ILTA is a peer networking organization for legal technology professionals. Members include IT managers and directors, database administrators, practice automation specialists, training professionals, network administrators, CIOs, CTOs, and a wide range of other legal technology experts. These individuals assemble annually to share their experiences, insights and innovations through roughly 200 top-quality educational sessions over four days each August. 

ILTA coordinates member connections among both functional and regional groupings. Functional groups are called “peer groups,” offering networking and information sharing among individuals interested in Knowledge Management, Desktop and Application Services, Risk and Records Management, User Support Services, and eight other practical member alignments. Regional groupings organize around geographic centers – promoting professional networking across peer groups within most major cities in the United States, and expanding aggressively around the globe. The annual conference supports the peer and regional group connections, encouraging members to network and share both within and beyond these circles of interest. 

Serving as the “Practice of Law” liaison with ILTA for Thomson Reuters, I had the privilege and pleasure to participate, on a relatively limited scale, in the preparation and programming for this conference.  Working closely with one of the many outstanding ILTA volunteers, Julia Forbes (manager of Training and Application Services for Boston-based Brown Rudnick, LLP) and I defined and proposed ten session concepts. These proposals were reviewed by an ILTA committee, and three of our ten sessions were selected for this year’s annual conference.  

I was struck by the thorough and purposeful process of shaping these sessions. ILTA is extremely selective as it evaluates session proposals. They scrutinize the form and substance of each session, considering the needs and benefits for their members, ultimately distinguishing the most appropriate topics, and then positioning them for relevant ILTA peer groups. 

Throughout the process of preparation and presentation of these sessions, I was amazed by the commitment, focus and efficiency that Julia Forbes and the other ILTA volunteers demonstrated. Their determination and devotion produce the quality programming that is essential to this conference. I applaud their efforts, along with the stellar leadership that drives this remarkable organization and this outstanding conference.

You can listen to this interview edition of Legal Current podcast by clicking on the player below.

Susan Lambreth will be leading a two-day workshop on Legal Project Management in New York, March 29-30. More information is available here.  

We’re also on iTunes (just enter Legal Current in the search box).

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.

Watch the brief video below to hear Lins discuss some of the key updates to the 2011 edition of the book, as well as his thoughts on the top trends in securities laws.

When we talked with him, he shared his belief that LegalTech has always been one of the greatest technology shows out there. It’s a place for firms of all sizes to get a first-hand look at the latest and greatest in law firm technology.

Like most of us, Adkins was quick to discover interesting trends and ideas coming out of LegalTech this year, one of which is cloud-based case management and workflow solutions. In this video, Adkins suggests that with greater funding now within reach, firms of all sizes are looking into new technology.

Even at an event as large and busy as LegalTech, Adkins is hard to miss in his trademark cowboy hat – and who would want to miss that?

I recently talked about two of the changes, new expert disclosure and discovery rules and a new federal Summary Judgment Rule, with Steven Baicker-Mckee and William Janssen, co-authors with John Corr of the new 2011 edition of the Federal Civil Rules Handbook.

Some of the changes were inevitable. Baicker-Mckee says the current rules, as they apply to discovery of experts, have led to “a number of bizarre practices,” including when it comes to draft reports.

“Historically, draft reports have been discoverable and that’s led to a number of practices where attorneys avoid creation of draft reports,” Baicker-Mckee said. “So they do telephone calls or they do net meetings to avoid the creation of draft reports.” So, under the new rules, draft reports are no longer discoverable.

As for the Summary Judgment Rule, Rule 56, Janssen says the procedures were “reworked, rewritten and redeveloped for the way we practice” for the first time in more than 40 years.

Baicker-Mckee and Janssen recently paid a visit to our headquarters in Minnesota. While here, I asked them to provide a few thoughts about the amendments to the Federal Rules on video.

The Federal Civil Rules Handbook is available on the West website.

The stage was set for the daylong conference by the keynote, Joel Reidenberg, Professor of Law and Director at Fordham University School of Law. He focused on the impact of social media from a user and business perspective delving into a website’s terms of service, privacy policy and technology.

The lively discussion began with a poll of the audience. Of the nearly one hundred senior level counsels in attendance, two had read the terms of service and five the privacy policy of LinkedIn. Simply stated, most consumers do not look at the terms of a web site. Increasingly alarming, as Facebook learned, social media sites tend to be unaware of what their “app” vendors are doing.

Blending this issue with social media name squatting, underutilized technology to aid awareness of policies, and an under educated social media public, attorneys are finding it an arduous task to craft appropriate policies.

Reidenberg makes several technological and policy recommendations:

-If you are advising clients make sure you tell them to be transparent. Use technology tools, e.g. pop-ups or interstitial pages to make it clear to users information is being collected. Ask, “Would a normal person be able to understand the terms and conditions?”

-Focus on substantive fairness, i.e. the “The Grandmother Test”, as a company, can you describe to your grandmother what you are doing, and do it with a straight face?

-Technology tools will be very important going forward. Some of these exist, and some need to be developed. For example, if you want your information to be deleted from a social media website, how to do this needs to be explicitly stated, but additionally the site needs technology tools to allow this to be automated. Giving a user the rights to review and make adjustments to personal information will soon have to be the standard in the social media sphere. Currently there is a disincentive for advertiser based companies to use these technologies because it decreases their revenue.

-General public education will have to be enhanced. Companies need to focus on how to raise awareness about helping people, especially children, to understand risks.

