Fry an egg. As much as I would love for my iPad to allow me to cook my favorite breakfast food on-the-go. I have a feeling that we will not see this innovation until a much later iteration of the iPad. Until then, I guess we will just have to settle for smarter legal research.

We don’t endorse this video in any way, we just think it was funny.

What it Can Do

Smarter legal research. Our award-winning Fastcase mobile app brings smarter legal research to your iPhone and iPad.  A recent review of the app had this to say:

“This is a can’t-miss app–not only because it allows you to conduct legal research on the go using your iPad or iPhone–but because the app is free. And you don’t even need a subscription to Fastcase to use it.”

Say, however, you did decide to join the “cool kids” and get a subscription. Not only would you be able to print cases, but you could do something almost as awesome as frying an egg: Mobile Sync.

Mobile Sync allows you to sync your account so that you can move seamlessly from device to device. For example, you could start your day with coffee at your desktop searching through the Fastcase database; move to your iPad as you are on the go from court room to court room; and finish up by discreetly looking up that last case you forgot while at your kid’s recital (though we don’t condone this, we won’t tell). Your search will be saved each time and you can pick up where you left off- even creating a print queue for when you have access to a printer.

If you already have our apps and a subscription, you can click here to learn how to sync your devices.

Though only the future holds the joy of frying an egg with your iPad, for now the Fastcase app provides its own sense of accomplishment. We hope you will take some time to check it out it:

Learn more about the Fastcase App for iPad

Download Fastcase App

Besides, did anyone think about how messy frying an egg on an iPad would be?

On May 12, 2012, Fastcase CEO Ed Walters delivered the commencement address at the University of Illinois College of Law, at the Krannert Center for Performing Arts in Champaign, Ill.  The text of the address follows:

University of Illinois College of Law

Commencement Address

May 12, 2012

Thank you, Dean Smith.  Members of the faculty, university administrators, distinguished alumni, parents, and members of the graduating class of 2012, it is an honor to serve as your commencement speaker today.

Like most of you, when I was growing up, I had a recurring nightmare – that it was the morning of a test, and I hadn’t done the reading.  I would sit bolt upright in bed, in a cold sweat.  I had this dream all my life.

Until the day I graduated from law school.  On the night after graduation, I had the same nightmare.  I sat bolt upright in bed, and then I realized: I had taken the last exam of my life. Then I smiled, and went back to sleep.  And I’ve slept pretty peacefully ever since.

Welcome to the end of that nightmare.  Welcome to the rest of your life.

Your Toughest Grader

Until now, you have constantly been tested by other people, evaluated by other people, and graded by other people. Your success has been measured by other people: your parents, your teachers, the SAT, the LSAT.  Your success was measured by their standards for you.  You had to constantly worry: am I passing? Am I failing?  Will my standardized test scores be good enough to get me into law school?  Will I make law review?  Will I graduate cum laude?

But soon you will take the bar exam, the last major test of your life.  This will mark the end of the era in which other people will be testing you and grading you.  Starting today, you must prepare to enter a new era in which the primary judge of your success will be: you. And you are the toughest grader you’re ever going to face.

So today, I’d like to share some things to consider as you’re defining, measuring, and achieving happiness and success on your own terms.

The Fastest Hamster on the Wheel

Shortly after law school, I learned an important lesson in defining happiness for myself.  In law school, I was very caught up in other people’s definitions of my success – getting good grades, making law review, getting a good job. I wasn’t quite a gunner, but let’s just say that people couldn’t put a hoop in front of me without me wanting to jump through it. I worked hard, and I was pretty proud of myself for it – a little too proud.  As we said in law school, “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

Then I graduated and clerked for a judge for a year, and I carried that attitude with me to my clerkship. And my judge pulled me aside one day, and said very kindly: Ed, you’re doing good work here.  But if you take this attitude into a big law firm, they’re going to chew you up.  There’s no glory in being the fastest hamster on the wheel.

That lesson landed on me like a bag of bricks – but the judge was right. I had been looking for other people to recognize how hard I was working.  So I spent my clerkship year letting go of what others expected.  I got out of the Habitrail and cleared all the wood shavings out of my life.  And I arrived at my firm ready to work hard, but also with my own ideas about what constitutes success.

