Dennis Kennedy

	Web DennisKennedy.com

« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »

May 31, 2005

Barchives.org

One of my favorite people in the legal technology field in Toby Brown at the Utah Bar. Toby sends me the news of his new effort to adapt the blogging approach to the world of bar associations and provide information about the operation of bar associations. It's called Barchives.org (http://www.barchives.org).

The topic may seem a bit esoteric, but, believe me, if Toby and Lincoln Mead are involved, it will have lots of worthwhile information and you will be rewarded for visiting or subscribing to the feed.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog)]

Posted by dmk at 03:26 PM

Sorks and Other Network Varmints Join Worms and Phish as IT Issues to Worry About

I love this article from Network World about the impact real-world animals can have on computer networks. As if there isn't enough to worry about in the electronic world, now we learn of the dangers from rodents, such as the Swedish sork, and other animals to computer and communications systems.

The article brought a tiny tear of nostalgia to my eye because my very first legal technology column ever (for Lawyers Weekly USA) was called "The Case of the Malfunctioning Modem," in which I showed how I applied my Sherlock Holmesian diagnostic techniques to find that a squirrel had chewed up the phone line to my house.

My favorite quote:

"We have to send out service men on a daily basis to take care of the damage being made by the woodpeckers," he says.

The money quote:

"I've actually seen armored cable chewed through."

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/}

Posted by dmk at 03:26 PM

May 26, 2005

William Lind on Cabbages, Kings and Cessnas

Robert Coram’s biography of John Boyd has fuelled my interest in Boyd, OODA loops, military strategies and Fourth Generation warfare. This will come as no surprise to those of you who know that I always list John Robb’s Global Guerillas as one of my favorite blogs.(Well, a blogger has to have some hobbies).

Boyd is considered one of the most brilliant strategists of the recent era and I highly recommend Coram’s book about him.

The good news is that Boyd, now deceased, has a number of colleagues who carry on his tradition. I think that you have to be up to speed on these matters to have a chance of trying to understand our modern world.

A week or so ago, I was talking with a former cop about the recent Cessna incident in Washington, DC air space. No matter how we tried to put some kind of positive gloss on that incident, we failed, and I walked away from the conversation feeling a bit more pessimistic.

William Lind’s essay, Of Cabbages and Kings, helps me understand why the incident and the response to it is disturbing. Lind is one of Boyd’s proteges. As we approach Memorial Day, you might want to set aside a few minutes to read Lind’s essay.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

 

Posted by dmk at 10:09 PM

May 25, 2005

Time for a Visit to Between Lawyers

I'm so proud of what we are doing on the Between Lawyers blog and the attention we are attracting.

Lately we've been revisiting the issues raised by the Creative Commons licenses and asking and answering questions about the whole "blogs for legal marketing" thing.

I'm still such a fan of blogging and have so much respect for the pioneer legal bloggers that it's a thrill to see Denise Howell post on her blog: "My Between Lawyers co-author Dennis Kennedy has been on a roll during the last day or so."

Ah, the intangible rewards of blogging are beyond measure.

Congratulations, too, are in order for Between Lawyers co-author Marty Schwimmer for entering his fourth year with The Trademark Blog. Nobody does blogging better than Marty does.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:52 PM

I Like the Way Matt Handled This One

I know that Matt Homann has agonized for the last few months over an issue involving an old blog posting he made about LegalMatch. The situation was, at many levels, not really of his own making, but it had put him in a tricky spot.

It also made it difficult to make the decision to move LexThink into the business of private conferences (in addition to more public conferences, to be announced soon). With LegalMatch as the first private LexThink customer, it became important for Matt to reach a decision about how to handle his LegalMatch issue.

Matt reached his decision today and publicly announced it today. I really like the decision Matt made and the painstaking and careful process he took to make that decision. He's asked for people to let him know what they think about the decision he made. Let him know.