Here are some interesting concluding thoughts from the ALM session with Reidenberg:

-Privacy policies: A Nielsen rating report stated that 78% of the public thought that if a website has a privacy policy, it means they do not share personal information. This is not the case. A policy could clearly state all the information a user submits is sellable.

-Prediction: Facebook and similar social media sites could potentially be a prime candidate of a class action suit. As they continue to collect volumes of information from its users, it is possible to hold them subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The reason, Facebook is increasingly being used to screen employees.

Ultimately if policies are transparent, technology is utilized, and education is enhanced, companies can fully embrace social media as an effective tool to better their brand.

Joe Raczynski
Applications Integrator
Thomson Reuters, Legal

In New York alone, the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court has only been around since 1995 when there were just six judges in two counties. Today, New York’s Commercial Division has 24 judges in 10 of the state’s 62 counties.

On a recent visit to our headquarters in Minnesota, Robert Haig, author of the now third edition of Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts, told me he’s added 19 chapters to the 88 in the second edition. One of those topics is on the interplay between commercial litigation and criminal proceedings.

“Over the last five years there’s been an increasing number of examples where you have a pending civil litigation, a commercial lawsuit, but you also have a criminal investigation going on,” said Haig. “You have all kinds of interesting issues about discovery in the civil litigation, which is fairly broad, conflicting with the rights of the defendants in a criminal proceeding.”

The sealing of court records also is a trend in commercial litigation. Haig says confidential materials are often at the heart of the matter, including trade secrets, intellectual property rights or marketing or sales strategies.

In this video clip, Haig explains more of the current background for the newest edition of his book and how commercial litigation in a state stacks up to the federal courts, and what factors need to be accounted for in making the decision to bring a case.

Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts is a joint venture of Thomson Reuters, Legal, and and the New York County Lawyers’ Association.

When you title a panel discussion “War Stories” and it involves general counsel for leading global corporations, you know the insights into the legal industry will be valuable.

Attendees got their money’s worth at the Hispanic National Bar Association’s 2010 Annual Convention: “El Futuro Sin Límite/Future Without Limits” in Minneapolis on Sept. 10., in a discussion with GCs from Thomson Reuters, Cargill, Target and Walmart.

The panelists were asked about the trends they were paying attention to the most in their work. All agreed that the work is changing, and it’s leading inhouse counsel to take on a more visible role in their businesses.

“I think we all can agree that the public, in America and globally, has a certain skepticism about business so we’re seeing an environment of increasing regulation, specifically greater enforcement of existing laws and public scrutiny from the media of the actions that companies do,” said Deirdre Stanley, executive vice president and general counsel, for Thomson Reuters. “As those laws become greater, the inhouse counsel becomes more relevant as part of the overall strategy of the company. I think we’ll actually see a rise in the numbers in legal departments as well as relevance.” (Hear Stanley discuss that trend further in this video).

(Deirdre Stanley)

Stanley’s theme was picked up by Samuel M. Reeves, senior vice president and general counsel for Walmart.

“The lawyers have a seat at the table starting with the strategy of the business and it hasn’t always been that way,” Reeves said. “It’s getting into the room, pulling up to the table and then being invited up to the table – which is occurring more and more often – and seeing the clients really appreciate that and appreciate the value you bring as they’re trying to implement their strategy.”

The HNBA Conference panel was moderated by Roderick (Rick) Palmore, executive vice president, general counsel, chief compliance & risk management officer, and secretary at General Mills.

Stanley and Reeves were joined on the panel by Jim Rowader, vice president & general counsel, Employee and Labor Relations at the Target Corporation, and Steven Euller, vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Cargill, Inc.

Now practicing as a solo practitioner in Connecticut, Ennico is a nationally recognized expert on the legal risks and problems of small businesses. He’s also the author of several titles published by Thomson Reuters and is known for his work as a technology and corporate lawyer.

Ennico also writes a nationally syndicated column called “Succeeding in Your Business” and has written for Entrepreneur magazine.

We caught up with him on a recent visit to our headquarters in Minnesota and asked him about his work with small businesses and the types of legal work and challenges those clients bring to him.

Ennico told me his work with small business owners came by choice, after deciding he no longer wanted to spend time on Wall Street. Today he works out of his home, where he jokes that “half the time I’m in my pajamas and yes, I do turn my webcam off.”

He continues to do some consulting to larger companies but much of his work now is with people who perhaps have been downsized, now trying to make things work in the growing ranks of the self-employed, as he explains in this video clip:

“You’re everything to these people, you’ve got to know a little bit about a lot of stuff,” Ennico said.

Ennico also says the number of small business owners and the self-employed includes many solo or small office attorneys just like him, working out of their homes after starting their careers in law firms and leaving that environment behind through a job loss or other reason. He expects that trend to continue.

“You’re not going to be seeing lawyers practicing in established firms as much, you’re going to see people like me working very informally out of their homes,” he said. “They have to constantly adapt to new circumstances. They constantly have to learn new areas of the law.”

Despite record-low mortgage rates and an abundance of houses available on the market, only eight percent of people say the current economic situation makes them more likely to buy a house.

63 percent of American adults say they are less likely to buy a house because of the current state of the economy.

You can read more about the survey on FindLaw’s Law and Daily Life blog.

FindLaw offers free resources such as the FindLaw Real Estate center which can provide helpful information on buying, selling and owning a home, including obtaining a loan, borrowers’ rights, finding the best mortgage, homeowners’ rights, avoiding foreclosure and more.

It also has useful information for renters, including negotiating a lease, tenants’ rights, and fair housing and discrimination laws.