ABA Site-tation http://meetings.abanet.org/ltrc New or useful websites for of interest to attorneys and other legal professionals, and legal technology news and highlights. en Mention of a company, product, or service does not indicate endorsement or support by the American Bar Association or the authors. <![CDATA[Mind Your Metadata: Don't Reveal Strategic Information Through Hidden Comments, Tracked Changes, and Document Properties]]>

Rick Segal, apparently an ex-Microsoft employee and current venture capitalist, writes of a business plan he received which contains revealing metadata that the authors obviously didn’t intend for anyone else to see.  Potentially strategic information has been leaked via metadata in a number of high profile incidents relevant to the legal world, including during a lawsuit by SCO against DaimlerChrysler.  Some lawyers routinely check documents they receive from opposing counsel for metadata.

Metadata can hide in several forms in Microsoft Word documents, including comments if you have not deleted all comments from the document, tracked changes if you have not accepted or rejected all changes in the document, and document properties (see File->Properties in the menu, under the “Summary” tab there is information such as title, author, and company, that you may want to change or delete).  Converting to PDF is not a foolproof way of preventing metadata from reaching prying eyes as document properties metadata and other metadata such as comments may be preserved.  (Acrobat 8 features an “Examine Document” tool which can help bring to your attention metadata in a document).  Programs exist to “scrub” your documents of metadata, including Workshare Protect and Payne Consulting’s Metadata Assistant.

Other resources:

ABA Journal:
Metadata Minefield

YourABA:
If I don't see it, does it mean it's not there? Metadata–ethics, technology and more

LTRC Presentation:
Dangerous Curves Ahead: The Crossroads of Ethics and Technology (PDF)

LTRC Site-tation post:
Electronic Document Redaction and the FTC

LTRC publications:
Lemon Juice, Cornstarch, and Microsoft: Invisible Ink And Your Documents

]]> Thu, 15 May 2008 13:11:20 0000 <![CDATA[Just Released: Volumes 1 and 2 of the 2008 ABA Legal Technology Survey Report ]]>

The first two volumes of the 2008 ABA Legal Technology Survey Report, the new-for-2008 Baseline and Budgets (Vol. 1) and Law Office Technology (Vol. 2), are now available.

In 2008 the findings of the ABA Legal Technology Survey Report will be published serially in six volumes, including Baseline and Budgets (May), Law Office Technology (May), Litigation and Courtroom Technology (June), Web and Communication Technology (June), Online Research (July) and Mobile Lawyers (July). Highlights from the first two volumes include:
  
  • The 2008 survey observed a significant migration of respondents’ use of desktop computers to laptops.  Use of laptop computers jumped to 83% in the 2008 survey from 69% in the 2007 survey for solo respondents and to 73% from 59% for respondents from firms of 2 to 9 attorneys.
  • The availability of Smartphones/BlackBerrys has increased considerably. In 2008 76% of respondents reported the availability of smartphones or BlackBerries at their firms, up from 55% in the 2007 survey and 49% in the 2006 survey. 
  1. File Server availability has increased in this year’s survey to 85% from 73% in 2007.  This figure was nearly doubled for solo respondents, to 51% from 28%. Dell (59%) and HP/Compaq (17%) were the most-named brands, with 19% using custom servers. 
  • Proceed with caution!  While only eight percent of respondents report that their firms have experienced a security breach, 47% report that their law firm technology has been infected with a virus, spyware or malware.  However, no significant business disruption or loss resulted from the infection for 53% perhaps due to diligent backup practices; more than four-fifths (82%) of respondents report that their firm has a backup strategy.
We’re following the lead of the legal profession by going paperless - the 2008 survey reports will be published solely as PDF e-products and available for immediate download. Each of the six volumes begins with a trend report that summarizes the notable results and highlights changes from previous years, followed by detailed charts and tables.

The survey is an annual project of the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center, which provides lawyers, bar associations, law schools, and other legal organizations with information on technology and its use by the legal profession.

For more information, including a sample of the chart and table structure of the survey volumes or the survey methodology, or to order the survey, visit the LTRC Survey Page.
]]> Tue, 06 May 2008 09:53:18 0000 <![CDATA[Caution Travelers: Laptops May Be Subject to Suspicionless Searches at the Border]]> Earlier this week, the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in United States v. Arnold that the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonable suspicion” requirement does not apply to the search of a laptop during an international border crossing. The court rejected Arnold’s argument that a laptop should be treated similarly to a home or office for privacy purposes, holding instead that a laptop was akin to a traveler’s luggage. George Washington University Law School Professor Orin Kerr discusses the holding in more detail at the Volokh Conspiracy blog.

Arnold presents an interesting challenge for attorneys who travel internationally: how do you safeguard the sensitive client and firm data on your laptop when a security person, sans any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, can investigate your files? The easiest and best solution is simply to avoid placing sensitive or confidential information on your laptop. Such information can be stored on secure servers at an attorney’s main office and accessed remotely via VPN, or encrypted and stored remotely with an online backup vendor. If internet access will be unavailable on your trip or you otherwise require local copies of your sensitive information, consider encrypting the data and perhaps also relocating it to a storage device such as a USB thumb drive or CD-R. While such methods won’t guarantee you privacy, they may reduce the likelihood that your client’s confidential information will be revealed in a casual search of your laptop.

]]> Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:02:27 0000 <![CDATA[Roll Out the Red Carpet: 2008 Webby Awards]]> It may not have quite the media cachet of the Oscars or Emmys, but the annual Webby Awards are no less prestigious for those who create or follow Internet-based technology. Now in their 12th year, the Webby Awards recognize excellence in websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobility. The awards are judged by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body that includes a range of leading Web experts, business figures, and celebrities from David Bowie to Anil Dash to Matt Groening. In addition, a People’s Voice Award is also determined for each category based on a public vote via the web.

Nominees are broken down into nearly 70 categories with websites representing the majority of nominees. Some of this year’s nominees include Eyes on Darfur (Activism Category), HowStuffWorks (Best Copy/Writing), Apple (Best Use of Video or Moving Image), Yahoo! Sports (Sports Category), and the ABA Journal website (Law Category).

The Webby Awards’ website offers a full list of nominees (as well as nominees and winners from the past 11 years). As a research and reference tool, the list of former winners and nominees offers a great directory of high quality websites by category. If you’d like to vote for your favorite Webby Award nominee, you can visit the public voting page now.