For me, I'm more pleased than ever to be working with Matt and Sherry on building out the LexThink vision. I might miss the conversations I've had with Matt over the past few months about LegalMatch, but I definitely look forward to the room it will free up to talk more about where LexThink will be going.

DISCLOSURE: To the extent any fee LexThink receives from LegalMatch is not plowed back into LexThink development efforts, I'll be entitled to some share of the fee. I believe that this has no impact whatsoever on the opinions I express in the post, but you should factor it in to your evaluation of what I've said here.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:13 PM

May 24, 2005

A Use of Tablet PCs and OneNote That Caught My Attention

Via Robert Scoble:

Engadget covers some cool uses of Tablet PCs and Microsoft OneNote by Indy 500 teams, showing a way to combine one of my favorite technologies with one of my favorite sporting events.

Have Tablet PC and OneNote, willing to travel to Speedway, Indiana for the weekend.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 10:28 PM

Blogs as Marketing Tools – Drawing a Negative Inference

I've been confused and irritated lately because of the way an "All Request Tuesday" feature I did on my blog has become the poster child for some about the dangers of blogging for lawyers.

In fairness, I expected some criticism for the feature, but not for the reasons some have chosen to use - reasons that often show a lack of understanding about the standard mechanisms of blogs and a surprising willingness to paint with a very broad brush, using some troubling assumptions.

It disturbs me that the comments and questions have a negative effects on other bloggers and probably caused Evan Schaeffer to change his approach to blogging.

Since my blog is designed and intended NOT to be a marketing device for my law practice, it's surprising that people have singled it and me out for criticism on this topic. I expected a backlash against blogs and bloggers in 2005, but I didn't expect that the backlash would hit me, especially for the reasons I've seen and heard.

Ah, well, it gives me something to blog about.

Here's the story.

A few months ago, I realized that I had a bunch of email messages, article excerpts, draft posts and ideas lying around that I was never going to get around to polishing into posts for my blog.

I came up with a couple of ideas. One was to publish them as they were and identify them as "scraps and workshop" in honor of the NRBQ album of tht name. Another was to have an "idea garage sale" a la Matt Homann and publish them by that approach. The other idea was to write a question that introduced each of them and have an "all request" day.

I liked the last approach because it suited the pieces well, had some theatricality to it and might even lead to people sending me requests. And it has.

My concern was that people would see what I was doing and criticize me for pretending to answer "real" questions from my "audience." I decided it was worth the risk, and that it would be fun.

So, over a period of weeks, I put the "all request" day together and had a whole set of posts collected in a Word document.

On the appointed day, I sent the posts out over the course of the day, trying to give the illusion that people couldn't stop asking me questions. The people I talked to seemed to get the joke, and there was a lot of good material in those posts that would still be sitting on my hard drive if I hadn't taken that approach.

I ended up getting some questions from readers that I've answered on other Tuesdays.

Lately, I've become aware that my effort has raised fundamental concerns about the use of blogging by lawyers.

How so, you ask?

Let me try to describe the concern. Apparently I am a better writer than I thought I was, because a good number of people seem to have thought that I spent the day answering questions from my incredibly enthusiastic audience. The key clue – they studied carefully the times of my posts!

For the record, I've never paid attention to the times of anyone's posts. As most bloggers know, the time of posting and the time of writing can be hours, days or even months apart. Some bloggers even set up automatic posting at future dates and times (what I might well have done for that "all request" day if I had gotten around to learning how to do that).

So, I now find that people have taken two fundamental misapprehensions – that I was actually answering questions in real time and not publishing "old inventory" and that I was writing and publishing in real time – and jumped to the conclusions that (1) I spent the entire day blogging, (2) I spend all day every day blogging, and (3) most disturbing, they are concerned that I am not serving my legal clients. Some have even written about this without bothering to check with me.

Whoa! I hope that they put more effort into research and logic with their legal work than they did in constructing that argument.

They have gone on to raise the question whether a lawyer who blogs can devote adequate time to doing legal work.

