Dennis Kennedy

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January 27, 2006

Do You Have Any More Good Resources about What Lawyers Need to Know about Metadata in Documents?

I've found two good articles on metadata this week that I wanted to highlight.

The first is an excellent, detailed article by Craig Ball called "Understanding Metadata" that goes into many of the specific details about metadata in Microsoft Office documents, as well as explaining two descriptive categories of metadata - system metadata and application data. If you want a great "under the hood" look at metadata, this article is the place to start. Evan Schaeffer is also a fan of the article.

The second article focuses more on the evidentiary and procedural rules and case law to-date addressing metadata issues. It's called "Uncertain and Unseen" by Todd Nunn, of Preston Gates, and a great primer on these issues.

For a good overview primer that points you to some good resources, I still like the Thinking E-discovery column called "Mining the Value from Metadata" that Tom Mighell, Evan Schaeffer and I wrote about a month ago.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Technorati tags: electronic discovery metadata

Posted by dmk at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

When and Where is the Blogger Meetup at LegalTech NY?

Tom Mighell and I have put together the details for the Sunday evening blogger meetup we're putting together while we are in New York for the LegalTech conference.

This is going out to everyone who expressed interest in meeting up (bloggers or otherwise) on Sunday night in NYC. Rather than try to find a restaurant that would fit all of us, we decided that you're on your own for dinner. Let's meet for drinks at 8:00 p.m. at the Hilton New York's Bridge Bar. The address is 1335 Avenue of the Americas. It's just off the lobby. The Hilton is where LegalTech will be held, so hopefully you'll all be somewhere in the neighborhood. See you Sunday night!

There's no need to RSVP for the meetup, but you can let Tom or me know that you will be joining us so we can look for you. My guess right now is that there will be ten to twenty people there, but we'll be happy to have as many people join us as are available. And, no, you don't have to be a blogger (or a legal blogger) - just pretend that you are thinking about starting a blog.

Just a reminder that I'll be speaking about Top Trends in Electronic Discovery Technology on Tuesday, January 31 at 3:30 PM as the guest of my friends at Caselogistix.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Posted by dmk at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)

How Do You Think Nonprofits Can Benefit from Blogs and RSS?

Marshall Kirkpatrick interviewed me via Skype IM last night about this question and a wide range of other technology, blogging, RSS, OPML, legal and nonprofit questions. It was a lot of fun.

He's posted the interview, Communication, Law and Web 2.0, on the Netsquared.org site, where there is a lot of great stuff happening at the intersection of nonprofits and technology, including a cool upcoming conference.

I encourage you to read the interview, of course, but I also hope that you spend some time on the site and see what they are doing and whether there might be ways that you can help.

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) - The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! - Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization.

Posted by dmk at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2006

Was That Just Your One Thousandth Blog Post I Saw?

Hey, it was! That's cool. One thousand posts. As some wags who think I write long posts might say, "That must be, what, five million words?"

The third anniversary (or, as some bloggers like to say, the start of my fourth year of blogging) is fast approaching. Since my blog's birthday is quite close to my birthday, I'm thinking over having another blawgiversary event on my blog this year. Details to come.

Speaking of birthdays . . . earlier this week I became an uncle again, time two, when my wife's sister and my brother-in-law, Mike and Maureen McLean, became the parents of twins, Ava and Marissa. Everyone is still in the hospital, but it sounds like all is going well. Pretty exciting.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Posted by dmk at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

Can You Tell Us More About the "Surviving the Email Avalanche" Webinar You're Speaking at on February 14?

Surviving the Email Avalanche is a "must-hear" teleconference and webinar presented by the Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association on February 14, 2006. The details are available at http://www.abanet.org/litigation/cle/02_14_06.html.

Todd Flaming, Ted Banks, Nancy Flynn and I will be your faculty presenters. To be honest, with this group even the preliminary brainstorming conference we had was highly educational - I learned quite a few new things.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen wrote in 1999 that, when surveyed, everyone said that they were overwhelmed by the amount of email they received - whether it was 10 or 100 emails a day. Nielesen said, "No matter how much email you get, it is too much and too stressful - and you are behind in dealing with it." Isn't it quaint to think back to 1999 when 100 emails seemed like a lot?

In the session, we are going to take a highly practical approach and offer you ideas for dealing with your overflowing inbox at the personal, organizational and policy levels. You will get some great ideas and nothing will help you more with your personal productivity than getting your email under control.

So, get on over the registration site and see if you can attend. We'd definitely enjoy having you be part of the audience.

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) - The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! - Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization.

Posted by dmk at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2006

Did You Write a New White Paper about Lawyers and Time-keeping?

Sharp eyes. Thanks for noticing. Yes, if you go to the AIRTIME-Manager website, you can get a free download of a white paper I wrote on the idea of "time capture" and ways time-keeping and time sheets can be handled in ways that work the ways lawyers work.

Interestingly, this was the first white paper I've done. I've recently had several companies approach me about whether I'd write white papers for them. I've really enjoyed my experience doing this and I definitely welcome inquiries about doing more of this type of writing.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Technorati tag: legal technology

Posted by dmk at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)

How is the Relationship between Lawyers and IT Departments Changing Because of Web 2.0 and Other Developments?

I've really been enjoying the SLAW blog lately and recommend that you check it out.

Here's a great example why. Patrick Cormier writes a post called "The Uneasy Lawyer and IT Dialogue" that gives us much to think about in the dynamic of the lawyer-IT relationship and how Web 2.0 (or Law 2.0) concepts affect that relationship. Highly recommended.

The money quote:

Web 2.0 matters for the legal profession, because it promotes an information environment in which lawyers can simplify access to material of precedential value. The difficulty consists in selecting and optimizing the right mix of these technologies; finding how to leverage them and especially how to carefully deploy them within an integrated information management (IM) framework.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Technorati tags: law2.0 web 2.0

Posted by dmk at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2006

Can You Recommend a Good Introduction to Web 2.0 Tools for Lawyers?

Jim Calloway has a great new article called The "Next Generation" of the Internet? - Web 2.0, that gently introduces lawyers to the ideas and potential of Web 2.0 tools and concepts. Highly recommended.

Jim also recommends two introductory articles that I had a hand in - Does Web 2.0 Point Us Toward Law 2.0? and The Strongest Links: Web 2.0.

I learned that Jim is finally going to fulfill his longtime wish to attend LegalTech New York. I'm definitely looking forward to spending some time with Jim there.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Technorati tags: law2.0 legal technology

Posted by dmk at 08:55 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

What Are Some Good Ideas for Updating a Law Firm Website?

I just read some great ideas on updating law firm websites from Fred Faulkner, one of my favorite people to work with (especially after the two years or so we worked together on Law Practice Today). Fred knows his stuff - he's now the webmaster for the American Bar Association.

I recently got the chance to co-present with Fred (and Kevin O'Keefe - anyone else think that Kevin looks like Jack Bauer on 24 in his picture on his blog?) at BlawgThink, which was a lot of fun for me - and I learned a lot.

Fred has started a new column called "Faulkner's Practical Web Strategies for Attorneys" on LLRX.com.

This month's column is called "New Year's Resolution: Update Your Website." It takes you through some great ideas for updating your website in the easy, moderate and difficult categories. Read the article and pass along a copy to your web designer. Great job, Fred.

I'm the process of putting together a couple of simple flat-fee website and blog consulting packages that will focus on improving content and the overall success of law firm websites and blogs. Let me know if you might be interested in learning more about the packages.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Posted by dmk at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)

Caselogistix and Affiliate Marketing Links

As I've mentioned, my friends at Caselogistix are bringing me to LegalTech NY next week to speak about trends and predictions in electronic discovery. I hope to see you there. I did a run-through of the presentation today and was pleased with how it is turning out.

As I've learned more about Caselogistix, I've become intrigued about how this tool fits into the whole litigation management / electronic discovery field. If your practice concentrates in these areas, you'll definitely want to do some research to see if it fits your specific needs. I like their tagline: "Litigation software so easy to use, lawyers actually use it."

As part of a new experiment on this blog for 2006, I'm trying out an affiliate marketing link on this blog that is designed to produce a small commission for purchases of Caselogistix use the affiliate link. Essentially, I'll be doing with Caselogistix exactly what I do with book links through the Amazon Associates program.

You would be correct if you assume that I get a lot of requests to mention products on my blog or put links in the Legal Technology Central Section of my website. I'm looking at affiliate marketing arrangements as a reasonable economic approach to handling those requests. I'm interested in your feedback on that approach.

So, I encourage you to learn more about Caselogistix by using this link:

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Posted by dmk at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)

How Can Web 2.0 Help 24 and Jack Bauer Fans?

Brad Feld points to the JackTracker, a way to track Jack Bauer's activities on 24 using Google Maps. If you are a 24 fan, this app will give you a nice example of what a Web 2.0 app is.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Posted by dmk at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2006

Will NSA's Guide to Dealing with Word Metadata and PDFs Give You All the Help You Need?

As the report says, it should work. Ahem.

