Spreadsheets for simple collaborations. They also talk about the other podcasts they listen to and how they listen to them.
It's a good introduction for lawyers and other legal professionals to these topics.
You'll find the podcast episode here and there's an archive of earlier podcasts.
It's also a good time to remind you to check out Denise Howell's podcast - This Week in Law - on which you'll find some of the authors of the Between Lawyers blog appearing from time to time.
The untold story of this blog is that the Between Lawyers authors spend more time gabbing with each other via email than posting to the blog. During one of our recent quite extended email conversations, we decided experiment with and open up those discussions in a Facebook group so that friends/readers can also play along.
Members of the Between Lawyers blog can be heard in a number of recent podcasts.
Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy have posted the latest episode #5 of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, in which they cover the recent ABA TECHSHOW, legal technology trends for 2007, current developments in electronic discovery, and their upcoming book on collaboration tools for lawyers.
As Tom Mighell says, "knowing the right questions to ask in an electronic discovery deposition is crucial, and I'd wager most lawyers haven't had the opportunity to ask many questions along those lines."
Between Lawyers' own Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell are pleased to announce that they will be writing a book on collaboration tools that will be published in early 2008 by the American Bar Association. The book is tentatively titled: "Collaboration Tools for Lawyers: Essential Ways to Work Together with Colleagues, Clients and Even Opposing Counsel."
Nearly every lawyer finds that colleagues, co-counsel, clients and even opposing counsel use the Internet and technology to collaborate and work together on documents, projects and cases. In the simplest scenario, lawyers and clients use the "track changes" feature in Microsoft Word to work together on a document. Technology today lets lawyers take collaboration to the next level. Many legal technology tools now include collaborative elements.
At the same time, lawyers increasingly use the Internet in many ways to work together. From document sharing to videoconferencing, there are more tools than most lawyers can imagine for working together, online.
Two key trends are at play here. First, for years lawyers have understood the clear benefits of collaboration and working together as a routine matter. Second, the availability of simple, inexpensive (even free) collaboration technology has created an environment where working together makes sense to nearly every lawyer in nearly every firm. The push forward on both trends is likely to continue.
Two other important factors also come into play. First, business clients are routinely using technology to collaborate and will expect their lawyers to follow. Therefore, collaboration tools illustrate a classic example of a client-driven technology. Second, events in the world from increased travel costs to possible pandemics make it even more likely that these tools will be adopted by necessity.
To the extent lawyers have experimented with these tools, they may have the nagging feeling that they are simply touching the tip of the iceberg of what might be available to them and how they might use these tools to their benefit. We believe that they are right to feel that way, because it is undoubtedly true.
The book will provide intensely practical advice for lawyers and law firms wanting to take better advantage of these tools and the benefits they bring. It will take a look at how to use these tools wells, focus on both categories of tools and specific individual tools, and provide concrete action steps and techniques so that even the least tech-savvy lawyer can catch up with the early adopters and successful innovators.
Collaboration Tools for Lawyers: Essential New Ways to Work Together with Colleagues, Clients and Even Opposing Counsel, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell (expected publication date: early 2008)
Be sure not to miss the Memorial Day edition of Blawg Review this week, and get ready for next week's #60, to be hosted by our own Marty Schwimmer. (I picked a fine week to slack off on my blogging activity.* And WTF am I doing driving more traffic to Marty? Ah well.)
Our co-blogger Dennis Kennedy is quoted today in the New York Times: Interns? No Bloggers Need Apply. Dennis' interesting, and I'm sure far more nuanced, discussion with reporter Anna Bahney was distilled down to a truth about modern attitudes toward personal values and employment — "It's like, 'This is who I am. Consequences are what they are. I'll go work for someone who doesn't have a problem with it.'" Just as she missed the chance to round out her piece with more of Dennis' well-considered insights on this topic, the reporter missed the opportunity to tell the more accurate, important, and complicated story. Specifically, Ms. Bahney took the approach that the issue of individuals, their blogs, and their employers, is one of youth culture vs. Killjoy Lawyer III and co. E.g.:
[T]he line between what is public and what is private is increasingly fuzzy for young people comfortable with broadcasting nearly every aspect of their lives on the Web, posting pictures of their grandmother at graduation next to one of them eating whipped cream off a woman's belly. For them, shifting from a like-minded audience of peers to an intergenerational, hierarchical workplace can be jarring.
