I’ve decided to stop cross-posting content both here and at my Sui Generis blog and will only be posting at Sui Generis from now on. But, rest assured, all of the content that I posted here is also posted at Sui Generis, so if you don’t already follow my posts there, head on over today and check it out!

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “Different Strokes for Different Folks”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Different Strokes for Different Folks

During the last week of March, I was privileged to speak at one of my favorite legal conferences, ABA TechShow.

My two presentations focused on educating lawyers about how to create an effective online presence: “Creating Your Online Presence” and “Managing Your Online Presence: The Care and Feeding of the Online You.”

While at TechShow, my new book, “Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier” debuted and my co- author, Carolyn Elefant, and I participated in a “meet the authors” session and hosted two “Taste of TechShow” dinners with conference attendees.

An interesting theme became apparent throughout all of the events, both in the form of the audiences’ comments and questions during my presentations, and during conversations over dinner or with attendees who stopped me in the hall to discuss social media. The overarching theme — one that didn’t surprise me — was that different social media plat- forms have had varying levels of effectiveness for different lawyers.

Some find Facebook pages to be extremely effective, while others found them useless. Some claim to have obtained nearly all of their clients via their blogs, while others stopped blogging because they deemed the task a waste of time.
Some say Twitter is a very useful platform, while others long ago abandoned it as a pointless time-suck.

During each of my interactions, I attempted to flesh out the reasons for the varying levels of success with the different forms of social media. It became obvious that success in using social media depends on any number of factors, including the lawyers’ goals, areas of practice and locations.

As I mentioned, the “theme” didn’t surprise me. In fact, it is one of the central premises of our book. As we explain in the introduction: “[L]awyers should use a practical, goal-cen- tric approach to social media, which … enable[s] lawyers to (1) identify social media platforms and tools that fit their practices and (2) implement them easily, efficiently, and ethically.”

In other words, before diving into social media, lawyers first should determine their goals, then make intelligent, informed choices regarding the online platforms that will help them to achieve those goals.

Many goals can be achieved through the use of social media and we devote a chapter to each goal in our book — networking and building relationships; locating information to support areas of practice; gain competitive intelligence and customer feedback; showcase your expertise; brand yourself and your law practice and increase search engine optimization and improve quality of leads.

Once you’ve identified your goals, the next step is to determine what social media platforms are the best fit for your goals, practice areas, location and, most importantly, your personality and comfort level with the platform. If you are uncomfortable with a platform, then your social media efforts likely are doomed to fail from the very start.

Those who find writing a chore most likely will find that blogging is not for them. A video blog, podcast or a completely different type of social media plat- form might be a better choice.

If the informality of Twitter puts you off, then perhaps writing a blog or participating in LinkedIn groups might be a better fit. In some cases, a very basic online presence, including a Web site and online attorney directories, may be the only online platforms you wish to use. There’s nothing wrong with that approach. The bottom line is that there is no right way for a lawyer or law firm to use social media effectively. It’s not a “one size fits all” approach, nor is it possible to throw together quickly a compelling social media presence.

Instead, creating and maintaining an effective online presence is a matter of learning about the platforms available and implementing a tailored, well-thought out social media plan.



Tomorrow, Tuesday April 6th at 1 pm EST Avvo is hosting a preview webinar of “Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier,” my new book co-authored with Carolyn Elefant that will be published later this month by the American Bar Association.

You can pre-order a copy of the book here.

You can learn more about the webinar here.

You can sign up for free here.

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “How Will Lawyers Use the iPad?”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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How Will Lawyers Use the iPad?Lawyers’ reactions to the iPad are mixed, to say the least.

A few, like myself, are gung ho and can’t wait to get their hands on one.

Another minority appears absolutely convinced the iPad is destined to fail from the very start, having little to no utility for the legal profession.

The rest either could care less or are reserving judgment until the dust settles.
In other words, the vast majority of lawyers are not yet sold on the idea of the iPad. Many of those same attorneys, however, have expressed frustration at having to carry around large stacks of documents while commuting or traveling, and have indicated the iPad would hold far more appeal if they could annotate and edit documents on it.

For that group of lawyers, the ability to reduce the amount of paperwork and quickly and easily edit and annotate documents, as if writing on an electronic document, would be a deal breaker.

Those lawyers do not envision creating documents on the iPad, but rather marking up a pleading or contract, making notations in the margins to a draft appellate brief, or commenting on an internal memorandum. Such tasks, currently, are not accomplished easily while on the road, since neither lap- tops nor smart phones are well suited to those types of document annotations.

The iPad — with a larger screen and unique touch screen functionality — has the potential to change all of that but the real question is, will it?

Not surprisingly, I think it will.

