The FCC’s plan – “Connecting America: The National Broadband Plan” - sets a goal for 100 million American households to have Internet speeds of 100 megabits per second by 2020. According to Reuters, the current household average speed is about 4 Mbps. Even homes with cable or fiber Internet access only achieve speeds averaging 5 Mbps to 6 Mbps. Dakota County, where our Eagan office is located, averages 9 Mbps.

The plan is ambitious. It is a long and comprehensive document that calls for many things, including fees and spectrum sale to fund itself. I am impressed with the FCC’s work and will be curious to see the rule-making and jockeying that follows.

It’s worth noting, the FCC plan references the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force, which I chaired, in regard to state-level strategies to encourage adoption.

I’ll be following the discussion of the FCC plan. I expect it to meet very hard lobbying resistance from a range of current providers. Time will tell. I am pleased to have a plan and a vision for this very important aspect of modern living.

Ultra high-speed Internet makes it easier for the customers of Thomson Reuters, especially those with clients all over the world, to do their work. It’s also important for our businesses as we seek ways to increase the speed we transmit information.

I should also note, the developments at the FCC follow recent news about Google’s plan to build and test an ultra high-speed broadband network in at least one American city. Cities like Topeka, Kan. and Duluth, Minn. have made news for pulling out all the stops to lure Google.

I was happy to hear Google announce this initiative. It’s unclear how long it will take them to do it but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Google struck while the iron was hot. But the real question is once they do it, what applications will people run on the connection to really expand it and see what it can do?

How can companies and innovators facilitate the development of applications that exploit those higher speeds?

Rick King
Chief Technology Officer
Thomson Reuters, Professional

Last week, a group Thomson Reuters employees in Eagan, Minn. – including myself – got together to make the campus of the Legal headquarters a place to call home for bluebirds, chimney swifts and wood ducks.

Two dozen wooden bird houses were constructed by employee volunteers as part of the company’s Green Team effort to promote sustainable practices.

The Eagan campus already has 20 bluebird houses along its walking trail. When installed later this month, these houses will more than double the housing options available for these migrating birds.

Other Green Team efforts at the campus this year include restoring a 10-acre prairie and planting a community garden.

You can read more about the effort in a feature reported today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Richard Baum
Director, IP Marketing
Thomson Reuters, Legal

With an expected increase in demand in 2010 for expert witnesses in many areas of litigation, the search for credible and trained experts is critical to a case.

Today, Thomson Reuters announced it has acquired Round Table Group, a leading provider of expert witness consulting services to litigators.

Round Table Group provides expert witnesses on hundreds of subject matters, with a network of over 100,000 expert witnesses, including industry experts, corporate executives and academics, and a database of proprietary expert content reaching over 750,000 records. It serves Amlaw 200 and boutique law firms.

The acquisition also allows the expansion of Westlaw’s expert witness content, primarily expert resumes, articles, video content and trial documents, allowing litigators even greater access to case critical information in a fully linked and integrated environment.

The Round Table Group was founded in 1994 and employs approximately two dozen people in five locations: Chicago, Boston, Dallas, New York City and Washington, D.C.

Law students across the United States were able to take part in a unique program that saw their WestlawRewards points transformed into cash for the American Red Cross.

WestlawRewards is a program that allows law school students to accumulate points by using Westlaw and participating in legal research training courses and contests. Much like miles in a frequent flyer program, the points can be redeemed for a wide range of items, including small kitchen appliances to discounts on bar review courses.

For every 250 points a student donated, Thomson Reuters, Westlaw’s parent company, contributed $5 to the American Red Cross.

Law students generously donated more than seven million points, translating into more than $140,000 for disaster relief. The average donation was about $22; the largest donation was $645.

Learn more about WestlawRewards online.

Civil

Lohan v. E*Trade Securities LLC (N.Y. Sup.) – Celebrity Lindsay Lohan sues E*Trade Securities, claiming the reference to a “milkaholic” baby named Lindsay in one of its television advertisements is an unauthorized use of her name and likeness.