(Emphasis added.) While I appreciate the clever juxtaposition, and the point that there undeniably is a generation gap between the online mores of under-thirty-somethings and their elders, to suggest that boundary blurring of this sort is an issue unique to the young is to ignore at least the last six years of Web-enabled communications. And to note almost in passing that "some bloggers" say "[a] blog and a job don't necessarily have to clash," is to ignore at least three years worth (and counting) of seismic shift in corporate attitudes toward communications with the outside world. Yes, it's a slow change. But to suggest the change isn't happening — "No Bloggers Need Apply" — misses the boat, and here, I fear, resulted in an alarmist headline and a story that attempted to paint the varied picture of today's business attitudes and relationships with a two-color palette.
I know that I'm only an honorary member of the Between Lawyers group, but I can no longer sit idly by waiting until the rest of them, including Ernie, get around to posting about Ernie's big announcement.
As the proverbial ""fly on the wall" to the Between Lawyers conversations, I can tell you that these bloggers definitely leave their best material on their back-channel email discussion list and this topic is no exception. On the other hand, they could be secret agents the way they kept Ernie's announcement secret from the public over the last few weeks.
Once again, I see them having a lot of conversations that just do not make it to the blog, but by the time they decide who is going to announce Ernie's move to solo practice and what that post should say, it will be 2007. Since I'm more the impatient and impulsive type, I finally decided that I had to jump in and make a post. Ernie's so darn modest that he'll never get around to posting this news.
Now that I have the podium again, though, I'll make a few remarks based on my observations as a mostly-slient member of the back-channel email list. It's fascinating what I see.
On the Between Lawyers back-channel list, someone will raise a topic in an email and ask whether it's something they "might" blog about. Then the following happens:
Denise seems to always reply: "Blog it!" Five minutes later, she'll send another email saying that she's already blogged about it, giving it some context, some appropriate links and one of her clever titles. It seems like she's saying "blog it!" as an assignment to herself.
Dennis seems to always say that he had already been thinking about blogging about the topic and expects to post something about it "soon." Then, any time between later that day and two weeks later, the topic will surface in paragraph twelve of a post that initially seems to be on a completely different topic, but you gradually realize puts the topic in a larger context and draws some practical lessons.
Ernie seems to always want to "mull over" what he might say about the topic. Like Dennis, he might or might not write about the topic, but, if he does, he ends up treating the topic in a thoughtful, philosophical way, making a larger point about the topic and its larger implications.
Marty seems to always fire back two or three responses that are either hilarious or perfect for posting to the blog. He also often seem to mention that there are already decided cases on the topic. He insists that he needs to polish his responses and find a suitable picture before he can turn his remarks into a blog post. He then finds something that the Bush administration has done that day that incenses him and he forgets to make the post.
Tom seems to always give the caveat that "he's just a litigator who is not as familiar with the topic as the rest of you." He then offers a concise, spot-on summary of the issue and may post about it and add several perfectly-chosen links to resources that will help people learn more about it.
It's a fascinating interplay to watch. I've often felt that a law school that cared about its students would be smart to swoop in and hire all five of these people, give them tenure and turn them loose to teach students. That's probably why I'm not in charge of hiring professors at a law school.
It's a pleasure to get to look in on what they do, but I do wish that they wouldn't leave so much good material on the cutting room floor.
On behalf of the whole group at Between Lawyers, including Lawyer X, congratulations and bon voyage to Ernie on his new adventure. And, you might want to update that bio in the left-hand column over there, Ernie.
I've been intrigued by the ways people can use blogs and RSS for nonprofit organizations and other charitable efforts, especially after what we saw after the tsunami. A while back, I found Netsquared.org and became acquainted with Marshall Kirkpatrick, who writes a great blog of his own and is involved in the NetSquared effort.
