Miscellaneous

Awards Honor Best in Legal Writing

Posted on May 21, 2010
Winners have been announced of the 2010 Burton Awards for legal writing. Given annually by The Burton Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress, the awards honor lawyers and law students “who use plain, clear and concise language and avoid archaic, stilted legalese...

Lawyer2Lawyer Looks at Ethics in the Cloud

Posted on May 21, 2010
The North Carolina State Bar recently published for comment a proposed legal ethics opinion approving lawyers’  use of cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service. In this week’s edition of the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we discuss the ethics of cloud computing with two guests: Alice N...

Sneak Peak at the New Martindale-Hubbell Connected

Posted on May 20, 2010
One year after its official launch, the professional-networking site Martindale-Hubbell Connected is preparing to roll out a relaunch, with a new design, new features and enhanced functionality. Well before its official launch, I posted one of the first reviews of the beta site...

Blog Tracks Progress towards Open Government

Posted on May 20, 2010
The organization OpenTheGovernment.org has launched a blog, Evaluating Open Gov, as part of its larger effort to track and evaluate the federal government’s progress towards fulfilling President Obama’s commitment to “creating an unprecedented level of openness in government...

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New Blog Covers Government Contracts Law

Posted on May 20, 2010
The law firm Crowell & Moring has launched Government Contracts Legal Forum, a blog providing news and commentary on legal issues relating to government contracts. The blog has nearly a dozen contributors from the firm’s Government Contracts Group...

Federal Courts Site Gets Web 2.0?d

Posted on May 17, 2010
The Federal Judiciary unveiled a significantly redesigned Web site this week at U.S. Courts.gov. The redesign is intended to make the site more attractive, accessible and useful, an announcement said. In the process, it added new Web 2.0 features such as RSS feeds, podcasts and multimedia...

New Site Enables Any Lawyer to Get Bulk Discounts

Posted on May 14, 2010
Anyone who has ever shopped at a warehouse discount store knows that buying in bulk can save you money. A new Web site extends that concept to lawyers, enabling even solo attorneys to buy goods and services at bulk discounts. And to help build up the critical mass of buyers needed to achieve those discounts, [...

A Tale of Two Heroic Lawyers, a 30-Year Fight, an FBI Cover-Up and Even a Kagan Tie-in

Posted on May 13, 2010
Here’s a story that has all the elements: a crusading solo, a muckraking lawyer-turned-journalist, an FBI cover-up, and even a tie-in to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Victor J. Garo is the kind of lawyer the rest of us only hope to be. This Medford, Mass...

Are Law Firm PR Pros Overpaid or Underpaid?

Posted on May 13, 2010
I posted here a couple days ago about the new survey of compensation paid to law firm media professionals. It found salaries ranging from $50,000 to $375,000. That prompted a follow-up post from Mike Mintz at the Martindale.com Blog and an invitation from Mike to post about it in the Legal Management forum on Martindale-Hubbell [...

Law Firm Media Survey Reveals Pay, Policies

Posted on May 10, 2010
A just-published compensation survey of law firm media professionals offers an inside look not only at what these professionals earn, but also at their firms’ use of social media. The survey was conducted by the organization Law Firm Media Professionals in conjunction with Hellerman Baretz Communications...

Sneak Peak: ?Solo Practice University? Review

Posted on May 07, 2010
Shortly after Solo Practice University celebrated its first-year of operation in March, I spent a few days touring its virtual campus and sitting in on some of its classes. I’ve written a full review that will appear in next month’s Law Technology News...

The Mystery of the Missing iPhone

Posted on May 07, 2010
This week on the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we take on the legal issues surrounding the lost iPhone 4G prototype that ended up in the hands of an editor at Gizmodo.com. Helping us sort through the legal issues in the case are this week’s guests Sam Bayard, assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project, and [...

A Legal Magazine Makes Its Digital Debut

Posted on May 05, 2010
A new digital-only legal magazine covering Florida lawyers and courts published its first issue yesterday. The magazine, The Florida Law Journal, says it will cover legal trends, cases and issues for legal professionals in the Sunshine State. Notably, given the magazine’s locale, is that two of its owners are prominent California personal-injury attorneys, Thomas V...

And Now, a Blog Just for Lobbyists

Posted on May 05, 2010
A new blog, suitably called LobbyBlog.com, targets Washington, D.C., lobbyists, providing news and information on ethics, campaign finance, pay to play, and other lobbying issues. The blog is published by Lobbyists.info, a Web site with various resources related to federal lobbying and lobbying compliance.

A Legal News Podcast from Thomson Reuters

Posted on May 05, 2010
Legal Current, a blog published by Thomson Reuters, today added a new feature, the Legal Current podcast. The podcast will feature “information and commentary on the global business and practice of law.” Today’s first episode covers several topics in the news — the Arizona immigration law, the Supreme Court’s animal cruelty ruling and the BP oil [...

