Legal Commentary

Using Facebook, MySpace and Google to collect on judgments

Posted on September 01, 2009
How about this? The I.R.S. and state tax people are using Facebook and MySpace to collect on back taxes. There are a number of recent articles on the topic, including one from the Wall Street Journal entitled Is “Friending” in Your Future? Better Pay Your Taxes First...

A creative way to use Google street views: Using it to find a cheaper hotel room

Posted on May 29, 2009
The ABA Techshow was recently held at the Chicago Hilton located at 720 South Michigan Avenue. Even though the ABA got a discount on the normal room rate, it still cost attendees $199 per night. While I was at the conference, I started speaking with someone who was attending who could not have afforded that rate...

How to have the Post Office automatically update you on people?s new addresses

Posted on May 25, 2009
What happens when you send a letter to someone and that person has moved? Your letter will automatically get forwarded for the first 12 months after the service. But you won?t get the person?s new address. Here?s how you can have the Post Office automatically send you the new address: Just place “Address Service Requested” on [...

More sites for finding info on jurors, lawyers, and others

Posted on April 22, 2009
I wrote earlier about using pipl and other sites for finding information about potential jurors and others — including discovering what federal and state political contributions they had made and which parties or candidates received their contributions...

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Selecting mock juries and focus groups: A very out-of-the-box approach

Posted on March 30, 2009
The normal approach to selecting members of mock juries and focus groups is to try to obtain a cross-section of the community in which the case is going to be tried. I recently read an article about how one plaintiff lawyer purposely does not pick a representative group when he selects people for his mock juries [...

How to find information about potential jurors and others ? including info about their political contributions

Posted on March 21, 2009
Do you want to find information about potential jurors and others? Here?s where at no cost you can search multiple sites with one search: Kim Komando (that?s really her name — her site is Komando.com) has listed sites in which you can search social networking sites simultaneously...

Here?s an out-of-the-box way for unemployed attorneys to get new clients

Posted on March 19, 2009
There are now all sorts of articles about how lawyers have lost their positions. Carolyn Elefant has detailed the problem in Legal Blog Watch as has Bruce MacEwen in his Adam Smith, Esq., whom she cited. As they noted, some out-of-work attorneys have started volunteering to do pro bono work as a way to keep busy and to keep their morale up...

Out-of-the-box uses for Dragon NaturallySpeaking

Posted on March 12, 2009
 All of us ? or at least most of us ? have heard of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and its use as voice recognition software in law offices.  But there are many more uses for Nuance Corporation?s Dragon!!  Uses outside of a law office I read a while back about how a husband whose wife was deaf was using Dragon to [...

You can insert videos and sound into PDF documents!!!

Posted on March 07, 2009
I was reading Ross Kodner?s blog and he described a CLE presentation he had seen where David Ferrell, an attorney, had shown a sample PDF demand letter that had video included in it. Here?s Ross?s accolade: In a demand letter related to personal injuries suffered by a Chinese melamine-laced formula poison infant, the video that popped up [...

If you?re a lawyer with an iPhone, you need to see the blog iPhone J.D.

Posted on February 09, 2009
Jeff Richardson, like me a New Orleanian, has a blog that is invaluable for lawyers who are iPhone users. Jeff’s blog is iPhone J.D. — Lawyers Using iPhones, and he includes — with lots of screen shots – detailed postings of new apps and other useful info for attorneys...

Lawyers can be mechanically creative

Posted on February 06, 2009
The New York Times recently had an article on techniques people use to show they were busy so they wouldn’t get fired: “Working Hard To Look Busy.” A lawyer in the New York office of an international firm had a creative approach. Perhaps putting aside other issues, he wanted to have the lights in his office on in the [...

Out-of-the-box marketing: Listing fixed fees for writing appellate briefs

Posted on February 03, 2009
We?ve all heard about setting fixed fees for certain kinds of litigation. But this is the first time that I?ve seen a site in which an appellate firm lists a schedule of its fees for certain kinds of work. For instance, the firm, The Bartlett Law Firm, APLC,  lists its fee for writing a principal brief [...

Do you suffer from "Nomophobia"?

Posted on April 02, 2008
London's Daily Mail just reported about it in a headline: "Nomophobia is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact - and it's the plague of our 24/7 age." The article continues: "Millions apparently suffer from 'no mobile phobia' which has been given the name nomophobia...

