Legal Commentary

OUR MAN IN BAGHDAD

Posted on April 18, 2008
Benjamin Hallman, a reporter at our sister publication, The American Lawyer, spent almost two weeks this month embedded with the U.S. Army in Baghdad. ?As far as I know, this is a first for the company,? says our CEO William Pollak. ?We?re not usually in the business of sending journalists into a war zone...

IT'S JIMMY HOFFA'S FAULT

Posted on April 18, 2008
Why I love the Yankees #5,461: A Boston Red Sox fan sneaks his way onto the new Yankee Stadium construction site, and buries an Ortiz shirt in concrete in the visitor's clubhouse construction, to doom da Bombers. What happens? Ortiz goes into the worst slump of his career...

IT'S NOT A GANG, IT'S A CLUB

Posted on April 14, 2008
YEAH, yeah yeah, I know the Sox took the first series. Lousy pitching all around last night. (Sorry about Ortiz --- NOT). That's just the first 3 o' 18, and the Yanks always suck in April. Nuttin' to worry 'bout. Meanwhile, my colleague Geof Smith, editor of Law Firm Inc...

WEBBY WATCH

Posted on April 14, 2008
I turn the mic over to Bob Ambrogi: And the Webby Nominees Are ... Voting is underway for the 12th annual Webby Awards, honoring excellence in Web sites in more than 100 categories -- among them, law. Called by The New York Times the "Oscars of the Internet," the awards are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member group that includes Internet innovator Vinton Cerf, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington, "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening and media mogul Harvey Weinstein...

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IN PRAISE OF BEST BUY'S EXTENDED WARRANTY

Posted on April 13, 2008
You may recall that I told you about how impressed I was with Best Buy -- especially its Kingston, N.Y. staff, who strongly urged me to take the extended warranty on my Garmin nuvi 200 GPS device. It's a good thing I listened to them. On my Mpls trip, the charger didn't seem to be working, and "Jill" flat-out died midway to the suburbs of Eden Prairie...

BEST HEADLINE OF '08?

Posted on April 13, 2008
Try to top this headline: Boring Couple Sues Google Over Street View The Recorder Aaron and Christine Boring say they enjoyed the quiet life in the countryside outside Pittsburgh -- until Google showed up in the driveway. The couple is suing the Mountain View, Calif...

MAILBOX #041308

Posted on April 13, 2008
Checkin' the inbox after my Twin Cities trip: * Peter Buck, the ever-hip San Francisco-based "chief technical architect" at Baker Robbins & Co., wants to give you a heads up if you are planning to attend Interwoven's upcoming Gear UP 2008 conference later this month...

PASSION & WORK

Posted on April 13, 2008
Got to Minneapolis last Saturday, in time for the Minnesota Daily's annual awards and alumni dinner. I cut my journalism teeth at the Daily in the '70s, at the height of Watergate, when everyone wanted to be a journalist. We watched Nixon resign, all huddled over the lone TV in the newsroom...

WHY I LOVE MINNESOTA #2,547

Posted on April 13, 2008
Sure, it takes a certain kind of person to live in a state where there's two kind of weather: winter, and August, and neither are good for baseball. But why should that stop the Twin Cities from building a new ballpark -- WITHOUT A ROOF??? (Hey, the Yankees' new stadium doesn't have a roof either, but we don't routinely have 20 below Aprils, and our state bird isn't the mosquito)...

TROUBLE & OPPORTUNITY

Posted on April 13, 2008
During our visit with the Kroll Ontrack folks, they shared with us the results of their 2008 international survey of in-house counsel re: practices for managing ESI in lit and internal investigations. The findings are very consistent with the warnings of EDD Update authors, especially Michael Arkfeld -- who has been hollering to lawyers that they really need to pay attention to all of this, or be prepared to pay a hefty price, literally and figuratively...

QUICK TRIP TO MSP

Posted on April 13, 2008
Special thanks to the gang at Kroll Ontrack and at Merrill, for taking time from their very busy schedules to meet with us last week in the Twin Cities. Our conversations were terrific, and nuanced. We talked about everything from how customer service will be a differentiator as the vendor wars escalate, to how everybody's trying to position themselves to provide effective counseling to their clients who are struggling to grapple with e-discovery...

MAILBAG #040708

Posted on April 07, 2008
Joe Howie reports that the latest edition of the Association of Litigation Support Professionals' ALSP Update newsletter is available here. It includes an overview of ARMA Int'l (records/info mgmt), and an advisory about new North Carolina regulations for forensics folks (e...

IT'S SPRING... FINALLY!

Posted on March 25, 2008
What a wonderful break from New York's winter weather... Five days in Tampa, with the good company of some of our legal tech denizens in Rays-ville. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's no longer the toothy, gritty DEVIL Rays, it's just plain bland Rays. Somebody ought to fire THAT marketer...

DRIZZLED OUT IN TAMPA

Posted on March 22, 2008
I won't even begin to bore you about how difficult it was to fly on Thursday. Two words: Spring Break (for every child in America.) Two more words: Easter weekend. Two more words: Winds & LaGuardia. One word: Delays. Two words: Tight connections. Opps...

SNEAK PREVIEW: ALMOST-LIVE FROM L.A.

Posted on March 15, 2008
Speaking of live blogging, plans are underway for LegalTech West Coast, in Los Angeles, June 25-26 to repeat our popular "Almost-Live from New York" blog-o-rama. We'll once again have live reporting on Legal Blog Watch, which will again serve as a central clearinghouse for other posts from other bloggers covering the show...

