For someone who really likes to use a keyboard, it's a bit of a surprise to see that I now have a Blackberry Storm, iPod Touch and Sony Reader (Touch Edition). I wasn't the only one to find a Reader under the Christmas tree last week. When I tried to configure the Reader on December 25th, various odd error messages appeared – it took me a while to realize that the Sony website was completely overwhelmed with other new owners attempting downloads.

A confirmed "browser first, searcher second", I was a little puzzled by what appeared to be limited content in the Sony eBook Store. I quickly realized, however, that it was best to search for specific topics or authors (rather than rely on the subject listings on the page).

The screen is much larger than the Blackberry or Touch screens – but the lack of colour takes getting used to.

As others have noted in recent postings on the web, it looks as though the world of ereaders is about to change quite dramatically if this article is accurate.

Robert Ambrogi at law.com just posted on West's decision to make 29 law books available on the Kindle. As earlier SLAW posts have noted, we Canadians continue to miss out on new technology.

Do I really need a Kindle to keep my Ipod Touch and Blackberry Storm company? Do these gadgets really improve efficiency? Will I find time to read books on a screen when I can't find the time to read the paper versions? Insights from those who have figured this out are welcomed!

There has been some recent debate (on one of the legal community’s discussion forums) on the merits of SharePoint, Microsoft’s portal product. Our firm launched its SharePoint portal earlier this year (although we are still migrating content from our old intranet, and adding features and functions).

Even at this early date, we are enjoying two of the important benefits that led us to implement SharePoint in the first place – “one stop shopping” is not far from reality and distributed content contribution is taking place.

“One stop shopping” is the short-hand we use for our efforts to deliver all the content and functionality our users need through a simple, ever-present interface. This includes legal content, firm information, client detail, access to programs (such as Word and Outlook) and almost anything else you can think of.

Managing the traditional “library” content has turned out to be a major challenge. Our prior intranet library pages had more that 2000 links to external content (including third party online research services and government websites). SharePoint has allowed us to create a single list of all of these resources. The links on the list can then be filtered by a variety of categories and the resulting views displayed in context (eg, the commonly used M&A links display on the M&A practice area pages).

The advantage of this approach is the ease of adding new links (a matter of seconds), of updating links (again, a matter of seconds), along with the ability to display targeted content.

While we are still in the process of reviewing and updating our initial list of 2000+ links, once the initial work is complete, the ongoing maintenance will be easy.

Examples like this have convinced us that SharePoint is a powerful platform that will enable us to manage all the firm’s information and knowledge effectively. Our focus is on the timely creation and delivery of that content, with a secondary emphasis on presentation – SharePoint seems well suited to this role.

Yesterday's brief (approx. 3 hours) Blackberry outage prompted a lot of email traffic on a listserv I read. The debate seemed to be between those who thought that notwithstanding the occasional system-wide failure, Blackberrys were still the preferred mobile device for the legal community, and those who favoured some of the newer devices that have more features and functions. Interestingly, there wasn't much traffic blaming RIM for the service disruption.

Blackberrys have been in the news a lot lately. There have been news stories about employers cuttting back on employee off-hour use. There was even a story about a hotel that offers a weekend program for those who are ready to retire their Blackberrys (but need some help to let go).

I wonder where mobile devices will be two years from now. My personal view is that it's too late to turn back the clock – too many people are used to any-time email access. For me, this means that the occasional system-wide failure is an opportunity to enjoy some quiet time.

I recently talked to a lawyer at a large Toronto law firm who was happily using voice recognition software to draft initial versions of long documents and to give voice commands to his computer.

Voice recognition technology has been around for a long time – my perception was that it wasn't ready for prime time. Curious to see the vendor's view of the software, I paid a quick visit to the website for Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Has this technology really advanced to the point that it's ready for wider adoption?

We're getting ready to launch our SharePoint 2007 portal. At launch, our goal is to have features and functions that will appeal to both searchers and browsers. The portal will be the new desktop and will be the access point for legal, non-legal, business, administrative, client and financial information in the firm.

Some of the content on the portal is organized by practice area. Content for a practice area will include relevant precedents, commonly used research resources, practice area materials (such as meetings agendas and minutes), and relevant business development material.

Of particular interest to me is the ability to organize and display RSS feeds within a practice area page on the portal. Although I haven't formally canvassed lawyers to develop a list, my impression is that most lawyers are still not subscribing to RSS content. Our library has, of course, identified some content. Is there an easy way of finding more RSS feeds (by practice area) of relevance to Canadian lawyers?

If you are "old school" like me, you may still enjoy picking up an old fashioned book from time to time, instead of staring at your computer screen. A non-legal BLOG that I follow reminded me of the self-publishing options that are available and singled out lulu.com

I did some quick cost calculations on various book formats – the prices seem very reasonable.

KM Space, the excellent BLOG of Doug Cornelius, has a post today on the Microsoft purchase of a 1.6% interest in Facebook.

It's easy to stop at the fact that this purchase values Facebook at $15 billion. Discussions with colleagues have yet to reveal the importance of Facebook in the business world (admittedly, I also thought that the internet would never last.) On what basis did Microsoft come to the conclusion that this investment makes sense?

Doug's post suggests that an enterprise version of Facebook, delivered on the SharePoint platform, may be the goal. While SharePoint doesn't have the name recognition of Windows and Vista, it has been an extremely popular Microsoft product. SharePoint is a tool that enables "one stop shopping" for information and knowledge. SharePoint also enables an organization to distribute ownership of that information and knowledge so that the users that most care about content can very easily manage it.

