September 2, 2010

High profile content on Westlaw: September 2, 2010

Here’s a quick look at some of the interesting content recently added to Westlaw. It’s all on the High Profile page:

Civil

Barker-Homek v. Abu Dhabi Nat’l Energy Co. (E.D. Mich.) – Former Taka CEO claims he was forced out of the energy company after trying to stop “kickbacks, bribery, accounting fraud and corruption”

Estate of Justin M. Newman v. Squire (Ill. Cir.) – Wife, husband’s estate to pay $6M to estate for murder, conspiracy

Interval Licensing LLC v. AOL, Inc. (W.D. Wash.) – Microsoft co-founder claims AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix and others infringed upon four of his company’s patents

Criminal

U.S. v. McCluskey (D. N.M.) – Escaped convicts charged after allegedly murdering a couple so they could steal a camper

Each week, our colleagues at Westlaw feature interesting materials, documents and videos from high profile cases in the United States. The summaries of that content are available for viewing by clicking High Profile Cases, Courtroom Videos & Trial Docs.

Login is required on Westlaw.com after clicking on the links provided in the summary of each case.

August 30, 2010

Podcast: Jeffrey Rosen and online privacy

Do you think before you tweet or blog, or post those party photos to Facebook?

I mean, really think about it? As in, the implications of who will read your words or see you in potentially awkward situations?

The Web’s role in our personal and professional lives is a hot topic. One that we thought was worth exploring a bit in our latest interview edition of the Legal Current podcast.

We talked about the issues of online privacy with Jeffrey Rosen, law professor at George Washington University. Rosen also wrote an interesting article on the topic, “The End of Forgetting,” for The New York Times Magazine in July.

“There are just so many examples of the inability to escape our past, people being held accountable for stuff that they posted online to one audience and are being discomfited or embarrassed when it’s exposed to a very different audience,” said Rosen. “The right to privacy tends to cover only the outrageous or the untrue postings, things that are highly offensive to a reasonable person. But when you’re talking about embarrassing or truthful information, there’s not a clear legal right to escape it or to have people take it down.”

Please take a moment to listen to our podcast with Rosen in the player below, and offer your comments to this post:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You also can access the Legal Current podcast on iTunes or grab the RSS feed.

If you have suggestions for podcast topics for us to focus on, or people to interview within the practice and business of law, send us an email to contact@legalcurrent.com.

August 27, 2010

Technologies to support the virtual practice

The virtual practice of the law certainly got a lot of attention this week at the 2010 ILTA Conference. Technology is obviously at the heart of the matter.

A session at the conference yesterday titled “Technologies to Support the Virtual Practice” was led by Sally Gonzalez, a senior director at Hildebrandt Baker Robbins.

It set out to define the parameters of virtual practice and examine what technologies and management strategies best support the virtual practice and whether different collaboration and security strategies in such a setting are necessary.

“You’re now going to have project teams consisting of internal and external resources that are highly dynamic that need to exchange and work on information collaboratively across those boundaries and its going to require a completely different technology infrastructure in order to support that,” said Gonzalez.

Legal Current did a video interview with Gonzalez before her session, in which she explains what she wanted to get across to the attendees:

You can get the slides from the presentation here.

August 26, 2010

Clients making the call on technology

It’s clear that law firm clients are exercising more control in their demands for types of legal technology that offer better ways to interact with the firm they choose to do business with.

It’s about communication and taking action on types of technologies that address the varied needs of clients.

Tim Corcoran, vice president of Global Sales for Hubbard One, talks about that trend in this video interview that we did with him at the 2010 ILTA Conference:

August 26, 2010

Hubbard One’s Mark Schiff at ILTA

We met up with Mark Schiff, named the president of Hubbard One in June, at the 2010 ILTA Conference.

He told us why the conference is important to him, and to Hubbard One.

“This is a phenomenal opportunity for me to attend one of the premier legal technology events,” said Schiff. “It’s a great opportunity for the team here at Hubbard One to meet with our clients.”

In this video clip, Schiff talks about what he is hearing from customers at the show:

August 25, 2010

Manny Medrano speaks at ILTA

Journalist and attorney Manny Medrano spoke to ILTA Conference attendees this morning at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

His very personal speech touched on his heritage, his upbringing, his work as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s Office and as a legal affairs journalist and commentator.

Legal Current talked with Medrano after his speech, and given his experience as the Supreme Court correspondent for ABC News, we chose to ask him about the outlook for the current bench, in this video interview:

August 25, 2010

The future role of the law firm CIO

As Yogi Berra once famously said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

And so began the intentionally forward-looking 2010 ILTA Conference session today titled “The CIO in 2020: The Business Savvy Strategist.”

