Legal Commentary

MAILBAG #080929

Posted on September 29, 2008
Fast times indeed.... Yes, I will be filing the 2008 Final Report, which I traditionally post the morning after the Yankee' annual collapse, but I'm still processing everything after the 12-hour-plus marathon yesterday. (If it wasn't actually a full-day it sure felt like it)...

BEISBOL PLACEHOLDER

Posted on September 23, 2008
Campers: Just a note to say that if I ever close the LTN October issue (we've had unbelieveable tech infrastructure problems, but I won't go there) I WILL be posting about the magical final fete at Yankee Stadium Sunday night. Short version -- it was the best and the worst of the Stadium and the Yankees...

MAILBAG #080919

Posted on September 19, 2008
What a crazy week .... we're setting into the new digs (120 Broadway, 5th floor, NYC 10271, 212 457 9601), with the expected bumps and grinds of moving headquarters (challenging tech issues and trying to find your bearings in a new neighborhood). I really like the downtown venue, although it's eerie to be leaving work every night at the Wall Street subway station, with all the finance meltdowns in our 'hood...

SHAME, SHAME: GENDER GAP FOR PARALEGALS

Posted on September 17, 2008
On our LegalBlogWatch, Bob Ambrogi spotted this report from Chere Estrin, noting that there appears to be a gender gap in paralegal pay (and no, the women are not making more than the men). Here's Bob's commentary: Pay Inequity for Women Paralegals Given that women have long outnumbered men among the ranks of paralegals, it would seem safe to assume that here is at least one segment of the legal profession where salaries are blind to gender...

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GOLDEN STATES OF MIND

Posted on September 08, 2008
OK, you know you are in California when there is a Best Buy Express vending machine by United's Gate 70 (the SF/LA gate) selling iPods, Bose headsets, digital cameras and other portable electronics. See CenterNetworks blog and Gadling blog. According to Gadling, the units are from San Francisco's ZoomSystems, and there are more than 650 of them thru-out the country now...

FINDLAW & GOOGLE BATTLE

Posted on September 07, 2008
My colleague Sean Doherty, tech editor of Law.com, and I have been hearing a lot of noise about the battle between FindLaw and Google. Sean posted on it here on his Legal Technology Blog with links to some of the discussion. I'm also copying his post below: I see that there is some discussion about Findlaw and its practice of marketing and selling links...

SUNSHINE STATES OF MIND

Posted on September 04, 2008
First stop, Tampa/St. Pete on a three-city sprint to visit some vendors, consultants, and board members -- and head to our final Group Game of the 2008 season next week in Anaheim. My colleague Jai Wallace and I had the pleasure of spending time with LTN board member Cathy Paunov, and the First Couple of EDD (Shawnna and Robert Childress, she of Navigant Consulting and Women in E-Discovery, he of Wave Software)...

DOHERTY @ ILTA

Posted on September 03, 2008
I wasn't able to attend this year's ILTA conference due to our move to new Incisive Media HQ in downtown NYC -- that coincided directly with the close of the September LTN issue -- but my trusty colleague, Sean Doherty offers his usual superb analysis of the show, here...

BlackBerries Rule!

Posted on September 03, 2008
The National Law Journal reports that our Gulf Coast colleagues are making great use of their BlackBerries. Here's an excerpt of the story on today's NLJ website, by staff reporter Vesna Jaksic: A number of law firms and law schools in Louisiana said all their employees were safe after Hurricane Gustav, but didn't expect offices to reopen until later this week or next week...

ON HIGH GROUND - ALL BUT ONE

Posted on September 01, 2008
So far, news from NoLa is good .... Janine Sylvas and Nancy Claypool say everybody's evacuated from Stone Pigman; Hunter Twiford says the same for the gang at McGlinchey; Tom O'Connor's in Pensacola... Connie Nichols left Saturday. Eric Barefield is with his folks in Alabama...

