International Law

LexMonitor

Posted on June 23, 2008
Congrats to LexBlog who have just launched LexMonitor, “a daily review of law blogs and journals highlighting prominent legal discussion as well as the lawyers and other professionals participating in this conversation.” LexMonitor pulls feeds from nearly 2,000 sources and 5,000 authors, classifies them and serves them up, sliced and diced by subject category, author etc [...

Above the law?

Posted on June 23, 2008
Ironic that Above the Law should post a list of its Official Top 10 Law Songs replete with links to YouTube video clips, none of which, I’ll wager, are licensed. You have to wonder who voted in the poll. Heading the list is the Clash’s version of They Fought the Law and the Law Won with [...

Are you LinkedIn?

Posted on June 18, 2008
It seems that “serious” social networking - LinkedIn in particular - is now being seriously embraced by the legal profession. Whereas Facebook is probably correctly seen primarily as a place to socialise rather than do business and is full of clutter, LinkedIn is a focussed and uncluttered service for the professional/business person - a place [...

Real lawyers should network

Posted on June 13, 2008
Robert Ambrogi has written the first of two articles on social networking for lawyers for law.com’s Legal Technology News. In the first, Social Networking May Pay Off in the End he starts off by saying that “social networking web sites are just glorified directories”...

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RSS - who profits?

Posted on June 04, 2008
In response to my last post, Susan Cartier Liebel raises the question of the legalities of streaming others? feeds without permission. She points to her post Shouldn’t You Have To Ask Permission If You Want To Take A Blog’s Feed For Your Profit? which has attracted considerable comment...

RSS - endless possibilities ? if only

Posted on June 03, 2008
When I said at the turn of the last year that RSS would explode in 2007, I don’t think I was being particularly prescient. The RSS standard was then sufficiently well established that it was only a matter of time (and in internet time, that means months rather than years) before it took hold...

Law tweeting proposition 2

Posted on June 02, 2008
Excellent response to my call to arms for blawgers to start tweeting. First up were John Bolch, Nearly Legal, Usefully Employed, LawMinx and Charon QC. So now for my next proposition: pipe us the best feeds in your area of legal interest. Here’s how: Set up a new Twitter account with a meaningful username like xxxlaw...

All blawgers should tweet

Posted on May 30, 2008
Here’s a proposition: all blawgers not yet on Twitter should tweet … starting now. Don’t hang about. Why? Let’s not get hung up analysing the possible benefits. If you’re a blawger, you’re already part-persuaded. Twitter is another communication channel / networking tool that’s worth trying...

Karaoke anyone?

Posted on May 21, 2008
Doug Cornelius has published a great set of slides which he used in his recent presentation on An Attorney’s Perspective on Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. Have a walk through the slides and see if you can parrot what he was saying.

Twitter for lawyers

Posted on May 21, 2008
I’d call Twitter instant messaging with legs - the legs being the attractively light-touch networking functions provided by Twitter and fleshed out as you please by third party Twitter applications. As to how lawyers can best take advantage of it, you can do no better than read Steve Matthews’ post on Lawyer Marketing With Twitter (”It?s [...

drm, drm, drm drm drm drm drmmmmm

Posted on May 15, 2008
Hey, who said markets don’t work? Ironically, the music companies are now abandoning DRM because it worked too well. Apple wouldn’t license its version to rivals - so the best-selling iPod drove the iTunes store to its present position, where it is the third-largest music retailer in any form in the US...

No such thing as a free lunch

Posted on May 15, 2008
According to an email received (as a valued subscriber)  from FreePint (highly recommended): In June 2008, VIP Magazine will be publishing a special focus on legal products. The issue will feature: LexisNexis and Westlaw: Comparing the Big Two head-to-head in an in-depth research review CCH from Wolters Kluwer: A close look at a tax and accounting product with [...

Why I?m tweeting

Posted on May 14, 2008
Not being one to jump too readily onto a bandwagon, I only yesterday signed up on Twitter. With the benefit of that vast experience, I won’t yet wax lyrical about it. But I’m not about to diss it either - far from it. It’s clearly a useful tool for you to do with what you [...

Something no one else has

Posted on May 12, 2008
From an amusing piece by Jeffrey Goldberg on advice he received on becoming a blogger: A blogger should only post, when he has “something new to add to something old,” and has “something that no one else has.” Do not “post for the sake of posting...

Law news - benchmark sites

Posted on May 12, 2008
Following my last post on law firm newsletters having to compete with the best online law news services, it’s worth pointing to two law news sites who fortuitously received gongs last week as the very best in their respective industries: OUT-LAW...

