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.
As more and better communication and collaboration functions move to the Web (under non-negotiated, vendor-centric terms of use), what are our obligations as both tech- and ethics-savvy lawyers? I for one am not about to give up Gmail. So, what's the best practice?
Shun Web services, you simply can't control the data? Use Web services only when you have specific, confidentiality and reliability guaranteeing service level agreements? Use Web services liberally, but acquaint yourself with the applicable terms of use and make sure clients are amenable?
A colleague recently asked me what concrete steps I thought an organization could take to help ensure the concepts underlying a blogging policy are actually understood and implemented. Bearing in mind I am so not an employment lawyer, I did have a few thoughts.
Blog. I suspect that companies pursuing their own blogging initiatives in addition to implementing policies intended to cover unsanctioned employee blogs will run into fewer problems with employee mistakes or misunderstandings. This is because the management and culture throughout the organization is bound to better grasp the process and related security and compliance issues. IMO, the best "training" occurs by example and widespread use.
Breathe. As I've pontificated here before, there's a pretty good case to be made that blogs and their ilk are
actually the least risky form of corporate communication. If a company adequately gets across the reasons it expects certain employee conduct with regard to external communications, confidential
information, and technology use, blogs, etc. are at least as "safe" as email and the phone; in fact, because people are more likely to understand up front these technologies are designed to accomplish wide and persistent information distribution, people are more likely to approach their use with caution and respect.
Mix. Organizations need to make sure their P.R./marketing and legal arms are communicating about how employees should be relaying work related information to third parties or the world at large, and they need to have an open-eyed appreciation of all the ways people might be or are using technology to do so. Brace yourself: P.R. and legal goals just might compete. Management needs to understand those conflicts and decide what resolution best fits what they're trying to accomplish (and what the law insists they accomplish).
Did you ever wish that you could have old email addresses forward to your new email address? How about a way to remember which of your throw-away email addresses you might have used to register on a website?
A story on the ComputerWorld website reports that Miller Brewing has touched off some controversy by sending follow-up emails to the "real" email addresses of people who register with "throw-away" email addresses. Some describe it as a little eerie or feeling a little like being stalked. I'm wondering if there might be a business model in providing a service that eventually reaches you at a good email address as you change, forget and move through a variety of email addresses.
I'll let you decide how creepy this story seems to you.
The detective efforts of the people involved are noteworthy for giving you excellent practical tips for digging for this type of information.
Dave Pollard has a great post called "That's Not What I Meant" about the importance of communication, context, tone and other cues in a world where some say that the tone, and often the intent, of half of all e-mail is misconstrued by readers. That also happens every now and then with blog posts. ;-)
Which causes the mind to be more distracted -- marijuana, or e-mail? If you picked e-mail, you'd be right. A recent study found that people who had to check e-mail and instant messages while taking an IQ test scored lower than those who took the test while they were stoned.
It definitely raises an important question: are we doing our best thinking while we are in front of the computer?
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
