Legal Technology

Twitter in multiple languages with SpeakLike

Twitter’s growth seems meteoric. It is branching off into subject areas, like law, and now there’s a service, SpeakLike, that can send your tweets in multiple languages.

Computer problems prevented stay of execution?

Remember when Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller refused to keep the CCA clerk’s office open after 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2007 to accept an application for a stay of execution for Michael Richards, who was executed that day? In formal proceedings against Keller, she alleges that she was never told that Richards’ lawyers were having computer problems that delayed their application. And, that the judge would have accepted an application written on a scrap of paper, prior to the clerk’s office closing.

I guess time matters for Keller, and takes precedence over life. But I don’t think you can generalize that to the great state of Texas. Hopefully, the formal proceedings against Keller will sort the matter out.

But this story has a lesson for IT. Legal systems can be just as critical as financial and medical systems: keep’em running.

A billion in a box

 

A billion of anything, in anything, sounds like a deal. Index Engines announced that a single engine, or box, can now index and search up to one billion data objects. The full text and metadata information are indexed in 250 million object segments and, through a centralized index, a billion objects can be queried and extracted in box.

E-Mail Theft Case Sparks First-of-a-Kind Ruling

In a case stemming from an employer's theft of e-mails from an employee, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently became the first circuit to hold that plaintiffs must prove actual damages to be eligible for an award of statutory damages under the Stored Communications Act. But the unanimous panel, led by Chief Judge Karen Williams, also ruled that a showing of actual damages is not required for awards of punitive damages or attorney fees.. See Van Alstyne v. Electronic Scriptorium Ltd., No. 07-1892.

Avvocating: You Might Be Obsessed With Twitter if ...

By Mark S. Britton
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

"Twitter-mania" has officially arrived. Whether I am at work, on the bus, waiting in line at the food court, having my teeth cleaned or simply reading the local paper, all I hear is Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. If Twitter were a boy band, the Jonas Brothers would weep in its presence. Here's ten things that may indicate you are obsessed with Twitter.

Is a Hosted Review Model Right for You?

By Ari Kaplan
Special to the Legal Technology Blog

I spoke recently with Wayne Ford and Rob Jensen, the Senior Vice President of Marketing Channels and Business Development, and the Senior Director of Marketing, respectively, for Anacomp, the maker of CaseLogistix.  We discussed trends in e-discovery, including more efficient searching and improved culling of information, streamlined litigation review and hidden metadata.

With respect to hosted review, Ford and Jensen highlighted the following advantages:

1.  Leveraging the infrastructure of another organization.
2.  Seamless scalability.
3.  Controlled access.

Listen to the interview here.

Ari L. Kaplan, Esq.
www.arikaplanadvisors.com
(646) 641-0600

Legal technology writer and author of "The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development" (Thomson-West, 2008). Learn more at  TheOpportunityMaker.com.

Review: Informative Graphics Corp. Redact-It Desktop (version 1.1)

The primary purpose of redaction for lawyers is to remove information from documents that you do not want others to see -- because they would use it against you or your client. That is a simple enough concept, but many "miss" redacting important data.

Today, most all documents are in electronic format and their redaction requires the correct application of software like Informative Graphics Corp. Redact-It Desktop. And, in the event you have a multitude of documents to review and redact, automation -- but less than a fully automated process.

New root domains will bring new opps for cyber-squatters

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, popularly known as ICANN, plans to expand the so-called generic top-level domain names beyond the 21 currently approved names such as .com and .biz, plus country domain names such as .ca and .uk. This will exacerbate the cybers-quatting problem. Cyber-squatting continues to rise because the business model is still profitable and cyber-squatters constantly have new brand names to exploit, said Paul D. McGrady Jr, a Chicago shareholder in Greenberg Traurig's technology, media and telecommunications practice group.

Free online CLE for IP lawyers

It is an enormous hassle for me to leave the office, so I am constantly trolling for online CLE that will bring high value to my law practice while not taking me away from it for a long period of time. The Intellectual Property Colloquium fit the bill. The colloquium is a monthly conversation on a topic of intellectual property law with Douglas Lichtman, UCLA professor of law, and guests. This month: statutory damages in copyright and the Tenenbaum litigation. N.B., it’s free.

Information overload

ARMA International recently launched a new blog that aims to cover “interesting, alarming, and amusing” news on records and information management. You might think this a bit on the not-so-exciting side. But really, there are elements of Indiana Jones as posted by complexd and there is certainly no shortage of humor and tragedy when dealing with archival information.