So what does Facebook bring to the party? Based on my limited exposure to Facebook to date, I think the answer is very simple – a better way for people to "connect". Perhaps this is not as significant an issue in smaller organizations, but in larger law firms, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for basic social interaction. You certainly don't have to know which lawyers like to mountain climb in order to build a team to work on a client file, but at some level knowing some personal information about colleagues is part of the social fabric that keeps a firm together.

Presumably all Canadian Bar Association members received an email early this morning updating members on the work of the Task Force on Conflicts of Interest (Simon Chester is a consultant to the Task Force), which has just published a consultation paper “Practical Difficulties with Today’s Conflict of Interest Rules”. As the website notes, the paper "describes the current state of the conflicts requirements, reviews areas of particular concern, and asks a series of questions to find out what changes members of the legal profession feel may be necessary."

Conflicts are an issue of growing importance. While large law firms are spending considerable time and resources addressing this issue, this is not just a large firm issue (yesterday, I tried to explain to a neighbour the circumstances under which a single lawyer could prepare a simple business agreement for both sides to the contract and when separate lawyers would be required).

The format of the consultation paper was new to me – it's a rather lengthy document, which is not being "offered" in print format (of course the web pages themselves can be printed). Fifteen questions are embedded in the text – the authors hope that readers will take the time to read the paper online and provide answers to the questions as they read. The questions themselves can also be printed and answered the old fashioned way.

Will the Task Force publish details on what percentage of the responses were submitted electronically when they provide the actual results of the consultation paper? That information would be of interest to those of us who are always trying to figure out how to get the attention of lawyers.

It started with the new laptop – the one with the network analyst who started telling me every time I lost my internet connection. I knew I had an issue with "dropped connections" but I did my best to ignore the issue. Once I started to count the number of pop-ups from the network analyst, however, it became clear it was time for action.

The first few calls to tech support were not helpful. They assured me that, at the moment we were speaking, I had a good connection – so it became a battle to see if I could get through at the moment of a dropped connection. Luckily for me, I managed to connect with a technician who volunteered it was possible to look back at my connection history, which of course confirmed I was experiencing an unacceptable number of dropped connections. My issue was escalated to "top level"' support and I started to wait.

Within a week, I received a voicemail advising the issue had been dealt with – this was in fact true. When I tried to connect that evening, I had no internet connection at all – so the dropped connections were no longer an issue. After a few more frantic calls and another few days, service was restored. Not wanting to get my hopes up, I tested the connection regularly for the next few days – I was starting to think my problems were over.

It was not to be – the dreaded dropped connections re-appeared. Tech support was not that helpful. They assured me I now had a great signal (better than average) – they didn't seem to care that the strong signal wasn't getting me an internet connection. Once again, after many calls, I found a technician who concluded that the issue was now my modem so he placed an order for a new modem. I volunteered to pick it up, only to be told that the modem had to be delivered.

It's my firm belief that hardware instinctively knows when it's about to be replaced – shortly after the new modem was ordered, it became harder and harder to get an internet connection. Last night, I had no luck at all. I was so distressed that I couldn't even deal with any of the work I had brought home that arguably didn't require internet access.

The new modem is supposed to be delivered today. I wish I could be optimistic that things will improve. I'm not. I have already ordered a three month trial subscription with the other ISP in my area (not that I expect it will be any better).

This experience with home internet access has troubled me for a number of reasons. I've wasted many hours over the past few weeks trying to solve the issue (without success to this point). I can't be optimistic that I will be successful. It's particularly frustrating because it's not something that can apparently be fixed by agreeing to pay for expert assistance. I asked Customer Support at my ISP if they cared about my business – they assured me they did but there have been no tangible signs of that.

Have I taken all of this too personally? Maybe. Does my life revolve around internet access? The answer to that question is clearly yes. I use internet access for almost everything. It's helps with work-related activities. It helps with non-work related activities. My husband and teen-age son are in the same position. My son's school assumes that students will have regular internet access – information is communicated by emaiil and online bulletin boards.

So where does that leave users who can't get reliable internet access. I wish I had an answer.

It's been a hectic year (my excuse for a lack of SLAW posts). As I gear up for a really busy fall at my new firm, I'm rather amazed that after 29 years in law firms, the debate between the browsers and the searchers has still not received the level of visibility that I think it deserves.

The issue is very important to the many law firms who are now involved in portal and enterprise search projects. At last week's ILTA Conference in Orlando, there was certainly evidence of the continuing interest in enterprise search – Microsoft's SharePoint Search continues to get publicity; Interwoven announced its new Universal Search, Recommind was well represented (to name a few). It may be a little harder to see the products aimed at the browsers – I view Microsoft's SharePoint portal software as a great browse tool (even though the enterprise search part seems to get more publicity in legal circles).

It would be helpful to find some well researched studies that properly evaluate browse vs. search. Without these, those who want to be even-handed to the browsers and searchers have a tough job. Entreprise search, while quite expensive, is relatively easy to implement these days (given the amount of information in SQL databases and other discrete locations). One issue that usually comes up with implementing search is the surprise of users to suddenly discover all sorts of information that should have been secured in some fashion (but wasn't).

Browse implementation is much harder – no one wants to spend the time and effort to create a taxonomy (if that's the right word) but without the up-front effort to classify information, the browsers will not be happy with the end result of browse technology. Perhaps even more of a challenge is getting users to understand that they are browsers – some lawyers may insist otherwise. Unless you have a well structured browse environment, it's a hard debate to win. And how do you get lawyers to invest in the classification exercise when they won't see the value until the work is done?

This is Week Two for our firm's 2007-8 Articling Students. Week One consisted of full-time training and orientation sessions. Week Two consists of part-time training and orientation, together with "free time" to take on lawyer assignments. My role was to deliver a one and a half hour session on law firm knowledge management/how to use precedents.

As usual, I find myself wondering if there is a better way to deliver so much content in such a short time. A few weeks ago, a speaker at a program on Office 2007 (not a program one can expect to see in large law firms for at least a year – but that's another story) noted how often someone will say "you didn't cover that in training". Her point was that if a student doesn't remember what you trained, you might as well not have bothered with the training.

In a large class, of couse, it is likely that a few students will remember what they are shown. The challenge remains – to figure out how to increase the effectiveness of training. In-house training in law firms appears to be a hot topic, based on the number of vendors trying to sell us their services – consulting, elearning, course management. My impression remains – there is still an issue, as there was last year and the year before and the year before that.

I try to read (or at least skim) SLAW postings daily, along with 3 other BLOGS whose daily updates arrive by an email in my Outlook in box. Although our firm uses an enterprise RSS aggregator (which allows us to either display RSS feeds in the context of our portal or to show the RSS feeds as folders in Outlook), I personally don't seem to have the discipline to check either of these locations on a periodic (ie daily or twice daily) basis. I am forced to admit that without the daily emails, I would miss a lot of useful information.

That having been said, I am not prepared to receive email notification for the many other RSS feeds I have added to our enterprise aggregator (which feeds I review on a much less frequent basis).

Anyone reviewing the daily SLAW postings is left with the impression that it is "normal" to follow and share with others information on an amazingly broad range of material (mostly on the Web). Since I personally can't manage to do that, I feel comfortable in assuming that many other lawyers are in the same position. Without denying the power and potential of RSS, is the current reality a different story – is RSS still a "tool" or "feature" rather than an integrated aspect of how lawyers work on a daily basis?

One of the lawyers in our office recently shared this url – www.oddcast.com – click "Products" and "text-to-speech (TTS)". Click the picture of the lady – she wll say what you type and if you drag your mouse around the pictures, her eyes will follow.

I cannot think of an obvious use for this technology in a law firm or law firm library – can someone else? And is anyone else feeling completely overwhelmed about the endless potential of today's technology?

Law firms are pretty consistent in their use of word processing technology (to my knowledge almost everyone now uses Word) but once we move beyond core applications, the situation changes.

I seem to spend a lot of time browsing for new and exciting developments in a number of areas. This doesn't seem to leave enough time to figure out how any of the things I find can be applied in a way that will be useful to law firm inhabitants (people who generally don't like change and even if they do like change, they don't have time for change).

The disconnect seems to grow larger every day.

The Fall 2006 issue of Perspectives (this latest issue was not posted on the website at the time of writing this note) contains two articles with a refreshing approach to legal writing instruction: "Homer Simpson Meets the Rule Against Perpetuities: The Controversial Use of Pop Culture in Legal Writing Pedagogy" (Louis N. Schulze Jr.) and "Using DVD Covers to Teach Weight of Authority" (Michael J. Higdon).

While I have spent many hours thinking about effective legal research and writing training, it was not until I picked up this newsletter that I was reminded of one of the keys to learning (at least according to some of my 12 year old son's teachers). He is often asked to make "connections" between the subject matter he is learning and his own life. It has been many years since I attended law school – while I know we had complaints about our legal research and writing courses, I don't think this was our issue. I don't remember having any expectations about the "relevance" of the course material to my life.

It strikes me that the current generation of students does see life differently (no big surprise there). When it's time to prepare training material for the 2007 students, a trip through current cultural landmarks (TV, movie, music, even youtube I suppose) may be even more fun for the teacher!

Kathy Biehl's article on www.llrx.com "Bloggers Beware: Debunking Nine Copyright Myths of the Online World" provides a very helpful framework for considering copyright issues that many law firms are dealing with these days.

How copyright law impacts many day to day knowledge management and research activities in law firms is a subject that has consumed and will continue to consume many hours of time.

I was tremendously relieved to read Robert Ambrogi's post on law.com yesterday "Farewell Web 2.0, Welcome Version 3.0". I no longer have to feel guilty about what I know (or don't know) about web 2.0.

PS – for those who aren't already following the law.com BLOG Network, I highly recommend it.

I was fortunate to attend this week's CBA conference "Leading the Canadian Law Firm in the 21st Century: Managing the Future". Key topics included the talent pool, managing risk, and managing conflicts (Simon Chester was a speaker on this last topic). While the materials and discussions on these topics all merit further comment here, probably the sessions that were most discussed (aside from the Monday night live music and dance extravaganza which featured an incredible array of Maritime talent) were two sessions that addressed client service.

While both sessions were addressed at lawyers dealing with their clients, the strategies discussed are clearly relevant to all service areas in the firm, including the library. Patrick McKenna's keynote address contained a real life (non-law firm) illustration on how to "redefine" client expectations that can be readily adapted by any service provider. The key is rather simple. Put yourself in the place of your client and imagine what would make your dealing memorable (in a positive way, of course). What if the library offered fresh coffee, for example? It would be unexpected, but not unreasonable. What if every "client" who walked into the library was personally greeted?

Would library patrons of this library have changed expectations the next time they visited another library?

A posting on this week's Legal Blog Watch highlighted the announcement from Harvard Law School on the reform of its first year curriculum. The revisions, which are the most significant change to first year courses in over 100 years, mean that hours will cut from the core courses – contracts, torts, civil procedure, criminal law and property.