LIVE FROM CHICAGO: ABA TECHSHOW

Posted on March 15, 2008
Just arrived at ABA TechShow late Friday.... I'm presenting Saturday morning (i.e., today) on one of two "Green" panels... Do stop by if you're in the 'hood (Chicago Hilton): * Lara Pearson and Arthur Harrington will present "Meeting the ABA EPA Law Office Climate Challenge, from 8:30 am - 9:30 a...

(SOB) AU REVOIR JO HARAF

Posted on March 08, 2008
Jo Haraf, one of my favorite LTN edit board members, has finally done what she has been threatening to do for a bit -- leave legal tech! We are soooooo gonna miss her! I'll turn over the mic to her: After 10 exciting and productive years, I'm leaving my home at Morrison & Foerster...

BYE BYE ROB

Posted on March 07, 2008
Rob Robinson is shuttering his Information Governance blog. Check it out here.

ESTRIN LIT SUPPORT LEADERS CONFERENCE

Posted on March 07, 2008
Campers: I'm live blogging over at EDD Update today, so click on over and see what the gang (Mike Arkfeld, George Socha, Craig Ball, Tom O'Connor, Lisa Rosen, et al. ) are doing and saying across the hall. Mon

MAILBAG #030308

Posted on March 03, 2008
Rick George is on a roll... First his eccentric and always interesting FutureLawyer blog was featured on Typepad as its Featured Blog on Feb. 13. (Where DOES he find all that stuff?) Now, Rick is featured on the March cover of The ABA Journal -- he debates fellow lawyer Ben Stevens over Mac v...

DRINKING THE CUPERTINO KOOL-AID

Posted on March 03, 2008
Well, I finally did it. After months (hell, years) of procrastination, foot-dragging, hesitation, I finally got fed up with lugging CDs around; finally had memorized UAL's XM radio menu and was sick of it; finally was sufficiently motivated by Craig Ball's speech that I owed it to my readers to use the tech that all our sons/daughters/nieces/nephews/parents have been using for decades now, and finally succumbed to the sneers of my beloved staff...

LTNY 2008: AUDIO, VIDEO & BAD HAIR DAYS

Posted on February 18, 2008
We've been scurrying to get the March issue to bed, and I've been also trying to catch up on my sleep post LegalTech New York, so apologies for the quiet. Here's a few post-LegalTech items for your consideration: ? Robert Ambrogi & J. Craig Williams had LTNY covered, shall I say, "coast to coast...

WHO SIZZLES @ SKADDEN?

Posted on February 18, 2008
A little late because I've been just a bit pre-occupied by post-LegalTech New York stuff, but this is too much fun not to revisit: ? Sizzing hot: The powers-that-be over at Skadden ain't too thrilled about the latest non-billable-hours activities at Skadden Insider, a blog written by two anonymous Skadden-ites...

LTN AWARDS: AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Posted on February 06, 2008
Law Technology News held its fifth annual awards program Tuesday night, and the vendor winners -- in 14 technology categories -- are announced here. The awards are based on votes by LTN subscribers, and some familiar names dominate the list: LexisNexis took four awards and CT Summation took three...

ALMOST LIVE FROM NEW YORK!

Posted on February 05, 2008
The Common Scold will be taking a break during LegalTech New York, and moving the party for the next few days over to our special edition of Legal Blog Watch! We're offering a BlogFest river at LBW, where you can find reports from ALM reporters and bloggers, as well as almost-live blogging from bloggers from throughout our legal community -- journalists, analysts, consultants and vendors -- check out the action! If you are at LTNY, stop by the ALM booth and say hi to our team -- and if you are blogger, don't forget to join us Wednesday at 9 am in the Pettite Trianon room for our 2nd not-quite-annual Bloggers' Get Together...

COURTROOM LIVE LAUNCHES TODAY

Posted on February 05, 2008
ALM and Courtroom View Network, a legal video news organization, today announced the launch of CourtroomLive, a new service bringing exclusive live and on-demand video coverage of newsworthy and precedent-setting legal proceedings direct to professionals' desktops...

JUNGLE FEVER

Posted on February 04, 2008
It's set-up day at LegalTech New York, and the fun is just beginning! Here are some photos by Russ Curtis (click to enlarge) of the gang from Attenex, Cisco, ARMA and Thomson.

ALMOST LIVE FROM NY - BLOGGING LEGALTECH '08

Posted on February 01, 2008
We're excited to announce that Law.com, in cooperation with Law Technology News magazine, will be offering a special platform for those of you who will be blogging from next week's LegalTech New York event. We'll devote Law.com's Legal Blog Watch Web page and newsletter to LTNY coverage from Tuesday through Thursday, Feb...

WEST PODCAST & BLOG

Posted on February 01, 2008
Thomson West offers its Legal Tech blog here as well as a special podcast, featuring The Wall Street Journal's legal correspondent, Ashby Jones; Legal Blog Watch's own co-moderator Robert J. Ambrogi; and LTN editor and yours truly, here.

ALMOST LIVE FROM NY - BLOGGING LEGALTECH '08

Posted on January 31, 2008
We're excited to announce that Law.com, in cooperation with Law Technology News magazine, will be offering a special platform for those of you who will be blogging from next week's LegalTech New York event. We'll devote Law.com's Legal Blog Watch Web page and newsletter to LTNY coverage from Tuesday through Thursday, Feb...

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