Articles Posted in February, 2006

Law Practice Blogs and Beds: Yes, there are lots of them out there, but not all of them are great. Some are ok, others are blah, a few are good, and a handful are worth returning to regularly. This list can change so don’t get stuck in a rut. Right now, I (still) really like My Shingle and The Practice. And both of these bloggers link to their favorite blogs. And reading Beds (Justice Bedsworth) every month is an absolute necessity. There’s a secret spot where you can find the very latest and many of his just past columns. If you need a huge laugh and have only 5 minutes, go to Beds. The judge is at his best when trying to puzzle his way through family law issues, but he’ll bring a smile to your face no matter what subject he takes on.

U.S. Supreme Court decides Guzek: The U.S. Supreme Court on February 22nd, issued its opinion in Oregon v Guzek (04-928). You can find the opinion at their official web site, here, and many other places as well including Cornell, Findlaw, and other sites too numerous to list.

Client Technology Compatibility: Law tech blogger I Heart Tech who regularly makes me say, wow – what a great trick (I mean skill :-), generously posted her client technology compatibility survey in a February 17th posting that may prove useful in so many ways (I can see uses for it right here in the law library). If you share electronic documents with clients or even just communicate with them via cell phone, this survey could save you both a lot of time troubleshooting problems.

M37 Land Use Decision: The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled unanimously and reversed the lower Marion County Circuit Court opinion. See the Supreme Court’s February 21st decision, here. If you want copies of the briefs, the Washington County Law Library has scanned them.

It’s 10 a.m – do you know where your metadata is?: Don’t know what metadata is? Opposing counsel might:

“One Florida lawyer was quite upset when he learned his firm had been hoodwinked into e-mailing a document to opposing counsel instead of faxing it so that the metadata could be mined by opposing counsel. Apparently some client comments that were attached to the document and then deleted were recovered by opposing counsel. Well, this lawyer was on the Florida Bar’s Board of Governors and that body expressed its opinion that metadata mining is unethical and referred the matter to committee to determine what rules should be enacted on the subject.”

This is from Jim Calloway’s January 30th, 2006, posting on the subject, which has so much information and so many good links, you’d be worse than remiss for not reading at least some of it.

Disaster Planning and Personal Finance: Useful article from FDIC, here. It seems like commonsense, but do avoid that “black bag” by the door. It’s easy pickings for someone who shouldn’t be in your house. Thanks to Sabrina at beSpacific, an excellent blog for so many things and reasons.

Microsoft Training, Quick and Online: It’s good to get better at what we do. Microsoft has some quick, online training programs for you, your support staff, and your family to use, here. Thanks to Inter Alia, also a good place to visit to get better at what we do.

G-mail and NON-subscribers: And then there is G-mail. Not to be a party-pooper (or Google-pooper), but I think attorneys, and everyone else for that matter, should be very careful when using gmail, either when receiving email or sending it. Gmail is worrisome on several fronts. It’s not a matter of Google “reading” their subscribers’ email, though that is what is being done if you define “reading” to include scanning and storing all the words, and not just one person with eyes/fingers/ears and a brain doing the same. No, no one is “reading” your email the way the recipient will (except maybe the DHS, but that is another problem). Here’s a quote from EPIC: “This is not the last word on Gmail, but it is a voice of reason and caution: “Gmail violates the privacy rights of non-subscribers. Non-subscribers who e-mail a Gmail user have “content extraction” performed on their e-mail even though they have not consented to have their communications monitored, nor may they even be aware that their communications are being analyzed.”

I’m not saying don’t use Google (and I’m using Blogger for heaven’s sake), which we all love for many reasons, or any of its relatives, but do keep your client’s privacy requirements front and center.

Google and Caution Should Go Together: Google is not the only online utility one must use with caution, but the latest stories are worth noting. From the EFF on February 9th, 2006:
“Google today announced a new ‘feature’ of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new ‘Search Across Computers’ feature will store copies of the user’s Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google’s own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user’s computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who’ve obtained a user’s Google password.”