The new courses – "Legislation and Regulation", "International/comparative courses" and "Problems and Theories" – certainly represent important areas of study for law students. The fact that legal research and writing are not mentioned specifically does not mean that these topics are not included in some of the other courses. It has always been a challenge to explain to lawyers and students the importance of good research and writing skills, and I'm not sure that I could have figured out how to highlight these skill sets in a press release.

There was a brief posting on law.com today (Oct 10/06) on the integration of LawBase (matter management software) with Google Maps. The fact that this integration is called a "mashup" is what originally caught my attention. However, when I decided to do a little "research", my focus changed. Mashups are apparently "hot technology" – I was therefore surprised that I couldn't find any discussion of this functionality on the LawBase website. I then resorted to a google search to see what was available and of course found a web page with a "news release" on this development. Unfortunately, as far as I could tell, there was no "date stamp" on this news release.

Is it merely a product of my age that I like to see information in context (and in this case, one aspect of context is date). Maybe I've spent too many years reading magazines and newspapers, where it is easy to tell when the information was first published. It strikes me it is now too late to suggest that websites should try to indicate "date of origin" for posts. SLAW, of course, properly dates all posts and comments!

As a proponent of RSS, I try my best to follow the RSS feeds from a number of "very active" BLOGs. Recent postings on SLAW and other BLOGs have highlighted a problem with RSS – it's a great way to divert content from bloated in boxes, but it's just not as intuitive as email for many lawyers.

Perhaps more importantly (for me personally), the RSS vs. email issue merely illustrates the bigger issue – how can lawyers spend productive days in the office given the ever increasing demands on their time and attention? From emails and RSS whose only purpose is to provide "current awareness" to requests from clients, colleagues, friends and family (via email, phone calls and personal visits), is there ever any time left in the day just to do work?

Ever in search of the answer to managing the unmanageable, I am currently reading "Total Workday Control using Microsoft Outlook: The Eight Best Practices of Task and E-Mail Management" by Michael Linenberger. My interest in the book is in its combination of common sense work flow discussions matched to detailed instructions on how to customize Outlook settings. Having experimented with other time management programs and processes, I am currently of the view that Outlook – the cause of much of the chaos – should offer some hope of a solution.

Much as I applaud innovations like blogs and wikis, will lawyers ultimately thank us for providing more and more information if we don't also help them manage their time?

As a proponent of RSS, I try my best to follow the RSS feeds from a number of "very active" BLOGs. Recent postings on SLAW and other BLOGs have highlighted a problem with RSS – it's a great way to divert content from bloated in boxes, but it's just not as intuitive as email for many lawyers.

Perhaps more importantly (for me personally), the RSS vs. email issue merely illustrates the bigger issue – how can lawyers spend productive days in the office given the ever increasing demands on their time and attention? From emails and RSS whose only purpose is to provide "current awareness" to requests from clients, colleagues, friends and family (via email, phone calls and personal visits), is there ever any time left in the day just to do work?

Ever in search of the answer to managing the unmanageable, I am currently reading "Total Workday Control using Microsoft Outlook: The Eight Best Practices of Task and E-Mail Management" by Michael Linenberger. My interest in the book is in its combination of common sense work flow discussions matched to detailed instructions on how to customize Outlook settings. Having experimented with other time management programs and processes, I am currently of the view that Outlook – the cause of much of the chaos – should offer some hope of a solution.

Much as I applaud innovations like blogs and wikis, will lawyers ultimately thank us for providing more and more information if we don't also help them manage their time?

KMWorld hosted a webinar today on Enterprise Content Management for Corporate Blogs and Wikis (this link is supposed to be active for 90 days). The presenter, a consultant from Stellent, gave a useful review of the basics of the two tools and some thoughts on the advantages and challenges offered by them.

Based on the audience survey, interest in blogs and wikis continues to grow – although at this point, there may be more interest than action.

Last week law.com picked up an interesting item from American Lawyer "Software Glitch May Have Erased E-Mail Text in Enron Suits". The information in the article is inconclusive as to the extent (if any) of the problem or the resolution.

News items such as this are a good reminder of the number of human decisions required to create an "automated" collection of information (or knowledge for that matter). I'm guessing it is impossible today to create a large database and actually test it to make sure it is 100% complete and accurate. Whether it is internal system or third party supplied legal research content, we tend to assume (because we must) that we can rely on it (of course, our contracts with third party vendors probably provide that we have no recourse if there turns out to be an issue in any event).

I do not doubt that extensive testing is done by vendors before they market their products. However, other than finding an issue in the course of using the material (eg searching a legal research database and not finding a case you know should have been retrieved by the particular search), I don't have any thoughts on how to practice "safe" computerized research.

One of our lawyers alerted us to www.zoominfo.com – it describes itself modestly:

"the premier summarization search engine, delivers fresh, comprehensive information on over 31 million business professionals and 2 million companies across virtually every industry".

Try checking out a few names – the results are quite amazing. Before you rely on the information, however, review the information retrieved for people you know well. When I decided to take a few minutes (rather than a few seconds) to review the results, I was still amazed, but also concerned. Information showed up on my search that seemed very questionable and probably out of date.

Running these searches reminded me of how easy it is to be seduced by the power of search. After all these years, there is still some "magic" to running a search and getting results (instead of that depressing "zero results for your search" screen). As more and more time and money are invested in the creation of the "perfect search engine" and truly comprehensive content, where is the quality control?

I saw a posting yesterday that suggested that a U.S. government agency was making use of Wikipedia information. Should we be concerned about this? Is it too late?