Do you suffer from ?Nomophobia??

Posted on April 02, 2008
London’s Daily Mail just reported about it in a headline: “Nomophobia is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact - and it’s the plague of our 24/7 age.” The article continues: “Millions apparently suffer from ‘no mobile phobia’ which has been given the name nomophobia...

A suggested blog: A blog that reports cases that hold laws or rules unconstitutional or invalid for some other reason

Posted on March 05, 2008
This is an out-of-the-box suggestion for a new blog — one that I think will interest many readers, and it’s free for the taking. By way of background, one way of coming up with solutions in your practice is to have many ways to jog your thought processes...

Jott — A great way to send an e-mail just by dictating it

Posted on February 14, 2008
Jott is a wonderful free service that lets you send an email by dictating it as a voice message. You can even use a plain old cell phone that doesn’t have regular Internet capability. You sign up with Jott and then, on your computer, enter the names and email addresses of those to whom you might want to send messages...

An out-of-the-box way to find someone?s hidden bank accounts

Posted on February 02, 2008
Do you remember that Sherlock Holmes solved a crime because of a dog that didn’t bark? Well, in one case reported by CaseMap, an investigator entered all of a husband’s checks into CaseMap’s case preparatiion program. Here’s how, in that out-of-the-box way, the payments that didn’t show up led to the investigator’is discovery of the husband’is [...

Metadata in photos: There’s a lot of hidden information in digital photos

Posted on January 03, 2008
You’ve probably learned about all the metadata that can be found in word processing files. The metadata may show when a document was created, what editing changes were made, and all sorts of other potentially valuable information. I recently learned that there is also some extremely valuable information hidden away in the digital version of digital photographs...

Metadata in photos: There?is a lot of hidden information in digital photos

Posted on January 03, 2008
You’ive probably learned about all the metadata that can be found in word processing files. The metadata may show when a document was created, what editing changes were made, and all sorts of other potentially valuable information. I recently learned that there is also some extremely valuable information hidden away in the digital version of digital [...

Today's Wall Street Journal — June 18 — has a great 12-page section on “All Things Digital”

Posted on June 18, 2007
Thes Monday June 18 issue of the Wall Street Journal has a tremendously informative section regarding computers and other digital information. Particularly pertinent for attorneys are articles entitled: “Business Solutions: Making Sense of Social Software” “Social Studies: Companies of all kinds are figuring out which tools work and how to use them" — The article includes information on topics such as social networking, RSS, wikis and blogs and a discussion of how corporations are using them” (This article may be seen at not cost on the Journal's site...

Today?s Wall Street Journal - June 18 - has a great 12-page section on ?All Things Digital?

Posted on June 18, 2007
Thes Monday June 18 issue of the Wall Street Journal has a tremendously informative section regarding computers and other digital information. Particularly pertinent for attorneys are articles entitled: “Business Solutions: Making Sense of Social Software” “Social Studies: Companies of all kinds are figuring out which tools work and how to use them” — The article includes information on [...

How to automatically update "See page ____" cross-references in your briefs and memos

Posted on February 12, 2007
Continuing readers of legal blogs such as this one probably know how to create cross-references in their briefs and memos. With that knowledge, they don't have to manually update their cross-references when they add or delete pages in their briefs and memos, thus changing the cross-referenced pages...

How to automatically update ?See page ____? cross-references in your briefs and memos

Posted on February 12, 2007
Continuing readers of legal blogs such as this one probably know how to create cross-references in their briefs and memos. With that knowledge, they don’t have to manually update their cross-references when they add or delete pages in their briefs and memos, thus changing the cross-referenced pages...

Finding evacuee doctors

Posted on September 28, 2005
If you're trying to find a new contact for a Louisiana evacuee doctor, try searching the website for the hospital where the doctor is on staff. Here, for example, is the Touro Infirmary link for Touro doctors: http://208.15.228.177/Physicians/FindaPhysician/tabid/72/Default...

Suggestions for documenting Katrina losses

Posted on September 24, 2005
I received the following suggestions for documenting Katrina-related losses. The suggestions came from a professional photographer/videographer and were also posted on www.nola.com: “Basically, you need to have very clear photos and video. You need to show the up close damage details, and the wide view to put it all in context...