There already are a number of iPhone apps that permit the annotation or revision of a variety of documents. Some are quite popular, others are not — in large part because of the difficulty inherent in working with documents on a screen of such small proportions. The iPad’s larger screen will breathe new life into those applications, and other new apps will be developed to allow documents to be annotated and revised on the fly.

Let’s take a look at a few of the iPhone apps already available that permit annotation and revision of documents. Documents to Go Premium allows users to view and edit Word, Excel and Power- Point files. RightSignature allows Word or PDF documents to be signed using the iPhone app. Those files also can be uploaded to RightSignature’s Web site for distribution.

Aji allows PDs to be signed and marked up, and enables text notes, strike-through text and highlight text. Documents also can be annotated in free form; however, users can’t distribute the documents using the iPhone interface. Instead, the annotated document must be processed using Aji’s Web site on a computer, then sent.

One app goes a step further — Zosh. Zosh allows users to sign, annotate and distribute documents in a variety of formats, including .doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt, .jpg, .png, .tif and .bmp — all from the iPhone. The app enables users to insert
free-form annotations such as a signature and text boxes. The ability to highlight text is in the works, according to Zosh CEO Joshua Kerr.

Some companies that developed the apps I’ve mentioned already have announced that iPad-compatible apps are in the works. I have no doubt other new apps will be introduced, tailor-made for the iPad. Such functionality will make the iPad a must-have for lawyers and other business users.

While I think the iPad will be used primarily as a device for media consumption, undoubtedly there is room for certain types of business use that will make it a mainstay for business travelers and commuters.

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “Are blogs vital to a law firm’s online presence?”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Are blogs vital to a law firm’s online presence?

One of the most effective ways to establish an online presence and showcase your legal knowledge is to start a blog.

Many who advise lawyers about creating an effective Web presence consider blogs to be the cornerstone of a law firm’s successful online presence, and for good reason. Blogs are an unparalleled tool for educating clients, indulging in intellectual discourse with colleagues, or staying on top of information.

However, in my opinion, if the very idea of maintaining a legal blog makes you groan, then it’s entirely possible that blogging is not compatible with your interests or your personality. That’s perfectly fine — there are, then, other forms of social networking that may be a better fit for you and your law practice.

In the past, when I’ve expressed such an opinion during online discussions, I’ve been met with vehement disagreement. Many assert that a law blog is a law firm’s “home base” and that an online presence is wholly ineffective without it.

I disagree for two reasons. First, there is a glut of law blogs in the online marketplace now that lawyers are finally, and quite belatedly, realizing the potential marketing value of a “successful” blog. The sheer number of new law blogs flooding the Web is overwhelming, and, as Scott Greenfield aptly explains at his very popular law blog, Simple Justice, only the best and most interesting will endure:

Only the fittest will survive, not because the others are awful necessarily, but because we would be deluged with far more than we could absorb if every blawg that came down the pike was a winner. There still would be a natural vetting process, and peo- ple would still read only the few that capture their interest best… There is a saturation point. There are diminishing returns. There is survival of the fittest.

In other words, there’s simply too much competition. New bloggers face an uphill battle for readers, and only those with a true passion for their subject matter will be able to maintain long-term interest in their blog.

Second, the importance of blogs as a firm’s online presence has decreased quite a bit due to the recent explosion of social media and the vast increase in the number of platforms from which attorneys can participate and share their legal work product. The online landscape is changing rapidly, and while blogs are still an important tool, there are others that are just as effective.

Lawyers can connect with other attorneys and potential clients on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other law-specific platforms such as Martindale-Hubbell Connected. Similarly, lawyers now have available many other means through which they can disseminate and share content via social media. Articles, pleadings and newsletters can be uploaded to JDSupra, Avvo or docstoc — all of which are well-traveled platforms that weren’t in existence just a few short years ago.

That same content then can be showcased and connected to social media profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook, as discussed more fully in my soon-to-be-released “Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier,” set to be published by the American Bar Association this spring. (You can view an excerpt of the book here and soon you will be able to pre-order the book here–just enter product code 5110710.)

The bottom line is this: An online presence is vital to success in the 21st century; however, there is no right way to create an effective online presence for a law firm. Instead, determine your goals for online interactions, then determine which platforms best forward those goals, and best fit your personality. You may find that blogging is the ideal platform for your firm. If not, don’t despair. You can create an effective online presence nonetheless.

My new book, Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, will be published in just a few weeks. My co-author, Carolyn Elefant and I are extremely excited about it and will be launching a preview of the book at the upcoming ABA TechShow in Chicago.

Hopefully, we’ll have the chance to see many of you at TechShow and discuss our book and social media issues in general!