Lots of people are linking to the NSA's Redacting with Confidence: How to Safely Publish Sanitized Reports Converted From Word to PDF. I especially like Ed Bott's reaction to the guide, which points out a few concerns you might keep in mind if you plan to rely on the guide's content.

Bott highlights the following quote from the guide:

The following steps were tested with MS Word 2000 and Acrobat 5.0 and 6.0. Other recent versions should work similarly.

The money quote from Bott:

"Should work similarly"? That doesn't give me a lot of confidence. If you're going to go to the trouble of producing a definitive set of guidelines for such a crucial subject, why use only one seven-year-old version of Word? How long could it have taken to test these procedures with Word 2002 (from Office XP) and Word 2003 (from Office 2003)? And why not give it a run-through with Acrobat 7.0, the current version?

Caveat emptor. Take advantage of the good information, but be wary of relying only on this guide, especially if you routinely use current versions of software.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Technorati tags: electronic discovery

Posted by dmk at 10:58 AM | Comments (1)

How Do I Trace an Email?

Raven on Onimoto has posted a step-by-step explanation, with screen shots, that covers the basics of tracing the paths of emails back to their senders. You can run into the need to trace emails in any number of situations. Keep this helpful guide handy.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Technorati tags: electronic discovery email tracing

Posted by dmk at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2006

How Can I Learn More About Using Adobe Acrobat in the Legal Profession?

Rick Borstein at Adobe, who writes the very informative and useful Acrobat for Legal Professionals blog, let me know about the Adobe Acrobat Legal Forum - St. Louis hosted by ILTA and Adobe Systems on January 25.

The agenda includes:

Leverage Acrobat and PDF for eFiling, Archiving, eBriefs, Accessibility and Security. Create PDF Files from Office Applications such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Internet Explorer. Assemble an eBrief in Acrobat including Citings and Hyperlinks. Convert Microsoft Outlook eMail Folders to PDF. Roundtrip Comments from Acrobat to MS Word. Discover New Acrobat and Adobe PDF Trends in Legal Services.

To get more information and register online, go to http://www.regonline.com/87961. Registered!

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Posted by dmk at 09:28 PM | Comments (1)

Welcoming DiscoveryResources.org and Fios as Sponsors

I'm so pleased to welcome DiscoveryResources.org, the premier electronic discovery resource center on the Internet, as a new sponsor of DennisKennedy.Blog. In addition, Fios, a leading electronic discovery service provider, will be sponsoring the Legal Technology Central section of my website, which I am now in the process of updating and adding resources and new pages.

Please take a look at what's going on at DiscoveryResources.org and Fios by clicking on the sponsor banners when you see them.

I'm so pleased to see legal technology vendors seeing the potential of using blogs as a way to reach their target audiences and am pleased to be associated with an innovative and forward-looking company like Fios.

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

Posted by dmk at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2006

Will I See You at Legal Tech NY?

Well, I certainly hope so.

Thanks to my friends at Caselogistix, who bringing me out to speak about trends and predictions in electronic discovery, I'll be attending the big Legal Tech NY legal technology conference/show in just over a week from now.

I'm so enthused about getting the chance to attend the show and see what's new in legal technology and meet tons of people I don't get to see often enough.

I'll be speaking on Tuesday, January 31 in the afternoon and would enjoy getting a nice audience for the session.

Otherwise, I'll be around the exhibit floor, probably walking around with Tom Mighell. You might hear Tom and I mention the new podcast series we are planning.

You are also likely to hear some more details about a new LexThink event that Matt has been hinting about.

Tom, Marty "The Trademark Blog" Schwimmer and I (all of us are at the Between Lawyers blog) are also looking to pull together a lightly-coordinated blogger meet-up while we are there. If you are interested in joining us, let us know (it's probably best, and safest, to let Tom know - he's the best organizer of this group - by far).

If you are a reader of my blog, then I'd love to meet you. We can try to set something up in advance, if you'd like, but I hate to get too much on the calendar. If you see me, even if I seem to be busy, please tap me on the shoulder and say hello.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Technorati tags: legal technology electronic discovery

Posted by dmk at 07:55 PM | Comments (1)

January 17, 2006

Do You Have a Single PDF File with All of Your Articles You Republished on Your Blog at the End of Last Year?

Why, yes, I do have one handy PDF file with all forty of my articles I republished by posting them on my blog between October and December 2005. It even has each of the forty articles bookmarked for easy navigation.

Here's the URL: http://www.denniskennedy.com/pdfs/dkblogarticlesarchive.pdf

As you may recall, I posted the articles as a way to put them into my Movable Type blog database and get them into one convenient place.

There are forty articles in the collection. They range from 1997 to 2005 and cover both legal technology and technology law topics. That's not all of my articles, but I wanted to get a generous number of them up on my website and freely available again. I believe that I was able to clean up all of the strange characters that Word introduced into the posts when preparing the PDF file.

For those who don't like PDF files, remember that all of the articles are available in HTML in the articles archive of this blog. See the archive listing in the right-hand column.

This PDF file will let you read them at your leisure or print them out for offline reading. If while reading them, you get the urge to talk to me about hiring me to do some consulting, speaking or writing for you, that'd be great. Please get in touch. I'm also happy to talk with you about reprinting the articles or licensing them for other uses. And, of course, I always enjoy getting feedback on the articles. It was fun (and satisfying) to see some of the articles get a new life with a new audience when I posted them on my blog.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Technorati tag: legal technology

Posted by dmk at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2006

Why is Martin Luther King Day One of Your Favorite Holidays?

As I've written before, I have some historical reasons for considering Martin Luther King Day as one of my favorite holidays. I was also thinking today that this is a reflective holiday, one that allows you some welcome time to reflect after the hustle and bustle of the Christmas / New Year's / winter holiday season.

For 2006, I thought I'd note the day by linking to some of the posts on the day that I especially enjoyed from people like Dan Oestrich, Halley Suitt, Heather Leigh, Bernard Hibbitts, Joyce Wycoff, Lisa Stone, Tom Watson, Betsy McKenzie, Troy Worman, Doc Searls, W. David Stephenson, Paul Caron, Don Blohowiak, Tony Colleluori, Ernster the Virtual Library Cat, Will Richardson, and Marty Schwimmer.

From MLK: "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality."

Technorati tag: Martin Luther King

Posted by dmk at 05:15 PM | Comments (3)

January 13, 2006

What's a Monk-Fest?

My daughter and I are big fans of the Monk TV show. My wife is a much more casual watcher of the show.

So, Grace and I have been gearing up for the season premiere of Monk tonight. Yesterday, she decided to invite three of her seventh grade classmates (also Monk fans) over for what we are calling a "Monk-Fest" to celebrate the new season. I understand that I will be allowed to watch the episode on the same TV that they will be watching, but then will probably have to clear out of the way.

I'm also gearing up for the first four hours of the new season of 24, which starts Sunday night. I've long been a fan of that show. Unfortunately, I don't have any friends who are fans that I'll be inviting over for the premiere. I'll be waiting to see what other bloggers who watch 24, such as Professor Yin and Fred Faulkner, have to say about the new season. However, it'd be more fun if geography weren't an issue and I could watch the premiere with Professor Yin, Fred and a few others simply by walking over to his house or having them over to mine. That's one of the limitations of the blogosphere.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Posted by dmk at 01:12 PM | Comments (1)

January 12, 2006

Does Bernard Hibbitts Have a New Editor's Blog at JURIST?

I'm still not sure that my all question-and-answer format experiment is going to work (as the title of this post suggests), but I am sure that it's great news to see that another legal internet pioneer, Professor Bernard Hibbitts, has launched a new blog called the JURIST Editor's Blog over at the widely-praised JURIST legal resources website, which has long been one of the premier legal websites.

The Editor's Blog will highlight what's new on the site and share some views on legal news and resources. Professor Hibbitts tells me that the JURIST site, among others things, integrates seventeen separate blogs into their legal newstream so seamlessly that many people do not realize that it is, at heart, a blog.

The Editor's Blog has started out with coverage of the Alito hearings and links to useful resources about the hearings.

It's great to put a human face on the JURIST site and learn more about Professor Hibbitts' point of view on legal matters. I'll also note that he looks younger in his picture than I had imagined him to be. Check out the new Editor's Blog and its RSS feed. As they say, subcribed!

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Posted by dmk at 02:19 PM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2006

What's New in the World of Wikis and Law?

I just read a fascinating post about Wiki-Law.org, a open approach to create a collection of legal resources, on the Virtual Handshake blog. In the post, David Teten interviews Dan Savitt, who is Pangea3's Vice President of Litigation & Research, about Wiki-Law.org.

The interview is wide-ranging and it turns into a great discussion of a variety of new tools, services, projects and companies that are taking some innovative approaches to the delivery of legal services, and gives a real-world, realistic assessment of the pros and cons of a "wiki law" approach.

The interview is a great addition to the discussion of what is beginning to be called Law 2.0. Highly recommended.

