Dennis Kennedy

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August 29, 2007

Radio Nowhere

Ah, the only thing better than a new Springsteen album (called Magic) and tour announcement is the release of a song from the album. That, and how it activates my network of friends who are Springsteen fans.

This is Radio Nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?

I've been listening to and loving the new song, "Radio Nowhere," which makes me think of Joe Strummer in all the best ways every time I hear it. I also like it's positive out of negative motif. Like Beck's "Where It's At" (Two turntables and a microphone), Radio Nowhere also captures something essential that I find about blogging (and that ain't about using blogs as legal marketing tools).

I mentioned to a friend the Strummer/Clash comparison and wanted to share the response I got back:

The cadence of the verses are "Clampdown." With hints of "I Fought the Law"--both the Clash version and Bruce's more "authentic"-to-Fuller response version, which we heard in Champaign. The low sustained rumble of that, w/ the phrasing of Strummer.

It's so summational of his artistic position. Such a declaration. In that way, tonally, it reminds you of Badlands. A rage-against-futility howl.

It''s great to have friends who are great writers.

I'm also getting a chuckle out of all the different versions of the lyrics that you can find. This one seemed the closest to my best guess. Part of discovering a new song is figuring out the lyrics on your own, even though I always like the official lyric sheets.

I remember the old days when you'd try to hear a new single first on a radio station or by going to a record store on the release date. The Internet makes it so different now.

I read that a Spanish TV website was making the new single available for download at 6:00AM yesterday. I worked my way through the Spanish instructions (a bit of a trick since I only had a six week class in Spanish in the 8th grade) to get an mp3 download, only to find later today that there was a free iTunes download, presumably with instructions in English. The Guardian also has an mp3 download, presumably without DRM. The distribution channels are a-changing. With a warning about not safe for work language, Bob Lefsetz has a fascinating riff on this single and how the music business well could be changing.

Unfortunately, catching the early part of this tour does not look like a possibility. As the distribution channels change, I wonder if YouTube will provide the best seat in the house for concert tours?

I don't even pretend to be objective about Springsteen, so I won't offer anything like a review. I do suggest that you grab this song and give it a listen. If we still listened to radio, it'd be a hit. What does "hit" mean in an iPod world?

I'm also reminded, on this Katrina anniversary, to salute Ernie Svenson, another Springsteen fan, and the author of this moving post about the aftermath of Katrina two years later. See my earlier thoughts about the scariest time of my blogging career when we lost touch with Ernie after Katrina hit.

This is Radio Nowhere . . . .

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.The volume can be a little high, but you get some information that you probably won't find anywhere else.

Technorati tags: springsteen radio nowhere musings

Posted by dmk at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2007

Recapping ILTA 2007

A great technology show is way more about the people than the technology. That's why it's always been great to be part of the ABA TECHSHOW, and it's why I've really grown to like the ILTA annual conference.

Yes, I learned about some product developments and spotted some new trends, and I'll comment on those later, but my ILTA 2007 experience was all about the people. It was great fun, I learned a lot, and it was nice to meet so many people who read this blog (one of the chronic blogger concerns - there are days when you wonder if anyone is really reading your blog).

There were a good number of my legal blogger friends, a sizable contingent from St. Louis (including some of my favorite IT people from my old law firm), many vendor pals, and plenty of new people to me. As usual, I benefited from many kindnesses, especially from people helped me locate where I needed to be, who got me into various events, and who helped me learn about new technologies, both their own and those of others. I find ILTA to be a generous show.

I got to present with a wonderful group of co-presenters, all of whom I would highly recommend to anyone looking for speakers for their events: Gloria Fox, Kevin O'Keefe, Doug Hoover, and Meredith Williams. A big thank you to Michele Gossmeyer and Lisa Kellar-Gianakos for organizing our sessions. A special thanks to Doug Cornelius and David Hobbie, who both earn an A+ for live blogging all the sessions they attended, for covering the sessions I was part of here, here, here and here. I enjoyed getting the chance to talk with Doug and David several times.

I read Sean Doherty's article about ILTA 2007 this morning and noted that we agree on many of the same highlights (and talked to some of the same people). I don't really understand the title of the piece and would put the emphasis on some different areas, but I generally agree with his assessment. With one major exception that I'll mention in a moment.