You can catch up with us at any of the following events:

• We’re presenting at TechShow on Thursday March 25th at 8:30 a.m.–Creating Your Online Presence
• Carolyn and I are both speaking at IgniteLaw on Wednesday March 24th at 7 p.m.
• Matt Homann and I will be presenting On Thursday March 25th at 11 a.m.: Managing Your Online Presence: The Care and Feeding of the Online You
• Carolyn will be presenting with Lee Rosen on Thursday March 25th at 2:30 p.m.: Crossing the Digital Divide: eMarketing to Clients and Prospects
• There will be a “Meet the Authors” session held on March 25th at 4 p.m.
• We’re also hosting “Taste of TechShow” dinners on both Thursday and Friday nights (3/25 and 3/26).  You can sign up at TechShow.

You can view an excerpt of the book here and soon you will be able to pre-order the book here–just enter product code 5110710.

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “How the iPad will change the world.”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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How the iPad will change the world.

OK, perhaps I exaggerated just a bit in today’s headline. The iPad won’t change life as we know it, but it will revolutionize the way that we interact with various news and social media. Undoubtedly, we will look back on 2010 as the year the iPad changed the way we obtain and consume information.

How will the iPad affect our day-to-day lives? It’s difficult to say, but I’m certain that it will.
As book, magazine and newspaper publishers and third-party developers get their hands on it — and begin releasing applications made specifically for it — the tide will begin to turn. It will become clear that the iPad, and other touch screen tablets released in its wake, will become the center of our households.

The iPad will be the heart of every home — the digital media consumption hub that connects us to the information highway. The iPad will be the interface of choice for Web browsing and media consumption. Soon, it will be quite common to read books, magazines and newspapers via the iPad interface.

The iPad will be the device users turn to for Web browsing and music and video streaming. In the very near future, recorded television shows and movies will be viewed regularly via live streaming from the Internet, either on the iPad screen itself or by using the iPad as the conduit, with the images appearing on a larger television screen. Although it already is possible to stream content via a computer to a television, it isn’t commonplace. The iPad will be the device that makes it so.
My assertion that the device will usher in a new age of online content consumption is not unique. Many others are suggested it as well: Luke Hayman, for one, at www.Pentagram.com predicts the iPad will change the direction of journalism.

What will they be willing to read on their iPad? I predict the return of long-form journalism. At the same time, visual storytelling will take deeper, richer forms. Information design will be more important than ever. Something like New York’s Approval Matrix that we designed back in 2005 with Adam Moss is popular in print but will really come to life in this format. Some people might subscribe to it all by itself.

In short, the iPad is the next stage of online content consumption.

That being said, there are a lot of things the iPad won’t do.

It won’t be a portable work station. Laptops will continue to serve that function far better than the iPad. The iPad will suffice for composing e-mails and short documents but, for most businesses, laptops and desktop computers will remain the interface of choice.
Likewise, the iPad will not replace the iPhone. Smart phones will continue to function as miniature connectors to the information super highway. Their smaller size and GPS functionality make smart phones ideal for certain tasks that the larger, less portable iPad will not be able to duplicate. Applications that rely on geo-location for their functionality — such as the Zillow real estate app or the restaurant location and ratings app Yelp — still will be ideal for use on phones for people on the move. Smart phones will not be supplanted by the iPad, but instead supplemented by it.

The iPad will not fill an already existing niche — it will create a new one. It will be ever-present in our homes, during daily commutes and on airplanes. The iPad will be prevalent where people tend to read books or magazines, but will be far less visible at locations where people mostly work or socialize. It will be our conduit for media consumption and our interface of choice.
The iPad is a game changer of epic proportions — of that I am sure. One year from now, we’ll look back on its release and wonder how we functioned without it.

In the latest episode of lawtechTalk, you’ll learn all about metadata–what it is, the risks it presents, your ethical obligations and how to remove it from your legal documents, even when sending documents via email using a smart phone. During the episode I interview Cathy Brode, one of the co-founders of 3BView.

Episode #8 (Part 1 & Part 2) features, and is sponsored by 3BView, which offers metadata removal products, including a server-based option and 3BCleanDocs, which is their SaaS-based metadata removal system. 3BCleanDocs automatically removes metadata from documents sent via email, even those sent via your smart phone.

There are 2 parts to this episode, which can be viewed here for FREE: Part 1 & Part 2.

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “Useful programs and online tools for litigators.”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Useful programs and online tools for litigators

As I prepared to write my book about cloud computing for lawyers — which will be published later this year by the ABA— I researched different software programs that would make it easier for me to organize my thoughts and keep all of my information readily accessible as I wrote.

Ultimately I settled on Scrivener — www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html — which is available for Mac users only.

Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool that makes all of the documentation and information that you will be using to create a document available in one application. I have found it to be an invaluable tool that is making the process of writing and organizing the information I’ve collected about cloud computing much easier.

As I was using it the other day, it occurred to me that Scrivener easily could make the process of writing and organizing a summary judgment motion simpler and more streamlined.

