Legal Technology

Bloggers of hazard

The FTC had bloggers worried the other day when the commission issued new guidelines for endorsements and testimonials in advertising, but it's a fact that the FTC is probably the least of a blogger's concern when civil and criminal liability can attach to posts.

Reverse DNS

As Donald Sutherland explained in "Kelly's Heroes," sometimes its good to go in reverse as fast or faster than you can go forward. And like tanks, that can be true for DNS.

DNS Made Easy, a managed DNS service provider, announced the release of a free Web-based tool to assist system and network administrators in configurating reverse DNS. This tool can be found at ReverseDNSTrace.com for free.

Network computing forecast: partly cloudy

With cloud services popping up today faster than dot-com ASPs in the 1990s, it was only a matter of time before the various formations started spinning industry-specific clouds. For example, there is a Legal Cloud for disaster recover and business continuity services. It just licensed FalconStor software to help with that task.

I realize there are many legal-specific applications related to matter management and time and billing, but there are many applications that lawyers use that are not specific to law, such as backup, content management, business intelligence, etc. For general computing needs, your options for off-the-shelf and open source software are legion. And that will be true as computing needs are satisfied by the network and go into the clouds.

To choose a cloud service, the big questions are related to what you get, when you get it, and how do you get your data off of it when you need to.

Internet dogs and old news

If the microblog is the new blog, and the blog is the new article, and the Kindle is the new book, then the barriers to publishing are greatly reduced where "Internet dogs" are the next big news hounds. Without infrastructure, copy desks and managing editors, the "dogs" are fast and nimble and they can echo the news wherever it is found at a moment's notice.

So unless you are the source of the news, it's already old news.

Where does that leave journalists? The new news analysts.

Wikipedia on a slippery slope

Wikipedia is coming under scrutiny in court, in the traditional press and on legal blogs. First, there's a question of authority; then, there's an issue of liability. Now, the Advocate's Studio has a root cause analysis that could provide a renaissance for the World Book Encyclopedia.

‘Just the facts’

I have seen quite a few legal Web sites now, but I haven’t been all that impressed to write about them. Then I came across Quinn Emanuel’s site. Although I’m still not that impressed with the technology, I do like how they put some facts up front to advertise their differentiators in a very poignant and concise manner.

The die-hard files

There are some technologies that just refuse to die, no matter that newer technologies can replace their function – but not their format. For example, floppy drives. Something you may still need if your loading Windows 2003 Server onto a new server with a host bus adapter that is younger than the OS install base. If you move to Windows 2008, you can simply toss the floppy drive because the 2008 installer can load drivers from the USB drive.

Another one: tape drives. With disk-to-disk backup, who wants to muck around with tape and its grandfather schedules? Well, there’s still quite a few people -- me included. So if you’re thinking of tossing the tape drive, put it in a mailer to me c/o 10 U.N. Plaza, Floor 3,  San Francisco, CA 94102.

And if your tape drive is down for the count, and you’re thinking of disk backup, don’t give up the drive too soon. There are tape drive repair specialists like CPU Inc. that will put it back together for you. Because when it comes to disaster recovery, nothing beats the tape format.

Fax is another die-hard technology. It also refuses to die, but fax deserves its own post. Because lawyers have an intimacy with their fax machines that continues despite all the good-looking alternatives like MyFax.

A slow tech news day in the U.K.

It's obviously a slow tech day in the U.K., when reporters have more to say about each other than technology. 

Is anti-competitive behavior getting too complicated?

I think I have to return to my blog more often. Twitter is more aggravating than normal today. I am wondering if I have more computing power in my garage than Twitter has to run their service. From what I see most days, I think that is the case.

Anyway, I was going to Tweet on the Consumer Watchdog's commentary on Google's arguments to the Dep't of Justice as to why it is not a monopoly. And while I was waiting for Twitter to load, and waiting, (it's still trying to draw the Web page, mind you) I was thinking that anti-competitive behavior has probably gotten to technical and subtle for government review. Which, is why they often focus on the end points of market share before they put their foot into it.

Google is most likely feeling the "Microsoft Effect." That is, what it is like to be a giant on the Internet -- everyone comes gunning for you. And when that happens, let's hope that Google's PR does not get better than their technology. If so, we'll have to go find another search engine that finds something besides what everyone else found on the Internet.

I am still not convinced that most lawyers are luddites

I had a discussion with a colleague the other day about how lawyers are not the most likely group to adopt new technology. For the most part, I think lawyers just need to see how it can help their practice, facilitate a dispute, or aid a client's cause. For example, The Am Law Daily has observed how lawyers from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr are working for the Sudan People's Liberation to avert war through an arbitration to draw the Abyei borders. What's interesting from a "legal technology" perspective is the degree to which the lawyers have turned a usually secretive affair (aka international arbitration) into the public domain using a webcast.