Last night, Marshall and I did an interview session via Skype IM that he's published on the Netsquared site. I cover a wide-ranging list of topics and had a lot of fun doing the interview.
Netsquared has a cool upcoming conference that will bring nonprofit and tech people together. If my interview helps publicize what they are doing, that would be great. Please check out my interview, then spend some time on the Netsquared site and see if you might be able to help out.
A December '05 "Monthly Question" from the ABA Section of Litigation found 57% of the respondents are reading blogs, and 19% are authoring them. (It also found our Ernie Svensen to be among the most widely read blawgers, something that surprises none of us and likely none of you.) [This one's a triple, coming my way via Ron Friedmann, via Alan Goodman, via Blawg Review #41] Says Ron Friedmann of the survey: "I would guess that respondents are lawyers who already spend a fair bit of time online, which would likely bias the sample toward blog readers and writers." I'd say that's a decent guess, given it was an online survey on an ABA section site — though I think it's just as possible the type and location of the survey made it more likely to attract those who don't read or write blogs; I know as one of the 19% I tend to spend my online time in places other than ABA section sites. Whatever you may conclude about the reliability of the survey, note that nothing about it keeps Ron (or me) from thinking blogs are "for real."
Between Lawyers's own Tom Mighell has published an excellent, succinct explanation of basic Web 2.0 concepts, along with a great set of examples that might be used by legal researchers and lawyers. Get the details here.
Tom and I (Dennis) also participated in a roundtable article in the new issue of the ABA's Law Practice Today that a group of us created using the Web 2.0 tools at Writely.com. The article, "Looking Back and Looking Forward" looks at some of the technology tools we used and liked in 2005. The issue had a "Best of 2005" theme and Tom and I also polished up Tom's "Strongest Links: Ethics" column from earlier in the year, and added in some new, interesting ethics sites. The new column can be found here.
I'll note that there's been a lot of discussion about wikis and some new legal wiki projects announced in recent days. It's an area to keep your eyes on.
It's highly likely that we will be putting together a roundtable article about the potential uses of Web 2.0 tools in the legal profession for next month's issue of Law Practice Today. If you are interested in being a contributor to that article, please let me know.
Dennis Kennedy in the New York Times today on metadata, Beware Your Trail of Digital Fingerprints: "If you take the time to educate yourself a little and know the issues, you can avoid problems pretty easily." (I'm less sanguine about that for the nonbusiness or small business user, whose document distribution habits aren't being scrutinized by a department of minions dedicated to avoiding these sorts of snafus. How many users do you know, for example, who have the time or inclination to make heads or tails of these search results?)
Evan Schaeffer and Between Lawyers' own Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy have written a new column where we take on one of the most interesting questions in the practice of law in 2005: if everyone thinks that electronic discovery is the next big thing in the practice of law and is so important, why are lawyers staying away from electronic discovery in droves?
I was thinking after we had our discussion of metadata in Word documents the other day on Between Lawyers that electronic discovery could actually be fun - checking for metadata and using all the new electronic discovery tools. Most lawyers, it seems, prefer to stay squarely in the world of paper. I've even heard that some judges make it all but impossible for lawyers who want to get electronic files to obtain them.
Is your lawyer asking you to print out documents for a hoard of high-paid associates to review or more comfortable pawing through a banker's box of papers than mousing through computer files? Maybe it's time for clients to become a lot more concerned about what their legal fees buy them in the world of practice-as-usual. In any event, you'll want to read the column to see how Evan, Tom and I grapple with the question. It's a thorough, well-rounded conversation that will make you think.
The three of us write a regular, more or less monthly column called Thinking E-Discovery on the DiscoveryResources.org site.
Between Lawyers' own Denise Howell takes over the editorial reins of the Blawg Review this week with her usual panache and style. Happy Howell-o-ween indeed.
I was surprised the other day to see a "Lawyer X" posting on the Between Lawyers blog.
Well, maybe I wasn't surprised. Here's the story.
