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

We talked with Randi Mayes, executive director of ILTA, about her thoughts on the conference so far:

Randi also oversees ILTA’s award-winning Peer to Peer publication and white papers.

Heather Armstrong, one of the most well-known professional bloggers, presented at the CLE, and discussed her experiences dealing with unauthorized use of blog material, defamation, cyber stalking and loss of employment for blog content. (We had a chance to talk with the “mommy blogger” after the session, which you can read more about here.)

From the counsel perspective, Marylee Abrams from Abrams and Schmidt LLC., and Kenneth Kunkle from Kunkle Law PLC, two social media experts, demonstrated how to efficiently obtain legal and factual information necessary for  advising clients on issues such as employment law, social media policies, intellectual property and the FTC policy on blog disclosure.

Abrams, a lawyer who represents employers with labor relations and employment law issues, talked with us about the necessity of social media policies in this video clip:

We also talked with Kunkle, a lawyer who advises creative-based clients on matters of copyright, trademark and other general business issues, who told us in this short video clip about the importance of understanding social media.

Kimbro practices law online from her home in North Carolina through her Web-based virtual law office Kimbro Legal Services. She is also the co-founder of Virtual Law Office Technology, LLC, which creates and supports virtual law practices for solo and small practitioners.

Kimbro predicts that firms will need some form of virtualization to remain competitive in the next five to 10 years, as it ultimately benefits clients. In this video clip, she talks about running a virtual law practice and how they are convenient for clients.

Of course, Web security and client confidentiality are issues that arise from hosting a virtual law practice. In this short video clip, Kimbro talks about these issues and the ethics of virtual law practice.

Even the professors.

Michael Hunter Schwartz at Washburn University School of Law offers some advice for his fellow law profs in two posts on the Westlaw Insider blog. The posts are titled “Back to School – Part 1,” and “Easy Ways to Make a Difference With Your Students (Back to School – Part 2)”.

Like any profession, a law professor needs to be prepared and Hunter Schwartz says that’s a key:

Know your stuff and be organized. Students will forgive a lot if they perceive that you know your subject, have taken the time to provide structure to the class, are working as hard as they are, and care as much as they do.

He also suggests professors should always be mindful of the importance of setting high expectations for their law students:

Relentlessly communicate high expectations, both in terms of what you ask of them and in terms of your belief that your students can meet your expectations. The research in this area is rock solid; students live up or down to our expectations of them.

Again, you can read the full posts from Michael Hunter Schwartz on the Westlaw Insider blog. They are titled “Back to School – Part 1,” and “Easy Ways to Make a Difference With Your Students (Back to School – Part 2)”.

Michael Hunter Schwartz is Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Development at Washburn University School of Law. He also is co-director at the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning (http://lawteaching.org) which offers law review articles, books, videotapes, and both a teaching article of the month and a teaching idea of the month.

As you may have heard, Thomson Reuters is now bringing the book rental concept to law schools with the West and Foundation Press casebook rental program.

And, not only is a print version of a casebook involved, each rental of a hard copy comes with an eBook that students can access immediately.

Casebooks available for rental are indicated on their product pages on the West website.

Books are shipped for free and law students only pay for the time they need to use the books, up to eight monthly payments (at that time the book is theirs to keep).

Students also can mark up and highlight a rental casebook as much as they need to before they return it, again with free shipping.

For more details, check out this page about the casebook rental program and a section for frequently asked questions.

In addition to the rental program, Thomson Reuters also has announced the West Study Aids Subscription.

It has an online library of more than 300 study aids from West, Foundation Press and Gilbert.

The subscription features case briefs, outlines, overviews and exam preparation materials.

Some of those include Gilbert Law Summaries, Legalines, Nutshell Series, Acing Series and Sum & Substance Quick Reviews.

The study aids are available through the Student Commons tab on http://lawschool.westlaw.com and students can highlight the study aids online, and even take notes next to the text.

Subscriptions are offered for periods of three, six or 12 months.

Armstrong is the most popular “mommyblogger” in the world, with more than 1.5 million followers on her blog and Twitter, and named one of the 30 most influential women in the media by Forbes magazine. Time magazine has listed her website, dooce.com, as one of the best 25 blogs in the world.

Armstrong will discuss her experiences with unauthorized use of material from her blog, instances of defamation and cyber stalking, and loss of employment for blog content at the CLE program, “Legal Issues Resulting from the Social Media Explosion,”this Friday at the American Bar Association Annual Meeting.

