Is there anything as delightful as a good Internet protest? In the old days, you actually had to show up to show your dissatisfaction with a policy. But do you really want to hold a sign at a protest? Your arm will go numb and you’ll probably lose your voice from chanting a catchy slogan. And actual sit-ins? No, thank you. People get pepper-sprayed. No money, no blackout. And that brings us to the bill itself....
Before cellphones and wearable technologies, it was odd to see someone talking to the air. Today, other than the fashion faux pas of having bent-cigarette headphones hanging out of your ears, it seems normal. That’s the evolution of technology at work. But how is that evolution affecting work at the law firm? Is there a place for that old-time practice of law? Division of Labor Studies show that 23 percent of a lawyer’s tasks can be automated with current technology....
A North Carolina Superior Court Judge was charged with several crimes after he bribed a member of the FBI with beer. The purpose of the bribe was to secure the text message of his family. Lack of Probable Cause? Obtaining such private information legally cannot be done as a private exchange. It can only be done if an agent obtains a signed warrant issued by a neutral magistrate supported by probable cause....
As lawyers, we spend most of our days sitting at a desk, working on a computer. And while our ever-expanding concern over our ever-expanding “office chair ass” is legitimate, there are more important things at stake – like our health. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration defines ergonomics as “fitting a job to a person,” and by doing so, you can help “lessen muscle fatigue, increase[] productivity and reduce[] the number and severity of work-related MSDs [musculoskeletal disorders]....
Naming your practice can be a puzzling process for many new attorneys seeking to start their own firms. There are ethical concerns, not to mention business interests, to be mindful of before selecting a moniker for your practice. In order to pick the right one, avoid these five naming mistakes: The ethical rules in most jurisdictions track the American Bar Association’s Model Rules 7.1 and 7.5. Model Rule 7.1 requires that communications concerning a lawyer’s services may not be false or misleading....
Netbooks were a thing once. They became so popular that we even mention them in our post categories (Computers/Laptops/Netbooks). Care to guess when we last wrote about them? It was probably a couple of years ago, to be honest. There was a rush of popularity for them, then tablets came out and took the low-end market, and then slowly, a little bit at a time, Google’s Chromebooks (netbooks with Google’s own operating system) chunked out a stakehold....
Google has announced several new features to its video chat platform Google+ Hangouts. These new features enhance an already useful tool for lawyers. Some of the new features and updates to Hangouts include colorful notifications and a sidebar that consolidates key tools in one spot, writes Mashable. The sidebar for tools like invites, chat, and apps will appear when you need it, and disappear when you don’t. These new features will allow attorneys on Hangouts to focus on their clients without the clutter of tools and other icons....
You are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but a mug shot can tell you a lot more. To see Edward Liroff is to know him. He was booked for posing as a “war hero” to apply for jobs and to obtain other benefits. He looked a lot better when he was in uniform, even if he wasn’t actually in the service. He’ll been serving a sentence now....
At FindLaw, we’re consistently bemused by Internet lawyers’ fascination with “going paperless”. Many of us once believed that all law offices would be completely devoid of any paper, one day. Trees rejoice! Now another slightly less ridiculous notion has reared its head: going to trial without a single sheet of paper in hand. It sounds wonderful, green and modern. But would we do it? Heck, no. Because technology has infiltrated so many aspects of our lives, it’s very easy to get seduced by the notion that every single facet of existence will be improved through its expanded use....
Law firm mergers have been rising over the last few years and small firms are doing a lot to push those numbers up. The number of firm mergers has increased dramatically since 2010 when the recession showed signs of ending. In 2011 the vast majority of firms involved in mergers were small practices, according to the Martindale-Hubbell Blog. Now mergers seem be leveling off although there are still plenty of them happening....