I can't believe that I have to make the effort to explain this stuff, but here are a few things to think about. Please excuse me for taking the liberty of combining some of the questions and comments I have heard and making the kinds of generalizations people seem comfortable using when discussing bloggers. In other words, I may be using rhetorical techniques like hyperbole to make my points. As I said, I'm irritated by all of this.

1. In St. Louis, many lawyers have season tickets to Cardinals baseball games. If you factor in time spent watching away games on television, playoff games, and the like, a lawyer might well spend 800 to 1,000 hours a year in baseball-related time. Where is the vocal criticism of the devastating impact of this common activity in keeping a lawyer from servicing clients or generating enough billable hours? Writing 3 to 5 blog posts a week might take a couple of hours a week. How am I supposed to take the comments about blogging and its negative impact on lawyers seriously?

2. When you live in the world of billable hours, you put a price on your time, not a value. I'm surprised that these critics do not raise the issue of elimination of sleep – a fundamentally unproductive use of billable time.

3. It probably will come as no surprise that, as someone well-known throughout my career for meeting deadlines (and getting things done quickly and early), that the insinuation that I am ignoring clients to blog irritates me greatly. I haven't checked the ethics rules, but I do know that those kinds of unfounded and unconfirmed comments about other lawyers are corrosive and destructive to the profession in general. I can only be responsible for the way that I manage the expectations of my clients, not for the way that you manage the expectations of your clients. Believe it or not, I might not practice law, or live my life, like you do or you seem to want me to do.

4. I left my old law firm to practice law on a part-time basis and to leave the world of accounting for my life in 6-minute billable increments. If I were still in that world, I might not blog in the same way I do now. I'm still confused why people hold me to the same standards as those who are most immersed in that world. I'm trying not to be like them.

5. I'm willing to take the chance that my clients and others out there like them are more interested in finding someone with my personality, my interests and my approach than they are a totally law-focused billing machine. I've grown to believe that many of the problems we face are made more difficult to resolve because of lawyers who focus on legal issues without a consideration of broader issues.

6. So what even if I would have taken a day to concentrate on blogging all day long? Who cares? I don’t raise hell when you spend a day golfing. In fact, I'd encourage you to take a day off to get out to the links to release a little of that pressure you seem to be under lately.

7. I've said this hundreds of times: I started my blog as a writing experiment. That's what it is and what it is about. It's not an advertisement for my law practice nor is it intended to be. I know what a blog to market a law practice should be like and it's not what my blog is. No one ever believes me about my blog being an experiment in writing, but that's what it is. I woke up one day with 300 publications, decided I was a writer, and decided that to keep things interesting I wanted to write in new ways and see if I could develop a new audience. A blog was the perfect vehicle. I can't understand why people don't want to believe me about that.

8. I think that the critiques show more about the psychology of the critics than it does about anything else. I've tended to find that the people most concerned about others goofing off and not taking care of their clients are the ones with the most problems in those areas. I'm not being critical of anyone, just making a general observation – just like they did about me.

9. I don’t bother you, so why are you bothering me? Why didn’t you ask me a few questions directly before jumping in with both guns blazing on a subject you know way too little about and then painting all legal bloggers with a negative broad brush.

10. Back to work. To what client are you planning to bill the time you spent reading this post and thinking about a reply? Not implying anything – just raising an issue for discussion. As you might say to me, nothing personal.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:52 PM

An Abundance of Electronic Discovery Resources

Julia Wotipka at DiscoveryResources.org told me about the growing collection of free podcasts (webinar downloads) on electronic discovery topics now available at http://www.fiosinc.com/events/podcasts.html. Discovery Resources.org is the premier collection of resources on electronic discovery now available on the Internet. As an example, here's a PDF on the site with the proposed electronic discovery amendments to the Federal Rules.

If you like audio / webinar programming on electronic discovery, don't forget about Merrill's excellent collection of free short topical programs on specific electronic discovery topics at http://www.merrillcorp.com/law/. You'll notice several of my programs available there.