]]> Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:04:24 0000 <![CDATA[Hearings on Delivery of Legal Services through Technology]]> The ABA Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services is holding hearings on the use of technology to provide personal, civil legal services over the Internet and the policies that govern that use. Specifically, the Committee will examine:

- The range of providers who are using technology to provide legal services through the Internet and the scope of those services.

- The benefits and detriments that have resulted from the use of technology to provide legal services over the Internet.

- Emerging trends and possible future directions of technology providing legal services via the Internet; and 

- The policies and authorities (rules, statutes, case law, ethics opinions, etc.) that have emerged to govern the use of technology for the delivery of legal services and whether those policies are consistent with the need to balance consumer protection with access to affordable legal services and justice.

The hearings will be held as follows:

- May 9, 2008, Noon to 3:00 PM, in conjunction with the Equal Justice Conference, Hilton Minneapolis, 1001 Marquette Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55403;

- Friday, August 8, 2008, hotel TBD, in conjunction with the ABA Annual Meeting in New York. 

- Virtual Hearing, Date to be announced.

Those interested in appearing and/or submitting materials should contact Janice Jones at 312/988-5787, janicejones@staff.abanet.org. Further details and on-going hearing archives are posted at http://www.abanet.org/legalservices/delivery/techhearings.html

]]> Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:52:31 0000 <![CDATA[Outsourcing for Solos and Small firms: Virtual Paralegals]]>

“Virtual Assistants (or simply VAs) are independent contractors that provide support to attorneys and other professionals. VAs work from home or a remote office, and can help mitigate your administrative burden in the same way that an in-office assistant would.  They can be particularly helpful for solo and small practices where the ebb and flow of administrative work makes employment of a full time staff person impractical.”

Many functions lend themselves to being performed virtually, including that of a paralegal.  A virtual paralegal still works under the direction of an attorney; the main difference being that a virtual paralegal works from a remote location, on a contract basis rather than as an employee. A virtual paralegal enables solos and small firms to take advantage of the economy that effective use of a paralegal can provide to a practice, on an as needed basis. Featured are two attorneys that discuss the benefits of utilizing virtual paralegals.

Family lawyer, blogger and solo practitioner Grant Griffiths uses a virtual paralegal with 20 years of experience. Roger P. Glovsky, a corporate attorney that bills himself as The Virtual Lawyer, discusses his use of virtual paralegals in a two part series on leveraging your time.  Consider expanding your options and your capacity with a virtual paralegal. Following are resources we’ve gathered to help you take the plunge.

Resources - Attorneys and Virtual Paralegals
Virtual Help: An Outsourcing Relationship with a Virtual Assistant Can Complete Your Team – An ABA Law Practice Management Article

Virtual Workers Cut Overhead at Law Firm - A Law Technology News article (Subscription required).

The Virtual Lawyer - Leveraging Your Time - Part 2 – by Roger Glovsky, author of The Virtual Lawyer blog

Virtual Law Clerks Take Over the World! – By Enrico Schaefer, author of The Greatest American Lawyer blog 

Virtual Paralegal/Clerk Update – By Enrico Schaefer, author of The Greatest American Lawyer blog
Virtual Service Providers

]]> Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:49:23 0000 <![CDATA[Time Saver: One Stop Shipping]]>

When it absolutely has to be there and you also want a good price, these websites will allow you to compare the delivery options and prices of several competing carriers.  Simply input your ship from and ship to locations and you’ll be provided with a selection of shipping options by carrier, earliest delivery possible, and price.  Note: ABA members have discounts (up to 26%) with UPS through our member advantage program. at: http://www.abanet.org/advantage/ups/ 
RedRoller, allows you to compare several carriers and ship with any of them from a single location.  You can setup a free RedRoller account, import your address book and add a payment method.  RedRoller also lets you customize your shipments with your preferences, set package details and delivery options.  If you frequently ship similar types of packages or to the same location, these packages and locations can be tagged for quick shipments. This is a good option if you want to do a rate check but appreciate the time savings of being able to ship to multiple carriers from a single site.

ShipGooder compares shipping rates for local, regional and national courier companies and provides a link to each carrier’s website to complete shipping.  This is great if you already have accounts setup with various carriers but just want to do a quick rate check. You can display shipping rates by delivery dates or carrier/courier. Additionally, Ship Gooder will allow you to print your comparison results, e-mail the results to someone or quickly download the information to a spreadsheet.

]]> Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:19:59 0000 <![CDATA[New Mailbox Threat: Spear-Phishing]]> Phishing is not a new term in the e-security field. It refers to an attempt - typically by email - to trick or mislead a recipient into giving up valuable personal information. Phishing attempts often come in the form of an official-looking email from a bank, credit card company, or online service like eBay, which asks you to enter your username and password for a “routine verification” or something to that effect. If the recipient falls for the trick and enters his or her information, it is transmitted to the phisher and opens the door for a multitude of abuses. These phishing attempts are usually mass-mailed in hopes that, out of the thousands of recipients, a small handful will fall for the ruse.

As phishing attempts grow more sophisticated, it is becoming difficult to distinguish between legitimate and dangerous emails. One of the latest tricks has been dubbed “spear phishing,” and it refers to phishing attempts that are carefully crafted and targeted at particular individuals or groups rather than mass-mailed to a general audience.

David Bilinsky, the Practice Management Advisor and staff lawyer for the Law Society of British Columbia, recently blogged about one such spear-phishing attack involving the legal community. In that case, phishers sent emails to executives that purported to be US federal court subpoenas. When the executives clicked a link within the “subpoena,” their computers were infected with malware that gathered personal information including passwords and credit card numbers.

What can you do? Commercial anti-virus and anti-spam software may help reduce your risk to some extent, but the number one safeguard is caution. Be wary of emails from senders you don’t know. Review emails carefully for suspicious misspellings or obvious errors, and avoid clicking links or downloading files if you aren’t confident that they’re safe.

]]> Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:31:42 0000 <![CDATA[YouTube -Your Free Technology Consultant?]]> Most people are familiar with YouTube only as an entertainment tool – a place to watch everything from a skateboarding dog to fifty-year-old videos of your favorite jazz legend. But for lawyers contemplating a technology purchase, it may serve an entirely different function: a remarkable source for detailed, hands-on reviews, demonstrations, and tutorials.