To summarize my take on Sean's article, I see that he highlights litigation and records management tools (CaseMap 7.5, Recommind's Axcelerate eDiscovery, Interwoven), email continuity (MessageOne and Teneros), digital dictation (WinScribe and Big Hand), audio search (Nexidia), and Blackberries. He always gives a nod to CT Summation in the electronic discovery area. He also emphasizes the collaboration theme of the conference.

Money quote from Sean's article:

At base, collaboration and effective communication go a long way -- perhaps to the moon and back -- to resolve IT problems in the legal profession.

If you and I sat down for an extended conversation, I believe that I'd eventually tell you about everything that Sean mentioned in the article other than the Blackberry items (my epiphany at ILTA was that many of the most interesting developments I'm seeing can be traced to the growing failure of email as a communications platform - I'll return to that theme in later posts).

However, I would have highlighted some different areas and I have a completely different take than Sean about the ubiquity of e-discovery vendors at legal tech conferences. There are very important things happening in that space and we miss that if we simply take the "oh, everyone is in EDD these days and nothing is new" approach.

From my ever-opinionated perspective, I would note the following seven (for '07) highlights that really got me thinking:

1. SharePoint, SharePoint and More SharePoint. I'm not sure that I ran into anyone who was not looking into SharePoint or already had SharePoint projects on the table. I would call it the dominant topic of the hallway talk of this conference and there were plenty of sessions about it as well. I have to give a special shout-out to Seth Miller of Kraft, Kennedy & Lesser who gave me the full SharePoint tour, showed me what KKL is doing with SharePoint, answered all of my many questions, and made me want to work on some SharePoint projects with him. [Update: Seth's blog is now here.]

2. Thomson West's Firm 360 / Monitor Line of Services. I really liked this technology when I first saw it two years ago, but seeing Doug Hoover and Meredith Williams talk about it in our Current Awareness session emphasized to me how cool this technology is and how valuable it could be for competitive and other intelligence for law firms and their clients. Think "actionable intelligence."

3. Electronic Discovery at a Crossroads. I spent a good chunk of my plane ride home thinking about what's happening in EDD, in part because I'll be speaking about EDD trends in October. I had several extended conversations about EDD at ILTA, especially with Allen Gurney at Fios (and formerly at my old law firm). Here's what interests me. There are great tools, getting better all the time. The information environment is changing rapidly (think audio and video). There's consolidation in the industry and a pressure for companies to generate more revenues. The regulatory environment is forcing clients to manage information in new ways. And, at the same time, lawyers stubbornly resist the move to e-discovery, even after the new rules. I've said many times before that litigators in the US had better become familiar with what the word "disintermediation" means or they will learn it the hard way. I know think that process, given the pressures in this space, might well happen much more quickly than I would have thought. Are law firms no longer the primary market for EDD tools?

4. Backup and Storage; Disaster Recovery. OK, I'll admit that I've become a bit over-concentrated on storage lately, but Sean's emphasis on email failover solutions (I've always liked the Teneros appliance approach and got the chance to speak with Stephen Lewis, CEO of Teneros, at ILTA).

5. Open Source. I didn't get to investigate this, but I noticed a couple of Open Source sessions where the audience overflowed well out into the hallway. I also learned about a new Open Source case management project.

6. The Return of KM. OK, I spoke on the KM track, so that might have affected my perspective. However, I was surprised by the high level of attendance at KM sessions and the interest in practical KM efforts. The tools are definitely coming along (see Recommind, for example). Thought experiment: what happens if you take tools designed for EDD and turn them back onto your on data?

7. Great Minds Thinking Alike? I'm always interested when I see people I highly respect in the legal tech field interested in the same things. I found myself at a reception Recommind hosted and in the room was one of the highest concentrations of people I respect in legal technology I've been in for a while. Makes me think that something is happening and the conversation definitely involved points 1, 3, and 6 above. On the topic of Recommind, let me recommend John Alber's new article, Search at the Foundation of the Enterprise.

I have much more on ILTA, but it will filter into my posts over time. I wanted to get these thoughts down and share them. My compliments and thanks to everyone (and let me single out Adriana Linares for taking a group of us to her favorite Turkish restaurant and Michele and Lisa for inviting me to speak).