Marylee Abrams and Kenneth Kunkle, two social media legal experts, will also give their perspective on the legal issues associated with social media and blogging. Both are attorneys practicing in Minnesota; the former represents employers with labor relations and employment law issues, and the latter focuses on copyright, trademark and general business issues for creative-based clients.

Another free CLE program, “Legal Research Made Easy With WestlawNext,” will also take place at the ABA conference. The program will follow a fictional client through the course of the legal research process, demonstrating how to make legal research more efficient.

Both CLEs are offered free – compliments of WestlawNext – and will be held at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco.

Legal Issues Resulting from the Social Media Explosion
Friday, Aug. 6
11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. – Lunch
12:30 – 1:30 p.m. – CLE
Rooms 3001 – 3005

Legal Research Made Easy with WestlawNext
Friday,  Aug. 6
3:45 – 5:15 p.m.
Room 2005

We’ve got some news to share about the CLE Mobile app from West LegalEdcenter.

It has received the “Association for Continuing Legal Education’s (ACLEA) Best” Award for Outstanding Achievement in Technology.

The app, available as a free download for iPhone® and iPod touch®, offers attorneys mobile access to continuing legal education (CLE) courses.

“ACLEA’s Best” Awards recognize the contributions of its professional member organizations in the fields of programs, publications, public interest, technology and marketing.

West LegalEdcenter recently upgraded its CLE Mobile app based on recent user feedback. CLE Mobile Version 2 includes the ability to search, purchase and delete programs directly from the app itself – features most often requested by CLE Mobile users.

Launched in December 2009, CLE Mobile allows users to access more than 3,000 CLE courses wherever they are and whenever it is most convenient. Users also have access to one free program when they download the app.

All state-required regulatory safeguards are incorporated in the Mobile environment, so CLE Mobile users may submit completed courses for online state mandatory CLE credit. The app also allows users to manage their westlegaledcenter.com profile, including licensing states and registration numbers.

Additionally, CLE Mobile gives law firms the ability to make their own CLE and training content mobile with West LegalEdcenter’s in-house training. This option allows law firms to better meet their attorneys’ needs by making their own programming even more flexible and accessible.

CLE Mobile is available on the App Store or through westlegaledcenter.com/mobile.

The Obama administration’s healthcare reform law in the United States represents the industry’s most sweeping change in nearly half a century. West LegalEdcenter and the American Health Lawyers Association are now providing continuing legal education programming (CLE) on health law and more specifically, on healthcare reform legislation and its implications for various sectors of the healthcare community.

Programs available here include:

*“The Impact of Healthcare Reform Legislation on Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP,” with Dennis Barry, Charlie Luband and Holley Thames Lutz

*“Fraud and Abuse in Healthcare Reform: Will You Know It When They See It?” with John Brennan, Bob Homchick and Vicki Robinson

*“The Practical Impact of Payment System Reform on the Marketplace,” with Glen Reed, Tim Blanchard, Larry Foust, Katherine Hayes and Jamie Katz

*“Delivery System Reform: New Care Delivery, Quality, Efficiency, and Health Personnel Initiatives,” with Beth Schermer, Amy Hall, Doug Hastings and John Hensing

Programs are available at a reduced rate for AHLA members.

How would Justice Brandeis view the increase in the prominence of state constitutional law in the U.S. in recent years?

Issues like school funding, discrimination, same-sex marriage, search and seizure, religious rights and tort reform come to mind.

I recently talked about this trend with Jeffrey M. Shaman, professor at DePaul University College of Law and co-author of Holland, McAllister, Shaman and Sutton’s State Constitutional Law: The Modern Experience, published by Thomson Reuters, Legal.

“25 years ago, state courts started to rediscover their constitutional independence from federal law and to strike out on their own and start to recognize rights and liberties that are not recognized under the federal constitution,” Shaman said. “State constitutional law is really where the action is, it’s really transcended the federal constitutional law in a number of areas.”

So why has there been such a shift at the state level?

“State courts can focus on local conditions within their states,” said Shaman. “State constitutions contain various provisions not found in the federal constitution and state judges have rediscovered the historical foundations of their constitutions that guarantee rights and liberties.”

Shaman says the prominence of state constitutional law is leading more law schools to add courses about it to their curriculum every year, because judges, law professors and lawyers recognize the importance of new developments in state constitutional law.

“One of the main reasons for offering a course in state constitutional law is to properly prepare law students to be lawyers,” he said. “If lawyers are only focusing on federal constitutional law they’re not properly representing their clients. Federal constitutional law is only half the story, and in some cases less than half.”

As states continue to take stock of the role of their constitutions, Shaman says we should expect state judges to spend more time seeing how each of them handle certain issues, as he explains in this audio clip: