Before giving legal effect to any piece of information, people want to know whether the information can be trusted. What is this information? Where does it come from? How sure must they be of the answers to those questions?

At a basic level these are not even legal questions. They are not addressed particularly to the content of the information, though the content can help answer them. They are about the medium and not the message. They are questions of authentication.

Authentication questions apply to information in any form and in any medium. Electronic documents do not need ‘more’ or . . . [more]

Most law firms use Microsoft Outlook and most people only think of it as an e-mail client that happens to have a calendar stuck on it. In reality though, Outlook, especially Outlook 2007 or newer, is quite a bit more than that.

Outlook 2007 introduced the “To Do Bar” – a panel on the right side of the screen when you’re looking at the Inbox – that shows you the next couple of appointments on your calendar as well as any tasks or flagged e-mails that you may have. It’s the ability to flag e-mails for follow-up that I want . . . [more]

Your first high tech trial need not be an ordeal. With a little will power, ingenuity and preparation you can successfully launch your litigation into the late 20^th century.

Start with a little mental preparation. Tell yourself (repeatedly if it helps) the one universal truth about courtroom technology: IT IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. If your confidence needs a further boost reflect on how well you mastered other first encounters with technology: riding a bike, driving a car, resetting the clock on your VCR. If you succeeded in at least one of these struggles you are ready for courtroom technology.  . . . [more]

“Sharpen the Saw” was #7 on Stephen Covey’s list of the habits of “Highly Effective People” The main point was that effectiveness requires continuous attention to self renewal and maintenance. The same applies to the technology systems we often just take it for granted. It is easy to go months without turning our minds to the mundane task of taking the time to keep it all working well. 

When an unexpected “disk full” situation arose recently the subject got my attention very quickly. A user “whoops” had inadvertently moved a large number of files. They seemed to . . . [more]

I drift along sometimes, dreaming that maybe I can stop learning new technical things for a while and actually use a few technologies to finish some long-term projects. Then something comes along to wake me up. One of the more recent of these wake-up calls came with the announcement of Apple’s iPad. People were complaining that it didn’t support Adobe Flash content.

I don’t generally pay a lot of attention to either Apple or Adobe, because I tend not to associate either one with open standards or open software. That’s just a bias though, and life is never that simple. . . . [more]

Intriguing news from the ABA’s 2010 Legal Technology Survey Report: 14% of lawyers reported that they ran a virtual law office, working with clients over the Net and rarely meeting them in person. We thought that statistic was fairly amazing.

Though the term virtual law office (VLO) has been around for a while, the definition has been morphing. In fact, as we went to research the definition, we found a wide range of definitions many of them at odds with one another.

After comparing what we found, we settled on a definition proffered by virtual lawyer Stephanie Kimbro, who . . . [more]

I enjoy the regular updates on interesting work environments posted by LifeHacker.com, where you can see all manner of screen and desk layouts, often with multiple monitors (even 6!) for enhanced productivity. We are not all going to have multiple monitors, and perhaps shouldn’t even if we can in light of concerns about multi-tasking and how terrible we really are at it. We may not even be able to choose an alternative to the dominant law office operating system, Microsoft Windows. But whether you have more than one monitor or not, here are a couple . . . [more]

As Windows 7 and Office 2010 sweep across the land, along with a plethora of interesting new hardware devices like iPads and netbooks, the urge to upgrade is striking a great many attorneys. I can hardly walk into a room without somebody sidling up to me and asking “So….should I upgrade?”

The answer is always the same: “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” they respond, with that unsatisfied look in their eyes. They’re surprised. I’m a technologist. I’m supposed to always be pushing them to the bleeding edge, chuckling softly that they only have 4GB of RAM, suggesting that they could get a 3rd . . . [more]

Bizarro robot cartoon

Lawyers have not been thinking about robots as long as cartoonists, science fiction writers (Isaac Asimov’s Robot series being perhaps the best known) or engineers (Geoff Simons, Are Computers Alive? Evolution and New Forms of Life 1983 – but see P. Sw irski, “A case of wishful thinking”). A political scientist anticipated some legal issues in the early 1980s (S.N. Lehman-Wilzig,””) notably about potential criminal liability that future technology would threaten.

However, we have been catching up in the past ten or fifteen years. This column is a partial survey of some of the interesting questions . . . [more]

I’m a member of the eLawyering Task Force of the American Bar Association. Our purpose is to promote practising law over the Internet. When I joined in 2004, we were a marginal group within the ABA. Things have changed. Our e-mail discussion group has over 120 members. We have had people attend our teleconferences from as far away as New Zealand. A member of the ABA Board of Governors attended our most recent meeting in Las Vegas. And in the past year, co-chief Richard Granat has been profiled as a “Legal Rebel” in a recent ABA Journal series . . . [more]

This being my first Slaw column, it would seem to be a good place to reflect on where I’ve been and what I use now. In the late 70’s at UBC Law I was a “TA” to one of Bob Franson’s early “Law and Computers” courses — featuring 300 baud access via a Texas Instruments Silent 700 thermal paper terminal to something called “Quick Law” (Well it did see quick, even at 300 baud). In 1982 $5,000 or so bought me my first computer, an Apple II Plus with various accessories and software — and then I splurged for . . . [more]

This article is about batteries that you can use to provide backup power for your laptop. The emphasis is on the two external batteries that I haved actually used: the Tekkeon myPower ALL MP 3450 and the Duracell/Xantrex XPower Powersource Mobile 100.

The bottom line? I bought one of each. The Tekkeon was better designed for the specific purpose of use with a laptop, as I’ll explain below. The Xantrex, however, was a battery that could more conveniently be used as a power supply for a variety of devices.

In the Fall of 2009, I bought a Dell Mini . . . [more]