The best article I've read on practical electronic discovery issues is called A Gold Mine of Electronic Discovery Expertise: A Conversation Among Veterans of Electronic Discovery Battles and it is currently featured in the May "Best of" issue of Law Practice Today.

Mary Mack's Sound Evidence blog is the newest of the electronic discovery blogs that I've seen. It's definitely worth a look - see her coverage of the recent Morgan Stanley decision.

Want to learn a heckuva lot more about electronic discovery? Consider my new half-day seminar called Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery for your firm, corporate legal department or other group.

[Originally published on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 04:29 PM

May 19, 2005

Bert Stern, Teacher and Dennis Kennedy, Student

This post is dedicated to Evan Schaeffer.

Evan Schaeffer wrote eloquently about his teacher Walter Ong in a post unfortunately obscured by the interest generated by the change in the name of his blog.

The post helped me understand and appreciate what Evan is trying to do with his blog, his approach to writing, his immense talent as a writer, and the gift of having a great and influential teacher. Forget about the discussion of changing the name of Evan's blogs and blogs as lawyer marketing tools - the post on Walter Ong is the post from Evan that you should be paying attention to.

As I've , Bert Stern is the kind of teacher for me that Ong was for Evan. Evan's post and Bert's recent essay called Being Here prompted me to dig back through my archives and pull out an essay I wrote in 1997 on the occasion of Bert's retirement.

+++++++

Bert is fond of the Eastern saying: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." So am I.

Twenty years ago, I was a sophomore math major who had just learned that Bert would be my professor in my second semester of the required "Cultures and Traditions" class. I received a number of vague warnings about Bert from my frat brothers, mainly about the possibility of a downward movement in my g.p.a. I was a bit wary, but never expected how the next three semesters would rock my world.

What I remember about that C&T class is how day after day Bert opened doors, finding clear connections between things that once seemed to have no connection. His classes were the most challenging and powerful presentations I'd ever experienced and every day I thanked Wabash's random number generator for assigning me to his class.

I spent many hours over the next three semesters (Bert was on sabbatical in my senior year) sitting in Bert's office, talking away the afternoons. Bert invited me to take English 97, the course for junior majors, as my very first English course. I struggled that semester with thoughts of big issues, punk rock and of the inadequacy of my math classes to give voice to what I needed to express.

I remember one afternoon when Bert and I talked at length about Yeats and, as I rose to go, Bert said, "So, when are we going to get you to be an English major?" I was one class away from meeting the math major requirement. I would have to take eight or nine English classes in the next three semesters to become an English major. I took the path to the English major.

I did most of my best work at Wabash for Bert, although usually on the second try. Bert is a great editor. He's very hard to please, but you gradually realize that he's not working to get you to please him, but to please yourself, to raise your own level of excellence.

In English 97, Bert suggested that I do a paper on Yeats and I immersed myself in the process, reading everything I could find and talking to Bert on a regular basis. I wrote a draft of the paper and gave it to Bert.

I remember his disappointment with that draft. Not that it wasn't good in its way, but that it could have been better.

I walked back to the fraternity house, mulling over his comments. I sat down in my room and then began to write. For a period of six or eight hours, I kept writing, without a pause, completely re-doing the whole paper. I typed it up and knew that I was much closer to the real paper that had been inside of me.

I gave that paper to Bert, and the smile I saw after he read it let me know that it was much closer to the paper he had seen inside me and that he saw the enormous step I had taken.

Bert and I have stayed in touch ever since Wabash and we were talking, by e-mail, before his retirement event. He has a friend who is a shaman from Central America and they had been talking about the need for ritual and ceremony at a point of transition like a retirement. Typical of Bert, the ceremony he was thinking of involved the sacrifice of a large farm animal.

But it also called for the exchange of small gifts which had special meaning. As those who attended the event know, the Department gave everyone a copy of Bert's "Little Poem" on hand-made paper. I gave Bert a bound copy of the Yeats paper.