When I was an associate at a litigation firm, I used to find myself getting frustrated as I flipped through stacks of papers, trying to find a certain document, case or exhibit. Complex cases with large numbers of documents, deposition transcripts and exhibits in particular were difficult to manage. Scrivener, or a program like it, would have made the process so much easier.

To begin with, each portion of the motion, from the notice of motion to the supporting affidavits and the legal memorandum could be treated as a “chapter,” which simply is a folder within the document. The next step is to associate supportive documentation — exhibits, cases, deposition transcripts, etc. — with each section of your motion. While drafting the document, there is a list of associated files alongside of it that can be opened with a click. Associated files can be text files, image files, Web sites, audio files or even videos.

Another very useful resource for a litigator is CriminalSearches.com, a Web site that allows users to conduct a free search to determine whether a witness has a criminal record based on information available in public records. The results are not guaranteed to be 100 percent accurate, but the site does a surprisingly good job.

StreetDelivery — www.streetdelivery.com — is another handy service that provides lawyers with access to to almost 10 million digital images of inter- sections located throughout the United States. Although the database does not yet include photographs of every part of the United States, most of the East Coast already is available within the database. If the particular intersection or location, such as a parking lot, that you are interested in is not included, you can submit a special request for a photo via the Web site, and it will be delivered the next day. The service charges $109 per request for solos and small firm lawyers.

Finally, there are a number of smart phone applications that assist lawyers in calculating the date of a deadline. There are a number of iPhone apps of this type, which can be located in the App Store, including DaysFrom ($0.99), DateCalcPro ($1.99), DateCalc ($4.99) and Court Days ($0.99). For lawyers with BlackBerrys, DateMathica ($4.99), from Shrunken Head Software is good alternative. Another program, Date Wheel — creativealgorithms.com/date- wheel.html — is a due date calculator app that is compatible with a number of different smart phones, including Centro ($14.95), iPhone ($2.99), Pre ($14.95) and any other phone that can access the mobile Web. Finally, another app with a similar name, DateWheel, is available from Interstate Web Group users of Android ($0.99).

As you can see, there are a number of interesting programs, Web sites and services available to litigators. Those I’ve listed are just the tip of the iceberg, but hopefully they will make your life just a little bit easier.

Image via Wikipedia

I recently wrote the following guest post at That Credit Union Blog:

• Facebook Fan Pages Offer a Ready-Made, Effective Social Media Presence

I also recently began guest blogging at the Firmex Online Document and Collaboration blog. My posts appear every Tuesday.  If you’re interested in cloud computing and other technology issues for lawyers you may enjoy these posts.  Here are some of my most recent posts:

• Alternatives to Expensive and Time-Consuming Air Travel
• Encrypted Client Communications–the Wave of the Future

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “Legal research: the good the bad and the ugly.”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Legal research: the good, the bad and the ugly.

There is a grand scale transformation of legal research plat- forms occurring right now, which is a good thing for the legal profession as a whole.

While none of the existing services are necessarily ugly or bad, some of the most prominent platforms — ones with which we lawyers have always had a love/hate relationship — are antiquated and have been in desperate need of a re-haul for years now.
New entrants into the legal research space have caused fierce competition for customers. The increased competition has resulted in a rich variety of legal research options for lawyers. Some services provide more in-depth results than others, some have very user- friendly interfaces and some are inexpensive, or even free.

At LegalTech New York in February, the two largest, most familiar and most costly legal research platforms in the industry rolled out new products as part of an attempt to keep their offerings fresh and current.

Westlaw introduced WestlawNext, the next generation of Westlaw, a platform that had not changed substantially since its last revamp in 1998. An online brochure describes the platform: “Legal research that’s more human gives you an easier way to search, yet delivers all of what you’re looking for. … [Y]ou can apply intelligent tools to help you work smarter and faster with total confidence you have the information you need. All of which makes life easier.”
There has been some criticism expressed in the legal blogos- phere regarding the added “premium” users must pay in order to access the new platform, and some have decried West’s apparent lack of transparency in that regard.

LexisNexis also announced plans to roll out a new version of its platform, tentatively called “Lexis New,” later this year. In the meantime, Lexis introduced Lexis/Microsoft Office inte- gration, also during LegalTech. The company’s Web site states the new product allows lawyers “reviewing a Word document or an Outlook e-mail message … [to] seamlessly access content and resources from LexisNexis, the open Web, or their law firm or corporate files.”
LexisNexis also offers an iPhone app that allows subscribers to check case citations on the fly.