For example, an attorney considering the purchase of a Tablet PC can do a simple search on YouTube for “tablet pc review” and turn up lengthy reviews for products including the Fujitsu Stylistic ST5112, the HP TC4400, or the Motion Computing LE1700. An attorney considering a new Smartphone could watch hands on reviews of the iPhone, the BlackBerry Pearl, or the HTC Kaiser. Indeed, a simple search for most any mainstream product will turn up a review – and often more than one.

Beyond product reviews, YouTube can also serve as a helpful educational tool. Lawyers can use videos such as this overview of a technologically advanced courtroom or this Cardozo Cyberlaw Society e-discovery lecture to help them grasp technology concepts that may seem overly complicated or inaccessible in print.

Know of an especially useful YouTube video we should highlight? Let us know!

]]> Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:21:45 0000 <![CDATA[Latest in Web Domain Dangers: Unassigned Sub-Domains]]> Web domains are an area of technology fraught with abuse and advantage taking, as we’ve reported before. One of the newest issues relates to sub-domains -- the portion of the web address that comes before your domain name (i.e. in http://example.madeupdomain.com, the “example” portion is a sub-domain). Businesses of all types use these sub-domains to separate independent portions of their web site. In the legal world a firm might use sub-domains within their web site for different practice groups or for different office locations.

Typically, if a domain owner hasn’t set up a sub-domain, it isn’t accessible; a user trying to access a non-existent sub-domain will simply receive an error message. According to TechCrunch, however, popular domain registrar and web host NetworkSolutions is filling their customer’s unused sub-domains (that is, any sub-domain the customer hasn’t explicitly set up) with pages full of advertising links. NetworkSolutions' customers experiencing this issue may be surprised to learn that they agreed to allow NetworkSolutions to do just that via their service agreement. Schedule A, Section 11 provides:

You acknowledge and agree that any or all domain names that are (i) registered with Network Solutions, (ii) hosted on a Network Solutions domain name server, and (iii) do not otherwise resolve to an active Web site, may resolve to an "under construction" or similar temporary Web page ("Under Construction Page"), and that Network Solutions may place on any such Under Construction Page promotions and advertisements for, and links to, Network Solutions' Web site, Network Solutions product and service offerings, third-party Web sites, third-party product and service offerings, and/or Internet search engines.

Thankfully, NetworkSolutions allows its customers to “opt-out” of these advertisements via a check box in their account settings. With the variety of advertising restrictions placed upon attorneys by their respective codes of professional responsibility, it is probably advisable for them to do so. Likewise, attorneys using hosts other than NetworkSolutions should check to see if their host has a similar policy – and a similar opt-out function.

]]> Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:12:27 0000 <![CDATA[Journler: Casemap Replacement for Mac Users?]]> The ability to dual-boot Macs in either Mac OS X or Windows as well as the robust virtualization options available, including Parallels and VMWare Fusion, have lead a number of attorneys to switch their practices over to the Mac platform. While the option of using the same old Windows software exists, many are finding that they’d rather turn to Mac-native applications that can do the same job – and sometimes do it better.

In that vein, the blog MacLitigator has published a detailed report (with screenshots!) of a piece of software called Journler that provides much of the same functionality as the well-known Windows software Casemap. MacLitigator explores the benefits and the limitations of Journler, the former including its non-proprietary data files and modest ($34.95) cost and the latter including the absence of transcript management or Bates stamping.

And if you’re interested in Macs in the law office, check out some of our other recent Site-tation posts:

Mac Users: Do You Need Antivirus Software?
Downside to popularity – Mac Viruses

]]> Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:56:07 0000 <![CDATA[USB Flash Drives: Productivity Tool and Security Gap]]> USB flash drives, sometimes also referred to as jump drives or thumb drives, are unquestionably useful tools in the information age. They provide an inexpensive means of backing up and sharing large files, and can even be configured to hold a mobile software suite that will allow you to get your work done on any compatible computer – a boon for any lawyer who travels regularly.

The readily available drives may, however, present a significant security threat for any firm or business whose employees regularly handle sensitive information. It isn’t difficult to imagine an attorney loading a flash drive with client files and then accidentally dropping the drive – and the client’s confidential information – on the train, nor would it be difficult at all for an unscrupulous employee or contractor to plug a flash drive into a firm computer and copy over vital, confidential data without detection.

How do you balance the usefulness of such flash drives with their potential security risk? ComputerWorld reports one solution: Washington State’s Division of Child Support banned its employees from using their own personal flash drives, and instead issued employees state-owned SanDisk Cruzer drives with built in encryption and password protection. This move not only protects sensitive information contained on the drives in the event they’re misplaced or stolen, but also helps prevent unauthorized flash drives being used to break the department’s security.

For more on flash drives, read our FYI: Computing on the Go: Thumb Drives.

]]> Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:03:02 0000 <![CDATA[Mac Users: Do You Need Antivirus Software?]]> At ABA TECHSHOW 2008, one of the hot topics in the new Mac track was just that question: do Mac users really need antivirus software? Opinions seemed to be split between those who felt it wasn’t a bad idea (just in case) and those who felt the lack of Mac viruses and the overall security of the Mac OS made it unnecessary. If the issue still has you scratching your head, you may want to read an aptly titled new piece by Mac security expert Rich Mogull: Should Mac Users Run Antivirus Software? Mogull leads readers through a number of helpful tips for determining whether antivirus software – or some other methods – will help or hinder their Mac experience. (Note: Internet Explorer users may need to scroll down quite a bit to get to the article.)

See also: ABA Site-tation: Downside to popularity - Mac Viruses

]]> Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:52:38 0000 <![CDATA[ABA TECHSHOW 2008 Roundup]]> ABA TECHSHOW 2008 has come to a close, but the discussion about the technology tools and practices demonstrated at the conference are just beginning. Here’s a sampling of some of the TECHSHOW-related blog posts from around the legal technology community:

ABA TECHSHOW BUZZ

Monica Bay's The Common Scold:
LIVE FROM CHICAGO, ABA TECHSHOW

Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog:
ABA TECHSHOW 2008 Wrap Up
Law Practice Tips From ABA TECHSHOW 2008
More Law Practice Tips from ABA TECHSHOW 2008

Reid My Blog:
ABA Techshow 2008 Keynote Discusses Privacy Issues

Kevin O'Keefe's Real Lawyers Have Blogs:
Back in Seattle from ABA TechShow
Other TECHSHOW Posts

Dennis Kennedy:
I am the Worst Liveblogger Ever: A Report from ABA TECHSHOW 2008

TechnoLawyer Blog:
ABA TECHSHOW 2008: Eliminating the Paper Chase: From Boxes to Bytes (Paperless Office Track)

See any other good TECHSHOW coverage that we've missed? Let us know!

