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.
Microsoft Provides a Good Illustration of the Metadata Exposure Problem
Ed Botts offers up a great example of how tricky the hidden data, or metadata, issue can be in Microsoft Office. The victim this time is Microsoft. Irony aside, it's important to understand the example and be attuned to the potential problems.
Ed's recent post "What's Hidden in Your Word Documents?" also is an eye-opener on the topic for those who are not familiar with the workings of the default settings in Office 2007 (that may include some bar regulators in the US).
Yet Another Use For Social Media: Narrowing The Defendant List
Blogger co-founder Evan Williams Twitters: "Dear person from law firm who wants to find the right person to threaten to sue at Blogger.com: Nope, not me."
I could see a metropolis-hinterland kind of effect, where firms put the rainmaker partners in downtown offices, and farm 'the work' out to less expensive premises.
Stealth Legal Start-up Gets $10,000,000 of VC Investment
Kevin O'Keefe spots a VERY interesting development in what might be the future of legal services for consumers. Kevin's take on this is eye-opening. Avvo is definitely something to watch for those interested in Law 2.0.
Doc Searls has a very good introduction to the increasingly important notion of the Live Web.
The money quote:
Blogs are not just sites. They are also journals — live ones, to be exact. (Significantly, Brad Fitzpatrick named his blog system LiveJournal.) When you save a blog post, Technorati knows about it and indexes it in as little as 60 seconds or less. I assume Google Blogsearch does the same. Meanwhile Google's main Static Web search engine indexes the entire Web at a less than live pace. This isn't a bad thing at all; just a different thing. This difference is so sharp that Google Blogsearch gives you a choice between "Search Blogs" and "Search the Web".
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."
Denise Howell's notes from her recent talk called "Law That Works" will one day be seen as one of the important theoretical steps toward what will become Law 2.0.
Money quote:
The reinvented law of reinvented TV is built — route-around by route-around — on the damage of things like byzantine music licensing rules, nonexistent Hollywood film licensing alternatives, antiquated procedural niceties, and the inability of our undeniably glorious (when compared with other alternatives) legal system to deliver certainty on a host of business-critical and livelihood-critical issues.
The Open Culture blog has amazing lists of and links to educational podcasts, such as this useful list of links to podcasts from top U.S. law schools. It's nice to see my law school alma mater, Georgetown, among the leaders in these efforts as well as Georgetown returning to historic basketball form in the NCAA tournament.
Blog carnivals are an interesting blog phenomenon, with a long history. Dave Winer has referred to a blog as "the unedited voice of a person," and blog carnivals turn that notion on its head, being "voices of many different people in many different places." However, that's what makes the blogosphere so rich - there are so many ways to create compelling blogs and blog content. In that respect, it's even more amazing to keep a blog carnival going for 100 editions (and even more in the case of some blog carnivals), especially as blog search tools improve and people increasingly consume information through RSS feeds and newsreaders rather than individually visiting blogs.
I know that I am not alone in saying that my favorite Blawg Review post remains Marty Schwimmer's highly-regarded Blawg Review #60, which seemed as timely and incisive this morning when I reread it this morning as it did on the day it was posted.
Marty's money quote:
This is an opportunity for the blawgosphere to assume a leadership position. It can be more than a compendium of firm brochures. Practitioner blogs can provide cool-headed legal analysis of issues such as the Niger Documents, Plame Affair, Torture Memos, NSA issues and Signing Statements, to a broader audience than the prof blogs can reach.
Is it a poison for a practitioner to discuss politics? Partisan politics, yes.
However I don't see a downside in arguing for equal application of and respect for the law. That may even be one of those civic duties they may have mentioned at the bar admission ceremony.
I would hope that there is a centrist bloc of practitioner bloggers who simply want the truth to come out. Jack Nicholson is wrong, we can handle the truth.
So let's continually ask whether our Government is acting lawfully.
Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy provide a great list of resources for learning more about Word's Track Changes feature and redlining in their article, "Staying on Track with Track Changes," in the March issue of the ABA's Law Practice Today webzine.
