Articles Posted in December, 2005

Famous Trials: If you need something new to make you happy to be a lawyer, or to get you out of doing the dishes, try this web page.

Festivus for the Rest of Us: December 23rd is the day. Happy Festivus Eve!

Measure 37: Multnomah County filed a Measure 37 complaint (Petition for Review of Agency Order) against the State of Oregon on December 16th. If you can’t find the complaint at 1000 Friends of Oregon, Oregonians in Action, or the Multnomah County Circuit Court web site, let me know. I’ll email you a copy.

Yahoo Shortcuts: Some of these have become universal shortcuts, but this is a nice list nonetheless. You can also design your own Yahoo “custom shortcuts.” (Thanks to beSpacific for the tip link.)

Marketing in the Zeros (21st century that is): Marketing isn’t what it used to be. It’s no longer enough to put an ad in the Yellow Pages, the area lawyer directory, and maybe in Martindale-Hubbell if you’re feeling really flush. It isn’t even enough anymore to create a web page, a blog, a wiki, and to conquer metatags. There is no rest for the weary. You need to Research and Update, contantly, relentlessly. An interesting example of how a simple web search concept, Local Search, has wider implications for law firm marketing is here. Of course then there is always the sandwich board, which may be a punishment, but may also be extremely effective. But whatever advertising scheme is hot today, you can be sure a hotter one will show up next week, or even tomorrow. Research Rules, but so does having a good crap detector as Hemingway knew.

“Paper of Record?” Be careful when you cite to a newspaper article in a brief or an article, even (especially! – that old false sense of security) when citing to articles in so-called “papers of record.” Mistakes happen. A favorite activity for many of us is reading the Corrections in the daily papers. Here’s another place to look if you need to be reminded of this fact that we are all infallible.

Multnomah County Corrections: the good the bad and the ugly: A report worth reading from the Multnomah County District Attorney, Michael Schrunk.

To Wit is Human: Legalwriting.net has moved here. Wayne reminds us about a few words and phrases that should be banished from legal writing (and most other writing for that matter) and includes “to wit.” This is a pity. I always liked “to wit” and never really lumped it in with some of the real horrors, to wit, “wherefore premises considered” and “witnesseth” that Wayne mentions. Bryan Garner agrees with Wayne, re “to wit,” but I like it. It’s useful, adds variety without obfuscation, and has a nice sound about it. I feel the same way about “verbing.” I’d object a lot more to the habit people have of turning nouns into verbs if it didn’t result in so many wonderful and sometimes funny words. But then there are those pesky adverbs. I made a t-shirt for an ex many years ago that read, “to verb is human, to adverb divine.” We were living in England at the time. At that time the English still USED adverbs, but they are much harder to find there now.

Happy Bill of Rights Day: Lots on the web if you’re interested in celebrating. Here, here, and if you want a Bill of Rights song or two from the mish-mash better known as The Web, here. (One antidote is here. Find your own if necessary 🙂

Too much of a good thing or soon to be de rigueur: “Our state [Oklahoma] Supreme Court now has a choice of RSS feeds for every appellate decision published. As the other courts and state agencies get on board, this will be a great resource for lawyers. Imagine being able to subscribe to an agency’s RSS feed and get the updated rules and regs, the decisions from hearings, the dockets, the announcements and press releases – even a notice when inclimate weather forces an early closing. If you practice before an agency, start lobbying them to set up an RSS newsfeed now.” This is an excerpt from a very interesting Law Practice Roundtable, and posted in the December issue of Law Practice Today. The section I’ve quoted was said by Jim Calloway, who has his own excellent blog here.