This column is already dated. Why? Because privacy – or the lack thereof – is daily news. Facebook just announced their privacy policy would be called a “data use policy”. Before that it was Google’s announcement that they would be combining all the data collected by their individual web properties (YouTube, Gmail, Blogger, Google, etc.) about you into one single place, covered by one single “privacy” policy. Security has always been in opposition with ease of use. The conflict between wanting the convenience and interaction of the free web and trading privacy for the privilege is . . . [more]

A rural property owner faces gun charges after firing warning shots over the heads of a group of thieves making off with his ATV. A goofy misfit faces three years in jail after posing for a Facebook photo holding a loaded gun in his hand. A father gets arrested and strip-searched after his kindergarten daughter draws a blocky picture of him shooting “monsters and bad guys”.

These three men are all victims of one-size-fits-all justice.

Whether it’s a “zero tolerance” approach to gun crimes or domestic assault, mandatory minimum sentences being applied to virtually everything, or blanket policies that demand . . . [more]

One needs to do little else than glance at the ABA TECHSHOW 2012 conference schedule and exhibitor list to get a sense of how quickly and dramatically cloud computing is reshaping the legal technology industry.

Four years ago at my first ABA TECHSHOW, there was one or two companies doing what we today call “cloud computing” on the exhibit hall floor (I remember this fondly because this is where we launched Clio). This year I count over 30 companies on the exhibit floor that either provide cloud-based software or cloud-enabled applications.

In 2008 there were no conference tracks on the . . . [more]

Spring is “conference season,” when a lot of business and law-related conferences take place. To maximize your conference experience, apply my “Before, During and After” strategy; instead of only focusing on the conference once you actually get there, begin your planning ahead of time and implement an after-conference strategy to make sure you get the most bang for your conference buck.

Before the conference

The first step is to identify your goals or purpose for attending the conference in advance. This will help you plan your overall approach. You may have several goals, but don’t try to do . . . [more]

We tend to focus a lot on Google on Slaw, and for good reason – it’s still the main search engine that people use to find information, including information relating to law and lawyers.

The Advanced Search function is indispensable in refining searches, especially if you’re looking for things like results from a specific date range, a different language, results on a particular website, and a certain file type. In late 2011 Google removed Advanced Search from the main search page, though it was still available through the gears tab or by direct link.

Jim Calloway lamented the move on . . . [more]

I too am at the ABA TECHSHOW 2012 in Chicago organized by the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section. This has been my first time at this conference. A few things struck me immediately:

• this is a very different law conference; and
• everyone is extremely friendly.

I arrived on Wednesday evening during a reception before the LexThink.1 event that Jason Wilson wrote up for us yesterday.

I noticed that there was a group of people huddled around an easel and announcements about making guesses about the weight of a food truck. Huh? What were they doing? . . . [more]

Here is a nice, printable, breakdown of fallacies commonly deployed in argument. Helpfully, the authors have also provided an example of analysis, applying the typology to a published opinion on same-sex marriage penned by Cardinal O’Brien, Britain’s foremost catholic cleric. . . . [more]

A Committee of UK Members of Parliament has recommended that search engines should have to remove material from search results that infringe privacy. Here is a news report on the committee’s recommendations. Here is The Committee’s document.

It looks as if they are talking about material that has been found by a court to be an invasion of privacy, rather than having to make that initial decision. But once a court has found a story or a picture to offend privacy interests, the search engines should have to develop a method of hunting down that story or picture and . . . [more]

Dan Pinnington / Excerpted from LAWPRO Magazine, Student Issue #1, 2012

With over 120 million users in more than 200 countries (including at least a million lawyers) and web traffic that ranks it as the 13 th most visited site on the planet, LinkedIn is the social networking tool of choice for professionals.

LinkedIn can also be useful to law students in a number of ways. First, it can help with your job search. A LinkedIn network can be helpful for finding people you (or your contacts) know at law firms you are interested in. Second, it gives you some . . . [more]

The other day I chanced again on one of the great comedy sketches of all time: Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks. (If you haven’t seen it, may I recommend you have a look. Sorry about the laugh track: that’s the way things were back then.) Part of John Cleese’s stride — how does he do that?! — put me in mind of a soldier’s exaggerated parade step, so I thought I’d see what “silly walks” I could find among the armies of the world. As ever, the internet provided. What follow are videos about which I have little . . . [more]

by Marie Maron* 

[This article was first published in the Canadian Lawyer and is reprinted here with their permission and the permission of the author.]

There are three types of lawyers at a firm: the finders, the minders, and the grinders. The finders bring in the clients, the minders manage them, and the grinders, well, they carry out the time-consuming, sometimes tedious, and often thankless, tasks for the rest of the group.

Who ends up as those poor worker bees? The junior staffers, naturally; students and junior associates. But, hey, they don’t cost as much as senior lawyers. And they . . . [more]