The money quote:

Where I do see a tremendous opportunity is for attorneys to take advantage of the resource. I know that there are already dozens of web-based communities where practitioners of similar ilk compare notes and exchange ideas. In other words, the value I see in the site is as a legal resource, whose value will rise or fall depending on the reliability of the contributors, their content, and the strength of the site's editorial guidelines. It may even work itself into legal opinions once it gains acceptance. I could see wiki-law as the ultimate living legal constitution that aggregates legal discussion, commentary and knowledge.

Technorati tag: law2.0

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Posted by dmk at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)

What Were Justice Blackmun's Law School Grades?

What can't you find on the Internet these days?

From the "too much about nothing" blog (hey, I gave up trying to find the author's name or I would have mentioned it), it's the list of Justice Harry Blackmun's law school grades from his law school transcript.

Obviously, Blackmun went law school in the days before "grade inflation."

That "C" in constitutional law probably would be a problem in today's world of Senate hearings. Interesting how grades that today would all but keep someone from getting hired at most law firms proved to be no impediment to well-respected service on the Supreme Court.

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) - The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! - Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization.

Posted by dmk at 06:41 PM | Comments (1)

Are You the Anonymous Editor of the Blawg Review?

All right. Move on. Move on. There's nothing to see here.

I had hoped to stay out of the anonymous Blawg Review editor brouhaha, but now I have people wondering if I'm the editor. I can say categorically that I am not.

While I understand that there are good reasons that people want to blog anonymously (and my point of view on blogging is to let a thousand flowers bloom), the flip side of anonymous blogging is that it can put people who are suspected of being an anonymous blogger into the different position of trying to prove that they are not the anonymous blogger.

I'm now quite sympathetic with what Evan says in his post here about the difficulties of being caught in the middle. I should be even more sympathetic with Evan because I jokingly suggested at one point that he was the famous Anonymous Blogger and then found that far more people than I expected took me seriously.

For what it's worth, until the comments from people close to the situation that were added to Matt's post explained how the whois information pointing to ALM and other "clues" could be misinterpreted, I was utterly convinced by Matt Homann's "Monkish" explanation of the "solution" to the mystery.

As I'm able to understand the logic, the question whether I am the anonymous editor of Blawg Review arises from the following "clues":

1. On Between Lawyers, we have used an anonymous "Lawyer X" character. So, you have a pattern of behavior.

2. If you "Google" the name Ed Post that has been associated with the anonymous editor, you'll find references to a famous St. Louis murder case. This suggests that the editor is in St. Louis or has ties to St. Louis and I've been known to refer to St. Louis as Blawg City USA. (This clue, of course, also points to Evan.) Indeed, by coincidence (or as further proof, depending on how you look at these things), I worked as a staff attorney for the St. Louis court that tried the Ed Post case and, it's possible, but I don't remember for sure, that I might have even researched an issue or two that came up in that case. So, the thinking goes, if the editor is actually leaving clues, I might be leaving obscure clues that point to me.

3. The Blawg Review Awards post, like my Blawggie awards post, was quite long. Long posts automatically get associated with me, I guess. So, the argument would be that a leopard cannot change his spots.

Hmmm, I'm starting to convince myself - maybe it is me. No - I got an email from the BR editor and I know that I did not send it to myself, so I'm certain that it cannot be me.

As impossible as it may be to prove or disprove a negative, I simply point to the name of my blog and ask how likely is it really that I would be blogging anonymously? Some wags might also note that the fact that there was no award for me or my blog in the Blawg Review awards conclusively proves it wasn't me behind the awards. In addition, I could hardly both praise Neil Squillante's BlawgWorld in the Dennis Kennedy character and then criticize it anonymously - that's not who I am. Similarly, after Law.com canned my partner in LexThink, Matt Homann, from its blog network, it would be very bad form, and completely out of character for me, to anonymously do another blog that joined the Law.com network - I'd have some seriously 'splaining to do to Matt.

So, no need to speculate about me or ask me about this anymore. Let's move on. Let me get back to regular blogging. Nothing to see here. As a time-filler until the new Monk season starts on Friday night, though, I do admit that I am enjoying reading about the detective side of the story.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Posted by dmk at 04:52 PM | Comments (1)

January 10, 2006

What New Gadget Would You Most Like to Get?

Generally, I usually see what Jeff Beard recommends as cool when it comes to gadgets.

Most gadgets these days seem to be phones and, as my friends know, phones and I don't mix well.

However, I found a really cool gadget that I want (and I do have both my birthday and my blog birthday coming up soon if you are looking for gift ideas) on one of my favorite blogs - Cool Tools.