Having a PEI cottage in a rural setting is highly recommended. One of the few challenges we have faced so far is staying connected. For the first few years, our dial up connection worked well, but last summer (mysteriously) it suddenly seemed impossibly slow. I recalled reading that our federal government was committed to "broadband access" for all, so I started investigating other options. I quickly discovered that Aliant (PEI phone company) does not offer high speed access to my part of the island. There are some local companies using (I think) microwave towers and satellite dish receivers but I haven't yet been able to figure out the logistics of all this.

Instead, I discovered (by accident) that certain models of Blackberries can now be used as modems (at least on Bell service). After installing a small program on my laptop, I was ready to test out my new mobility (the test was in London, Ontario). To my amazement, it just worked and I was quickly connected at 112 kbps. I understand that if you are lucky enough to be in a Bell EVDO network area (Charlottetown and the surrounding 10 miles or so), speeds are much better, but 112 kbps is a marked improvement over the 24 kbps I was used to in dial up mode. There is (of course) a separate data plan for this service (which is apparently cheaper than merely paying the straight data charges).

This may not be the end of the story as I saw a Rogers ad last week that seems to promise high speed access anywhere you can plug a modem into an electrical outlet. The ad appeared in one of Canada's national newspapers and the fine print did not contain any geographical exclusions (other than the "for details on coverage visit Rogers.com…), so I guess I will have to investigate this option too. Even 112 kbps makes internet and email work somewhat slow – I still imagine that I would be so much more productive on holidays with high speed.

But is there something wrong with my logic? Perhaps because it is summer, I seem to be seeing more articles about the need to "detach". Are there people out there who actually turn off their Blackberries for hours at a time when on holidays or who don't "dial in" once a day? Based on the number of postings I saw on SLAW last week, it seems that summer is when bloggers get really busy!

The Spring 2006 Issue of Perspectives contains two short but helpful articles. Thomas Keefe's "Teaching Taxonomies" reviews the author's experiences in trying to explain to law students why they should think twice before relying on full text searching. Rather than merely lamenting the reliance on electronic over print, the author suggests a focus on the benefits of structured sources.

Stephen Armstrong and Timothy Terrell's "The Perils of E-Mail" is a very practical look at how to send emails that are likely to be read by the recipient.

These articles will, of course, join my rather voluminous file on "articling student orientation". There is so much content that could be covered in orientation, from "pure" legal research techniques to the more practical realities of working in a law firm. Of course, the feedback from our students each year is that we attempt to cover way too much material in their initial week at the firm. We have experimented with scheduling some "orientation" sessions in the weeks following their start at the firm. At that point, the problem is the conflicts with "real work".

The recent posts about managing email reminded me that the summer seems to be a good time to tackle "non-legal" reading. For those interested in some eclectic choices, read on (all choices are available at Chapters.ca):

- Getting Things Done (David Allen). Many may already know of this book – for me it was an easy to read guide to productivity. The author tackles all kinds of common behaviours and situations (including email management) and offers simple, logical and practical solutions.

- The Microsoft Crabby Office Lady Tells It Like It Is: Secrets to Surviving Office Life (Annik Stahl). I just came across a reference to this on the Microsoft website (and so can't comment much). I'm hoping it will turn out to be both humourous and practical.

- Dish: Women at Mid-Life Tell The Truth About What Really Matters In Work, Relationships and The Rest of Life (Barbara Moses). The title says it all – having only read a few chapters, it's too early to share what I've learned.

The lead story in the May 2006 issue of LJN Internet Law & Strategy is titled "Wikipedia Creates Concerns Aplenty About the Web's Reliability". Notwithstanding the title, the author (Shari Claire Lewis) discusses the broader issue of lawyers and web-based research.

Apparently, at least one U.S. Bar Association has taken the trouble to opine that lawyers doing web-based research are required to "take care to assure that the information obtained is reliable". In fairness, this ruling dates from 1998 – which is perhaps why the ruling seems startling today. Could anyone presume that internet-based research is magical and not subject to that most basic of rules – common sense?

Is it fair to assume that some of the "legal research" issues of past decades live on in 2006? Back in the 1980's, when a small number of Canadian lawyers started to call themselves "research lawyers", the debate was about whether a "research lawyer" could have the same profile and credibility as that accorded to a "line lawyer" (aka a lawyer with a traditional practice). Back then, there was a concern that legal research was something that juniors did until they were in a position to delegate the research assignments to the new "junior" on the team.

I decided to ask for the views of the summer students who arrived at our firm this week, by asking them if there was any way to "market" legal research as a glamourous part of life at a law firm. The answer was almost unanimously no and the insights they provided reminded me of the 1980's discussion of the role of a research lawyer. The concerns noted included the following:
- having just finished year end papers and exams, they wish to try something different
- they want to see the "practical side" of the practice of law
- their impression of the law firm hierarchy is that "senior partners" don't do research
- they feel that doing research is "paying their dues" and will allow them to work their way up the ladder
- research is not "high profile" work

On the positive side, the students suggested that being able to see the practical application of their research efforts would make a difference. Going to court to see how their research was translated into legal argument, and being included in client meetings where the research was translated into legal advice were two practical suggestions the students made.

Having glanced through a number of the Theme Week articles, I haven't yet found the practical advice I'm longing for – how can I (a lawyer who should know the law) make sure I don't go astray when posting to SLAW?

Let me give some simple examples. I decide I want to include a link to an article I've recently read on another website. Is it clear that I can link to an "embedded" page rather than just to the first level page? What if I read the article on one of those new "aggregation" pages (I forget the technical term for these) – I seem to recall someone objecting to a link to this source (and not the original page).