MAILBAG #082909

Posted on August 29, 2008
This year is just flying by... I'm realllllly happy to see the first hints of fall, as the humidity drops in NYC and it becomes wonderful again. Here are a few items from the inbox: ? David Horrigan -- who manages to find some of the most interesting litigation (steady readers will recall his detailed coverage of the woes of Mr...

A WONDERFUL TRADITION

Posted on August 13, 2008
What a fun evening last night (August 12) at the Dome in Mpls, for our SIXTH annual Twins/Yanks fest! Michael Medwig, Marnie Maroney & I hosted the event, which drew about 50 folks for a lively evening of beisbol and conversation! We had a blast in section 222, with contingents from Thomson/Reuters/West, Kroll, Merrill, the EDD consultants gang, Teri "Jersey Girl" McCarron and her entourage, Amy Juers' Edge Legal Marketing crew, Dorsey, Parsinen Kaplan, et al...

MO MAILBAG #080806

Posted on August 07, 2008
Still more incoming: ? Kevin Hunt checked in from July's American Association of Law Libraries Portland (Ore) meeting to let us know that West posted a "Westcast" with Leonard Lee, about how the "Google generation" is approaching legal research. Check it out here...

MAILBAG #073008

Posted on August 07, 2008
Here we go! ? Microsoft Corp. has announced a new Law Firm Diversity Program, aimed at increasing the number of women and minority attorneys within its outside counsel. It's putting money where its mouth is -- by changing its legal fee structure so that each of the company's 17 "Premier Preferred Provider" firms is now eligible for a 2% quarterly or annual bonus, based on whether it achieves "concrete diversity results...

WHAT I LEARNED FROM STEVE BRILL #2,145

Posted on August 06, 2008
Steve Brill, now the head of Clear, founded American Lawyer Media, and was my boss for just about a decade. He's brilliant and difficult (a combination that can be challenging but fun) ? and what I always appreciated the most (and try to emulate) is that with Steve, what you see is what you get...

LOVE RIDE

Posted on July 30, 2008
Get your motor running, as the song sez: LTN board member Judi Flournoy, CIO of Loeb & Loeb and past president of ILTA, is also raising money for good causes ... in this case, the 25th anniversary of the "Harley Davidson of Glendale Love Ride" which raises money for Los Angeles area charities...

ONE MORE DAY

Posted on July 30, 2008
I turn the mic over to Fios' Mary Mack: (original post here) I have a request and a challenge for our blackberry enabled, tiny living room we call the ediscovery community. We have the fastest grapevine in the world. Will you help me use our grapevine to feed our hungry neighbors and collectively achieve a huge goal? Sometimes in the electronic discovery world, we get so stressed out by how much we have to do that we forget about people who have no work, or very poorly paid work...

MARY MACK KEYNOTES NFPA TECH INSTITUTE

Posted on July 29, 2008
Fios' Mary Mack stole the show at the two-day National Federation of Paralegal Associations' Tech Institute in Denver, July 25-26. Mack, corporate technology counsel at the Portland, Ore.-based company, was the keynote luncheon speaker on day 1, and wow'd the crowd with a speech that was both entertaining and jam-packed with substance...

SILVER & BRONZE

Posted on July 28, 2008
More good news to share! Shane DeLeers and Bob Ambrogi have won Bronze and Silver awards for their stellar work in LTN in the national awards presented Saturday in Kansas City at the American Society of Business Publications Editors annual meeting. Shane won for our August '07 cover, the EDD Showcase featuring the annual Socha/Gelbmann survey, in the best Tabloid Cover category...

NOMINATE YOUR COMPANY

Posted on July 28, 2008
The July 31 deadline approaches to nominate your company for the 2009 LTN Vendor Awards. If you don't nominate your company, it can't win, so take a moment and do it, today! (Read in voice that sounds like that swarmy GEICO or New York Lottery announcers)...