It's the Chef'n Switchit Dual-Ended Long Spatula - read Wendy Ju's post on Cool Tools and you'll see why it's made the top of my list - it's a cool tool.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Posted by dmk at 09:08 PM | Comments (1)

January 09, 2006

Why Might it Be a Good Idea to Use Tags on a Blog?

I've recently been experimenting with Technorati tags on some of my blog posts and Del.icio.us tags for some of my bookmarks.

Marshall Kirpatrick has an excellent explanation (or, more accurately, 13 reasons) why you might want to use tags.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Posted by dmk at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)

January 07, 2006

What's the Best Recent Development in Law Blogging?

I'm so pleased to see that legal Internet pioneer and guru Jerry Lawson has returned to active blogging at Netlawblog. I've learned countless things from Jerry over the years, he is certainly one of my favorite writing partners, and we all benefit from his wise insights. It's good to have you back on a regular basis, Jerry.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Posted by dmk at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)

January 05, 2006

What's Your Dangerous Idea?

I highly recommend Dave Pollard's great post called "Blinded by Science: What's Your Dangerous Idea?" In the post, Dave takes a look at a recent collection of essays from prominent thinkers discussing their favorite "dangerous ideas."

Dave, a little disappointed by the essay collection, offers ten dangerous ideas of his own that I guarantee will get you thinking.

The money quote:

Why are these ten ideas 'dangerous'? Because they threaten deeply-entrenched ideas and strongly-held, widely-held beliefs. Because those who they threaten will do almost anything to prevent them becoming widely accepted. And because they're actionable. Take them as your own and they will change what you think, believe and do.

What's your dangerous idea?

I'm thinking that my Fourth Generation (4G) Legal Technology idea, once I get it fully thought out, will become my dangerous idea in my little niche of the world.

What's your dangerous idea?

Technorati tags: 4g legal technology fourth generation legal technology

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) - The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! - Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and unconferences for your firm, business or organization.

Posted by dmk at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

January 04, 2006

What Will You Learn About Improving Your Law Practice in 2006 in January's Issue of Law Practice Today?

The new issue of the ABA's webzine Law Practice Today is now online (Disclosure: I am an editor and member of the webzine's board, so I may be proudly enthusiastic about this issue.)

This issue's theme looks toward the near future and what lawyers can do to enhance their practices in 2006. You'll find stories about coaching, goals, networking and many other useful topics.

I have a part in two articles. The first is called "Does Web 2.0 Point Us Toward Law 2.0?," which is an informal roundtable discussion on Web 2.0 concepts that was accomplished in a short time by using a Web 2.0 collaboration tool called Writely. As John Tredennick says, "In the Web 2.0 world, the Internet becomes a platform for connecting people in social networks. And, about empowering them with software to work together in ways never contemplated by traditional organizational manuals."

In a second article, Tom Mighell and I also used Writely to write our monthly column, The Strongest Links: Web 2.0. The column turned out to be a comprehensive set of links to resources, articles and tools to help you explore and experiment with Web 2.0 tools and concepts.

Highly recommended.

Technorati tags: law2.0 legal technology

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments. More information on the "Second Pair of Eyes" packages for legal technology audits and strategic planning may be found here (PDF).

Posted by dmk at 06:44 PM | Comments (0)

What Can American Movies Teach Us About Selling Professional Services?

Mike Schultz on RainToday.com has a entertaining and educational article (that's the best kind) called "Hidden Advice In American Film For Selling Professional Services" about the "secret messages" about selling professional services that can be found in famous movie quotes.

A few examples:

"Why don't you come up sometime and see me?"
#26, Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, 1933
Secret messages: Pay attention for buying signals.

"Show me the money!"
#25, Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Jerry Maguire, 1996
Secret message: Make sure your buyers are qualified. If they don't have a budget or can't find the cash, move on.

"Bond. James Bond."
#22, Sean Connery in Dr. No, 1962
Secret message: Make sure people know who you are.

A fun and informative article. I'm waiting on a sequel that tells us about lessons from quotes from foreign films.

I recommend subscribing to RainToday.com's free Rainmaker Report email newsletter - it always seems to have good articles.

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) - The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! - Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization.

Posted by dmk at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2006

Should Lawyers Be Prevented From Reading Metadata?

Fresh off a fabulous performance on Blawg Review #38, which was based on his terrific presentation at BlawgThink, Evan Schaeffer takes just the right tone in covering the recent story of the Florida Bar's Board of Governors wanting to ban the practice of looking at metadata in electronic documents.

The board voted unanimously for a motion stating that lawyers should not look at metadata and also referred to the Professional Ethics Committee of the Florida Bar the question of "whether it is unethical for a lawyer to mine metadata from an electronic document he or she receives from another party."