The animals made it through the event safely.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog)]

Posted by dmk at 05:31 PM

Bert Stern, Being Here and Communities of Trust

Bert Stern is the most influential teacher in my life. So much of what I try to do flows out of what I learned from and with him as a college student and through a 25 year correspondence.

I want to share with you a recent essay by Bert that appeared in the newest issue of Wabash Magazine. It's called Being Here and captures something essential about Bert and what it takes to create a life that has meaning. It was a joy for me to read and I sincerely hope that you take the time to read it as well. Trust me on this one.

There is a phrase Bert uses in the essay, "community of trust," that captures perfectly an idea I've been working toward over the last few years. I often use the term "communities of interest," but that never felt quite right. "Communities of trust" describes it perfectly.

It won't surprise you that Bert is someone I've been trying to edge closer to the idea of blogging.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 05:13 PM

May 18, 2005

Coast to Coast and Back

Whew, I'm back from back-to-back trips to DisneyWorld (ABA Law Practice Management Section meeting) and Palm Springs for the Marcus Evans Legal Technology Summit (my favorite non-LexThink conference of the year). Reflections on those events will be forthcoming, but I had a great and quite productive time.

It was also a grand blogger tour. I got to co-present with fellow Between Lawyers blogger pal Denise Howell and spend time in board meeting and DisneyWorld rides with fellow Between Lawyers blogger pal Tom Mighell. I also got to spend time with blogging pals Fred Faulkner, Jim Calloway, Reid Trautz and Ed Poll.

My wife and daughter thought DisneyWorld was our best vacation trip yet. As I think about walking out of the Magic Kingdom after the fireworks and several rides on Space Mountain with my wife, daughter and Fred Faulkner, and seeing Mickey Mouse wishing everyone a goodnight, I have to agree.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 11:22 PM

May 16, 2005

RMail - Receive the Feed for This Blog Via Email

I'm such a big fan of RSS and newsreaders (I use FeedDemon) that I sometimes forget that not all of the readers of DennisKennedy.Blog use a newsreader or consume the RSS feed rather than visiting the blog on a regular basis.

RMail from KBCafe is a new service that allows you to enter the URL for the feed for this blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/index.xml) and your email address, and you will automatically receive my new posts by email. I still recommend using a newsreader, but this will give you an email option for subscribing to my RSS feeds and blog posts.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 10:52 AM

May 13, 2005

Discussing Legal Advertising Ethics

I kicked off a discussion about the current state of the ethics rules for legal advertising rules over on Between Lawyers. My initial remarks are discussed in a number of follow-up posts and comments. It all makes for a good discussion of these issues and I recommend the entire thread to you.

In the best and worst category, I'll note that the substantive comments made me think even harder about enabling comments on this blog, while a wavelet of comment spam made me wonder if enablng comments would really be a wise move.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 03:26 PM

May 10, 2005

Talking About KM in Law Firms

Knowledge management is definitely one of the areas of legal technology where I feel like I don't get as many opportunities to speak, write and work as much as I would really like. It's a topic I really enjoy and some of the most gratifying responses to my work have come in the area of KM.

So, it was a nice treat today to get the chance to talk with one of my favorite writers who covers KM, Judy Lamont of KM World, about current trends and developments in KM in the legal profession for an article that will appear this summer.

My take on the subject is that there are a lot of new developments giving the area more momentum than many people expect. The reason can be summed up in two words: "practical applications."

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

New for 2005 - Dennis Kennedy's electronic discovery seminar - Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery

Posted by dmk at 10:02 PM

May 09, 2005

Never Too Early to Think About ABA TECHSHOW 2006

In a few days, I'll be rolling up my sleeves to start work with the rest of the TECHSHOW board on planning TECHSHOW 2006. 2006 will mark the 20th anniversary of the ABA TECHSHOW.

I know that the question on your mind is: "how can I make Dennis's job on the TECHSHOW board a little easier?"

Well, I have three answers for you:

1. If you have ideas for session topics, send them to me (denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com).

2. If you have ideas for speakers (including yourself), send them to me (along with some supporting info) (denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com).

3. If you or your company wants to learn more about sponsorship and exhibitor options, let me know (denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com).

Ideas for sessions will be the most useful to me right now.

Thanks for your help.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 10:05 PM

Tablet PC Train Keeps a-Rollin' - The Law Practice Version

From Doug Sorocco of the rethink(ip) crew comes his story of his recent experimentation with a Tablet PC and the noteworthy list of uses he has found for the Tablet PC.

Doug makes an observation that all IP and technology lawyers should think about carefully:

"IP lawyers spend most of their time in the trenches with technology and science innovators (well, at least they should be) – any tool that improves interaction and communication is well worth incorporating into the mix."

For my recent thoughts on Tablet PCs, see this TechnoFeature at TechnoLawyer.com.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:55 PM

Hot Property - The Book and the Whole IP Debate

I was at my public library the other day and found a new book called Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization, by Pat Choate.

I recommend the book for your summer reading list on intellectual property because it tells so well the stories that led to the evolution of today's approaches to intellectual property protection.

Although I suspect that most peoples' reaction to this book will reflect their political persuasion, this review in Business Week strikes me as a fair one, even though I think that the reviewer underestimates the final third of the book, in which Choate suggests that the U.S. textile industry (and perhaps a million jobs) was sacrificed to an attempt, as yet unsuccessful, to bring the world to a more United States-like regime of intellectual property protection.

I'll note the following:

1. You'll be hard pressed to find a more thorough and well-stated defense of strong intellectual property laws. The most interesting question is, given that, will you find it convincing?

2. You'll get just a hint that our IP laws favor businesses that own IP rather than individual inventors.

3. You'll notice that the stories of inventors we got in school left out all of the most interesting parts of the stories.

4. You'll question the sanity of an approach to IP law that throws lots of resources and effort at high school and college students sharing music files when billions of dollars worth of IP is systematically pirated in other countries.

5. You'll wonder, if just for a moment, whether our government has been involved in the biggest giveaway of this country's intellectual property legacy while our representatives busily work to earn the contributions of the entertainment industry.

It will make you think, and that's a good thing. Put this one on your summer reading list.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:24 PM

May 05, 2005

Hey, It's Dennis Kennedy's First Podcast - Reflections on LexThink

With a big thank you Zane Safrit of ConferenceCalls Unlimited, I've made my podcasting debut.

Zane, who attended the first LexThink conference, enjoyed the conference so much that he did a series of podcast interviews with the LexThink founders, Matt Homann, Sherry Fowler and me.

Zane has put together a way to create podcasts that is so simple that even Matt Homann was able to figure out how to do it. Seriously, though, we recorded the podcast via a phone call and then Zane's tech people processed it. Conference Calls Unlimited is also hosting the podcast and they sent me the original .wav file. It all was produced, performed and went live in about 24 hours. It could not have been easier. And Zane is a gracious host and interviewer.

Here's the best part for would-be podcasters like me - Zane will do the hosting for your podcasts, too! No more fears of the $3,000 web hosting bill for bandwidth usage the first month you launch a podcast. This is exactly the type of service I've been looking for since I first thought about podcasting.

I had a great time talking with Zane in the pre-interview and I hope that some of that feeling carries through in the podcast. I think that I covered the whole waterfront in terms of what we talked about, from LexThink to infinity and beyond. If you listen to the set of podcasts from Matt, Sherry and me, you'll get a great insider's view of LexThink, what it's like to collaborate on a big when people don't live in the same place, and the thought process involved in trying to decide what the next step should be after something like LexThink. And, if you do listen to these podcasts and have some ideas for where we can take LexThink, by all means send them to me.

I like Zane's post about the interview with me because it makes me seem so learned and erudite. Unfortunately, I think I trash that image in the first few minutes with a mention of the A-Team TV show.

Take a listen. I didn't hold much back and had a lot of fun, so I hope you enjoy it. If you are podcasting, or thinking about podcasting, get in touch with Zane to talk to him about the podcasting services he'll be providing.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:12 PM

May 04, 2005

Between Lawyers - Multiple Views of the Future of Legal Blogging

OK, I'm probably a little biased, but I'm a big fan of the Between Lawyers blog.

Over the past few days, we used the blog to create a roundtable discussion article about the future of legal blogging. Reading the posts and the comments will give you some good ideas about where all this blawg stuff might be taking us. The article is done, but you can still join in the discussion by posting comments.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 11:23 PM

Bizz Bang Buzz - Great Bizz Info

Anthony Cerminaro's blog Bizz Bang Buzz (feed) is a great example of a lawyer blog that consistently bring you great practical information. It's also a good model for a way you can use a blog to provide useful info that your clients and other lawyers will appreciate - guaranteeing that they will keep you in mind.

Recent postings for just one day included items on questionable employee interview questions, tips for managing a patent portfolio, a summary of business changes in the new bankruptcy act, the Sedona Guidelines for managing information and records, passion and business plan cover sheets. All of it was great. The title fits.

Highly recommended.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 11:10 PM

May 03, 2005

David Coursey Explains Recent Military PDF Fiasco

You have to be careful with electronic documents or you might get surprised by the surprises in them.

The most recent example comes from the U.S. military's recent embarrassment after giving the media a redacted version of a PDF document that wasn't properly prepared and secured, leaving the blacked out portions quite revealable. Oops.

David Coursey's article, U.S. Military's PDF Fiasco Was Avoidable, gives a crystal clear explanation of how the problem arose and, even better, what you can do to avoid the problem. Highly recommended reading.

A few days ago, I was working on a Word document prepared by someone else. When I tried to save a copy, I got the alert that the document contained tracked changes. You haven't turned on that setting in Word? Shame, shame, shame. I checked to see what was causing the alert and found the document contained headers prominently using the word "CONFIDENTIAL" and clearly came from a document previously done for a third party. Oops. Fortunately for the author(s), this did not happen in a legal document, but it was embarrasing.

The next day, someone who knows all about these issues sent me a set of PowerPoint slides whose document properties indicated an author with a different name. Oops.

It's probably impossible to completely prevent these types of things from happening, but a few changes to your settings and a little training can go a long way.

I'd like to tell you what settings to change and other steps to take, but then I wouldn't have as much fun when you sent documents, would I?

Read the Coursey article. That's a mistake that you don't want to make and one that is all too easy to make.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 02:15 PM

May 02, 2005

ANNOUNCEMENT - My New Electronic Discovery Seminar Offering

Here's the essential information about a new half-day electronic discovey seminar I'm offering:

Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery:
Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery

Many electronic discovery seminars are impossibly technical or deal only with zillion dollar cases with terabytes of information. This seminar focuses on the practicing lawyer who knows that electronic discovery is coming and wants to learn what he or she realistically has to do to be prepared and take advantage of opportunities.

Dennis Kennedy is highly regarded as an electronic discovery authority who can explain the topic in "ways that practicing lawyers can understand."

This seminar is designed to make your transition to electronic discovery easier. In this half-day seminar, your group will receive a solid grounding in the practical and technical issues that matter most to litigators. Kennedy will highlight the key issues that you must understand to make a successful transition into an era of litigation where electronic discovery becomes the norm, not the exception.

By the end of the seminar, you will have a good understanding of:

• Basic tools and approaches used in electronic discovery and whether they apply to your cases
• Offensive and defensive uses of electronic discovery and new opportunities
• A solid set of simple strategies and tactics for taking your first (or later) steps into the daunting world of electronic discovery
• Practical ideas for making your life easier, winning more cases and keeping your clients happy

The seminar is divided into two sections. The first covers some necessary computer forensics fundamentals. The second takes a look at what electronic discovery will mean for you in your practice.

