One thing I haven't blogged much about lately is legal technology. I spend a lot of time at work trying to make technology work for me, and to get my collegues to see the benefits of using technology in the practice of law (which as I have said is predominately an information processing business). One of my most passionate concerns is document imaging.
Lawyers are great consumers of paper. They create paper documents, and change them and mail them, fax them, copy them, spill coffee on them, and ultimately store them. The transactional cost of dealing with paper is huge, but not precisely measurable. So, for many people (i.e. those who believe "only that which can be measured exists") there is no transactional cost to dealing with paper. They are familiar with paper, and like it, and so everything is just fine, thank you very much.
Wrong! Computers have dropped in price. Storage costs are ridiculously low (you can buy a 160 GB external USB 2.0 harddrive for about $400...so let's see that works out to a Terabyte of storage for just over $2,000). A freaking Terabyte!!!! But what does that mean in practical terms? Answer: not much to most lawyers.
Here's what it means to me. Four boxes of documents that are scanned = one CD-ROM (almost 1 GB). So in a little $400 external hard drive that weighs about 2 pounds you can keep the equivalent of 640 boxes. The 640 boxes would weigh about 12,000 pounds (i.e. each box weighs about 20 pounds). So you can carry around 6 tons of documents, or try to store them, or copy them. Or you can carry around a 2 pound hard drive. It's up to you.
So, as you can guess, I like the idea of scanning. I do it for everything that comes in, and the result is that I can find documents quickly. I can quickly E-mail them to people, and I can take them with me on my 4 lb laptop computer, which has a 30 GB hard drive. I understand that the average lawyer doesn't share my obesession for imaging, which is okay (especially when that is the view that my opposing counsel has). But I never cease to be amazed at how this overall blindness to using technology has created a lot of one-eyed Kings. And when they speak to the non-techies, they seem to believe that they need to make everything seem so pat. Case in point...
I was reading a blurb in Law and Technology News and the author of the article on the fundamentals of TIFF Imaging made the following statement about scanned images: "an image cannot be altered. Once a TIFF image is scanned, it cannot be changed." What? This guy is an expert on scanning? If he is then he's knowingly misstating the truth.
Please give me a TIFF image and tell me that I can't alter it. And give me, let's see, a million dollars if I can alter it in less than 15 seconds. Obviously, you can alter a TIFF image. Just like you can alter a piece of paper. But the "experts" tell us that so that we feel more comfortable about using scanned documents. I don't like that approach. The truth is that you can alter image files, but you can also detect the fact of an alteration most of the time. If the possibilty of alteration makes people less inclined to scan documents then so be it. I am happy to help people understand the benefits of scanning, but if they don't want to, fine. Next time we're in court you bring your 25 boxes of documents and I'll bring my laptop. Information is power. And I like to have mine close to me, and easily retrievable.
An effort to ban Internet-based gambling was slowed by opponents who said the bill would hurt dog tracks, intrude on people's private lives and lead to excessive regulation of the global computer network. The debate in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee showed the difficulty of trying to pass a bill that would ban the unregulated, offshore gambling sites without stepping on the toes of the established, highly regulated domestic gambling industry. [GigaLaw]
I'm not a big fan of dog tracks. That's all I have to say.
3:53:25 PM
Adding to the growing body of case law on Internet jurisdiction, a federal judge has held that a Jamaican Web site operator cannot be sued in Pennsylvania for supposedly defamatory news articles solely because the articles contained references to the Pennsylvania activities of a Pennsylvania resident. The decision provides an important measure of protection for Web site operators that are sued in remote locations. [GigaLaw]
The birds keep hitting the window. It's fascinating to watch. I wonder when they will figure out that there's glass there?
1:41:04 PM
More business strategems from criminals and insane historical figures...
Chris rails out after a committee meeting to discuss his firm's website:
The main problem is that nobody on this committee is willing to commit to a strategy for the site. Why are we creating a web site? Who are we trying to reach and what are we trying to tell them?
I could go through my theories - but that would be pouring fuel on the fire. Here's an open Cluetrain question: Why do you visit a law firm's web site?
I deeply empathize with Chris' feelings. I am not on the committee that deals with my firm's website and I am not sure that I have the patience to be on such a committee. I think they are well intentioned and do a good job. Our site gets lots of compliments and has the usual stuff: firm information, telephone numbers and directions to each office. I had to sort cajole people to add local hotels and restaurants, and to specify the hotels with high speed Internet access.
But that's niggling stuff. Here's what reveberates for me in what Chris said: law firm web site committees are for the most part populated by people who don't really use the web, or if they do, they aren't the "power users." So, even if they could articulate a "strategy" it isn't likely to be a strategy that harmonizes with what the web is capable of doing. It's like asking people from the gunpowder era to develop a strategy for combat in the nuclear arms era. They are so behind the curve, and the etiquette of polite society demands that we receive their opinions (always at committee meetings) and smile. Inside, though, the irony bubbles over. Yes, honey, that is such a nice picture! Can you draw me another one just like it?
11:05:16 AM
So explain this blogging thing again...
"Megnut wrote the blogging piece we've been waiting for. 'As with free speech itself, what we say isn't as important as the system that enables us to say it.' Yes." [Scripting News]
The people who aren't reading blogs have no clue. The people who are reading blogs, but not doing it, understand something (in varying degrees) but the understanding isn't sharp. Those who are blogging are stumped by the implications of it, and are often (as in my case) obsessed with trying to grasp explain the possible implications to people who don't blog (boy is that a waste of time for all concerned). I guess it is better to simply blog, and let blog.
10:54:50 AM
What is a News Aggregator?
A news aggregator is "software that periodically reads a set of news sources, in one of several XML-based formats, finds the new bits, and displays them in reverse-chronological order on a single page." It's important to consider that 'set of news sources' could also mean reports generated by your accounting software, status of your servers, posts in a discussion group, orders from your e-commerce site, updates from your co-workers workflow management software. via [Scripting News]
I'm posting this for the non-Radio users, who have no idea what I'm talking about when I speak of News Aggregators. Or, as I refer to it, my "NAGG." I think everyone should have a news aggregator. Or as Bernie Goldbach (our correspondent in Ireland puts it) "For the sixth week running, Dave Winer's news aggregator gives me more info per page than Online in The Guardian." Man, do I agree with that.
10:51:35 AM