And because I learned to stop worrying about what other people think, I was better able to make the very difficult decision to leave my law firm job in 1999 to start a legal publishing company in my living room.

Most of my classmates were on their way to making partner or getting great jobs as in-house counsel, and I was struggling to get a software company off the ground.  But it was liberating and thrilling to be contrarian, and ultimately right – to define success on my own terms.  It’s worth noting that I probably would not have succeeded without the full support of my family.  Parents out there: I’m talking to you.

No matter what your job, people will put hoops in front of you for your whole life.  But you get to decide which ones to jump through.  Decide carefully, and make sure to look around.  There’s no glory in being the fastest hamster on the wheel.

Defining Success on Your Own Terms

So you can define your career success however you want.  By the hours you work, or how large your firm gets, or how much money you make. Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy health insurance.

But I hope you will also seek fulfillment outside the office, being a terrific parent to great kids.  Being a loving partner.  Becoming an MVP coach in a youth soccer league. Your calling may be in law, but you may be just as fulfilled in vocations in your community, helping to establish a neighborhood health clinic, helping to improve a neighborhood school, serving on a nonprofit board of directors, or building a church in your neighborhood.

When you pursue your passion for running, cooking, reading, sports, or travel – these passions aren’t a distraction from your success – they form the very fabric of your success.  This isn’t thinking out of the box.  It’s making your own box.

Graduation is a great time to take an internal audit, before you start your career. How will you know if you’re on the right track?  How do you grade yourself and hold yourself accountable?  Here are a few ideas.

Be conscious of how you feel as you head into work in the morning.  Are you bounding through the door in the morning, or are you sitting in the car, idling, dreading walking in the building?

Do you feel uncomfortable doing something to get ahead at work?  Are you sure that you’re making the world better instead of worse?  And are you sure that what you’re accomplishing with your life – in the office and out – is commensurate with your skill and ambitions?

Are you helping the right people?  People you like, relate to, and who are themselves doing what’s right?  Do you like the people you work with?  Is your community better for your involvement?

Look at your life today the way it will look in hindsight.  Consider how you would explain your choices to your kids or to students.  If you’d have a hard time explaining how you’re spending your days, or why you’re choosing one path over another, chances are that your choices are out of alignment with your values.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Finding fulfillment in your life – achieving happiness – is part of what it means to be a complete person, and essential to success in any job.  It is also an integral part of the American experience.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence that we are endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  These rights were first articulated by John Locke, who wrote in Two Treatises of Government that people have natural rights to be secure in their “life, liberty, and property.”  Jefferson thought that the notion of happiness was so important that he struck the word property and substituted the words “the pursuit of happiness.”

The phrase “pursuit of happiness” also comes from John Locke, but from a separate essay titled Concerning Human Understanding, in which he said: “The necessity of pursuing happiness is the foundation of liberty.”  The essay discusses happiness in the classical Greek sense, of eudaimonia.  Happiness for Locke and for Jefferson is a civic virtue that means more than making a lot of money and receiving awards.

It means living a considered life, social happiness over individual happiness.  Happiness in their sense is knowing that you’re working on what’s important to you, making a difference, and achieving your potential, both for yourself and for your community.

Locke says that kind of considered, social happiness is the key to liberty – to freedom and independence.  And that’s the kind of happiness, or fulfillment, I’m talking about today.

I’m talking about happiness a lot.  And it’s in part because I know many of you are feeling anxiety about graduating into this job market.  Happiness must seem less important than who’s going to pay your rent.  Maybe your families are feeling this anxiety, too.

I completely understand the feeling of anxiety. At my company, it took us about four years of struggle, sweat, and bad coffee to launch our software and start making money.  I went for years without a paycheck and sold everything I owned.  I borrowed a ton of money, and I drove an old Ford Explorer until the drive train literally fell out the bottom of it.  While I was driving.

But I have to confess, even during that time of great risk, I felt enormous satisfaction in what I was doing.  I felt that liberty, freedom and independence.

My co-founder and I believed it was important to make legal research smarter, and put the law within the reach of more people, to change our little corner of the world.  But we also ate a lot of Ramen noodles in those first few years.

A Broken Market

Everyone knows this is a terrible job market to graduate into. We’re not in a temporary downturn – this is a permanent correction. This is the new normal. The business of law is broken, and our generation – especially yours, will be called to fix it.

Too many law firms are chasing the same Fortune 500 clients, but they are finding that they have a glut of supply – talented lawyers sitting around with nothing to do. Meanwhile, one in seven Americans is living in poverty, and often can’t afford legal services for the most basic matters.  Even above the poverty line, the fees for legal services are out of reach for all but the wealthiest Americans. If this seems abstract, wait until the first time you hire a lawyer.  Your first bill from your lawyer will be a pretty rude awakening.

There is an enormous gap between supply of legal talent at high billable rates, and demand among people who need help – people who are fighting fraudulent foreclosure, trying to become a U.S. citizen, working through custody issues in a divorce, trying to open a small business.

And although you are graduating during a difficult era, this time also holds greater opportunities than ever for you, personally to be a part of this change.

The Power to Change

The tools of change are more accessible than ever to people.  We are tightly networked and global, and the world is more malleable than ever. We’re more empowered to change the world in 2012 than at almost any time in history.

Here’s a great example of how individuals can help solve large, seemingly intractable problems. Last month, law students at two different law schools, most of them 3Ls like you, with no formal software experience, competed in apps for justice contests.  They created small applications that solved recurring legal problems – problems that are huge for people, but too small for the traditional law firm business model.

These apps did all kinds of useful things, like helping parents figure out whether their kids born abroad were U.S. citizens, advising same-sex couples of their rights in different states, or assisting law enforcement officers during traffic stops.  These tools would have been impossibly large and expensive as little as five years ago. But today, people just like you are coding them in about a semester.  Not armies of lawyers, just individual people determined to make their mark.

When we started Fastcase, people told me that it was impossible to compete with two multi-billion dollar publishing companies. But today, Fastcase has more than 500,000 subscribers from around the world.  Members of the Illinois State Bar Association get access to Fastcase for free.  And our apps for iPhone and iPad have more mobile users than Westlaw and Lexis combined. These are nerdy, software examples (consider the source).  My point is unrelated to software. People – individual people like you and me – can make a huge difference, and especially when the job market is tightest.

We are all a product of our time.  This is our time – and now your time. The Chinese word for crisis is wei ji, a combination of the words for danger and opportunity.  We must embrace the danger and opportunity of this crisis, the wei xian and the ji huay.

So this may not be the job market you anticipated, but it may well create the unexpected opportunity, an opportunity that you may otherwise have missed, that makes your career.

The shortest distance between you and your goals is rarely a straight line.  It’s a little like driving across the mountains: the fastest way usually isn’t a straight line across the map.  You don’t control the terrain.  And the path usually takes you on a few turns in the opposite direction along the way.

This job market is full of mountains and obstacles.  Your path across them may be different from the one you charted.  But openness, flexibility, and hard work will get you there.

Urgency

My last point is about urgency, and the power of this moment right now.  I’ve often worried in my life about things in the distant future.  But the most powerful times in my life have been when I’m rooted in the present, in this exact moment.

If you love someone, the time to tell them is now.  Tell your parents, your children, your grandparents, your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife, and your friends.  Tell them often.  You will never regret saying I love you to the people in your life.

If you’re waiting to quit smoking, or to exercise, or to cut down how much you drink, the sooner you do that, the greater the multiplier effect to your health or happiness.

When you’re in business, the time to cut expenses is always now – if you wait until later, the cost is always much higher, and the effect more drastic.  And the time to seize a new opportunity is always now.  There’s real urgency here, because windows of opportunity close very fast.

As I conclude, I want to encourage you to be very present in this moment.  Your graduation is the culmination of three often difficult years of study. Of great friendships and cheap beer.  Of thinking, questioning, reading.  Today, this moment right now, will be one of the greatest in your life.

Remember to look around.  Remember these friends.  Remember the look of pride in the faces of your families, remember how hot these robes are, the pride you feel on graduating.  Cherish this moment. Savor it.

I’m reminded of the expression by African musician Babatunde Olatunji: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.”

I later discovered that this quote was also used in the movie Kung Fu Panda, which made it seem somewhat less profound.  The narrative arc of this speech is now complete.  We’ve devolved from Jefferson and Locke to Kung Fu Panda.

This is your time.  Make your own definition of success.  Find your happiness – your liberty, freedom, and independence. Respect both the danger and opportunity of this time of crisis. And savor this moment.

Congratulations to the Class of 2012, and thank you very much.

Last week the state of Maryland passed a law, broadly speaking, prohibiting employers from asking employees and potential employees for their social media log-in information. This is the first law of its kind but several other states have similar bills pending. Once the Governor has signed this law it will take effect October 1^st.

In another case, 6 employees lost their job allegedly for “liking” their boss’ political opposition on Facebook. The judge in this case ruled that “liking” on Facebook is not protected under Freedom of Speech granted in the First Amendment. This case is sure to go appeal.

Indeed it is no surprise that Facebook has made its way into the laws and cases that govern America. What may be surprising, however, is the large volume of cases involving Facebook over such a short time period.

I used Fastcase’s Timeline feature to take a look at such cases mapped in 4-D over time.  As you can see in the image below, cases including the search term Facebook only began in 2006 (the one in 2004 does not refer to the Facebook) and since then there have been almost 1000 more.

They most prominently begin with the cases made famous by the movie The Social Network involving Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg and the Winklevoss twins over the ConnectU site.  The most recent part ( and coincidentally also in Massachusetts) of the Timeline shows a slip opinion that came out a few days ago and was reported in news stories about the role Facebook plays on jury selection.



It is hard to imagine that just 7 years ago litigation involving Facebook was practically non-existent and now it is becoming a part of daily legal vernacular. Who knows, the court of the future may be a simple poll of “Likes” on a Facebook page…

“Sharon 1 is the rightful owner of the ticket according to Ark. Code 18-28-202 (a)(14) which states that abandoned property can be claimed for up to 5 years.

Sharon 2 has no claim to the property now that Sharon 1 has made herself known. Ark. Code 18-28-207 (e) states that the holder of the property (Sharon 2) must contact the apparent owner (Sharon 1) if the owner is indeed known. Thus Sharon 2 could have kept the ticket if Sharon 1 had not gone public.

The convenience store owner has no claim to the property. Arkansas has yet to pass a statute allowing residents to implicitly claim ownership via trash receptacles.

Ark. Code 18-28-202 on Fastcase

Ark. Code 18-28-207 on Fastcase. ”

Clearly, someone got their smart on. To the owner of this response, please send us your contact information at support@fastcase.com. We’ll be sending you one of our exclusive “Get Your Smart On” t-shirts. Thanks to everyone who responded and be sure to continue responding. If you’re as cool as this guy we’ll send you a t-shirt too!

We’ll call them Sharon 1 and Sharon 2 (yes, that is a reference to Arrested Development).  Sharon 1 purchased the ticket and checked it using a convenience store computer. The computer indicated she was not a winner so she threw it in a trash can. Along comes Sharon 2 who has an apparent hobby of double-checking discarded lottery tickets, and good thing she does!

She stumbles upon Sharon 1’s lottery ticket and it turns out the computer was wrong and the ticket actually had a $1 million prize. Sharon 2 cashes in the ticket and proceeds to purchase a new truck and give some cash gifts to her kids.

The manager of the convenience store decided to stake a claim to the ticket given that it was her garbage can, and Sharon 1 catching wind of this joins the bandwagon. The store manager loses the case but the judge suggests that Sharon 1 might be the rightful owner. So Sharon 1 sues and wins the case on the grounds that the burden of abandonment was not proved. The author of the article seems to suggest that Sharon 1 simply had a better attorney (who we think probably uses Fastcase). Needless to say, Sharon 2 plans to appeal.

Around the Fastcase office this has been a hotly debated case as each of us have scoured the database for cases and information on “abandonment,” “garbage,” “trash,” etc.  We’re also thinking of starting a Fastcase Abandoned Lottery Ticket Club.

We’d love to know what you think. If we like your answer we’ll cut you in on a share of any winning discarded lottery tickets we find. Check Twitter May 3 at noon to see the results of our poll.

Today the White House issued a proclamation re-affirming President Eisenhower’s declaration of National Law Day in 1958. In Obama’s proclamation, he announced the theme of this year’s Law Day which is “No Courts. No Freedom. No Justice” which is meant to

“recall(s) the historic role our courts have played in protecting the fundamental rights and liberties of all Americans. Our courts are the guarantors of civil justice, social order, and public safety, and we must do everything we can to enable their critical work. The courthouse doors must be open and the necessary services must be in place to allow all litigants, judges, and juries to operate efficiently. Likewise, we must ensure that access to justice is not an abstract theory, but a concrete commitment that delivers the promise of counsel and assistance for all who seek it.”