Kunstler Documentary is a Must-See DVD

Posted on May 04, 2010
Last November in a post at Legal Blog Watch, I wrote about the theatrical release of the film, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. I was not able to see the film then, but I have seen it now, thanks to its recent release on DVD. I’m no film critic, but I highly recommend it, not [...

Winners Named of 2010 Webby Awards

Posted on May 04, 2010
Winners were announced today of the 2010 Webby Awards, honoring excellence in Web sites in more than 100 categories. In the law category, the Webby Award winner is Bitter Lawyer, the blog that aims to be “an engaging, insightful entertainment destination for lawyers...

Speaking Next Week at Law Firm Media Professionals

Posted on May 03, 2010
On Tuesday, May 11, from 8 to 9:30 a.m., I will be speaking at the monthly meeting of the Boston chapter of Law Firm Media Professionals. I will be part of a panel discussion of blogging in the legal industry. Also on the panel will be Robert M. Buchanan Jr...

The Latest Review of WestlawNext

Posted on May 03, 2010
Back in January, I had the first pre-launch review of WestlawNext, West’s next-generation version of its legal-research service. Via a tweet today from Ron Coleman, I learned of an April 23 review posted at AALL Spectrum by Ryan Harrington, reference librarian at Yale Law School...

This Blog is Moving: New URL and New RSS Feed

Posted on April 29, 2010
I am thrilled to announce that LawSites is moving. The new address for the blog is http://www.lawsitesblog.com and the new RSS feed is http://www.lawsitesblog.com/feed. I hope you will check out the new site. I am particularly thrilled with the new design, which was done for me by the good folks at Justia...

White Paper Discusses E-Discovery in FCPA Cases

Posted on April 29, 2010
E-discovery in cases under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act can raise many hurdles. Documents are likely to be in multiple languages. The quantity of data is likely to be huge. And the data is apt to be housed with multiple custodians in any number of global locations and in any variety of formats...

Lawyer2Lawyer: The Arizona Immigration Law

Posted on April 29, 2010
This week on the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we discuss Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Joining us to discuss the law and its constitutionality are Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, and Paul Bender, professor of law and dean emeritus at the Sandra Day O?Connor College of Law at Arizona State University...

'Document Lifecycle' Site Launches in the Cloud

Posted on April 27, 2010
<a href="http://www.litera.com/">Lit ra</a>, a company that markets a suite of "document lifecycle management" products popular among many larger law firms, today is launching a cloud-based version, <a href="http://www.literalive.com/">Lit ra Live</a>...

?Document Lifecycle? Site Launches in the Cloud

Posted on April 26, 2010
Litéra, a company that markets a suite of “document lifecycle management” products popular among many larger law firms, today is launching a cloud-based version, Litéra Live. The software-as-a-service allows users to: Collaborate on documents in real time with multiple users...

Two New Blogs Track Labor and Employment Law

Posted on April 19, 2010
Two major law firms launched blogs this week devoted to tracking developments in labor and employment law.<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.mckennalong.com/">McKenna Long & Aldridge</a> comes <a href="http://www.laborrelationstoday...

Two New Blogs Track Labor and Employment Law

Posted on April 18, 2010
Two major law firms launched blogs this week devoted to tracking developments in labor and employment law. From McKenna Long & Aldridge comes Labor Relations Today. Led by MLA partners Richard B. Hankins and Seth H. Borden, the blog is devoted to providing analysis, resources and commentary regarding current and emerging issues in labor and employment [...

Create a Daily 'Newspaper' From a Twitter Stream

Posted on April 17, 2010
Paper.li is a site that creates a daily newspaper from the stream of any <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> user, updated every 24 hours. Below is a screen cap of one created using<a href="http://twitter.com/bobambrogi"> my Twitter</a> stream...

Create a Daily ?Newspaper? From a Twitter Stream

Posted on April 17, 2010
Paper.li is a site that creates a daily newspaper from the stream of any Twitter user, updated every 24 hours. Below is a screen cap of one created using my Twitter stream. To see the full page, go to my Daily on Twitter. [A nod to Clarinette for tipping me off to this...

Tax Deadline Extended for Eastern Mass.

Posted on April 13, 2010
If you live in Eastern Massachusetts, you have extra time to file and pay your taxes this year. Because of the recent severe storms and flooding in the region, both the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Mass. Department of Revenue have extended the April 15 deadline to May 11...

Podcast: Upheaval at the NLRB

Posted on April 13, 2010
Recently, President Obama caused a stir when he used his recess-appointment authority to name two union lawyers, Craig Becker and Mark Pearce, to the <a href="http://www.nlrb.gov">National Labor Relations Board</a>. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case that questions whether nearly two years' worth of decisions by the two sitting members constituted a legally authorized quorum...

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