ADDED:

Dominic Jaar's Wines and Information Management Blog:
Various live reports from ABA TECHSHOW 2008

]]> Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:23:52 0000 <![CDATA[JD Supra: Multi-faceted Online Legal Document Repository ]]>

JD Supra is a free legal document repository site which allows users to upload and download various documents such as filings, legal decisions, forms, newsletters, and articles. According to their “About Us” page, JD Supra “promotes the free exchange of information to benefit the legal community, legal consumers, the media and the general public.”

JD Supra functions as a lawyer directory as well as a document repository.  Users who upload documents can create a profile detailing information about their educational background, legal practice, career accomplishments, and other relevant information (however, it appears that any type of users, not just lawyers, can upload documents).  People researching specific legal topics on JD Supra can thus be led to the profiles of lawyers who have uploaded relevant legal documents. 

There are several other online user-content driven document repositories featuring legal documents such as docstoc and Scribd.  Users of these sites must beware, of course—with user-submitted sites like JD Supra, Docstoc and Scribd, there is no easy way to assess the quality, validity, authenticity, and authorship of any given document.  As such, it might be safer to view the documents as a starting point for information gathering as opposed to viewing them as any sort of finished, authentic, and accurate product.  Thus, these sites may be useful in the same way that Wikipedia can be useful, as a starting point for gathering initial research, which must then be followed up with research in more trustworthy information sources.

]]> Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:44:31 0000 <![CDATA[Google Sites: Online Collaboration and Project Management Tool]]>

Google unveiled a new online collaboration tool named Google Sites in late February of this year.  Sites is designed to be used as an online project management/website authoring/collaboration tool, boasting features typically associated with intranets, extranets, and Wikis.  Online reviewers have discussed Google Sites as a potential competitor to collaboration software such as 37 Signals’ Basecamp, Microsoft Sharepoint, PBwiki, and offerings from Zoho.

Sites is part of the Google Apps line, which includes a free Team Edition, a free Standard Edition, and a fee-based Premier Edition. Users used to the quick process of signing up gaining near immediate access to programs like Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Gmail may be disappointed to hear that use of Google Sites requires the use of a registered web domain name.  The administrator of the registered web domain will have the ultimate administrative authority over any of the Google Sites projects associated with that domain name.

Google Sites so far has garnered mixed reviews--it will be interesting to see if any substantial improvements will be released in the near future.

Early Reviews of Google Sites:
 Other Resources:
ABA Site-tation: Web Design and Web 2.0
ABA LTRC  Presentation (PDF file): Managing Information Overload

]]> Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:05:37 0000 <![CDATA[Free Online Legal Research: The Public Library of Law]]>

The Public Library of Law is a new free online legal research website, billed as the “largest free law library in the world,” created the makers of the commercial online legal research system Fastcase.  The Public Library of Law features cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals, cases from all 50 states back to 1997, federal statutory law and codes from all 50 states, regulations, court rules, constitutions, and other legal information.

The Public Library of lacks the breadth, depth, and many of the advanced features of commercial legal research services like Lexis and Westlaw.  As such, it may be best viewed as a free starting point for legal research, to be followed up in more comprehensive sources.  Transactional-based pricing is available for several Lexis and Westlaw searches and features, including transaction-based Shepards and KeyCite, which may be useful for researchers using free services like the Public Library of Law or commercial services like Fastcase which don’t have equivalently sophisticated citator features.

]]> Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:18:46 0000 <![CDATA[iPhone Grows Up: Business Features On The Way]]> Apple’s iPhone may have been a smash hit with consumers when it was released last June, but many business users – including lawyers – were kept away by the device’s lack of corporate features. All that may change, however, as Apple recently announced that it was bringing a host of enterprise features to the phone, including Exchange ActiveSync for push email, calendars, and contacts, as well as Cisco VPN and remote wiping abilities. These features may finally position the iPhone to act as a true competitor to Research in Motion’s ubiquitous BlackBerry smartphones.

Also announced was the release of the iPhone SDK – a toolkit that will allow software developers to write programs specifically for the iPhone. iPhone owners will then be able to use the iTunes App Store to load third-party software directly onto their phones, something that had previously required warranty-voiding hacks and elaborate workarounds.

Previously on ABA Site-tation:

- Apple's iPhone: Proceed with Caution
- Of iPhones and Early Adopters

]]> Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:02:44 0000 <![CDATA[Cheap and easy data backup]]>

We all know the importance of backing up our data, but research indicates that we aren't doing it.  According to Macworld Magazine only four percent of Macintosh users were found to perform regular backups.  Apple made it simpler with their latest operating system, but inexpensive options are now available that make it simple for both Mac and PC users.  You can walk into several popular electronic stores or go online and for less than $200 purchase a fast, external drive with 500 GB of storage space.  Many of these drives are PC and Mac compatible and preinstalled with automatic backup software that will get you started on your backup schedule within the hour. How cool is that?  

500 GB is a nice, round number and a lot of space.  According to the Western Digital website, 500 GB will store the following:
  • Up to 142,800 digital photos
  • Up to 125,000 songs (MP3)
  • Up to 12,500 songs (uncompressed CD quality)
  • Up to 38 hours of Digital Video (DV)
  • Up to 220 hours of DVD quality video
  • Up to 60 hours of HD video
With all this extra space, make sure that you create an image of your drive and back it up as well.  (See FYI: Data Backup - Disk Imaging and Backup Software)  In the event of a disaster, it can take several days to re-install your operating system, applications and data from CDs and backups.  With an image file, you can restore your pc system, applications and data within several hours.

Do your research. There are great prices to be had in stores as well as online.  Recently Best Buy had a Seagate external drive, included with backup software, for $119. Below are 500 GB models of four popular hard drive manufacturers for your consideration.