Two cheaper platforms have been around for at least a decade,Fastcase (www.fastcase.com) and LoisLaw (www.loislaw.com). Both offer subscribers the ability to access case law and statutes via user-friendly Web interfaces.
Fastcase, a 10-year-old legal research company, already serves more than 380,000 lawyers nationwide and has 17 state and local bar associations as its clients. One new notable feature from Fastcase is a free iPhone app. I downloaded the app when it was first released and, in my opinion, it’s a must-have for any lawyer who owns an iPhone. It allows users to quickly and easily search Fastcase’s entire case law database using the intuitive iPhone interface. And, you certainly can’t beat the price.
Another free legal research alternative is Google Legal Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/), which debuted at the end of 2009 and offers a free searchable database of U.S. case law from federal and state courts dating back 80 years, as well as U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1791 and law review articles. Google Legal Scholar is a great resource and, for some lawyers, may offer a good alternative to the traditional legal research platforms.

Finally, a new contender is Bloomberg Law, which will be released later this year The product has been in beta testing for the last year and is offered by the well-established and well known financial news and information services media company, Bloomberg LLC. As described at its Web site, Bloomberg Law will provide an “the all-in-one legal research platform that integrates legal content with proprietary news and business intelligence.”
Many predict that the platform will appeal mostly to larger law firms as a feasible alternative to LexisNexis and Westlaw.

There is no doubt 2010 will be an interesting, and tumultuous, year for legal research providers and the lawyers who use their services. Only time will tell which platforms will win the battle for user loyalty. In the meantime, at least lawyers have far more choices than ever before.

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “Social media, geolocation and privacy, oh my!”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Social media, geolocation and privacy, oh my!

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. … It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.  But at any rate they could plug into your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

— George Orwell, “1984”
Privacy issues are taking center stage as we enter an increasingly connected world.
Our online activities are carefully monitored and meticulously tracked by some of the biggest players, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. Our individual online footprints, from the Web sites we visit, the items we purchase, the people with whom we communicate, to the locations where we access the Internet, are extremely valuable commodities that are increasingly sought after.

The battle to capture, and profit from, the information long has been decried by privacy advocates and now is resulting in a flurry of legal activity.

Earlier this month, a class action lawsuit was filed against Facebook in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit alleges the modifications Facebook implemented to the privacy settings of its social networking at the end of 2009 have, contrary to the company’s assertions, wrongfully reduced the privacy protections of Facebook users.

Similarly, last week a complaint was filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, alleging Google’s new social networking service, Google Buzz, violated its users’ privacy rights and may have involved unfair business practices. Google has since addressed some of the privacy concerns by revising aspects of the service, but concerns remain and some of the damage cannot be undone.

One of the chief complaints registered by many users about Google Buzz, and one that was of particular concern to attorneys, was that, by default, the service automatically “followed” a user’s most frequent contacts and made the follower list viewable to the general public. In other words, clients with whom attorneys frequently e-mailed appeared on a public list as a “follower” of that attorney. Clearly the automatic, default publication of an attorney-client relationship raised issues of attorney- client privilege and, rightfully, alarmed attorneys nationwide who unknowingly activated the service.

Another complaint regarding Google Buzz is that, when accessed using a mobile device, the user’s location is broadcast to the world. Such geolocation-based social media include Google Buzz and another popular newcomer, Foursquare. Geolocation apps are becoming all the rage, but are raising serious privacy issues.

In response to those concerns, PleaseRobMe (www.pleaserobme.com) was created. The Web site was designed to raise awareness of the dangers of broadcasting a user’s location to the world and lists people’s public geolocation posts as they occur. As explained by the developers: “The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home.”

Internet-based communications and social networks raise a host of thorny privacy issues that have yet to be addressed by the courts, and likewise have not been fully vetted in the world of public opinion.

What of the leaders of the companies harvesting our online footprints, and sharing the data with the world for profit? What do they have to say about how their efforts affect our personal lives and our privacy? “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said.

I’ll be speaking at the ABA Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law’s annual Symposia on May 7th in Philadelphia. The panel is entitled: “The New Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn-Blessing or Plague?”

We’ll be discussing the following issues:

• How social media is making company information – be true or false, good or bad – can strengthen or damage a corporation or individual brand
• The role legal counsel should have in managing this information. What can be done to protect an organization?
• Opportunities and challenges of social media and provide practical solutions for legal counsel to assist their clients

You can learn more about the program and the entire symposia here. Hope to see you there!

Image via Wikipedia

I recently began guest blogging at the Firmex Online Document and Collaboration blog. My posts appear every Tuesday.  If you’re interested in cloud computing and other technology issues for lawyers you may enjoy these posts.

Here are some of my most recent posts:

• Cloud Computing for Lawyers: An Introduction

• What is SaaS?: Understanding the Concepts of Cloud Computing

• The Information Overload Dilemma

Last week, I wrote a special edition Daily Record column  entitled “You say you want in Internet revolution.”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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You say you want an Internet revolution

“The Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years. Someone the other day said, ‘It’s the biggest thing since Guten- berg,’ and then someone else said ‘No, it’s the biggest thing since the invention of writing.’”