Fastcase’s own President Phil Rosenthal, had this to say as a reflection on the theme of this Law Day:

“We should recognize the amazing work being done by bar leaders around the country to preserve an independent judiciary and fight for equal access to justice.  Without their tremendous work we may actually face a reality of ‘No Courts. No Freedom. No Justice.’

Today’s legal scene is a never-ending uphill battle.  Fine judges are facing recall because they “did not follow the law.”  Many state judicial branches face horrendous budget cuts.  For example, the California judiciary lost 30% of its budget in four years and more cuts are coming.  IOLTA funds have shriveled and government funding of legal aid and legal services is never enough. And that is just the beginning…

Fortunately, there is hope because of the valiant battle being fought by Bar leaders.  Bars do so much work to inform legislators, fill the gap in civic education left by our school systems, fight for funding for the judiciary and for legal services for the poor, and oppose radical referenda.  Without them the slogan ‘No courts; No Freedom; No Justice’ would not be a warning, but a prediction for our future.”

At Fastcase we are privileged to be partnered with numerous Bar Associations around the country and this Law Day we would like to send our deepest gratitude for the work they do and their commitment to the spirit of this year’s Law Day theme.

At the top of my Quick Caselaw Search was 742 F.Supp.2d 784 which is a filing for rights to the wreckage from 2010, my favorite part of this case is that despite its national broadcast, the only petitioner to stake a claim was the insurance company that covered the luggage on the ship. I really wonder how that insurance claim went…

I wanted to see if there were any juicy cases from around the time of the Titanic so I used our timeline feature to look at the cases mapped in 4-D (take that James Cameron!). This graphs cases according to relevance, cites in the search, and cites in the database, all over time. The timeline had some pretty interesting results.  (Click here to learn more about Timeline).

One of them was the circles furthest to the left which are for 233 U.S. 718 (34 S.Ct. 754, 58 L.Ed. 1171). This case touches on some pretty meaty international law issues regarding liability for foreign owned vessels and which jurisdiction’s laws apply. I’m not going to ruin the surprise ending for you though, you’ll just have to check it out for yourself here.

Finally, I wanted to see how 233 U.S. 718 (34 S.Ct. 754, 58 L.Ed. 1171) is cited so I ran an Authority Check on the case. It looks like this case has had a lot of action since 1914. The most recent of these adds to the question of international jurisdiction/liability in a case involving two ships from different countries. Oh the Drama!

So there you have it, using the innovative tools available with Fastcase I was able to follow 100 years of litigation related to the sinking of the Titanic. Now I just wonder if I should try to stake my claim on some of the precious jewelry that was rumored to be on there…

Learn to use Timeline and Authority Check with our video tutorials found here. Also, be sure to check out our webinars for more information on our innovative tools for smarter legal research. As always, for the latest information on what’s happening at Fastcase be sure to visit our website at www.fastcase.com.

To join us, click here.

The Smithsonian has embraced this concept in their exhibition “The Art of Video Games” curated by Chris Melissinos. From March 16, 2012-September 30, 2012, the exhibition presents a gamer’s paradise which showcases video games as an unprecedented form of storytelling. The exhibition is accompanied by several events including the “Gaming Symphony Orchestra” being held on April 29, 2012. And don’t worry if you can’t make it up to DC for the exhibition, it’s going on tour after it has wrapped up in DC. All of this gushing is to say it’s a definite must-see, just be sure to check their website (where we got all of this lovely information) and read their FAQ including costume etiquette beforehand.

Though I doubt Justice Scalia is taking much time out of his busy schedule to play Angry Birds (or maybe he is?), the Smithsonian has beautifully  brought to life the Supreme Court’s fine decision.

Click here to find other video game relevant cases in the Fastcase database and here to learn more about Fastcase and our innovative tools for smarter legal research.

In addition, members will have the option to sync their free iPhone and iPad apps with the the free desktop research they can now access through AILA.

Members may log in by going to www.aila.org and clicking on the Fastcase icon.  Registration for free webinars is open to AILA members here.