SNEAK PREVIEW: SOCHA/GELBMANN '08 SURVEY

Posted on July 22, 2008
I turn the mic over to George Socha: The anxiously awaited 2008 Socha-Gelbmann EDD Survey executive summary will be published in the August issue of Law Technology News, but here is a sneak preview to whet your appetite. This year we gathered information from or about 107 EDD services and software providers, and from 29 law firms and 19 corporations...

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

Posted on July 17, 2008
YES, of course, I stayed to the bitter end ? barely ? my friend Teri had to leave at 11:15 to get the last train back to Jersey, but I hung in there with my new friends in section 8, row J. What an amazing night! Just amazing. I am soooooooooo lucky that I got tickets, (long story, involving perseverance and a 15 minute TicketMaster screwup) -- and not just tickets, but GREAT seats half way up the Tier just to the left of home plate...

HELLO, GOODBYE, HELLO

Posted on July 12, 2008
As we wave goodbye to the lovely Katie Montgomery, as she heads west to Iowa City to begin her Ph.D program, we say hello and welcome to Nabia Jenkins-Johnston, as LTN's new associate editor. Nabia (pronounced knob-ee-ya) joins us as a recent honors grad of Rutgers...

GOLD & BRONZE x2

Posted on July 10, 2008
We are thrilled to announce that Craig Ball et moi have won another set of Gold (Craig) and Bronze (moi), last night at the Northeast Regional awards ceremonies for the American Society of Business Publications Editors. Craig's "Ball in Your Court" June 07 column, "Do It Yourself Forensics," took the gold for Best How-To article...

GOLD & BRONZE TABBIES!

Posted on July 08, 2008
We've just received word that Craig Ball's Ball in Your Court column in Law Technology News has won Gold in the 2008 TABBIES awards, presented by the Trade Association Business Publications International. More than 700 publications competed in this international competition, and it's the second year in a row that Ball snared the top prize for best regular column...

LEGALTECH PODCASTS FROM FUTURETECH TRACK

Posted on July 08, 2008
They're up! Our "six-pack" of podcasts from the "TomorrowLand" panel of the Law Technology News presents FutureTech track at last month's LegalTech West Coast are now available at Law.com's Law Technology Now site. (You can also find it at the Legal Talk Network, and on iTunes!) You can listen to the predictions and wisdom from Tom Baldwin, Craig Ball, Doug Caddell, Peter Hsiao, Judith Flournoy, and J...

MAILBAG #070608

Posted on July 06, 2008
Catching up with incoming e-mail! * Bob Johnston, of the Executive Council in NYC, checks in to tell us that if you were unable to attend the recent (excellent) program about "Green IT" you can watch highlights online here. I attended the program, and was especially impressed with Microsoft's chief environmental strategist, Robert Bernard...

LEGALTECH WEST COAST - SHOW FLOOR

Posted on July 01, 2008
LegalTech West Coast 2008 was a two-day whirlwind of exhibits, demos, programs, parties, and networking. I'm still on the road, but here's some shots of the Exhibit Hall, by LTN's photo editor, Russ Curtis (www.russcurtis.com). Thanks to all the vendors, panelists, and attendees who made LTWC 2008 a wonderful experience Enjoy!

HEADIN' TO LEGALTECH WEST COAST

Posted on June 23, 2008
Quick last minute reminder that Thursday in LA we'll be hosting a Bloggers' Breakfast, in room 508 of the LA Convention Center, where we will celebrate J. Craig William's new book, How to Get Sued (Kaplan Publishing). Do stop by! Everybody's welcome -- bloggers and readers of blogs! EDD's front and center with tracks by Craig Ball and George Rudoy, among others...

BOSTON LOVES LEGAL TALK NETWORK

Posted on June 21, 2008
The human energy bar, Lu Ann Reeb, president of Legal Talk Network, was featured not once, but twice in local Boston media. Never mind that she's a Red Sox fan, the Law Technology News (aka LTN1) gang loves Lu Ann and her team at LTN2 -- and they partner with us to produce LTN3 -- our Law Technology Now podcasts! The first article on June 2 appeared in the Boston Business Journal, and also featured Robert J...

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