If you ever have the chance to attend an ILTA conference, you should definitely take it.

Apologies in advance to the many people I left out of this post. I had to end the post at some point.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.The volume can be a little high, but you'll definitely find some useful information you wouldn't find in other ways.

Technorati tags: legal technology ilta electronic discovery Law2.0 sharepoint knowledge+management firm 360

Posted by dmk at 09:24 PM

August 27, 2007

St. Louis - City without Lights (Again)

Lately, St. Louis summers have been characterized by100 degree temperatures and power outages. Sometimes at the same time and for several-day stretches.

Unfortunately, I ran into both, sequentially, on my return to St. Louis from last week's ILTA conference.

Ironically, as it turned out, on my flight back into St. Louis, I was once again struck by the immense amount of light the baseball stadium now generates when games are in progress and, presumably, the amount of electricity used. The stadium lights wash out the other lights downtown and make it difficult to spot the Arch as you fly in. Has anyone else noticed this? From above, it looks like the lights could cook hot dogs in the stadium.

I walked out of the airport into what felt like an oven - at 9:00 at night. The 90 degree heat of Orlando seemed comfy by comparison.

Friday's storm knocked out electricity for thousands, now a regular occurrence. There were some huge trees down around our neighborhood and most of the area was dark, with the exception of a small island of electricity a block or so away, where, having grown accustomed to the outages, neighbors with electricity shared their power with neighbors across the street as long orange extension cords snaked across the street. For many, it was simply returning the favor from the last outage in which the roles were reversed.

In the past, outages seemed to last only an hour or two. In the last year or so, days, rather than hours, are the measure and the Ameren phone message system has dispensed with even attempting to give estimates for return of service.

On Saturday morning, I noticed the wire down at the back of our yard. Fortunately (I have nothing but praise for the people in the trucks who do the work of restoring power - a difficult and dangerous job - but really wonder what is going on at the planning and management levels of Ameren), our electricity was back on Saturday evening. A bit of a break in the temperature helped. Our neighbors across the street were not so lucky - they got back on the grid last night.

I made a couple of long bike rides this weekend. There were some big trees blown over that took down wires and poles and blocked two of my usual routes back to our house.

The unplanned break from electricity and the computer did give me a chance, during daylight hours, to read William Gibson's excellent new book, Spook Country (highly recommended). I hope to post some comments about that and file my delayed recap of the ILTA conference later this week.

My sympathies to all with electricity and experiencing weather difficulties (glad you're power is back, Fred). And a big thank you to the guys who got the power back. Once again.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: outage electrical musings ameren

Posted by dmk at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)

August 21, 2007

A Quick Post from ILTA

Although my usual approach to conferences is to spend my time talking to people rather than blogging, Kevin O'Keefe convinced me that I should make a post or two.

Kevin has created a set of links to posts from bloggers at the ILTA conference, and I believe it will be updated from time to time. Kevin also mentions the other bloggers here and it was great to visit with some of them last night. This Technorati search will help you find other ILTA-related blog posts.

As ever, ILTA is such an impressive conference and it's great to be part of it. Lots of great people here.

I had a great time speaking with Kevin O'Keefe, Gloria Fox, and LIsa Kellar Gianakos on using blogs and wikis for KM yesterday, but I had an even better time after when Kevin, Gloria and extended our personal panel conversation for a couple of hours afterward. Ironically, it was personal proof of the "unconference" concept that I've advocated in connection with LexThink - the best part of conferences are the conversations that happen in the hallways.

David Hobbie, who I met after our presentation, has a great set of notes from the presentation that capture most of the key points we made in presentation. I've already subscribed to his RSS feed.

The one point I thought about but didn't make because of time constraints and what to capture here so I can return to it later is this: the renewed interest in KM and the surge in interest in blogs, Wikis, Facebook, and other Web 2.0 / collaboration / social networking tools is simple a response to the growing failure of email as a communication medium.

Off to a meeting.

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

Get your legal technology information by audio. Check out The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast.