Internet radio is a canary in the coal mine of an insane Net-hostile Regulatorium that stretches from the cableco/telco duopoly to the copyright oligarchs who are strangling what Professor Lessig calls Free Culture. That Regulatorium should be the enemy of every free-market Republican and every free-speech Democrat. It's slowing down the U.S. and its businesses as competitors in the World Wide Marketplace we call the Net.
Will this decision to execute the Internet radio canary motivate us to do what we should have been doing more of for the past ten years? That's up to you and me.
Between Lawyers' own Dennis Kennedy has identified seven legal technology trends lawyers, law firms and law departments (and those who sell products and services to them) should be considering in 2007.
The money quote:
By the end of 2007, we will be talking about a clear and growing digital divide between technology-forward and technology-backward lawyers and firms and a subtle restructuring of the practice of law.
David Lat, on the New York Post's Lawyers, Fun, & Money piece (about midlevel attorneys leaving large firms): "As the Book of Revelation teaches, when Fortune 500 document dumps are being reviewed by Cardozo rather than Columbia grads, the end is near."
Mohamad Mova Al 'Afghani has an intriguing post called "Long-tailing the legal service: The Googlawfirm" that combines the idea of the long tail and Law 2.0. A useful contribution to the Law 2.0 discussion.
Legal Internet pioneer Erik Heels is conducting an interesting experiment around the question: "are blogs dead?" Take a look and help him with his experiment.
Fascinating article from Jason Hancock about lawyers blogging in Iowa - The Gospel of Blawging.
The money quote:
Nigut said nobody is as smart as everybody, so instead of shying away from cooperating or interacting with other law firms around the state or country, blogging encourages the sharing of ideas.
Martin Veitch, The Inquirer: "[T]he day that the language of the billiards hall reaches such depths here, we shall be forced to leave the United Kingdom. "
Ron Friedman has some spot-on comments about the recently released 2006 AmLaw Tech Survey of the largest US law firms.
The money quote:
My concern is that the results of the survey, while accurate, can be used by law firm management to thwart innovative ideas offered by lawyers, CIOs, marketers, knowledge managers, and others.
Unless you're our colleague Ernie, that is: "I don't want to put any disclaimers on my blog," said Ernest Svenson, a blogger better know as Ernie the Attorney. "It's a buy-in to a mindset that I want to go away." Well said, as to what should by rights be able to remain unsaid.
Bruce Marcus, one of the most-respected voices in legal marketing, has a very thoughtful analysis of the problems raised by New York's proposed regulation (or is it micromanagement?) of lawyer communications. His historical perspective is a welcome addition to this discussion and I hope that regulators will read and consider it, as will you.
The money quote:
To consider legal blogs as mere promotional devices is to ignore the significant contributions the legal bloggers make to the practice. And if, in the course of dissemination of information and informed opinion somebody gets the idea that one lawyer’s blog indicates that the blogger’s view of law is more thoughtful than the firm currently being used, there’s more benefit than harm – to both the profession and the clients.
Kevin O'Keefe reports that "FTC staffers, with the backing of commissioners, say they are concerned the changes are not specifically tailored to prevent deception and could instead suppress truthful, nonmisleading advertising."
Amen.
The New York efforts are one more round in the continuing state-by-state trend of vague, micro-managing restraints on lawyers' speech which are all-but-impossible to understand, let alone comply with, and directed at "problems" that existing rules should cover and have many unintended consequences, the most unintended of which may be to bring the FTC or some other Federal inititatives into the regulation of lawyers. In the current environment, national rules promulgated by the FTC might well be better than the crazy-quilt of state regulations we are now seeing.
Food for thought: As Kevin O'Keefe says, "Strange that the FTC may have to protect consumers from lawyers passing restrictions supposedly to protect consumers. Looks to me like 'well entrenched lawyers' are passing restrictions to prevent younger lawyers from taking some of their legal work through education based marketing that helps consumers."
More details and comments on the proposed rules can be found here and here and here and here. My comments from a few months ago can be found here.
Let's discuss, because the expansive definitions in the New York rules mean, on their face, that the rules may apply to any lawyer anywhere with a web page, let alone a blog.
Here's a development in a trend that I really like:
Professor Charles Nesson, Rebecca Nesson, Gene Koo making their class at Harvard Law School called "CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion" available to anyone using the Internet for free.