Part 1. Overview and Computer Forensics that Matter to Practicing Lawyers

• Paper Rules Collide with an Increasingly Digital World
• A Little Knowledge is a Whole Lot of Dangerous
• Is Every Step You Take Traceable?
• Copies Everywhere – How Windows and Other Programs Make Lots of Copies of Everything
• The Potentially Embarrassing World of Metadata
• The Many Places Information is Kept Today
• Is a Computer Forensics Expert Always Required?
• Making Good Decisions About Computer Forensics

Part 2. Transitioning to Electronic Discovery

• What is the Current Landscape in Electronic Discovery? A Billion Dollar Business?
• It’s Not a Pretty Picture When Paper Rules and the Digital World Collide, Is It?
• When Should Electronic Discovery be Considered?
• Strategic and Tactical Planning
• It’s a Team Game – Making Good Decisions about Getting Good Help
• Observations and Predictions
• Best Tips and Action Steps

Standard Package Presentation, plus handout materials. $5,000 (plus reasonable travel fee, if applicable).

Premier Package. Presentation, plus handout materials, extended question-and-answer period, right to audiotape and/or videotape session with license to use for your internal business purposes. $10,000 (plus reasonable travel fee, if applicable).

Terms: 50% of fee due with agreement, balance due on date of presentation. 10% discount for full payment in advance.

For more information and scheduling, call 314-963-9798.

For a preview of Dennis Kennedy's approach to these topics, visit one or more of his free on-demand electronic discovery presentations provided by Merrill Corporation.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:31 PM

New Blogs Begin to Bloom from LexThink

Pat Lamb, one of the attendees of our first LexThink conferences, has launched two new blogs inspired, he says, by the discussions of blogging at LexThink.

The first relates to his law practice and is called Legacy Liabilities (http://patricklamb.typepad.com/legacyliabilities/). It's a good example of using a blog to cover a niche area of practice.

The second blog is called Perfect Service (http://patricklamb.typepad.com/perfectservice/). It focuses on law practice issues. Pat's anecdotal style and wise counsel a must-subscribe addition to the 2005 bumper crop of blogs covering law practice issues.

Be sure to check out Pat's blogs. Maybe they'll inspire you to consider blogging.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:14 PM

Previewing Firm360

One of the fun things I've been able to do this year, even though I usually can't write about it, is to get the grand tour of some new legal tech programs and services that are still in beta testing.

Thanks to Doug Hoover and Kyle Christensen I got a Webex look at Thomson's new Firm360 service that will be unveiled later this year and permission to write a little bit about it.

To the extent that category descriptions are useful, Firm360 will be Thomson's entry into the world of competitive intelligence, market intelligence or one of the other catchphrases for this area of information services.

However, I don't like to get too hung up on categories.

What I saw was a service that can give a lawyer or a law firm the kinds of information I've always wanted to have about my firm, competitor firms, clients and potential clients to make solid business decisions based on facts and not speculation.

Of course, the service gives you access to a combination of Thomson and public databases, but what got my attention is the way you can look at information in a variety of different and useful ways, look at trends as well as details and put information together in ways that actually help you make decisions.

At the end of the demo, Doug and I were talking about getting "actionable intelligence," which, of course, is as incomprehensible a term as "competitive intelligence" or "knowledge management." However, by the end of a demo, you might appreciate why we thought that term really explained the benefits of what I saw.

One of the most interesting applications of this service is to take advantage of easy-to-produce reports to provide exactly the kinds of information that corporate counsel are always saying they want. The ability to quickly assemble reports in a few minutes that might take a hundred or more hours to produce by hand is very attractive to me and will probably catch the attention of law librarians and others who are now producing these types of reports.

Firm360 has a website, but the offering is really more at an alpha, not even a beta, stage. Doug Hoover, Director of Marketing for Firm360, is the person to contact if you want to get more information about this service.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 09:01 PM