Or what if I want to quote something really impressive that someone else has written? When is a footnoted quote not enough and when do I need the author's permission?

Or what if I come across some fascinating content on a a website (perhaps a law firm website) where the law firm has claimed copyright in the site while at the same time making the information on the site readily available for downloading or printing (the ever present "print friendly version" button). Is there some contradiction here?

Or what if I find some amazing writing in a factum (the lawyer who really wanted to be a writer) that a lawyer at another firm has filed in a court proceeding? Am I free to use that material however I want?

Notwithstanding the attempt of the Supreme Court of Canada to give some guidance to the legal profession, I profess to be as confused as ever. My confusion probably started as an articling student, as I diligently copied cases and extracts of journals and texts for inclusion on books of authority being sent to courts and other lawyers. Isn't this the essence of legal research – using the work of others?

So that I don't go astray, I must acknowledge that the thought for this post came from the work done by Brian Bawden, who has produced a very thoughtful guide to understanding copyright which has been discussed by knowledge managers in New York and Toronto over the past year.

As I finish this post, I have to acknowledge that intellectual property protection has had some unexpectedly positive consequences. After all, I am sitting at my desk listening to an iTunes exclusive Bonnie Raitt album on my iPod. I don't mind crediting my iPod ownership and iTunes downloading to our current legal framework for the protection of IP.

Law.com has just reported that the U.S. Supreme Court "adopted a historic rule change that will allow lawyers to cite so-called unpublished opinions in federal courts starting next year". Apparently, unpublished opinions represent 80 percent of cases decided in the federal appeals courts.

It seems to me that recent rulings of the courts (Canadian and American) may be the start of a re-evaluation of the legal research process. The Ontario Court decision discussed in the April 10 post "Computers Have All the Answers".- looks as though it will be impetus for some lively debates amongst practicing lawyers (I think the Toronto Research Lawyers will be discussing the case at their April meeting).

As noted in the comment to the April 10 post, one must separate "research" from "analysis".. Twenty five years ago, I recall spending most of my time "researching" because the finding tools were not that helpful. Once the "research" was finished, there tended to be a manageable amount of material, usually well written, to digest and analyze. Today, I think the "research" time has been shortened – but the analysis time lengthened because there is so much more material to consider and the material is often unorganized and confusing. From a client's perspective, I think the legal bills are higher than ever.

One of our lawyers alerted us to www.zoominfo.com – it describes itself modestly:

"the premier summarization search engine, delivers fresh, comprehensive information on over 31 million business professionals and 2 million companies across virtually every industry".

Try checking out a few names – the results are quite amazing. Before you rely on the information, however, review the information retrieved for people you know well. When I decided to take a few minutes (rather than a few seconds) to review the results, I was still amazed, but also concerned. Information showed up on my search that seemed very questionable and probably out of date.

Running these searches reminded me of how easy it is to be seduced by the power of search. After all these years, there is still some "magic" to running a search and getting results (instead of that depressing "zero results for your search" screen). As more and more time and money are invested in the creation of the "perfect search engine" and truly comprehensive content, where is the quality control?

I saw a posting yesterday that suggested that a U.S. government agency was making use of Wikipedia information. Should we be concerned about this? Is it too late?

The March 29th post on Bruce McEwen's BLOG – Adam Smith, Esq. – is called "The Vanishing Middle" – and is based on a McKinsey analysis that "both premium and no-frills products grow at the expense of middle-of-the-road offerings".

How does one apply this analysis to Canadian legal research? Presumably, the on-line legal research services and other more traditional research tools available to us are "premium". But are we researchers requiring "premium" tools so that we in turn can provide "premium" research to our clients?

If we are seeing a consolidation of clients in Canada (through never-ending mergers and acquisitions) are there fewer and fewer large clients who are prepared to pay for "premium" research? Are we instead using premium tools to produce "no-frills" research?

In my last post, I briefly described my pragmatic approach to taxonomy creation at our law firm. Of course, the comments were more interesting than the initial post – the key issue being whether someone like me should "share" my taxonomy with fellow SLAW participants.

There is precedent, at least in Toronto, for the collaborative development of legal material. For example, the "Toronto Opinion Group" meets monthly to share ideas (and even drafting) on common issues in third party legal opinion transactions.

It strikes me that Simon F identified the two key issues – does a firm perceive some competitive advantage to being a "silo" and does the material disclose something about the firm's practice that is not otherwise evident.

My initial reaction, at least in the case of "firm taxonomies" is that I don't personally see major issues on either of these fronts. But that having been said, I do feel some "reluctance" to a complete and open sharing of the information. This seems to be at odds with the concept of blogging generally, where people are prepared to post away without any thought of receiving something of value in return. Michael Lines' suggestion of a "private" collaboration has more appeal – knowing that "everyone around the table" is making a contribution somehow seems fairer. In my defence, I suppose, I would draw the distinction between posts that require minimal(?) effort and taxonomies or other work product that require many, many hours of effort.

Once again, I have missed my post date by two days – in defence, I wll plead that this post may make more sense now that Simon has posted on "methodological moires (someone will have to send me some instructions on how to create french language characters!)

Prior to implementing our firm's document management system and portal, we decided to impose a firm wide taxonomy. To save others from correcting me, I acknowledge that my Oxford Paperback Dictionary defines "taxonomy" as "the scientific process of classifying living things" – so either I have a warped view of paper and electronic files or I am consciously mis-using the word.