Technorati tags: legal technology ilta LexThink! km unconference

Posted by dmk at 01:00 PM | Comments (2)

August 19, 2007

Facebook and Google Reader for Lawyers: New Episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast

Tom Mighell and I call our podcast, The Kennedy-Mighell Report (RSS feed), a legal technology podcast with an Internet focus. The latest episode puts the emphasis on our Internet focus.

Tom has posted episode 6 of the podcast, in which we delve into the use (or potential use) of Facebook by lawyers, our recent experiences switching to Google Reader for consuming RSS feeds, and our use of Google Docs and Spreadsheets as a foundational collaborative tool. We also answer a listener question and discuss some of the podcasts we listen to and how we listen to them.

We hope you enjoy this episode - there's a lot of good information for those wanting an introduction to these topics, especially those lawyers just beginning to consider some of these areas.One of the things we wanted to do was to discuss the actual ways we use these tools as guide to others and as a request for help from others who can help us use them better.

The episode is available here and you can subscribe to a feed for the podcast here. While you are there, you might as well listen to the earlier episodes too. We appreciate your feedback on the podcast and the ideas we discuss in the podcast.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: legal technology podcast facebook google reader lawyers Law2.0

Posted by dmk at 05:13 PM

Hope to See You at ILTA

I'm looking forward to an abbreviated visit to the ILTA 2007 legal technology conference, where I'll be speaking on using blogs and wikis in KM efforts and on "current awareness" (focusing on uses of RSS feeds). I hope to see you there. I would enjoy getting to visit with as many readers of this blog as possible.

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

Get your legal technology information by audio. Check out The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast.

Technorati tags: legal technology ilta current awareness knowledge management

Posted by dmk at 03:12 PM | Comments (2)

August 15, 2007

I Guess I Needed to Reboot Anyway . . .

I wrote a while back about something I called "presumptuous computing."

This morning, again, I found that two of my computers had rebooted themselves after Windows (XP) updates. I like automatic updates (and, frankly, updates are an essential part of basic computer security), but the automatic reboots, especially on mornings when you've left a lot of programs open the night before to get off to a fast start, are a definite downside.

The good news was that Outlook did not treat this exit as an improper exit. I've also grown to like the "restore" feature of Firefox.

The ongoing performance issues I've today on one of my computers, however, have not been what I would have hoped to see. I'll be doing some research to see if there's a way to block the automatic reboots and limit reboots after updates to manual ones. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd enjoy hearing them.

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

Get your legal technology information by audio. Check out The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast.

Technorati tags: legal technology updates presumptuous computing

Posted by dmk at 10:27 PM | Comments (5)

August 13, 2007

Electronic Discovery Trend to Watch: Technology Counsel

Ron Friedmann's post, "Why Specialists Should Manage E-Discovery," provides an excellent introduction to and arguments for the use of specialized lawyers dedicated to managing electronic discovery efforts. It also points to Ron's recent white paper, "4 Ways an eDiscovery Attorney Can Make Your Firm More Successful." I highly recommend the post and the white paper.

The money quote (from the white paper):

[Fullbright & Jaworski's Laurie Weiss] notes that the translation between law and technology is key. “E-discovery lives in the space between law and technology,” she said. “And mistakes happen in that vacuum. Our e-discovery and information management practice is working to fill that vacuum.”

When I speak about trends in electronic discovery, I highlight the growing role of litigation support managers in the everyday practical aspects of electronic discovery. The time of the litigation support manger has definitely arrived.

The arrival of eDiscovery attorneys makes great sense to me, but, as Ron notes, we are in the early stages of the development and evolution of this role.

Some have also described a similar or perhaps complimentary notion of "technology counsel." I say complimentary because I've seen technology counsel talked about more in the sense of being part of a corporate law department than in the outside law firm. I've been meaning to point to the Technology Counsel blog, another excellent resource from Fios that offers coverage of this area.

Let me quote from a post on the blog on the role of the technology counsel:

Technology Counsel is both an externally facing and internally focused position that requires a strong grasp of the connection between law and technology and its effect on the corporation. This position requires an experienced legal mind as well as a strong technical background. Furthermore, the position necessitates a firm understanding of internal enterprise resources, project management, project lifecycle, and the ability to function as a resource on high-profile and high-exposure investigations, regulatory events and litigation.