LaCie 500 GB Desktop Hard Disk - $129.00 at Abt Electronics

Maxtor OneTouch 4 500GB External Hard Drive - $169.99 at Circuit City.com

Additional Resources

FYI: Data Backup

The Importance of Having Backups

10 Things You Should Know About Automated Backup Programs

]]> Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:25:23 0000 <![CDATA[New FYI: Corporate Counsel, Contracts and Compliance]]>

Updating corporate minutes, maintaining compliance with contract regulations and managing legal entity information are routine transactional matters.  However, when the routine is not maintained chaos and scandal can result.  These matters are typically the purview of the legal department.  In consideration of the ongoing effects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the recent anniversary of sweeping amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, we've revisited the resources that are unique to the special needs of law departments rather than law firms. 

See our new FYI:  Corporate Counsel, Contracts and Compliance

]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:24:07 0000 <![CDATA[GovTech: information technology for state and local governments]]>

Since 2001 when we first featured the Government Technology website, this site has undergone a few changes.  It has been completely redesigned and has a new domain name, govtech.com.  The tagline is “Solutions for state and local government in the information age” and the website continues to deliver.  On the start page there are six tabs; Home, Digital Communities, Video, Events, My Briefcase, and Advertise.

Home is the starting point for the Government Technology website.  On this page links to articles and videos co-exist with sponsor advertisements.  You can access broad topics by clicking on the aforementioned tabs running across the top of the page. From the left side of the page, content is listed by more specific topics and subtopics including Government Topics (Contract News, divided by Federal, Local, and State government; Cyber Security, Economic Development/E-Gov News, Education, Emergency Management, Enterprise, GIS, Health &amp;amp; Human Services, Justice, Policy, Public Safety and Shared Services), Digital Communities, Multimedia, Events, Industry Perspectives and the Magazine Sites.

Digital Communities was launched in 2005 in response to requests from cities and counties around the country for comprehensive local government IT best practices.  It consists of both a website and a quarterly print magazine.  

Video is Government Technology television (GTtv) Government Videos.  Like a You Tube for government, you can watch video channels that include Technology News, Green IT, a CIO Center, Events &amp;amp; Keynotes, and IT Topic Interviews as well as the Top Rated videos and Sponsored Videos.

Events is a bulletin board for Government Events across the country.  Upcoming conferences, workshops and summits are featured by various state, local and municipal governments.

My Briefcase is similar to an RSS feed reader where you setup an account in order to specify which news, events, resources or subscriptions you want to follow, save and share. There’s a tutorial that will walk you through the process.

Advertise is an access portal to all of the Government Technology publications for vendors eager to reach out to the government technology market.

Govtech.com is a comprehensive collection of resources and continues to be a good starting point for anyone looking for more information about how technology is being used and shaped by state, local, and the federal government.

]]> Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:47:51 0000 <![CDATA[Know Your Responsibilities: Data Breach Notification]]> As it becomes standard practice for attorneys to maintain client files in a digital format, data breaches and similar technology-based security threats become a far more significant concern. While much has been said about preventing data breaches, far less is said about an attorney’s (or any business owner’s) obligations following the data breach – particularly the duty to notify effected clients.

For a convenient starting point to determining what legal obligations you may have in the event of such a data breach, check out the Data Breach Notification Laws map created by CSOonline. Simply click on your state, or any state you’re curious about, for a brief summary of their current laws regarding data breach notification. If the state has applicable legislation, you can click on the summary for a link to the full text.

]]> Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:15:38 0000 <![CDATA[Managing Online Research with Firefox and Internet Explorer 7's Multiple Tab Bookmarking Features]]>

If you use a tabbed browser and have ever wished for a way to quickly bookmark multiple tabs for browsing later, such as when you have a number of web pages on a relevant topic open in your browser for a research project, you’re in luck.  Both Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 allow you to bookmark multiple tabs at once, save them into a folder of your liking, and later conveniently open them all at once. 

In Internet Explorer 7, you can bookmark a group of tabs by clicking on the “Add to Favorites” button (the gold star with the green plus sign at the top left of the browser window) and then selecting “Add Tab Group to Favorites,” then select a folder to add the bookmarks to or create a new folder.  To open the group of tabs all at once, click on the “Favorites” button (the gold star), move your mouse over the folder with the bookmarks you want to open, and click on the blue arrow that appears.

In Firefox 2 you can bookmark a group of tabs by selecting “Bookmark All Tabs” in the Bookmarks menu, then select an existing folder or create a new folder to put the tabs in.  To open the group of tabs all at once select the folder under the Bookmarks tab, and select the “Open All In Tabs” option that appears at the bottom of the list of all of the bookmarks in the folder.

There is a hitch in Firefox 2--under the default settings, when you choose to open a group of tabs all at once, any tabs you had already open will be closed.  To change this, enter the text “about:config” (without the quotation marks) in your browser’s location bar, find the entry “browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace,” and change the “true” setting in the “value” column to “false” by double clicking on it.  This problem is apparently remedied in Firefox 3, which is currently available only in beta version.

For more information on tabbed browsing, see the LTRC's article “Fire(fox) Up Your Browser!” 

]]> Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:53:55 0000 <![CDATA[Avoid Sanctions, Keep Critical E-mail Messages Out of Your Spam Box With E-mail Whitelists]]>

E-mail whitelisting is a topic that Jim Calloway posted about awhile back, but is still vitally important in case you missed it.  The gist is that very important e-mail messages, such as court notices of hearings, may be put into a spam box by your e-mail programs, causing you to disastrously miss important deadlines and face court sanctions and other negative outcomes.  To expand upon the post, here are some tips on how to whitelist important e-mail addresses in Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail.


Microsoft Outlook
Creating an e-mail whitelist in Microsoft Outlook involves adding the desired e-mail addresses or domains to the “Safe Senders” or “Safe Recipients” lists.  You can select to have e-mail addresses in your Contacts list be added to the Safe Senders list, and can select to have anyone you e-mail automatically be added to the Safe Senders list.

For more information, including the differences between the Safe Senders and Safe Recipients lists, see:
Microsoft Office Online: 
Add names to the Junk E-mail Filter Lists
and
Hotmail

Creating an e-mail whitelist in Hotmail involves adding the desired e-mail addresses or domains to a “Safe List.”