They say:
If we do say so ourselves, the course will be unlike any that has ever been taught. It is a course in persuasive, empathic argument in the Internet space. Throughout the course we will be studying many different media technologies to understand how their inherent characteristics and modes of distribution affect the arguments that are made using them. Students will be immersed in this study through project-based assignments in which they will be using these technologies to make their own arguments.
The course site has an introductory video to pique your interest.
Law Underground is: "a non-profit legal information project," which does (and will) aggregate topical information provided by volunteer lawyers and law students.
WisBlawg's Bonnie Shucha reports that LexisNexis is now including a lengthy list of blogs (including this one) in its Newstex database. Yet another example of the paid online legal database companies tying their business models to the location of relevant information that already is online for free. Makes me wonder how long it will take before a well designed, ad-supported free legal search competitor comes in and seriously syphons off subscribers. Google undoubtedly does this already, even though it doesn't (yet) do vertical search.
History in the making and participatory law in action — behold LawClinic.TV. From the press release: "Fordham University School of Law today became the first academic institution to launch a video blog or 'vlog.' The vlog, LawClinic.TV, features one-to-two minute videos of clinical law professors and students sharing their thoughts on clinical law education and written commentary from Fordham’s director of clinical education, Professor Ian Weinstein."
This is cool. Legal technology wizard Ross Kodner has debuted his new blog, Ross Ipsa Loquitur. I know that it will be a source of great info. I've learned a lot from Ross and had a lot of fun presenting with him on legal tech topics. Welcome to the Land of Blog, Ross.
On February 26, 2003, Robert Scoble penned (keyboarded?) his Corporate Weblog Manifesto, possibly the single most important thing business people can read (other than, of course, Robert's book) to understand what it takes to navigate and thrive in the blogosphere. Over time there have been a couple of addendums (I may be missing some), which also are key reading. Today, Robert has more in the same vein with Rule #1: Don’t pull down posts — a real world cautionary tale that warrants taking to heart.
Will the New Electronic Discovery Rules Changes Affect You Sooner Than You Expect?
Rob Robinson points to an article indicating that the new electronic discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that have been so much in the news may impact lawyers in some states in a few weeks rather than a few months. Do you know if your state is an early bird?
Nobody is covering current developments in electronic discovery, especially in e-discovery technology, better than Rob Robinson is on his information governance blog. The blog has pointers to great info on a daily basis.
CFO.com, When Talk Isn't Cheap: "It's not always employees whose online postings put companies in a tough spot."
Also, here's Tom Keating'srundown of the referenced June '06 survey: "2006 Proofpoint Survey Finds that 7.1% of Large US Companies Fired Employees for Blogging and Message Board Infractions In Last 12 Months."
Indianapolis Star columnist Dana Knight has a thorough and balanced piece on employee blogging: Words of caution. There's a little bit of everything there, including approaches of different companies, blogs and marketing, recent Pew blogging survey results, and do's and don'ts for employers and employees.
A fascinating result of court decisions being published on the Internet and made freely available is that many people other than lawyers are reading and analyzing court decisions, in some cases more rigorously and insightfully than some lawyers. In other cases, however, you see people not quite getting the hang of reading opinions or misinterpreting elements of cases.
Lawyer or non-lawyer, this guide will help anyone who wants to sift through the sometimes opaque and arcane world of judicial decisions. Highly recommended.
I've been thinking about disclaimers and blogging today and thought it would be good to update my disclaimers with respect to this blog.
Please pardon the administrative interruption.
REQUIRED STATEMENTS UNDER MISSOURI SUPREME COURT RULES IF THIS BLOG OR ANY PORTION OF IT IS DEEMED TO BE AN ADVERTISEMENT OR SOLICITATION FOR DENNIS KENNEDY. This website is not intended to be an advertisement or solicitation for my legal services. However, under recent changes in Missouri Rules, it may be deemed to be so, despite my intention. Therefore, the following statements may be required on this website and I have included them in order to be in full compliance with these rules. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. Disregard this solicitation if you have already engaged a lawyer in connection with the legal matter referred to in this solicitation. You may wish to consult your lawyer or another lawyer instead of me. The exact nature of your legal situation will depend on many facts not known to me at this time. You should understand that the advice and information in this solicitation is general and that your own situation may vary. This statement is required by rule of the Supreme Court of Missouri.