— Rupert Murdoch

To many lawyers, the Internet and the technologies that have sprung forth from it are mere child’s play.

Those lawyers seem unable, or unwilling, to grasp that a fundamental shift has occurred, one that affects every aspect of every business, including their own. Those lawyers are ignoring reality, to their detriment.

It is indisputable that Internet-based technologies are changing the world as we know it at an unprecedented rate. Lawyers must adapt and realize that this rapidly changing phenomenon can, and is, affecting the practice of law.

In New York, for example, lawyers must learn how to file pleadings electronically. E-filing is now mandatory for certain types of cases in certain counties in New York, as explained by one of my co-panelists at the New York State Bar Association’s annual meeting, Jeff Carucci, the statewide coordinator for e-filing.

As he explained it, if you have access to a computer and an Internet connection, you must e-file your documents. E-filing is mandatory for certain types of cases in the affected counties and, essentially, there are no exceptions.

The mandate should be an eye opener for most New York attorneys — clearly change is afoot if the state Office of Court Administration is embracing e-filing. The Internet no longer can be ignored by lawyers in New York.

Two Internet technologies predicted by many leading pundits to be of paramount importance in the coming year are social media and cloud computing. I wholeheartedly agree with that prediction; however, it’s possible my view is slightly skewed since I’m writing a book about each of those topics, as they relate to the legal field. Both will be published by the American Bar Association by the end of the year.

Nevertheless, I hold firm in my belief that both technologies are game changers on a grand scale. Neither would exist if not for the Internet. They are part of the Internet revolution, and are changing the world as we know it. Social media is changing the ways in which people communicate, connect, create and collaborate. Participation in social media is growing at an exponential rate and people of all ages are now participating. My 84- year-old grandfather recently joined Facebook. It’s for that very reason businesses large and small are taking notice of social media and engaging with their customers on social media platforms.

Just last week I posted on Twitter that I was enjoying JetBlue’s free wifi hotspot while waiting for my flight. Moments later I received a non-automated response on Twitter from JetBlue. Now that’s customer service!

Similarly, cloud computing is changing the ways in which business is being conducted, allowing small businesses to compete with much larger ones. It levels
the playing field by making it possible for small businesses to share computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications.
In my opinion, cloud computing and social media are not passing fads, rather they represent a fundamental shift in the ways information is collected, processed and disseminated.

In recent years I’ve had countless conversations with lawyers about the technologies and have expressed my belief that they are game changers. Much of the time, my assertions are met with skepticism, and a fairly universal look that can be described only as mocking cynicism. The lawyers who respond in that fashion then haughtily inform me these, and other Internet technologies, are irrelevant to their practices.
A handful of lawyers, however, respond with curiosity. They ask questions and inquire about additional sources of information.

Those lawyers — the curious ones — will survive and thrive in the Internet age, regardless whether they choose to incorporate social media or cloud computing into their practice. Their willingness to learn about emerging technologies, rather than defensively dismissing them outright, makes all the difference.

Last week, I wrote a special edition Daily Record column  entitled span>Intelligence, intuition, on display at LegalTech.”A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Intelligence, intuition, on display at LegalTech

Lawyers tackling troubles of the digital age

NEW YORK CITY — Thousands attended LegalTech New York this week in Manhattan, hoping to catch up on the latest legal technologies and innovations.

The annual LegalTech conference is sponsored by ALM with the goal of helping lawyers and law firms learn about the latest advances in legal-related technology.

LegalTech tends to draw attendees from large law firms, ranging from attorneys to IT staff, although firms of all sizes are represented. Multiple educational tracks focused on a variety of legal technology issues, from ediscovery to knowledge management, cloud computing and social media.

The main exhibit floor included hundreds of booths featuring legal technology products, most of which focused on enterprise level solutions and ediscovery technologies. In keeping with the general trend of increased interest in cloud computing, this year’s event featured much greater focus on cloud computing products an alternatives than last year’s.

A major conference draw of the conference was Wednesday morning’s keynote presentation — “I3: The New Convergence of Intelligence, Intuition and Information” — which featured a panel including Malcolm Gladwell, the New York Times best selling author of “Blink” and “Outliers”; Thomson Reuters Chief Strategy Officer David Craig and Dr. Lisa Sanders, New York Times Magazine Diagnosis Columnist and technical advisor to the television program “House, M.D.”

Their discussion centered on the proposition that the world increasingly suffers from information overload, with the potential to overwhelm users if it’s not properly managed.

Craig served as the moderator, kicking things off with a discussion of Moore’s Law, which states that every two years, the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit will double. Moore’s Law predicts, in other words, that the processing power of computers doubles every two years.