         See: 
         Msn.com: 
         Create a Safe List for incoming messages

Gmail
According to Google, “If you find that some senders' messages are consistently being mislabeled as spam, you can prevent this by adding their email addresses to your Contacts list. Gmail will deliver messages from members of your Contacts list to your inbox, unless they meet these criteria.”  Google lists certain criteria which if met will prevent this whitelist tactic from working, including if the “To” and “From” addresses for an e-mail message are the same.

Now, this is a big problem, because people often will send legitimate e-mails where the primary “To” field is filled in with their own e-mail address, and a list of recipients is included in the blind contact/BCC field, with the purpose of sending a message to numerous people but preventing the recipients from being able to view each other’s e-mail addresses—even if you have added the sender’s e-mail address to your contacts list, this type of e-mail message may still end up in your spam box.

Until Google adds a dedicated whitelisting function for Gmail, be sure to check your spam box daily to see if any legitimate e-mail messages, even e-mail messages from senders whose addresses you have placed in your Contacts list, have been erroneously placed there and which might otherwise escape your notice.

See:
Yahoo! Mail
Unlike Microsoft Outlook and Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail does not yet feature a dedicated whitelist/safe list for e-mail addresses.  Some writers online have suggested that creating a filter designed to route e-mail messages from specific e-mail addresses to your inbox and adding those e-mail addresses to your address book/contacts list can prevent messages from those address from being sent to your spam box/bulk mail box, but there is no official word from Yahoo on whether these methods work.  In the meantime, if you try these methods, be sure to check your spam box/bulk mail box daily to see if legitimate mail was erroneously placed there which might otherwise escape your notice.

Other resources:
Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog: 
Spam Filter Traps Law Firm: You Can Avoid This Trap

]]> Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:34:09 0000 <![CDATA[Going Paperless: Lessons from Home]]> The “paperless office” has been a popular topic in legal technology circles recently as an increasing number of law firms (and other businesses) look to cut costs and improve efficiency by cutting paper out of their workflow. While many attorneys look to journals, bar associations, and legal consultants for advice on going paperless, an article from the New York Times this weekend suggests a somewhat unexpected source of guidance: your home. According to the Times,

“…at home, where printers are slow, noisy and devour expensive ink cartridges, people are more cautious about hitting the “print” button. What little paper comes into the home – receipts, bills, innovations – can be scanned and then shredded. Filing cabinets can be emptied, the data kept, the paper gone.”

Read the whole article for some examples of how others have cut paper from their homes, and for some interesting graphics on the paperless home and on global trends in paper reduction.

]]> Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:24:36 0000 <![CDATA[Manage and Reclaim Your Computer's Hard Drive Space]]>

Have you ever received a “low disk space” message while using your computer, and puzzled over figuring out just what could be taking up so much space on your hard drive?  There are several programs available that analyze the contents of your hard drive and give you a visual representation of hard drive space usage.

For example WinDirStat, a free program for Windows computers, displays the percentage of your hard drive space used by files on your computer broken down by folders/directories and file types.  It also displays a visual representation of your hard drive space with rectangles representing the different files on your hard drive.  The larger the file, the larger the rectangle, and the color of the rectangles corresponds to file types.  These various displays make it easy to pick out and examine large files or groups of files that may be individually small but which take up a lot of hard drive space when combined, like mp3s and video files.  You may discover large files you may not need, such as large temporary files left behind by various software programs which can often be deleted (research the files first to determine whether you need them before deleting them in order to avoid software problems).

The hard drive analysis features offered by programs such as WinDirStat can come in handy when you are deciding what files you would like to leave on your computer and what files can be backed up and deleted when you begin to run out of hard drive space, or if you want to proactively manage your hard drive to avoid running out of space.  This Lifehacker article discusses WinDirStat and other useful hard drive analysis programs available for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.

]]> Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:49:19 0000 <![CDATA[E-Mail: Cautionary Tales]]> E-mail’s ease of use and relative inexpensiveness has allowed it to rapidly overtake phone and postal mail as the communication tool of choice for individuals, businesses, and of course, law firms. But this rapid rise in popularity comes at a price: e-mail is susceptible to a wide variety of technological glitches, exploitations, and misuses that simply don’t apply to more traditional communication tools. One of the most obvious failings – but also one of the most preventable – is user error. Two recent stories highlight this problem and the need for greater care on the part of users:

First, Consumerist relays the story of a Beaner’s Coffee customer that contacted the company’s customer service to inquire when and if the company would be eliminating partially hydrogenated vegetable oils – a source of much feared trans fats – from its product lines. While the response the consumer received from the company’s Vice President of Operations was harmless enough, the trail of emails the VP accidentally included with the response featured rather embarrassing advice from the Director of Training to “sidestep the question” because he felt the company would be “hopelessly mired in partially hydrogenated oils for a while.”

A far bigger and potentially costly e-mail gaffe came from an attorney at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia. The attorney, who was among those representing pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in settlement negotiations with the U.S. Government over alleged advertising irregularities, accidentally mis-addressed an e-mail containing detailed information on the negotiations. Rather than sending the e-mail to a colleague at Sidley Austin (who was also representing Eli Lilly), the attorney sent the e-mail to a reporter at the New York Times who shared the same last name. Unsurprisingly, the New York Times ran an article shortly thereafter exposing the negotiations and greatly embarrassing both Eli Lilly and its legal representation.

The lessons to be learned are obvious: though e-mail is easy to use, attorneys (and others) must apply just as much scrutiny and care – if not more – to its use than they would any other communication tool. Addresses should be verified before sending, content should be checked for sensitive client or case information, and care must be taken to avoid inadvertently including files or e-mail trails that contain privileged or otherwise sensitive information. Failure to do so could be embarrassing and harmful to both your clients and your career.

UPDATE: The ABA Journal is covering the Pepper Hamilton story as well. In an update posted this afternoon, the Journal links to a follow up on the Drug and Device Law Blog which reports that, while the author of the NY Times piece did indeed receive the misdirected e-mail, he was independently aware of the settlement talks and used a different source for the details mentioned in his article.

]]> Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:15:28 0000 <![CDATA[State Specific eDiscovery Information]]>

International law firm K&L Gates and their e-Discovery Analysis and Technology (e-DAT) Group maintain an informative electronic discovery law blog. It includes case summaries collected from state and federal courts involving electronic discovery and Federal Rules Amendments. Additional resources of note include:
Additional Resources from the LTRC

FYI: Electronic Discovery

Charting a Course for Discovery

eDiscovery Glossary of Terms

The Federal Judicial Center
Created by Congress in 1967, the Federal Judicial Center is the educational and research agency for the federal courts.