DISCLAIMER: The posts and opinions expressed on this blog and this website are solely the personal opinions of Dennis Kennedy. They do not represent or reflect (nor are they intended to represent or reflect) the positions, opinions, viewpoints, policies and/or statements of any entity in which I have any ownership interest, with which I have any contractual or other legal relationship, or which is, was or might be my client or customer.
Dennis Kennedy is licensed to practice law in Missouri.
Looking for something to read this weekend? Look no further -- check out Nexus, a "Journal of Opinion" from Chapman University School of Law. The current issue is titled How are Blogs Affecting the Legal World?, and it contains 12 articles from law professors and law blog lumiaries alike. Included is Blog You (PDF File), an article from BL's very own Denise Howell.
The Yale Law Journal is looking for submissions on topics "both contentious and suitable to thorough and engaging discussion." If you have something in mind you'd better get a move on, the deadline is August 1.
While that bit of information is interesting in its own right, perhaps more interesting is the way I know about it: YLJ went out of its way to thank blawger Sean Sirrine, and ask him once again to help get the word out about the opportunity (which he did). Just another example of blawgs throwing a courtyard bazaar at the ivory tower and fostering a culture of participatory law. I can't think of a more effective way to engage those who might have something intriguing to say.
Just out this week, Socialtext Open: "Socialtext Open is released under a standard open source license, and contains all of Socialtext's enterprise grade code aside from enterprise management and enterprise integration tools."
Wikis at work,
BEA, IBM, Oracle, SAP Ramp SOA Spec Efforts: "The group also has setup what they call a 'vendor-neutral Web site, designed as a wiki' they will use to collaborate, communicate and gain feedback from developers. There's a place for news, white papers, public specifications and access to information on early deployments."
Must-read (and Must-Think-About) Blogging from Denise Howell
"Have Aeron Will Travel" is a must-read blog post from Between Lawyers' own Denise Howell. I don't think you'll find a better-written and more savvy post on the practice of law this year, making its subject especially ironic. Let me say simply and clearly that there is no one more respected in the world of law-related blogging than Denise Howell (see lifetime achievement award comments here).
I'll have more to say on this subject later after I give it some more thought, but I'm simply flummoxed by the decision Denise discusses in the post. Jeaneane Sessum has some comments that represent a good starting point to think about the issues raised in Denise's post.
A firm cannot prosper without keeping its best people and the best people will always have choices which they will exercise based on their drive for self actualization. The Managing Partners who understand this and manage accordingly will be judged as our profession's greatest heroes.
I'll simply echo Steve Nipper's question about the consequences, especially the unintended ones, of continuing to apply Law 1.0 concepts in an evolving Law 2.0 world, especially when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. How many law students interviewing with Reed Smith this fall will ask a question about Denise? How many of them will be satisfied with the answers they get?
As I said, I'm flummoxed by Reed Smith's decision-making process. After 20+ years of practicing law, however, I do have my own ways to read the tea leaves in this decision and it definitely raises some interesting questions and speculation that will probably be discussed at the firm in the coming days. I'll probably talk about those on my own blog at some point soon.
It will be our pleasure to hold down the fort at the Between Lawyers blog while Denise takes a well-earned break. Buon viaggio, Denise.
The United States Copyright Code (Rappable Rhyming Version)
U.S. statutes often lack any rhythm and meter, making them difficult to read, let alone understand or memorize. Yehuda Berlinger's The United States Copyright Code, in Verse addresses the problem and might give you an enjoyable way to learn about the basics of copyright law.
A little caveat, however:
You can do a lot worse
than learning copyright by verse,
but please be sure to think twice
before acting without a lawyer's advice
Illustrating the approaches toward blogging policies should be context-specific and not cookie cutter:
Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz: "Our blogging policy is 'Be authentic. Period.'" (It's been awhile since I was showing up bright eyed and bushy tailed for Larry Sonsini's Securities Regs class in law school, but I'd be willing to bet Sun's securities lawyers might want a qualifier or two.)