Though as panelist Marsha Stein of Ropes & Gray pointed out, the discussion of the CIO’s role should be less about 2020 and more about 2010.

“Law firms have changed,” Stein said. “We are all seeing a pressure to be more corporate and run our law firms like businesses… the challenges we’re talking about today are happening now.”

Technology, of course, remains the key. But panelists agreed that it’s more about what the technology can do. And what problems it solves.

“We’re entering an era where technology matters again,” said David Rigali of Thompson Coburn. “Business process re-engineering means something.”

“It’s the translation of the opportunities that technology provides,” added Peter Westerveld from Minter Ellison Lawyers.

Much of the discussion also involved how a CIO can gain standing in a firm by building and maintaining relationships with other firm leaders.

Jeffery K. Brandt a CIO consultant, said “You cannot be perceived as the fixer of the PCs, that’s not what you want to talk about with the partner… You have all these hats that you wear but you need to be able to communicate… that what you’re proposing as technology or services are going to resolve pain points within the firm.”

As for the notion that the CIO of the future will have less technical expertise or won’t always rise from the technical side, the panelists said it’s about getting and building a new base of business expertise.

“It’s not a roadblock [to come from the technical side],”said Stein. “You just need diferrent skills.”

August 25, 2010

The impact of the ILTA Conference

As the 2010 ILTA Conference enters its third day, we wanted to bring you some interviews with several attendees about the importance of the annual conference and its impact.

We start with a video interview with one of the conference co-chairs, Meredith Williams, the director of knowledge management with Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz in Memphis, Tenn.

“From my own personal perspective this has been one of the most creative and professionally satisfying events of my life,” says Williams.

Hear more from Williams in this video clip:

Over the last two days we’ve also done several interviews with ILTA members and attendees about the conference. Each has given us different reasons for why they come to the conference so we encourage you to take some time to listen to each short audio comment below to get a sense for their varied responses.

Just click on each name, below, to play the audio:

V. Mary Abraham, Debevoise & Plimpton

Craig Ball, Craig D. Ball, P.C.

Gary Berger, Ogletree Deakins

Sean Brady, Vinson & Elkins (His views are his personal opinions, not of his firm)

Patrick DiDomenico, Gibbons

David Hobbie, Goodwin Procter

August 25, 2010

Elite’s focus at ILTA

The 2010 ILTA Conference once again allows Elite, part of Thomson Reuters, to spend some valuable time interacting with with customers and attendees, and business partners.

Legal Current caught up with newly-named president of Elite, Kim Massana, to talk about the importance of the ILTA conference and what he’s hearing many clients talk about.

“One trend that we’re seeing a lot from the industry and that everyone is talking about is about alternative fee arrangements,” says Massana. “So we’ve heard plenty of feedback on that from the marketplace.”

Massana explains more of the significance of the ILTA conference in this video interview:

August 25, 2010

Personal knowledge management

It’s hard enough for a law firm or law department to keep track of its knowledge management right? So what about everyday, you and I, personal knowledge management?

You know, things like that jam-packed email inbox?

Sean Brady, information systems consultant at Vinson & Elkins, is leading two sessions this morning at the 2010 ILTA conference about personal knowledge management. They are titled “Managing Information Overload Through Personal Knowledge Management.” Michael McBride at Bricker & Eckler also is leading the sessions.

The program aims to address software and techniques to better manage information and become more efficient and effective in your work. The program description says “attendees will also explore the three components of good personal KM (aggregate, filter, share) and have a chance to try tools both inside and outside the firewall, including social media tools, that help manage information flows related to their professional lives.”

You can download the pdf of the presentation for more information.

in this video interview, he told us what he hopes attendees will get out of the sessions.

Brady’s views are his personal opinion and do not represent his firm.

Featured Post

Thomson Reuters, Legal, President & CEO Peter Warwick offered his perspective on the company’s approach to the current economic reality in a panel discussion, “Adapting and Thriving in a Challenging Economy”, at the Minnesota Venture & Finance Conference.

Peter Warwick speaks at Minnesota Venture and Finance Conference
Featured Video

The launch of WestlawNext brings a significant advancement in the way professional legal research is done.

Introducing WestlawNext
Featured Podcast

A discussion about online privacy and “The End of Forgetting,” with law professor Jeffrey Rosen.

Podcast: Jeffrey Rosen and online privacy