]]> Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:15:44 0000 <![CDATA[Text messaging and the importance of a records retention policy]]>

The (re)appearance of text messages highlights the need for organizations to examine and include all messaging systems, not just email messaging systems in their document and record retention systems and policies.

The Detroit Free Press reports that City of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick declared under oath that he did not have an affair with his chief of staff nor did he fire two police officers in a retaliatory manner. However, text messages between the mayor and his chief of staff on their city issued pagers bring his testimony into question.  Since 2004 the city of Detroit had fought to keep the text messages from being provided to the legal team representing the police officers.  The City eventually settled with the former police officers but the Detroit Free Press filed suit to learn more about the settlement.

According to an article by Free Press columnist Mike Wendland, “Text messaging is what the wireless companies call SMS, for short message service. It has become almost as popular as cell phone voice communications, with as many as 20 billion text messages being sent each month in the United States alone. Most text messages are deleted within 72 hours, but in the mayor's case, his messages were saved because of the specialized service the city has with SkyTel for wireless communications between city officials.”

The article goes on to say, “Most major carriers don’t store text messages on any server for more than 72 hours.  Had the mayor and his top aide used regular cell phones and text messaging services from Verizon or Sprint, there would be no record.” This raises the issue of records retention and policy. 

According to ARMA International,  a not-for-profit professional association for managing records and information; “the goal of an information retention and disposition program is to ensure that a record is identified, appraised, and maintained for an appropriate period of time in such a way that is accessible and retrievable. It is disposed of – either destroyed or transferred for permanent preservation – at the end of the total retention period.” In light of this goal, were the text messages at issue in the Detroit mayor’s case appropriately retained and archived?

A 2005 Law Practice Today article, The Strongest Links: Instant Messaging Resources, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell referred to text messaging, the impact of instant messaging (IM) on the practice of law, and learning about IM for purposes of discovery.  More recently in his blog, Dennis Kennedy posted a reference to a Gartner report that forecasts 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008, a 19.6 percent increase from the 2007 total of 1.9 trillion messages.  The increasing popularity of this medium, coupled with its potential liability to all kinds of organizations, highlights the importance of an electronic message records management policy that addresses the life cycle from message creation to final destruction or disposition.  Following are resources to help with creating or updating your records management policy.

Resources

FYI: Records Management/Document Retention
An LTRC resource to help make sense of records management systems and policies.

Developing a Records Retention Program
Resources from ARMA International to help organizations develop compliant records management programs.

Records Management - The Objectives of a Comprehensive Records Management Program
Resources provided by the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) Project to address the lack of standards and guidelines in the electronic discovery market.

Cutting Out Privacy in the Office
A law.com article discusses a recent New York case using office messaging systems.

]]> Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:56:10 0000 <![CDATA[More on Domains: Drop-Catching]]> Last week we wrote about Front-running, the process whereby cyber-squatters sneak in and register a domain name between the time you check for availability and the time you actually register it. This week, “drop-catching” – or snatching up expired domains the instant they become available – is in the news with a study from the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) finding that 100% of expired domains in their study were instantly re-registered after being released. The vast majority of these domains – 87% of the dot-com addresses – were turned into pay-per-click sites that earn their owners money by drawing in visitors to click (often unintentionally) on advertisements.

How can you protect yourself from drop-catching? Simple: don’t let your domain expire. Know your expiration date and make sure you renew well before that date. Consider using auto-renewal – a feature most domain registrars offer – to ensure that your domain is automatically re-registered in your name each year. And if you really want to protect your domain, go long term on your registration: some domain registrars will allow you to register your domain for ten or more years at once, and they often offer significant discounts to those who do so.

And while you're thinking about domain protection, also give some thought to registering other reasonable permutations of your domain name. For example, if you owned genericlawfirm.com, you might want to register genericlawfirm.net, genericlaw.com, and so forth. Pre-emptively registering these domains prevents squatters from purchasing them and co-opting your hard earned brand capital.

]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:49:59 0000 <![CDATA[Intelligence Investing: LexisNexis Acquires Redwood Analytics]]>

Intelligence investing may be the next frontier of legal technology. Legal blogger Bill Gratsch mentioned LexisNexis’ January 2008 acquisition of New Jersey-based Redwood Analytics, a leading provider of business intelligence software for large law firms and an expert resource for business performance benchmarking services. This follows LexisNexis July 2007 acquisition of Juris, Inc., developer of Juris Insight, a competitive intelligence application focused on measuring a firm's key performance indicators against those of other law firms.

SearchDataManagement.com, a guide for data management professionals and business leaders, describes the term business intelligence as a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. Similarly, Wikipedia describes competitive intelligence (CI) as both a process and a product. "The process of competitive intelligence is the action of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about products, domain constituents, customers, and competitors for the short term and long term planning needs of an organization."  Neither of these terms is to be confused with industrial espionage which is an unlawful means of information gathering from competitors.

In October 2007, a Law.com article describes business intelligence as one of the hottest software sectors as companies realize the value of analyzing customer data and behavior to boost revenue. Revenues for the BI sector are projected at $23.8 billion in 2007. SearchDataManagement.com, further mentions that the term business intelligence has been used as early as September 1996 when the research giant Gartner Group reported that "By 2000, information democracy will emerge in forward-thinking enterprises, with business intelligence information and applications available broadly to employees, consultants, customers, suppliers, and the public." (Source: Business Intelligence definition, Data Management News)

At the 2006 annual U.S. Gartner Business Intelligence Summit, Gartner Group declared that “Business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM) are together for the long haul” (Source: Data Management News). As law firms seek increased efficiency and competitiveness, expect to hear even more about the technologies of business and competitive intelligence.

LTRC Resources
KM 101: Assistive Technology for Knowledge Management Initiatives by Catherine Sanders Reach

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Train 'Em: How Lawyers Conduct Legal Research by Sarah Palmer, M.S.

]]> Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:29:06 0000 <![CDATA[Courts selectively using Wikipedia]]>

*A nod to Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips blog as the inspiration for this article.

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia containing mostly open source, public domain content, and contributed to and edited by the general public. Wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian.  Wikipedia is far from being considered an authoritative source, but it is gaining a place in American Jurisprudence.