When we started this blog, we asked Hylton Jolliffe if he would set up an author account called Lawyer X that any of us could use. One of the many reasons we like being part of the Corante family of blogs is that Hylton immediately agreed to do so.
The idea of Lawyer X was fuzzy, at best. First and foremost, we saw it as an easy way to bring guest bloggers (especially those who might be risking their reputations to be seen blogging with us) into the blog. It could also be used as a way to play devil's advocate, raise issues in different ways, and as a way for any of us to "step out of character" to make the blog more lively and creative.
And, if you know us, this will be no surprise, it gave us another avenue for mischief and fun.
I remember saying at the time that the danger of creating a Lawyer X was that there was a risk that one day we would all be posting as Lawyer X and no one would be posting in his or her own name. I believe someone pointed out the name of my blog and expressed doubt that I'd ever be posting anonymously.
Although we've talked about having Lawyer X make an appearance on the blog on several occasions, we finally decided last week to bring Lawyer X into the conversation at Between Lawyers.
Now, I have to admit that my first reaction to unveiling Lawyer X at this time was to say, "But everyone will know that Lawyer X is Marty."
Denise's response to that, by the way, was: "< whoosh >milk through nostrils< /whoosh >".
Marty, the serious one in our group, then said, "It doesn't matter, there's a point to using a penname even if some know who it is.and you're free to use lawyer x as well, unless you would like to really fool them and use lawyer D or something."
So, Lawyer X has arrived. Let's go back to the purpose of Lawyer X. Lawyer X is intended to be (1) a vehicle for a guest blogger and/or (2) a rhetorical device in the form of a fictional character that can and may be used by any or all of us.
Now, I have to admit that I'm not really sure who is posting as Lawyer X, although I'd probably be saying that even if I was using the Lawyer X penname (and, Marty, I got the dig about using "Lawyer D").
So, that's the story. Several people asked me in the last few days who or what Lawyer X was. I'm happy to have gotten the chance to identify him or her and to clear up any mystery about his or her identity.
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.
Things were quite a bit more anxious behind the scenes at Between Lawyers than we let on while we were trying to learn what had happened to Ernie in New Orleans. We're very relieved that he has gotten out, but we're stunned by the impact of the disaster. We recommend that you visit Ernie's personal blog for his description of his experience and what promises to be touching and insightful coverage of the aftermath.
We'll be posting information and links about way to help out with this disaster on this blog and our personal blogs as well (example).
It's so good to see Ernie's ongoing posts and pictures from the New Orleans environs (true to form, Ernie doesn't let a little thing like a disaster of near Biblical proportions and attendant lack of electricity and regular 'Net access get in the way of his blogging). His reports — and those of people who are also getting the word out via Ernie's blog, like Dr. Gregory Henderson — are downright chilling, e.g.: "The looters had to be held back at gun point."
National Geographic's news service has put together this timely list of aid organizations that could use all of our help as Ernie, his neighbors, and the entire region begin to recover.
Here's FindLaw's lawyer marketing page, launched this week, including this article mentioning BL, quoting Tom, and weighing in on the "are blogs advertising" issue: "Do lawyers need to be concerned about the ethics rules on lawyer marketing when they blog? Well, yes. But no more so than in any other forum in which a lawyer writes or speaks."
You may have seen how CNN is encouraging regular folks to become "citizen journalists" and share their experiences of Hurricane Katrina. We here at Between Lawyers have our very own Citizen Journalist in Ernie Svenson, who is blogging (via a special SMS-to-blogging-friend connection) about how New Orleans is recovering from the hurricane. Check it out at Ernie the Attorney.
Ernie, take care, and contact us when you're able!
One of the reasons we started Between Lawyers was to let folks see the backchannel discussions that occur between the five of us. We've never actually posted any of those discussions, not because they are 'privileged and confidential attorney-client work product' or anything stuffy like that. Basically, I think we've just dropped the ball.
So, here without any prior notice to my fellow cohorts is a snippet of one of the most recent conversation threads that occurred:
Can headlines and titles of blog posts about blogs and RSS feeds inadvertently create hype about blogging and/or the blog or organization reporting the story?