Internally, the Technology Counsel (or its designate) will provide guidance on current legal trends and requirements, as well as offer legal assistance on corporate technical processes and procedures as they relate to the application of law, particularly electronic discovery processes, and the application of technology, such as content management systems, email archiving systems, VOIP systems and the like.

The first post on the Technology Counsel blog gave some more details on the technology counsel role and who might fill it:

Do you fluently translate between legal and technology? If you answered yes, you may very well be a technology counsel. Corporations nationwide are searching high and low to find these remarkable (only because I am one too) individuals to lead the charge. If you are a technology counsel, a lot of responsibility falls on your shoulders and you are soon going to be a very popular person. If you are searching for a technology counsel, look closely and carefully. These people are becoming more popular than a water fountain in the Sahara.

As an aside, I must admit that when I read descriptions of technology counsels and eDiscovery attorneys I do get an eerie feeling that the descriptions are of, well, me. However, I've generally seen the arrival of these types of positions to be a ways down the read, in part because the adoption of electronic discovery has been so slow (see "The New Federal Rules on eDiscovery: The First 180 Days" for details).

With Ron's post and the presence of the Technology Counsel blog, I now am feeling that the arrival of these types of roles in which a premium is placed on being able to understand, work, and be comfortable in the intersection of law and technology is closer that I had been thinking. It's an EDD trend to watch, and I recommend Ron's white paper as a great starting point to begin your thinking about this trend. I'll be doing a presentation in October on e-discovery trends and technology counsels will definitely find a place on one of the slides.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: legal technology technology counsel ediscovery attorney electronic discovery edd Law2.0 <general counsel white paper

Posted by dmk at 08:12 PM | Comments (1)

August 09, 2007

Clean Legal Technology

I just finished reading Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder's The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity, which I recommend as an excellent overview intro to developments in clean tech.

Among other things, it got me thinking about whether there could be something we might call "clean legal technology" in the sense that Pernick and Wilder use the term.

I've mentioned the notion of "green legal technology" before (hmmm. I still need to finish and post that green legal tech resources page).

My rough back-of-the-envelope notes would suggest that clean legal technology might include automatic metering of electricity, use of solar technology, energy savings in server rooms and data centers, use of new battery technologies, and use of green building techniques.

I suspect that "green legal technology" and "clean technology" would be used interchangeablely, but green legal tech seems to me to be a broader term and clean legal tech a bit more specific term.

I don't see clean legal tech moving toward the top of the law firm tech priority list for a while yet, but it will be good to make yourself aware of the developments in this area and consider clean tech might become a factor in your current decisions and your strategic planning. Reading Pernick and Wilder's book is a good way to get a running start.

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

Get your legal technology information by audio. Check out The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast.

Technorati tags: legal technology green legal technology clean legal technology clean technology

Posted by dmk at 08:14 PM | Comments (1)

August 07, 2007

Signal Map: How Bad is Your Cell Phone Reception?

The ever-fascinating GeekSugar blog points to an interesting ground-up Internet experiment in user-generated information called SignalMap. SignalMap shows you the cell phone reception for various carriers in your zip code. You can enter your own reception to help build a clearer picture and map for cell reception in the areas in which you frequent.

From where I now sit, I have one bar of reception. However, rather than simply moping and whining about Verizon's coverage, I can now map it on SignalMap so we all can get a clear picture of the reception we get, even if we are not getting clear reception. The site is very beta, so we'll have to see how it grows. Power to the people.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: signalmap verizon user-generated

Posted by dmk at 09:47 PM | Comments (1)

August 06, 2007

The Link Blog Alternative

Denise Howell's recent post, "Link Blog Love," (especially Brandy Karl's quote) captures some of my recent feelings about using the Google Reader Shared Items feature and running an RSS feed off of it to create a linkblog and feed. Lately, Denise's link blog feed is one of my favorite things to do in RSS-land. I learn new things and enjoy when we spot the same items.

I've long wanted to do a linkblog and, even though I've considered a few approaches, nothing has worked as well as this one.

Why a linkblog for me? Or, better, why would you be interested in my linkblog and feed?

Well, I started out in 1995 with my first web page and it was a collection of links. I've always enjoyed the whole notion of links and pointing people to useful, interesting information. My belief is that you help people on the Internet equally as much by pointing them to places that might answer their questions as you do by providing answers.