A NY Times article discussed court usage of Wikipedia as a reference tool in Courts Turn to Wikipedia, but Selectively.  In the trade secret case Apple v. Does, a lawsuit filed by Apple Computer in December 2004 against unnamed individuals, the appellate brief cited Wikipedia as a source numerous times throughout the document.  More recently, product liability case Godoy v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. cited Wikipedia to define terms in the case.

California attorney Joe Gratz has blogged about the perils of citing Wikipedia in legal matters.  He raises the point that anyone in the world can edit Wikipedia, including him or opposing counsel, but can see the value of Wikipedia for non legal specific research.

For more information about Wikis in general and Wikipedia in particular, look at these resources:

FYI: Wikis
Discusses Wikis and how they can help your business.

Where's That Wiki?
An LTRC article about Wikipedia

What Wiki to Use?
A starting place for creating a Wiki of your own

Wikipedia as a court source
A Wikipedia table of documents, foreign and domestic, used in legal proceedings that have cited Wikipedia as a source.

]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:14:27 0000 <![CDATA[Domain Names: Front-running and Network Solutions]]> Cybersquatting – or reserving domain names simply to resell them at a later date – has long been a problem on the Web. Many court battles have been fought as celebrities and businesses try to obtain domains they feel legally entitled to, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, but the problem remains. One particularly nasty variant of cybersquatting is known as front-running, whereby individuals use various means (such as buying search records or “sniffing” searches) to identify domains that other individuals or businesses are considering registering. The front-runners use this inside knowledge to purchase the domain themselves and then seek to resell it to the true customer at a significantly inflated price.

The issue was pushed into the spotlight recently when it emerged that a leading domain registrar – Network Solutions – had adopted a policy of temporarily registering all domains entered into the “Find A Domain” box on their web page. While Network Solutions claims that the policy was meant to protect users from front-running by guaranteeing that the domain would remain available for several days after they initially checked it, others accused Network Solutions of engaging in front-running themselves: due to the temporary hold on the domain name, customers had no choice but to register their domain through Network Solutions or risk losing it to another front-runner when the temporary hold was removed.

Since the controversy erupted, Network Solutions has taken steps to improve the temporary hold process to prevent front-runners from spotting the domains being held. Nevertheless, if you’re in the market for a domain name, this should serve as a cautionary tale. Pick out your registrar before you start searching for domain availability, and when you find the domain you want, register it immediately.

For more on domains and starting a web site in general, check our FYI: Starting a Website.

]]> Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:25:11 0000 <![CDATA[Surfing the Past: The Wayback Machine]]> One of the web’s greatest strengths as a communication tool is the ease with which one can add content: click a few options in a WYSIWYG site editor, drag a file through an FTP program, and moments later your content is accessible to millions of people. Unfortunately, this great strength is also a great weakness, as content disappears from the web just as quickly as it is added. Anyone who regularly uses the web for research or as a reference source has no doubt had the experience of finding a useful site, bookmarking it, and coming back a few months later to find that the content you found so useful has been deleted, moved, or hugely modified.

If you find yourself in that position, there’s some hope: The Wayback Machine, run by the Internet Archive, is an archive of more than 85 billion web pages dating back as far as 1996. The pages are gathered by automated computer programs that wander around the web and preserve “snapshots” of sites on the Internet Archive’s servers (albeit imperfectly – images are often missing and not everything is saved). Whether you’re trying to find an old page you had bookmarked, a snapshot of a news site from a particular day in the past, or if you’re just curious to see what Yahoo looked like in 1996, there’s a good chance The Wayback Machine has saved it.

If the concept of The Wayback Machine has you thinking about evidentiary rules and intellectual property, you aren’t alone: The Wayback Machine has been involved in a few legal scuffles, mostly settled out of court, but makes a policy of removing content from their archives and allowing web site developers to protect their content against archiving. It remains unclear whether their archived web sites are admissible as evidence in court.

]]> Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:57:21 0000 <![CDATA[Web Design and Web 2.0 ]]>

Website design has evolved over time--long animated website intros, animated gifs, frames, and other distractions have mostly fallen by the wayside.  Web 2.0-era web design focuses on concepts of simplicity and usability, and a certain look and layout have developed that users may come to expect from modern websites.  

If you have decided to create a law firm website or update your old one, you may want to examine certain resources as references for comparison, whether you are designing the site in-house or with a consultant or web design company.  Scroll through this Web 2.0 Design Style Guide for examples of current web design visual trends—of course, keep in mind that what is fashionable today may fall out of favor tomorrow.  Another source for web design inspiration and insight is A List Apart, with writings and tutorials on web standards and best practices.

For more information on law firm websites and online marketing, see the following resources:

]]> Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:35:05 0000 <![CDATA[Dragon NaturallySpeaking Goes Mac]]> News and tech sites around the 'net are buzzing with Apple news after CEO Steve Jobs announced a number of new products at his MacWorld 2008 keynote yesterday. The announcements included the diminutive MacBook Air, a revamped Apple TV, and a new wireless backup device called Time Capsule. As impressive as these new devices are, however, a less trumpeted announcement from a much smaller company may be of more interest to Mac-based lawyers: MacSpeech has launched Dragon NaturallySpeaking for the Mac.

MacSpeech, developer of the popular Mac voice recognition software iListen, licensed Dragon NaturallySpeaking from its Windows developer Nuance Communications and ported it over to the Mac. NaturallySpeaking is the top selling Windows speech recognition software and by far the most popular voice recognition software in use by respondents to the 2007 ABA Legal Technology Resource Center Technology Survey.

MacSpeech will be selling the Mac version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for $199, but registered users of iListen can get it for $99 (or just $29 if they purchased iListen in 2008).

]]> Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:35:04 0000 <![CDATA[ABA TECHSHOW 2008: Early registration rates expire on January 31, 2008]]>

ABA TECHSHOW 2008 will be held March 13-15, 2008 at the Hilton Chicago.  Sessions this year include a Real-World EDD Motions Hearing, Showtime at the Courthouse: A Demonstration of Courtroom Tech Toys, Beating the Startup Blues: A Tech-Survival Guide for the New Small Office and more!  There will also be tracks covering Records Management, Large Firm and Corporate Counsel and Macintosh. Additionally, there will be over 50 CLE sessions from which to choose. The world's premier legal technology conference, ABA TECHSHOW® early-bird registration rates