Miscellaneous

Onit Unveils Enterprise Version for Corporate Legal Departments

Posted on February 04, 2011
I noted in an earlier post that the free Web-based project management tool Onit was preparing to launch a paid, premium version aimed at enterprise-level users. This week at LegalTech it did just that, introducing Onit Premium, an enhanced version of the free product designed specifically for corporate legal departments...

Legal Current?s Interview of Me at LegalTech 2011

Posted on February 04, 2011
Jessica Leibrook, the new managing editor of the Thomson Reuters blog Legal Current, interviewed me briefly after the annual bloggers’ breakfast. Click here to see the interview. Jessica and other contributors to Legal Current captured a number of interviews at LegalTech, with legal technology luminaries such as Monica Bay and Andy Adkins...

Lexis Advance Now Has an iPhone App

Posted on February 03, 2011
I wrote here in October about the launch of Lexis Advance for Solos, the LexisNexis flat-rate legal research platform for one- and two-lawyer firms. This week, Lexis rolled out a new app that allows lawyers who subscribe to Advance to use it from their iPhones...

Problems with Adobe Acrobat X Pro

Posted on January 21, 2011
Recently, I received an invitation from Adobe to download a review copy of its latest PDF software, Adobe Acrobat X Pro. I downloaded and installed the program and immediately ran into problems. Every time I tried to start it, it immediately crashed. Sometimes it would stay open for a few moments longer than other times, but [...

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New Blog Tracks Legal Developments under Daubert

Posted on January 20, 2011
In a post here recently, I mourned the death of Peter Nordberg, creator of the website Daubert on the Web and of the related blog, Blog 702, both devoted to the Supreme Court?s seminal opinion on expert evidence. Now I note the launch of a new blog devoted to tracking legal developments on the Daubert decision, Daubert Uncensored...

Four New Legal Blogs of Note

Posted on January 18, 2011
Here are four new blogs of interest to legal professionals: Summary Judgments. From Loyola Law School in Los Angeles comes this blog, which will serve as a clearinghouse for faculty commentary on a range of issues and highlight faculty scholarship. The blog kicked off the new year with “11 on ’11,” a series of posts [...

Free Service Alerts You to Federal Cases of Interest

Posted on January 17, 2011
The major commercial legal research services allow you to create alerts that will notify you by e-mail when a new case matches your search.  Now, a new website, CourtListener, offers a no-cost alternative, providing a free alert tool covering the federal circuit courts and the Supreme Court...

Google Scholar Now Searches Cases by Jurisdiction and Court

Posted on January 13, 2011
When I first wrote last year about the fact that Google Scholar had added case law research, I acknowledged it was still rough around the edges. Even so, I described it as “more than just a good start,” adding, “I expect there will be further refinements and enhancements to come...

How a Law Firm Website is Like a Cave or a Middle School Dance

Posted on January 13, 2011
Think back to when our ancestors lived in caves and imagine yourself as your clan?s hunter-gatherer. Sit by the cave entrance all day and hope that a wooly mammoth might saunter by, and your clan will soon be clamoring for food. As a hunter-gatherer, you need to do just that ? get out of your [...

Blogger, Mediator Victoria Pynchon to Speak in Boston Jan. 18

Posted on January 12, 2011
Victoria Pynchon, the Los Angeles mediator, author and blogger, will be in Boston on Tuesday, Jan. 18, to present a program, ABC’s of Negotiation. Since 2006, Victoria  has written the blog Negotiation Law. In December, she and Lisa Gates launched a blog for Forbes, She Negotiates...

TechnoLawyer Launches LitigationWorld Newsletter

Posted on January 10, 2011
TechnoLawyer, the company that publishes a series of free e-newsletters devoted to legal technology and law practice management, today launched a new weekly newsletter, LitigationWorld. You can see the first issue here. Edited by Kimberlee L. Gunning, a member of the Seattle firm Terrell Marshall & Daudt, each issue will contain a brief tip relating [...

New Site Puts Spotlight on Exemplary Lawyers

Posted on January 09, 2011
A website launched this week, The Xemplar, has the goal of shining a spotlight on “independent attorneys” who serve as examples of the best of the profession. Each month, the site will feature one attorney, generally from a solo or small firm, nominated and selected by a legal advisory board...

Update on iPleading: It?s Been Fixed

Posted on January 09, 2011
In a recent post here, I told you about iPleading, an iPhone and iPad app that lets lawyers get a head start on the process of drafting a legal pleading. As I reported then, the app did not work as it was supposed to. When I pointed this out to its developers, they immediately acknowledged that [...

iPhone Pleadings App Doesn?t Work, At Least Yet

Posted on January 06, 2011
iPleading is billed as an iPhone and iPad app that lets lawyers create “impressive pleadings with astounding ease.” The problem is, it doesn’t work. The developers say a fix is in the works and will be available within the next week or two...

R.I.P. Peter Nordberg, Lawyer, Blogger, Innovator

Posted on January 05, 2011
This post comes nine months too late, but it was only via a recent post by Walter Olson that I learned about the untimely death at age 54 of lawyer Peter Nordberg. He died April 17, leaving behind his wife and four children. In his day job, Peter was a partner with the Philadelphia plaintiffs’ litigation [...

