"Libraries are canceling subscriptions to law reviews, legal encyclopedias and digests. Even West Group's state and federal reporters -- once the meat and potatoes of every law library -- have become flotsam and jetsam at many firms."
Not our firm, though. We have a wonderful library! We love books, and Digests too...even though all of the information contained in them is available to us with our flat rate deal with Westlaw. Oh, yes! Books are like fine wine, because they get better with age. And we like flotsam, and jetsam, too.
10:26:11 PM
NPR Requires Linking Agreements? Oh, the Shame!
From Cory Doctrow "NPR's brutally stupid linking policy. NPR joins KPMG and other bastions of cluelessness by requiring that anyone who wishes to link to the NPR site fill in this form. Nomatterhowdeeporshallowyourlinkis, NPRrequiresyoutofillinthisform. Linking to or framing of any material on this site without the prior written consent of NPR is prohibited. Please use this form to request permission to link to npr.org and its related sites. Gosh, I hope they don't take away my tote bag. Really, it beggars the imagination to think that anyone in this day and age could be this fatally stupid. If you agree, drop a note to NPR's ombudsman. LinkDiscuss (Thanks, Howard!)" via [bOing bOing]
6:57:59 PM
The Ten Stages of Drunkeness
I've been meaning to post this as a public service, what with me being from New Orleans and all. I thought that Dan Jenkins was the one who came up with this list, but when I Googled it I came up with this site. No need to use a breathalizer if you have this list you'll know where you are based on your behavior alone.
6:20:01 PM
The patent system is not screwed up. Being able to get a patent on "fat lines" is important stuff.
Read this article by Gary Reback that appears in Fortune. Also, remember the seven year old kid who got a patent on a swing? If he hires the same IBM lawyers that Reback faced he might make some money.
1:58:25 PM
Apparently there is open hostility among judges on the U.S. Sixth Circuit.
Louisiana Tobacco Class Action Lawsuit Celebrates its One Year Anniversary.
But, as this article from the New Orleans Times Picayune discusses, the jury selection process hasn't been completed yet. And the judge has taken to sending out a monthly newsletter to the jurors who have been selected to keep them up to date. When will the trial actually start? Who knows.
1:21:52 PM
LLRX Published my article on Acrobat for Lawyers
You can access it here. If you read it and have comments please post them here. Your suggestions and criticisms are appreciated and will help me refine my ideas. Thanks.
12:32:19 PM
Paperless Transcripts - Another Way to Be Efficient
Yesterday a lawyer called me for a deposition transcript in a case that he is handling for a mutual client. The cases are separate cases, but we share the same client. So I was happy to help him. There was one problem, or, I should say, potential problem. My case had settled about a year ago. So my case was closed, and the physical files had been sent to offsite storage. To get those files back takes a day or two, unless you want to pay extra for expedited retrieval (and even that is no guarantee of a hasty retrieval).
As it turned out, I had scanned everything and, as for the deposition transcripts, I had requested E-Transcripts. When the case was active I had stored everything on the network drive, but when it closed I moved it to my laptop C-drive with the intention of burning it to a CD-ROM. This was not a high priority since I have at least 12 GB's of space left on that drive. So as it turned out I was able to get him the file he needed by E-mail in about 5 minutes. So what is the moral of the story?
Well one obvious lesson is that paperless information is easy to access, and so damn cheap to store that it tends to be at one's fingertips even if the case is closed. Another lesson is that electronic deposition transcripts make a boatload of sense.
I use E-transcript (by Real Legal), but there are others (like LiveNotes). The thing I like about E-Transcript is that it is a self-contained little file (actually it's an executable) that generates a perfect transcript, with proper page breaks, and a word index on the side that the person viewing it can use to navigate (i.e. great for experts and other people who need to bop through a transcript to find key passages). ASCII files, which is what court reporters used to use a lot (I guess most still do) are useless to me because they don't automatically create proper page breaks. Below is an example of what the E-Transcript file looks like (and many court reporters will give you this file for free, or for minimal additional cost -- say $10 -- if you ask for it).
Iowa Supreme Court Lets Consumers Sue Microsoft "An Iowa lawyer vowed to push forward with a class action lawsuit against Microsoft after the state Supreme Court ruled consumers could sue the world's largest software maker for having been allegedly overcharged for Windows when they bought PCs. The original lawsuit, filed in February 2000, accuses Microsoft of unlawfully "maintaining its monopoly power by anti-competitive and unreasonably exclusionary conduct" and artificially driving up the price of Windows 98."
Copyright Office to Release Decision on Webcasting Rates. "The U.S. Copyright Office is due to release a decision this week on proposed royalty rates for Internet broadcasters. A month after rejecting a plan that online radio stations say would have brought devastation, Librarian of Congress James Billington is scheduled to make a final determination on rates."
California Experimenting with Video Kiosks for Litigants. As part of a legal experiment, lawyer-less litigants across California are using computerized video kiosks to prepare common court filings and seek basic legal advice. Court officials statewide fear the number of self-represented litigants has reached crisis levels and threatens to clog court calendars.
Lawsuits over bad software? Possibly, according to this interesting article on the MSNBC website. I'm not in favor of such lawsuits (at least as a general rule) but I agree that it's just a matter of time before we start seeing them filed. Later...Here is a link to Cem Kaner's site that Dave passed along. (see comment below).