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the Internet. It is amazing that in this day and age we still see students hauling around backpacks full of heavy school textbooks. This is true not only for college and high schools students, but also for much younger students in middle school and elementary school. With the technology available such that many voluminous books can be loaded electronically onto an electronic book reader, a laptop, an iPad, or even a PDA, there seems no reason why kids should have to shoulder the heavy weight of books....
Will law firms ever migrate toward Mac computers? The whole world is going iPhone, iBook, and iPad and yet firms seem stuck on Blackberries, Dells, and just scratch their heads to the concept of iPads. Law firms were never the most technologically advanced places to work for. When I started as an associate, one thing I was told was to never type. That was the job of secretaries and I was handed a dictating device....
As New England begins to crawl out of one of its worst winters on record, it’s easy to forget that Yanks’ circuit court includes the tropical climes of Puerto Rico. But it does, given the First Circuit occasion to rule on a lawyer-on-lawyer fee dispute arising from the Estado Libre Asociado. Just Your Run of the Mill Local Counsel Dispute After downed power lines shocked Orlando Alejandro-Ortiz, he contacted Texas firm Matthews & Fullmer and sued the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority....
It’s no secret that law firms are starting to utilize all sorts of new technology and software. Granted the rate of adoption for new tech at law firms is typically abysmal, one law professor’s special project might actually be showing a change in the weather. The Law Firm Innovation Index is the project of Daniel Linna, a law professor in Michigan. The index works by having bots crawl the web to search for key terms on law firm websites in order to provide a general idea of what technology law firms are using, or which tech industries firms seem to be targeting most....
It’s been slowly happening for years, but after a $350 million dollar drop in funding, California court budget cuts have finally made an incredible dent, causing wait times to soar and delaying cases by months. In San Francisco, the city will be closing 25 courtrooms, reducing hours, and laying off 175 employees this fall, which presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein told the New York Times is expected to elongate divorce proceedings to about 18 months....
While the speculation that robots will one day take jobs away from people is often cast as a negative, there’s one industry most of the world will be glad to see destroyed by AI and robots: phishing scammers. In a recent Ars Technica report, the newest tools cybersecurity experts use to fight back against phishing scammers is discussed at length. And while it doesn’t provide much practical advice for individuals, it proposes taking the next steps of coupling the currently available technology with more robust machine learning....
This fall, Microsoft will release an update for Windows 8.1, but it is not the one you (and we) are hoping for. It’s rumored to be a smattering of bug fixes, security updates, and minor interface tweaks – basically a service pack. The good stuff, the stuff mentioned at Build 2014, the stuff that will make Windows 8.x usable, is being held over for Windows Threshold (the code name for what will probably be Windows 9)....
Last week, I made a very big list (subscribe here) of thirty Twitter accounts that every lawyer, legal professional, and law student should follow. Topics include the Supreme Court, legal news, law and technology, humor, and general blawging. I also promised that twenty more would follow, once I heard from the Tweeps. (Twopulace? Twopulation? Twyers?) The rules for the list remain the same: no multiples from the same company, unless they are have distinct identities and voices....
Remember that show where the computer totally destroys the lawyer? No, not that one. That was a computer-generated dinosaur crunching on the attorney. We’re talking about CaseCrunch, which hosted an AI-versus-lawyers competition. You guessed it: the robot killed the lawyers. Alpha Attorney CaseCrunch, a legal tech company, pitted more than 100 lawyers against “Alpha” to predict outcomes of nearly 800 insurance scenarios. According to the company, the software was right 87 percent of the time and the lawyers only 62 percent....
For many lawyers, a big part of the job involves talking on the phone. And whether you’re talking to a client, a witness, an adversary, or anyone for that matter, keeping your hands free for typing or taking notes or flipping through you calendar can be rather helpful. Basically, you need headphones, or a good headset. But really, since it is 2018, you need wireless headphones. Holding a smartphone, or (gasp) a traditional receiver, up to your ear isn’t too terribly inconvenient, but being able to use it for your calendar, email, and web while you’re on it is a game changer....