In any event, the exercise of creating a taxonomy was challenging. It would probably have been impossible if I had decided to review carefully the ever-growing body of academic literature on the subject (I think that Simon was also referring to some of this material in his post). As I struggled to make sense of the material, I saw defeat looming on the horizon. Perhaps it was because this project was just one of many I was trying to juggle. Perhaps I have been living too long in the world of the pragmatic (ie law firms).

The end result was that I gave up on the academic or theoretical approach and focused on the real. Could I come up with a taxonomy (parts of which address client industries, legal services and legal topics) that was short enough. The length of the taxonomy became the ultimate issue – could the important elements be printed on one 8×11.5 page (double-sided) in print that was large enough to read?

In the end, after many compromises, the goal was achieved and the taxonomy was introduced (by the self- imposed deadline). It is far from perfect, but I learned some good lessons from the exercise. I will apologize now as there is nothing earth-shattering in this list. First, something is better than nothing (better to take one month than five months). Second, no matter how many people you consult, you won't know whether the list is workable until people are actually using it. Third, once you've started down this road, you will find yourself developing taxonomies every time you touch something new. Finally, lawyers really like things to be simple. Test your taxonomy on someone who is too busy to be trained and see if it passes the test of being "intuitive".

"Information in context" is the simplest way to describe our firm's new portal. There are a variety of contexts – personal pages, practice areas, library services, a learning centre, firm services and departments and clients and matters. Our portal is highly integrated with a number of firm applications, including our document management system and our accounting system. Users access all of their applications and all on-line services from the portal (the portal is the new firm desktop – on the screen 24/7).

I was particularly interested in figuring out how to integrate "external" information into our portal pages. Before tackling RSS, we implemented Lexis Publisher – this allows us to deliver the search results from a particular Lexis/Nexis search to a specific location on a portal page. A number of practice areas have already implemented searches based on specific industries and clients. Lexis Publisher is a great way to deliver this premium content to target locations (premium content can also be something as simple as a recent newspaper or magazine article or a recent case).

One of our current challenges is figuring out how best to integrate the power of RSS feeds into these various contexts. Lexis Publisher can deliver its search results using RSS, which opens up some intriguing potential for our enterprise wide RSS aggregator from Newsgator. Newsgator allows us to set up firm groups (eg practice areas seems like an obvious place to start). We are planning to find a few RSS feeds of particular relevance to each practice area, along with a few feeds of interest to the firm as a whole.

We are able to subscribe users automatically to the RSS feeds based on their practice area (this is set in Microsoft Active Directory). Users are free to set up their own feeds too. Newsgator also allows a firm to set up its own taxonomy of feeds (we have a firm wide taxonomy of practice areas and legal services that we will use) so that users can easily pick from "pre-cateogorized" feeds.

If anyone else is embarking on this sort of exercise and wants to compare notes on practice area specific feeds, please feel free to comment.

My 11 year old son thought that it was important that, as the partner in charge of technology at my law firm, I "walk the talk" so I am now the proud owner of a sleek black iPod Nano. I tried downloading a song from iTunes last week (while on holidays) and concluded that downloading on a dial up line was not worth the effort. Any and all suggestions on what I should be downloading (now that I am back in the land of high speed access) are welcomed.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the Nano will become an integral part of my life – but I suspect that now that I have joined the ranks of iPod owners, I will be more interested in podcasts and other "business" applications for this new technology.

In a similar vein, we are in the process of installing "enterprise-wide aggregation software". As a person who barely understands the concept of RSS feeds, deciding to purchase this software was a way of forcing me to figure out the value of RSS feeds immediately. Rather than waiting for inspired individuals to demonstrate the value of RSS feeds on an individual basis, our firm is going to figure out which feeds should be delivered automatically (based on practice area, etc). Users will still be free to choose their own feeds but I believe that we will be able to benefit from aggregate user experience in determining the "hot feeds" on the net. There are other benefits (I seem to recall mention of "controlling bandwidth", etc).

Although I haven't had time to substantiate my intuition on this, I remain convinced that there is real benefit in harnessing the power of blogs and wikis. Again, any suggestions on "hidden gems" (other than SLAW of course) are welcomed.

Last week, our firm launched its Microsoft SharePoint portal. Users are taken to the front page of the portal when they first turn on their systems (and every time they launch IE). They must also use the portal to launch all their applications.

The portal offers great potential for collaboration and sharing (of course, a lot of hard work will be required to get everyone fully "engaged"). It also offers some fun – opportunities to work with third party vendors who are busy developing enterprise wide aggregation for RSS feeds and more sophisticated discusssion forum technology.

Not everyone in the firm is happy with their new "desktop". Notwithstanding requests, we will not "turn off" the portal. Given that I have been living with the portal for almost a year (and most of the rest of the firm has only seen it for a few days), I understand some frustration about the changes. I can also understand why our articling students chose the portal as one of the subjects for their Christmas Party skit (their thesis was that there was nothing new in the portal – the applications and information had existed before – it was much funnier in person!).

The portal offers a great opportunity to figure out how to train lawyers and other law firm users about the information and resources available to them. With the portal, it will be much easier to re-vamp training from its current application focus to a process focus.

We decided to roll out the portal in mid-December so that all team members could take a break over the holiday season – and return in January with renewed energy and enthusiam for the next stage of the project. With the infrastructure in place, January will be the month to review every piece of content and every process designed to deliver content so that we can be sure that the portal will continue to display new and relevant information every day (it really must if we are forcing everyone to look at it). I only hope that a 10 day break is long enough!

Our firm is on the verge of rolling out its SharePoint portal. Akin to renovating one's home, it is difficult to resist the urge to tackle one more project "while you're at it". Project managers warned me about scope creep but that didn't stop my inclination to completely overhaul the desktop.