A helpful study about blogs and RSS feeds from AskJeeves attempts to document the number of RSS feeds that actually matter. Before you get too excited that this study might help you actually cut down on the number of feeds in your news aggregator, be aware that the number of feeds that matter is a svelte list of 1,121,655 feeds. [Note: Does this mean that Robert Scoble will have to add 121,000 new feeds to his subscription list?]
You'll be intrigued to see the distinguishing factor each of these blogs had in common.
No word yet from AskJeevesas to whether an OPML file for the entire list is available.
It's certainly an honor to join the list of other "feeds that matter" and the team at Between Lawyers wants to thank our subscribers who made this achievement possible. We're planning a brief celebration and then we'll be right back to work.
For cutting edge and up to the minute discussion and analysis of the today's Grokster decision, check out the Wall Street Journal's Grokster Roundtable, which includes Denise Howell of Between Lawyers among its imposing list of expert panelists.
Between Lawyers's own Denise Howell was named as one of the 50 honorable mentions to the new AO/Technorati Open Media 100 list.
As Denise notes in her comments about this on her blog, this list is chock full with people who greatly influenced my blogging, my understanding of the new Internet world and my approach and thinking about many topics. And Denise is definitely one of the people who has done so.
Great work, Denise, and well-deserved recognition. I hope that Ernie or Matt at least bought you lunch today. Take a day or two off from Between Lawyers and celebrate. We should do a BL podcast just so we can do a little whooting about this.
Memo to Reed Smith management committee - it may be time for a bonus for Denise.
A few weeks ago Steve Rubel asked his readers to pitch.him del.icio.usly. I love this idea, not just because it helps deal with email glut, but because it has the potential to work like a public "trackforward" process for your weblog. It completes the temporal context picture. Trackbacks and comments handle the past ("Here's what I think about what you wrote"), but a page full of del.icio.us tagged material points to the future ("Here's what I think you should write, or hope you will"). And it's there for the world to read, so if the weblog authors don't or can't get around to discussing your issue, at least it's out there and contextually tied to the blog in some way. The potential for link spam is big I guess, but what the hey, let's see how it goes. Ping us at the betweenlawyers tag in del.icio.us, and as long as the page remains reasonably free of poker and Prevacid we'll check it regularly. Fellow 'tweeners (and anyone else who's interested): here's the feed.
Though this weblog will be about many things, it will almost always be about this: technology changes constantly, and technology changes everything. It changes the way humans in society interact with each other and the world around them. It changes the way they entertain and educate themselves. It changes the way they love, the way they fight, and the way they attempt to govern. The law does its best to keep up, but while technology changes rapidly, the law and its institutions move at what some would call a more measured — and others would dub simply a snail's — pace.
The legal field increasingly finds itself at the intersection of modern life and the often ill-fitting or conflicting precedents that might determine the outcome of a particular dispute. Lawyers are trained to spot and analyze these sorts of issues, and to help clients, courts, and legislatures attempt to work through them. But historically, the thought processes behind our lawmaking have been largely invisible. Legal discourse has been readily accessible only to a closed loop of professionals, academics, jurists, and politicians. Even within the profession itself, "knowledge sharing" remains a somewhat novel concept. Unless you're helping generate billable hours or paying handsomely for them, until quite recently odds are your exposure to timely commentary on topical legal issues has been limited to media sound bites.
Weblogs by those across the legal field are changing this, and Between Lawyers is an effort to keep accelerating that change. Its contributors are five lawyers with disparate backgrounds who live with and strive to understand the impact of technology on our world. They are all bloggers with a track record of being able to explain complex legal issues in ways that others can understand. They find their backchannel conversations about technology, the law, their profession, and society pretty interesting, and they hope that by having these discussions in public — and inviting your participation — everyone concerned can learn a thing or two more than they otherwise would.
So, whether you're already well represented or Between Lawyers right now, we're glad you're reading and hope you'll do so often.
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