Law firm newsletters - do or die

Posted on May 10, 2008
Jordan Furlong on the futility of most law firm newsletters. Law firms sometimes seem to think their newsletters, print or e-mail, are competing only against other law firm newsletters for clients? attention. They?re not. They?re competing against every business and industry publication their clients read, usually produced by large publishing companies with decades of experience...

Blawgs of note

Posted on May 02, 2008
I was asked to write an article for the Legal Executive Journal (April issue) on the best law blogs. I’m not into “the best” and conferring awards, but I did agree to write a piece on “What makes a good blawg”, mentioning a few of my ?blawgs of note?: established law blogs that have made [...

Internet Newsletter for Lawyers & Law 2.0 May/June 2008 issue

Posted on May 02, 2008
In this issue: Towards Gov 2.0 - by me The impact of social networking on firms The ultimately flexible (virtual) law firm Criminal Law Week acquired by Sweet & Maxwell Technology for today’s courtroom Quick and easy custom search with Google - me again Protecting reputation on the web Irish Law Society allows first online CPD Out of the box intranets: Intranet DASHBOARD SharePoint and [...

Corruption 2.0

Posted on May 01, 2008
Corruption 2.0: The Next Problem Technology Must Solve was the title of Larry Lessig’s SCL 2008 Lecture last night. But, not to disappoint the largely IT/IP law-interested audience, in the event it was a distillation of his arguments about regulation and specifically copyright regulation in Code, The Future of Ideas and Free Culture with Corruption [...

One more glass of Rioja, please

Posted on April 18, 2008
(The continuing adventures of Mike Semple Piggot) From before sparrow’s fart till late into the night Mike SP beavers away producing and publishing news, comment and analysis for our enjoyment and edification. He’s recently rearranged his furniture, and to help you keep up with his whereabouts, here’s a quick run-down...

No Facebook? No thanks!

Posted on April 17, 2008
News.com.au reports that, according to research conducted by Australian firm Deacons, almost half of those of the 700 “workers” it surveyed who use MySpace and Facebook during work hours say they would refuse a job where they were not allowed access to social networking sites...

Consultations aggregator

Posted on April 14, 2008
Just came across Tell Them What You Think, an extremely handy site which aggregates government consultations and enables you to: search all current government consultations for words and phrases browse all latest consultations by department set up alerts via email or RSS to tell you when consultations of interest are published There are several departments not supported because of [...

Blogs vs wikis

Posted on April 11, 2008
A chain of people in my orbit seem to agree that a simple test as to when to use a blog and when to use a wiki for collaboration is: one or two people providing content, use a blog; many people providing content, use a wiki (Mark Miller > Doug Cornelius > KnowledgeThoughts > James [...

Taking the juice out of Google

Posted on April 08, 2008
When Google launched it’s Custom Search Engine service 18 months ago, I expected thousands of CSEs to pop up all over. That’s happened, but I’m not aware that any in the areas I monitor have made a mark. Why so? In the UK legal arena I know of only a few CSEs: I put together a number [...

They?re working for us (dot org)

Posted on March 26, 2008
The folks at mySociety are really moving on Society 2.0. mySociety is a charity which builds natty Web 2.0 sites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. It also aims to teach the public and voluntary sectors, through demonstration, how to most efficiently use the internet to [...

Who?s driving Gov 2.0?

Posted on March 14, 2008
We’re fortunate to have a new encumbent as Minister for Transformational Government at the Cabinet Office who really gets it - Westminster über-blogger, Tom Watson. His vision is encapsulated in his recent speech at the Transformational Government Event...

What is Enterprise 2.0?

Posted on March 14, 2008
Fred Cavazza has an extremely informative primer for those interested in applying Web 2.0 within their organisation.

Our data should be free

Posted on March 14, 2008
A long-awaited private study by Cambridge University into the pricing of public sector information (PSI) by trading funds (Ordnance Survey, Met Office, Companies House, Land Registry et al) was published on the side with the 2008 Budget Report. The study was commissioned by BERR following the OFT’s market study into the commercial use of PSI [...

Whither the law library?

Posted on March 12, 2008
Law librarians were quick to comment when Carolyn Elefant on Legal Blog Watch posed the question Are Law Libraries Becoming Obsolete? Steve Matthews was first up: “it does bug me that every other department in the law firm can evolve, but when Libraries do, they’re suddenly obsolete”; and the next: “this posting does take a very [...

A legal profession on the brink

Posted on March 07, 2008
Time to mention Jordan Furlong’s Law21 blog - dispatches from a legal profession on the brink: In the 21st century, the practice of law is shaking loose from its traditional moorings and heading out into uncharted territory. Opportunities abound, but so do pitfalls...

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