This background is intended to give some context to our decision to voluntarily remove the QL "classic" direct connection from our network tonight. From tomorrow onwards, all of our core Canadian online legal research services will be delivered through browser interfaces.

As the head of our portal project, I have to take full responsibility for this state of affairs. There is no one else to blame. I can rationalize the decision in many ways (e.g., it was only a matter of time). That doesn't change the fact (for me) that the search interface I learned first was the one I preferred. I was probably the most dedicated classic version researcher in the firm. No amount of debate could convince me that the browser version was superior (or even equal) for that matter.

But that is all history – and while I will miss the classic interface, I do see some benefits to keeping current. For one thing, I will have more in common with the many other researchers in the firm who have already adopted the browser interface. More importantly, I suppose, I will now take the time to learn the browser interface properly – and maybe even find some features that are superior to the now departed interface.

When we are all so busy, it is easy to say "I don't have time for training" or "I can figure it out myself". While there is some truth to these statements, we do handicap ourselves to some extent with this approach. However, recognizing the need for training and delivering effective training can be two different things. Figuring out how to deliver "just in time" training in a law firm is a very difficult task – but our experience shows that this is by far the most successful type of training, especially for professionals.

There are no easy answers to these challenges. Vendors continue to enhance their products and we continue to struggle with how to equip users with the knowledge they require to use the many tools available to them. While I may still long for the days of DOS, I do recognize there is no going back.

A news story on today's (Nov 22nd) law.com email noted that apparently 58% of Am Law 200 firms use the colour blue in marketing their firm ("conveys a feeling of authority of royalty, as well as a sense of calm"). Only 2% use green ("perhaps, the study suggests, lawyers may want to shy away from such stark allusions to money.") The impact of other popular colours (red, gray, brown) is also discussed.

Does legal research (as opposed to law generally) have a "colour"? As I survey the limited number of law books in my office and browse some legal content websites, I'm not sure I see a pattern. But now that I know that legal marketers have figured out that colour seems to influence how content is absorbed, I can't stop wondering whether legal researchers should be paying more attention to how we package our content!

PS – I'm not sure how to link to the article directly – today it is at www.law.com/newswire (but it may not be tomorrow). It is titled "Law Firms Look to Color for Identity" and authored by Jennifer Moline.

A recent paper part of the Ontario Reports contained a new practice direction – correction – contained a brief summary of a practice direction along with directions to a website for more complete information. While lawyers are certainly used to accessing information on the web (SEDAR and eLaws are obvious examples), I had thought that there were certain information flows which were immune from "webinization". I may have been wrong.

What is the best balance between "paper" and "electronic"? Electronic delivery of information is becoming more and more popular. With the daily flood of email, however, email notification of new developments is not necessarily the best way to insure that new developments are noted. RSS feeds are another obvious tool to deliver the latest and most important news to lawyers – but there is the same risk of "too much information".

Sowhat is the best combination of paper and electronic? The legal publishers now offer us extensive databases of information, while continuing to deliver paper products to our offices. There is now a considerable quantity of "free" legal information on the web. I admit that I have not figured out (from either a cost or a useability perspective) how to make sure I see the "right" amount of information about current legal developments. Instead, I appear to have adopted an unworkable compromise of continuing to read a great deal of paper (pages of headnotes from the paper parts of case report series, summaries of unreported cases, tables of contents), together with daily or weekly emails containing summaries of important developments, full text of cases, etc.

Am I being foolish to ask the legal publishers to analyze more carefully the dilemma faced by lawyers and offer us better options (both paper and electronic) to cope with this current awareness nightmare?

A recent Ontario Reports paper part contained a new Superior Court of Justice Practice Direction – correction – contained a summary of the Practice Direction, and advised readers to consult http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca for further details.

I guess it's fair to assume that all Ontario lawyers now access websites regularly. It is certainly helpful to know there is one website containing such valuable information. Lawyers in other areas of practice, such as corporate finance, are quite used to accessing websites for day to day valuable information, so the use of websites to convey legal information is not new. The only issue, I suppose, is that it is becoming harder and harder to create a "definitive list" of what lawyers have to consult to carry on their practice (litigation, insolvency, corporate finance, etc.).

The editors of some consolidated rule books, for example, are doing their best to keep up with new developments. They now issue weekly or bi-weekly emails containing the latest rule changes and cases. Reviewing the contents lists of the paper parts of the various reporter series has been automated in that publishers now send emails containing this information (provided you continue to subscribe to the paper material).

However, as more and more legal material makes its home on a website (whether accessed without charge or through a subscription), shouldn't there be a corresponding change in how lawyers "keep current".

Email alerts have their pros and cons. RSS feeds are clearly relevant. Wouldn't it be helpful if the legal publishers figured out a cost effective way of addressing this?

Simon Chester's post last month about outsourcing legal research referred to a recent U.S. article. Last week, one of my partners forwarded an email he had received from an Indian-based "professional legal organization" offering legal research and writing services.

The prices quoted (US $10 – 15/hour for legal services and US $199 for legal research services on a case – work completed in 72 hours) are much lower than the rates quoted in the earlier article. At these prices, it's hard to avoid the temptation to "try them out".

In the wake of Katrina, a number of state jurisdictions are looking at their rules governing the "practice of law" with some states taking a more liberal views than others. I don't know of any jursidiction that has regulated who can conduct legal research. Typically, the results (and legal advice) are conveyed to the client by a duly qualified practitioner. As other off-shore jurisdictions become more aggressive in their marketing attempts, will this change?