My linkblog serves several purposes. It lets me capture posts and feed items that interest me and collect them in one place where I might return to them later. I might grab items that relate to an upcoming article or presentation (expect to see more items on personal knowledge management in the linkblog in the near future) or examples of great writing, useful tips, and, most often, stuff that makes me think. Although some of the items might one day lead to a blog post, the idea of the linkblog is like ripping and reading articles from publications - good to read now, but potentially useful in the future. It's not all stuff that I agree with (and, in some cases, it's just the opposite). It also gives you a taste of the blogs I read regularly and deliver that to you in the form of a feed.

Will that interest you? I don't know, but I suspect that it will if you are a regular reader of this blog and use a newsreader. The linkblog definitely supplements this blog and you can think of it as a "for further reading" section. Because I use it for my own purposes (and as a substitute for a bookmarks/favorites tool), I'll warn you that you might see a large volume - 50 or more items - on some days and my choices have been described by more than one person as "eclectic," but that shouldn't surprise you. However, there's no need to read all the items. Just sample what interests you and follow where they lead. If you find something that helps you every now and then, then I'm doing a good job with it.

Give my linkblog and linkblog feed a try and let me know what you think. If you are doing a similar linkblog, let me know and I'll give it a try.

I've also been thinking that a simple linkblog and feed might be a good way for someone who is hesitant about committing to writing a blog to dabble in blogging in an easy way and still create a valuable resource.

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

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Technorati tags: legal technology linkblog google reader

Posted by dmk at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2007

Plagiarism, Splogs and Fair Use of Web Content

Elinor Mills has an article on CNET.com (and also in the NY Times) called "Please Don't Steal This Web Content" that I recommend to anyone who publishes materials on the Web. Elinor talked to me during her preparation and there are some small quotes from me in the article, briefly summarizing some basic legal points.

The money quote, from Matt Cutts of Google:

For sites that syndicate their content through feeds, adding a link to the original source of the article at the top or the bottom of a page with wording to the effect of "this article was originally printed here" will help ensure that Google's search engine displays the original item, not a reproduction, on a scraped site, [Cutts] said.

I like that quote because it validates the technique I decided to adopt quite a while ago as the best practical defense against splogs and automatic "repurposing" of my posts.

In response to the article, John Palfrey made some excellent points in his post "CNET Touches on Blogs and Copyright Issue"about how it's difficult to believe that there's still so much uncertainty and such a lack of workable enforcement or compensation mechanisms. It's something that more of us should be thinking about. I've wished for a few years that Creative Commons would take more of a lead role in the practical aspects, but maybe it's time to look in other directions.

Denise Howell makes a similar point here when she writes: "I have long thought Creative Commons moves us significantly closer to this third estate media ecosystem, but doesn’t quite take us all the way there."

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: copyright scraping fair use splogs

Posted by dmk at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2007

Electronic Discovery: Six Months after the FRCP Amendments

Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became effective in December 2006 with expectations that they would constitute a sea change in electronic discovery practices in the US. Has that actually happened?

In The New Federal Rules on Electronic Discovery: The First 180 Days, John Tredennick, Craig Ball, Joe Kashi, Sharon Nelson, Browning Marean and I have a roundtable discussion about the real-world impact of these rule changes. It is informative and it will make you think. We deal with the changes we've seen (and haven't seen), native file production, state court developments, and then check our crystal balls for predictions.

There are many choices for the money quote in this excellent article, but let me give my money quote award to John Tredennick, who says:

As the volumes of native files continue to mount, there is little chance of going back to paper discovery. There aren't enough trees in the forest for one thing, let alone enough printers to spit out the paper. And, our clients would go broke trying to manage the process. No, electronic discovery is here to stay and paper discovery is on the way out. That means new techniques will have to be developed to handle the mountain of electronic content and lawyers will have to get comfortable with the fact that they will not be able to review every document.

The article is part of an excellent new issue of the ABA Law Practice Management Section's new webzine Law Technology Today, of which I am a member of editorial board. I invite you to check out the entire article because you will be rewarded with some useful, practical articles and great information.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: legal technology FRCP electronic discovery EDD e-discovery

Posted by dmk at 07:03 AM | Comments (0)