An iPad App for Courtroom Presentations

Posted on December 29, 2010
An iPad equipped with the right software could be a powerful tool in the courtroom, given its portability and ease of use. A new iPad app, TrialPad, is specifically designed for use in the courtroom, as a tool to prepare and present electronic evidence at trial...

Vote for LawSites in the ABA Journal Blawg 100

Posted on December 27, 2010
Voting ends Dec. 30 for the readers’ favorites of the 2010 ABA Journal Blawg 100. LawSites is in the Legal Tech category. If you haven’t voted for your favorites, now is the time. (In order to vote, you have to register with ABAJournal.com...

A Cute, Cheap Alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro

Posted on December 23, 2010
A full-featured PDF program is a must-have for any lawyer these days. But at a price tag of $449, Adobe Acrobat X Pro is a lot to pay for lawyers in solo and small firms. CutePDF Pro is a program that provides much of the same functionality as Acrobat Pro, but at a much-cheaper price [...

Bloggers Beware of Demand Media?s Demand for Ownership

Posted on December 21, 2010
Way back in 2006, I accepted an invitation to enroll this blog in something called the BlogBurst Network. It described itself as “a syndication service that places blogs on top-tier online destinations.” Those destinations included several major newspapers, such as the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Gate and the Washington Post...

Clarification on Demand Media: Two Contracts

Posted on December 21, 2010
After my earlier post about Demand Media, I received a comment from a Demand Media community manager who said that the contract I cited is not the contract that applies to bloggers. I went back and checked the contract that was presented to me when I was invited to migrate my BlogBurst account to Demand...

More Details on RECOP from Fastcase?s Ed Walters

Posted on December 19, 2010
Ever wonder why someone who is in the business of selling court opinions would want to support a project that is devoted to giving them away for free? I have the answer to that question from Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase. As I wrote here earlier today, beginning in January, Fastcase will collaborate with Public...

Public Domain Group to Begin Weekly Release of all Federal and State Appellate Cases

Posted on December 19, 2010
The next revolution in legal publishing is just around the corner. Starting in 2011, Public.Resource.Org, an organization devoted to putting government documents in the public domain, will begin a weekly release of HTML versions of all slip and final opinions of the appellate and supreme courts of all 50 states and the federal government...

Trends in Law, as Seen By Google?s Ngram

Posted on December 18, 2010
Google this week announced a new visualization tool called the Google Books Ngram Viewer. Using data drawn from the millions of books it has digitized covering the years 1500 to 2008, it lets you see and compare the frequency of words and phrases as they were used in books over a span of years or [...

My Five Most Popular Posts of 2010

Posted on December 17, 2010
I’m stealing this idea from someone who suggested it for another blog, but it got me curious to go back and look at which of my posts were most popular this year. Here are the top five: A First Look at WestlawNext. Exclusive First Look: Fastcase iPhone App...

Vendors form ?Legal Cloud Computing Association?

Posted on December 17, 2010
Four companies that offer legal-oriented products and services through the cloud have banded together to form the Legal Cloud Computing Association. LCCA’s purpose, according to its announcement, “is to promote standards for cloud computing that are responsive to the needs of the legal profession and to enable lawyers to become aware of the benefits of computing [...

Double Your Money, Double Your Fun

Posted on December 15, 2010
OK, maybe I exaggerated about the “fun” part, but here is a chance to double your charitable impact this holiday season and promote the delivery of legal services to needy individuals and families, all at the same time. If you donate any amount up to $50 to the Massachusetts Bar Foundation between now and Dec...

Lexis Readies New Practice Management Tool

Posted on December 12, 2010
Sometime in the first quarter of 2011, LexisNexis will introduce the beta version of a Web-based practice-management application designed for smaller-firm lawyers called LexisNexis Firm Manager. The application has been in development and private beta for a number of months and Lexis is now preparing to open it to an invitation-only public beta...

New Site Promises ?One Really Good Idea Every Day?

Posted on December 09, 2010
A new website launched today, Attorney at Work, has the mission of delivering “one really good idea every day” for lawyers “who want help and inspiration building successful practices and balanced lives.” The site is assembling a panel of expert advisors “from the vanguard of practice management” in order to deliver a steady flow of sound [...

Two Sources for Social Media Policies

Posted on December 01, 2010
If you are researching social media policies for a company or law firm, here are two sources that each have compiled dozens of links to corporate and law firm policies on blogging, tweeting and more: Social Media Policies Database. From the Compliance Building blog written by lawyer Doug Cornelius, this collection of social-media policies grew [...

The Legal Content Companies that Matter Most

Posted on November 30, 2010
Thanks to Joe Hodnicki at Law Librarian Blog for the pointer to EContent’s latest list of the 100 companies that matter most in the digital content industry. The list includes a fair number of companies that provide content to the legal community, including Bloomberg, BNA, Reed Elsevier, Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer...

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