Summer camps, with camper identities to protect and other considerations, might understandably go a different route. That article also highlights, and Dennis pointed out (by pointing here) on our mailing list, the camps' attempts to police bloggy uses of their trademarks. I'll have to defer to Marty on this but what they're concerned about sounds like nominative fair use.
Bruce Marcus offers a wise and thoughtful perspective on the recent efforts of bar associations in New York and elsewhere to impose elaborate regulations on advertising and other public and private communication by lawyers in his post "BACK TO 1950 – THE NEW ADVERTISING CODE OF ETHICS."
Rob Robinson takes us on a nice pictorial, perhaps even pastoral, tour of the blawgosphere. It's interesting to see the geographical component of blawgging. Nicely done and a pleasant diversion form the work of the day.
The dog days of summer have already hit St. Louis. You begin to look for any way to get a break from the heat. And those high-heat notebook computers are no picnic.
In potenitlally good news, scientists from IBM and the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a semiconductor approximately 100 times faster than chips commonly used today by freezing ithe chips at 451 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (close to absolute zero).
A friend of mine once joked that he made Jiffy Pop popcorn on his notebook computer because it got so hot. At least I think he was joking. With these new chips perhaps we'll be able to keep drinks chilled or even make a little home-made ice cream while typing away.
Alas, no prospects of the chips coming into production in the near future.
The real news in this story, of course, is what it may mean for Moore's Law and the idea of the Singularity.
Corporate blogging aficionista Debbie Weil is poised to unleash her Corporate Blogging Book on August 3. In the meantime she's offering freebies to tease and entice &mdash the complete first chapter, called "Top 20 Questions About Corporate Blogging," and, if you preorder at Amazon, the book's chart highlights — which you can check out at the book's site.
More great insights and ideas from value billing guru Ron Baker will help you in your next discussion about billable hours and may help you make your clients happier. Very interesting comments on the future of pricing approaches for professional services.
The money quote:
He also mentioned the war for talent, and warned that firms that stick to the timesheet method will have a difficult time recruiting young talent. "The young kids should be given the chance to shake things up and ask 'why are we doing this?'" he said. "These kids are knowledge workers and understand the value that they bring. Yet we're treating them like union employees, making them worry about being paid by the hour."
There's a slew of law related RSS feeds — for press releases and news articles related to "Deals," "People," "Prosecutions," "Lawsuits," "Awards/Rankings," and "Announcements" — at LawFuel.com.
Gawker, re posting (and substituting) thumbnails of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt to illustrate coverage of how "exclusive" magazine photos had leaked to the Web: "[W]e can’t even keep track of what we are and aren’t allowed to do anymore." (The Gawker "Legal" tag is worth following.)
Dahlia Lithwick, Blawgs on a Roll: "The blogosphere thrives precisely because it exists at the interstices of the ivory tower and pop culture. As a result, it's the most fertile ground for cutting-edge law talk. " [via Bob Ambrogi]
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.)
From the Frontier of Privacy and Tracking Technology
The Glue Gun and Other Sticky Stories: Fascinating article from CIO Insider highlights some recent and wacky develpments in the world of tracking technology. You might be wondering how our laws can keep up with all of this. It's a good thing to be wondering about.
Legal publishing conglomerate Thomson West is venturing into the podcasting arena with Westcast. I don't know what it says about West's perceptions of this endeavor that at the moment the podcast doesn't have its own page, but instead lives in the sidebar of West's News Room. The show does, however, have a feed, and three episodes in the can — covering bankruptcy reform, technology trends, and the Supreme Court's Kelo (eminent domain) decision, respectively.
Spherepromises not only excellent blog search but a bookmarklet that will "change your life " ("Note that the Sphere It! Bookmarklet finds blog posts related to the content of the page you're reading, instead of just using links...").
Looking for another unique, technologically attuned way to market yourself, firm, and/or practice? You could always try gaming MySpace. Or Digg, for that matter. (Please know I'm just kidding, and think those who game social networking sites are a life form on the same sub-primate order as spammers.)
Denise Howell
Dennis M. Kennedy
Tom Mighell
Marty Schwimmer
Ernest Svenson