I'm baffled by this approach, which I've heard or seen a number of lawyers and bar regulators make. Imagine, for example, being a client and learning that your lawyer could not look at the metadata in a document that you knew had been copied from you or stolen from you.

I'm also personally disappointed that regulators want to ban one of the areas that I have developed some knowledge and expertise about. I'd prefer that they ban an area I know nothing about.

As I've mentioned before, I don't think metadata is all that difficult to figure out and I can't imagine why looking at this readily-available evidence would be "unethical." For a good article that includes some of my approach to metadata, see "Mining the Value from Metadata," a recent column from Tom Mighell, Evan Schaeffer and me.

Back to the original question: My answer is comes from John McEnroe: "You cannot be serious!"

It's probably a better idea to learn how to deal with metadata rather than rely on some kind of "gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail" argument to get some kind of regulatory protection.

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's half-day electronic discovery seminar - "Preparing for the New World of Electronic Discovery: Easing Your Transition from Paper to Electronic Discovery." Contact Dennis today for more information and to schedule a seminar for your firm or legal department.

Posted by dmk at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2006

Should You Make Your Name and Contact Information Easily Findable on Your Blog?

Believe it or not, I get teased a lot about the name of my blog.

However, I've regularly found myself in situations where people will be talking to me and I'll introduce them to another blogger. I'll notice that they ignore the other blogger until I say that, for example, Matt writes the Nonbillable Hour blog and then they fall all over themselves saying what huge fans they are of Matt's blog, but they didn't associate the name with the blog.

However, the name of your blog is not the issue I want to talk about. The bigger issue is how many bloggers, including those who seem to have blogs designed to market their businesses, make it so difficult or even impossible to find the name of the blogger or any way to contact the blogger.

James Robertson at the Column Two blog has a great post called Your Blog, Your Name that spells out some of the best reasons for making this information readily available.

I can't even count the number of times last year I wanted to send a blogger an email about how much I liked what he or she wrote, only to find no way to get in touch.

I also like to give the name of the person who writes a post when I link to a post. There have been many times when it took me more time to find a blogger's name than it did to write my post that linked to them. In several cases, I ended up not writing a post because I could not find out who wrote it.

My running joke is that legal blogs cannot be marketing tools because so many legal blogs make it so hard to contact the bloggers. The hardest job we had in organizing BlawgThink was finding the names and email addresses of legal bloggers. You'd be surprised at how difficult that is.

I'm not sure why bloggers hide this information. I'd rather risk a few extra spam messages than discourage someone who likes what I've written from telling me about that or starting a conversation with me. What if an editor wants to reprint your post as an article or a journalist wants to interview you for a story?

In my case, I'll deal with the occasional ribbing or charge of egomania because I have a definite purpose to making my name clear on my posts and my contact info available. By the way, once you consistently find your posts appearing without your permission on splogs, you'll be much more understanding of the reason my blog name and URL appears on each of my posts these days.

Think about it this way - if people like what you write on your blog, do they want to meet and talk to your blog . . . or to you?

By the way, I easily passed James Roberton's 60-second test that you will want to take - but you probably already guessed that.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Posted by dmk at 06:22 PM | Comments (4)

What is Contract Life Cycle Management and How Does it Fit into Legal Technology and Law 2.0 in 2006?

Michael Kraft and Robert Enholm, in their excellent "GC Tech Wish List for 2006," talk about contract life cycle management (CLCM) in terms of "applying technology to the contract process from letter of intent through negotiation and execution to performance, amendment and contract renewal." They also say, "The emergence of enterprise resource planning software over the past decade has helped businesses with "workflow" processes, and GCs are exploring how to apply these principles to the activities of corporate law departments." And CLCM is one good example.

In short, CLCM is about finding ways to look at the contracting process as a business workflow process that can be tuned in ways that benefit businesses rather than as a series of independent, unrelated legal projects.

It's a difference that, as they say, makes all the difference.

I've been thinking, off and on, about CLCM over the past few years, including most recently in some discussions I had involving a large company that wanted to get some control over a very ad hoc approach they had to generating first drafts of standard documents. The business case for CLCM is pretty easy to make.

When I think about contracts (or other legal documents) as part of a process, I invariably think about the potential role of document assembly.

I'm not surprised that Kraft and Enholm move in the same direction in their article. They say, "'document assembly software' is coming to be seen as merely one link in the chain of the contract management process. GCs must be alert to opportunities to use this technology to expedite contract management process."