Craig said that prediction already has proven true, and that people are creating and storing more information than ever before, resulting in an information overload he described as a “tsunami of information.”

He cited statistics regarding Westlaw use, noting that in the last year alone, more than 2 billion searches were performed using Westlaw. Craig questioned the value of the increasing accessibility of information and the speed at which it is available, and said it resulted in a surface review of information rather than an in-depth analysis. Craig posed two questions: Does access to more information allow us to make better decisions, and are underlying information gathering systems making users more effective or end up bogging them down?

Gladwell said a chief issue is how best to assist decision makers in making sense of the morass of information provided to them. He discussed a study of the decision making processes of emergency room physicians who were failing to accurately diagnose heart attacks. That study determined the physicians simply were overloaded with data, ultimately preventing  them from making accurate assessments of patients’ symptoms. Physicians who were provided with a decision aid that forced them to consider only four factors when assessing patients ultimately made far more accurate diagnoses, he said.

Gladwell said the underlying issue that led to the inaccuracies occurred because the doctors’ intuition was failing them. Failures appeared to occur for three reasons: Intuition is a mysterious process deeply rooted in the subconscious; unaided expert decision-making is fragile and easily infected by biases and intuition is frugal, working best when an expert is presented with less information rather than more.

Providing people with less, more pertinent information prevents them from becoming sidetracked by distractions, he said.

Sanders agreed intuition can be important in making decisions, and said the ability to ignore irrelevant information can make all the difference when making an accurate diagnosis, for instance. She stressed that more information is not necessary, but better information.

Craig concluded the session by noting that although technology permits users to access and store more information than ever before, the phenomenon is not necessarily a good thing. Information overload can result in faulty decision making as well as an inability to even reach a decision due to the sheer volume of information and the inability to process it.

Increased access to information is good, Craig noted, but the ability to to locate and quickly process useful information is key.

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “Don’t fear the cloud.”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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Don’t fear the cloud

“People … especially people in positions of power … have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get where they are. They really don’t want to hear that we’re on the wrong path, that we’ve got to shift gears and start thinking differently.”

— DAVID SUZUKI

I am a staunch proponent of cloud computing and strongly believe it is the future of computing for the legal profession.

Granted, legal cloud computing platforms and services present a number of thorny ethical and security issues, but legal cloud computing providers are very responsive and receptive to the very valid concerns raised by lawyers in that regard.
In its current form, cloud computing for lawyers is not perfect, but it’s a viable alternative to traditional desktop software for many lawyers, especially solos and small firms. As the technology and products improve, the technology will become a more palatable alternative for large and small firms alike.

Of course, that’s just my opinion — and it’s one that I express often. When I do so, I am generally met with skepticism from most lawyers — a reaction I’ve become quite used to.
When I discuss my vision of cloud computing in the legal field with legal IT personnel, however, the reaction I generally encounter is one that can only be described as downright hostility.

At first, I was puzzled by the phenomenon. Now realize it’s simply a matter of self-preservation for those folks.
They’re wary of emerging cloud computing technologies because of a very real and vested interest in clinging to the status quo, since the mass adoption of cloud computing by law firms threatens the existence of their job functions as they now exist.

As Nicholas Carr explains in “The Big Switch,” the future of in-house IT personnel is questionable as businesses transition to using cloud computing platforms and storing their data in the cloud:

In the long run, the IT department is unlikely to survive, at least not in its familiar form. It will have little left to do once the bulk of business com- puting shifts out of private data centers and into ‘the cloud.’ Business units and even individual employees will be able to control the processing of information directly without the need for legions of technical specialists.

The gradual shift toward cloud computing does not mean IT professionals will be out of work. Rather, it simply means they must be flexible, open minded and willing to adapt to the changing IT landscape. IT jobs are not disappearing, they are merely changing.
For example, while demands for in-house IT personnel continue to decline, demand for virtualization pros skilled in cloud computing has increased by 21 percent from last year, according to recent studies analyzing job hiring data and classified ads.

The bottom line is that the future is not bleak for in-house legal IT personnel — it’s simply different. Cloud computing represents change on a grand scale and while the mass adoption of cloud computing platforms threatens the jobs of some IT staff, it will likely transform the jobs of others and promises to alter the internal structure of law firms.
No doubt, change and uncertainty can be scary, but desperately clinging to the status quo out of fear does a disservice to both the legal and IT professions and, ultimately, will fail.

A better alternative is to embrace change and find new opportunities in the emerging legal technology landscape.

Image via WikipediaSe

I’m very excited to announce that I’m writing a book about cloud computing for lawyers that the American Bar Association will be publishing at the end of 2010.