Katrina - How to find lawyers who had to leave their offices

Posted on September 22, 2005
Katrina has forced many Louisiana lawyers from their offices. If you're a lawyer or a client looking for them, there are two sites that may have their new information. But the lawyers must have registered their new addresses and telephone numbers. The Louisiana State Bar Association has one of the sites...

Katrina-related legal info - A Katrina manual for attorneys and other information

Posted on September 22, 2005
The Louisiana State Bar Association site (www.lsba.org) has a variety of information for attorneys. Part of that information, which is open to the public, includes a training manual for attorneys: "Emergency Disaster Training Manual for Louisiana Lawyers...

Katrina - Entergy gives stats of which zip codes have or will have power

Posted on September 21, 2005
I'm an evacuee from New Orleans. There are lots of people, who, like me, have had to leave New Orleans. One of the things that is stopping us from returning is the lack of power in our homes and offices. Therefore, it may be helpful for people to know whether power is available, and if it isn't, when it will be available...

An out-of-the-box way to find a solution for winning your case - - "Researching by wandering around" - - Using indexes to law review articles

Posted on July 22, 2005
Let's assume that you live in Toledo, Ohio. Also assume that the state legislature, to induce an automobile manufacturer to construct an assembly plant, has authorized tax incentives, which, together with other tax incentives, will total perhaps $280 million...

An out-of-the-box way to find a solution for winning your case - - ?Researching by wandering around? - - Using indexes to law review articles

Posted on July 22, 2005
Let’s assume that you live in Toledo, Ohio. Also assume that the state legislature, to induce an automobile manufacturer to construct an assembly plant, has authorized tax incentives, which, together with other tax incentives, will total perhaps $280 million...

How to save your case or your defense by "exception finding" — Here's how two plaintiffs saved their case by using an exception and how you could have found the same exception even if you didn't know it existed

Posted on June 25, 2005
One of the ways that both plaintiffs and defendants can save their cases is by finding exceptions to whatever rule is against them. (And when I say a “rule” that's against you, I include a statute, a code, an ordinance, and a state or federal regulation...

Do you want to watch surgery being performed? You can now see different types of procedures such as cervical and thoracic disc operations and prostate procedures

Posted on June 22, 2005
I just learned of OR-live, a site that shows tapes of surgeons performing surgery and includes running commentary from physicians. You can browse the site's archives by its 17 separate specialities, such as, for instance, cardiovascular/cardiothoracic, gastroenterology, neurological/neurosurgical, obgyn, and orthopaedics...

An out-of-the-box vacation - - Think you want to stop practicing law and do something else? Here's how you can spend a day or more with an expert in your dream field

Posted on June 20, 2005
The ABA just had an article about VocationVacations, a fascinating business that lets people try out their secret (or not so secret): “This is what I'd like to do if I weren't practicing law.” (The article was in the June 17 edition of the ABA Journal eReport...

Want to read a transcript of Thomas Mesereau's Closing Argument for Michael Jackson?

Posted on June 17, 2005
Here's a link to the transcript of Thomas Mesereau's closing defense argument for Michael Jackson: http://aboutmichaeljackson.com/m-news+article+storyid-244.html The site is devoted to news about Michael Jackson and other Michael Jackson related info and items...

Out-of the-box CLE credits - - You may be able to watch video seminars on your computer or on videotape or listen to audio tapes and receive mandatory CLE credits - - Louisiana, for instance, allows up to four hours of CLE credit for online seminars

Posted on June 09, 2005
General information Most of the 40 states that have mandatory CLE allow, with some limitations, at least some of their required CLE credits to be earned online. ORACLE (Organization of Regulatory Administrators for Continuing Legal Education) is a website that has a listing of what it states represents the 40 mandatory CLE jurisdictions...

Hospitals can reduce if not eliminate medical malpractice and patient deaths and complications - - Some are already doing it

Posted on June 07, 2005
I have reported in a number of postings that the way to reduce the number of medical malpractice suits is to reduce the amount of medical malpractice. Here, for instance, are a couple of my postings: “Here's one out-of-the-box way to reduce medical malpractice suits: Reduce the medical malpractice — A new study reports that an average of 195,000 people have died annually due to errors in hospitals” http://www...