Criminal

U.S. v. LaRose (E.D. Pa.) – Grand jury indicts American woman known as “Jihad Jane” on terrorism-related charges.

The State of Texas v. Green (Tex. Dist.) – District Court judge rescinds order granting capital murder defendant’s motion to hold the death penalty in Texas unconstitutional.

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.

That work also includes knowing how to work best with the leaders and key people within the walls of the firm.

Jonathan Fitzgarrald, director of marketing at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP participated in a session titled “Developing Your Communication Skills to Gain Influence and Increase Your Effectiveness in your Role.”

In a post on Hubbard One’s blog titled “Gaining Influence and Increasing Effectiveness as a Legal Marketer,” Chelsie Givan shares a video interview with Fitzgarrald in which he outlines five best practices for marketers in sometimes difficult and political environments in professional services firms, including law firms.

You can watch the video and read Chelsie’s full post on The Hubbard Perspective blog.

And for more information on the 2010 LMA Annual Conference, click here.

Over the past five weeks, Thomson Reuters, Legal hosted free breakfast events in 15 cities across the United States to provide an overview and demonstrations of WestlawNext to hundreds of legal professionals.

With each stop, West’s marketing team covered the events with video interviews capturing reaction to WestlawNext, our new legal research system developed with more powerful search functionality to make legal professionals significantly more efficient in the time they spend researching.

The preview events wrapped up this week, with the last stop in Minneapolis. The video of that event also includes some footage of the WestlawNext team here at the headquarters of Thomson Reuters, Legal, in Eagan, Minnesota:

Our YouTube channel has all the clips from the WestlawNext preview breakfasts, including this week’s two other stops in Boston and Chicago.

You also can find out more about all the preview breakfasts from the last five weeks, and information on free online training opportunities for WestlawNext, on the Westlaw Insider blog.

For more information, go to WestlawNext.com.

The Legal Marketing Association (LMA) is holding its annual conference in Denver. Our colleagues at Hubbard One are covering some of the activity on The Hubbard Perspective blog.

In a post titled “Transitioning from Marketing to Business Development,” Jen Bullett recapped a panel discussion about the transition of a law firm marketer’s mindset, from marketing to business development. The panel featured José Cunningham, Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer, Crowell & Moring LLP, and Anne Malloy Tucker, Chief Marketing Officer, Goodwin Procter LLP.

Here are five of the points from the panel that Jen noted:

1. Understand your key partners’ top 5 clients

2. Know your firm’s top 100 clients and prospects

3. Be an agent for cross-selling

4. Focus on initiatives that get lawyers in front of clients

5. Identify and nurture those lawyers with untapped potential

You can read Jen’s full post on The Hubbard Perspective blog.

And for more information on the 2010 LMA Annual Conference, click here.

Created for law enforcement officers and government prosecutors, NLC PROTECTS is a seminar series that features experts on topics such as child pornography and online enticement investigations, human trafficking, the Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act of 2006, and other child sexual exploitation issues.

Training will incorporate Thomson Reuters’ CLEAR service, which provides public record information and analytics geared to the unique needs of law enforcement and government investigators.

“It’s rewarding to know our partnership with the NLC will help keep children safe from Internet predators,” said Steve Rubley, vice president and general manager of Risk, Fraud & Investigations for Thomson Reuters, Legal.

Since June 2006, the National Law Center has trained nearly 1,800 law enforcement professionals and prosecutors on child sexual exploitation case law and investigation procedures in seminars from coast to coast.

A post titled “Conflict Disqualification: Anti-Takeover Tactic… or Just a Cigar?’ from Erik Krusch, on Westlaw Business Currents, examines some high-profile disqualification suits.

He outlines the legal issues in cases involving Air Products & Chemicals, Airgas and Cravath; and matters between Dow Chemical and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Rohm & Haas, among others.

You can read the full post on Westlaw Business Currents.