This book will explain the concept of cloud computing, including SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS platforms, and will provide lawyers with an overview of why cloud computing is becoming increasingly common and why it will become an increasingly evident alternative to traditional software systems. I’ll also discuss the legal and ethical issues presented by lawyers using cloud computing platforms in their law practices and will cover the security issues presented as well.

I would greatly appreciate feedback from my readers as to what you would like a book about cloud computing to cover. Are there any topics that you think absolutely must be covered? What interests you the most? What are you biggest concerns about cloud computing?

Please leave any feedback in the comments below or contact me via email.

Thanks in advance for your feedback. I want to make this book as useful as possible for attorneys.

Also, I just finished writing a book about social media for lawyers with Carolyn Elefant, tentatively titled “Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier” that will also be published by the American Bar Association in late March. You can find an excerpt of the book here.  I’ll provide you with more information about the book closer to its release date.



This screencast features, and is sponsored by, the following legal technology products:

• Firmex–provides secure, virtual data rooms, which
  can be used in a legal corporate environment to manage online due diligence,
  exchange closing drafts, create digital record books, share litigation
  documents and secure client access to important files.

• Mavenlink–provides an online collaborative workspace that allows lawyers to manage a client's case from start to finish, including uploading and collaborating on documents with clients and communicating with clients about their case in a secure, easily viewable environment.

In this episode of lawtechTalk, like the last episode, I'm experimenting with a new format. During each screencast and demo, I'll be interviewing a representative
from each company. Hopefully this interactivity will make the
screencast even more interesting for you, the viewer.

There are 3 parts to this episode, which you can access by scrolling through and clicking on each segment below:

This week’s Daily Record column is entitled “My favorite websites and online tools.”

A pdf of the article can be found here and my past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.

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My favorite websites and online tools

As you can probably imagine, I spend a lot of time online. Throughout my day, I find myself returning to the same Web sites over and over again. And, similarly, there are certain online tools that I use repeatedly.

It occurred to me that sharing my favorite Web sites and online tools might be useful to my readers. Although not all of these tools will be relevant to you, you may find a gem or two that will make your online life much simpler and more fulfilling.
Every morning I turn to three Web sites for information and news. First, I review the most popular news of the day at Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/most- popular). The popular news is categorized in three ways: the “most e-mailed news,” the “most viewed news” and the “most recommended news.” Skimming over the news stories and headlines in each section gives me a good sense of what’s happening in the world and the interest level of certain events to other Internet users.

I then read through my RSS feeds using my RSS feed reader of choice, Feedly (www.feedly.com). Feedly pulls the feeds to blogs and other news sources that you subscribe to using Google Reader and presents them to you in a far more user-friendly interface. Feeds appear in a magazine-like view that is much easier on the eyes and sorting through new items is simple and intuitive.
Another benefit of Feedly is that it allows content to be shared quickly via e-mail, Twitter or on other social networking sites. Next, I hit Trendalicious (www.glozer.net/ trendy/), a Web site that offers a real-time ranking of the 100 most popular Web pages as reflected by the top pages trending on three Web sites that sort online content based upon user input: Delicious, digg and reddit. Trendalicious is a great way to get a feel for the topics and new technology products that the online community is focusing on at any given time.

As I peruse the blogs posts, news stories and Web sites that I discover using the above sources, I bookmark those that I find particularly interesting using Diigo (www.diigo.com), a Web- based bookmarking site. I prefer Web-based bookmarking sites to using the bookmark function of my browser because it is more streamlined and I can access my bookmarks from any computer.

Diigo is my preferred web-based bookmarking site for a number of reasons. First, Diigo automatically backs up any site that you bookmark to your “delicious” (www.delicious.com) account. Delicious is one of the most popular Web-based bookmarking services, and backing up your bookmarks to that database as well ensures that your information will not be lost on the off-chance that Diigo or Delicious should fail and lose all of your data.
Diigo also allows you to annotate web pages that interest you. You simply highlight the Web pages or add “sticky notes” using Diigo’s interface and save them to Diigo. The annotations will subsequently appear on the Web sites anytime you visit thereafter.

I also frequently use the “SimilarWeb” Firefox browser add-on (www.similar web.com/) whenever I land on a Web site that interests me. This add-on provides me with links to: (1) similar Web sites; (2) related articles from news sites and blogs; and (3) the latest social media buzz about the Web site. It’s an invaluable tool that is a real time saver.
Finally, once I’ve caught up with the news of the day, I update my daily to-do list by visiting TeuxDeux (http://teuxdeux.com), a simple, intuitive, Web-based to-do application. I recently started using TeuxDeux and it is now my to-do list application of choice.

My next step is to get to work tackling the items on my to-do list. As I do so, I find myself constantly revisiting the Web sites and tools mentioned above throughout my day. Hopefully you’ll find that a few of these resources will become as invaluable to you as they are to me.