The "one link in the chain" is the important part of this quote. Too many people I talk to see the goal of document assembly as being to generate finished documents with a "push of the button." That's not it at all. My goal is always to generate significant improvements in generating first drafts - versions of documents that are in "good enough" form that you can start immediately to do custom work and tailoring. People who look for the 100% solution from document assembly are inevitably disappointed and forego the benefits that 80%, 60% or even 20% solutions can bring them.

In a way, they remind me of people who see the benefit of electronic discovery only as a way of finding "the smoking gun." Long-time users of electronic discovery rarely talk about "smoking guns." Instead, they talk about the benefits of productivity, efficiency, organization, streamlining, telling a better story and focusing on the key issues. In other words, there are substantial benefits that flow from improved processes and procedures.

Document assembly brings with it a set of similar benefits beyond the "push button drafts" that most people concentrate on. They are similar to those you find in electronic discovery. Kraft and Enholm mention these other benefits: "GCs that effectively adopt these tools can conserve legal resources and time -- and contribute to the competitiveness of the company."

I've seen the benefits of document assembly coming in not just efficiency, but standardization, quality control, consistency, training, and effective use of learning from previous deals and documents. In fact, I've sometime described document assembly software as a tool for applied knowledge management. As you think in terms of CLCM, you will start to see the role that document assembly might play in the process.

Kraft and Enholm go on to say, "'Contract process software' is perhaps an apt label for the products that bridge document assembly and contract management."

In 2005, Cisco's NDA Central project (demo and white paper accessible from DealBuilder here (free registration required) has deservedly garnered a lot of attention. NDA Central took an undisciplined method of handling simple legal projects and used document assembly as a tool not just to create legal documents, but to manage and improve a business process with positive business results to the company and improved workflow and higher-value work for the legal department and outside counsel.

Again, Kraft and Enholm, "GCs want help from outside counsel to establish processes and protocols, help draft underlying documents and maintain the systems in our ever-changing legal environment." Here's the key to CLCM and the new approaches to using technology in the practice of law starting to be known as Law 2.0 - there are clear benefits to both clients and lawyers. Often, it allows the lawyer to do higher-level work, often the type that the client really wishes the lawyer had more time to do.

Kraft and Enholm provide an excellent, brief introduction to an area that could become as significant to transactional corporate lawyers as electronic discovery is to litigation lawyers. The rest of their article is well worth your while to read as well.

What do I think of the interplay of CLCM and document assembly and the potential that it has? Let's put it this way, if I spent the whole of 2006 working only on these types of projects, 2006 would be a great year indeed. This is one topic you'll being hearing more about from me in 2006.

Technorati tags: law2.0 4g legal technology legal technology document assembly contract life cycle management general counsel technology law contract process software

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

This post brought to you by Dennis Kennedy's legal technology consulting services, featuring RSS and blogging consulting, technology audit, strategic planning and technology committee coaching packages especially for medium-sized law firms (15 - 100 lawyers) and corporate legal departments.

Posted by dmk at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

January 01, 2006

Did You Decide Whether You Are Changing to a Question-and-Answer Format for Your Blog in 2006?

I'm going to experiment with the approach for a while.

When I mentioned in a post a little while ago that I was thinking of going to a Q & A approach (a la the Ask Dave Taylor blog (and it was cool that Dave left a comment about that post)), I wasn't as surprised by the number of negative reactions I got as I was by the most common reason that people gave me not to go that route - that I'd find the format too confining.

Maybe I will, but my initial thought was that it would actually be a less confining approach for me and I wanted to shake things up at DennisKennedy.Blog and try a different approach. I think that the Q & A approach will make it a bit easier for me to write more focused posts and maybe more posts, giving me the ability to cover more topics. I suspect that I'll do a mixture of types of posts before I decide whether to adopt the new format completely.

Just to remind people: although I welcome questions from my readers and think that the Q & A approach will generate more of them, the question-and-answer format is simply a writing device where in most cases I'll be writing both the questions and the answers.

Later, I may see what people think of the new format using the cool new Web 2.0 survey tool called Quimble that Tom Mighell just alerted me to.

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(TM) - The Conference, Re-imagined. LexThink! - Think big thoughts, do cool things, change the world. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization.

Posted by dmk at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)

Happy New Year - 2006

Best wishes to all readers of DennisKennedy.Blog for a great 2006!

To those of you I got to meet and work with in 2005, I want to thank you for getting the opportunity and hope to work with you on more cool projects in 2006. To those I haven't gotten the chance to work with yet, I hope that we get that chance in 2006.

In all events, I truly appreciate what the readers of this blog have brought into my life in the past few years. I hope I can continue to make this blog one of your regular reads.

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

Posted by dmk at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)