Justia Law, Technology and Legal Marketing Blog

Free US Case Law from Google! - US Federal + 50 State Case Law

Hi Friends,

Thanks Google! Google has put FREE US case law online in Google Scholar :) The US Federal case law database includes US Supreme Court opinions since 1 US 1 (pre - 1776), Federal Appeals opinions since 1 F 2d 1 (1924+), and many Federal District Court opinions from F Supp. Opinions from all 50 states are included since 1950. Internal page numbers are included, and cases are hyperlinked to other cases within each case. When observing a particular case, you can quickly see how the observed case has been cited (with the quote from the observed case) with links to the cases using the particular quote, in addition to a list of all cases citing the observed case.

Here are a few screen shots, but check it out yourself, and you may never return to this blog post :)

The Google Scholar Advanced Search allows you to search a particular state.

Example case Bush v Gore

Example of the "How Cited" tab for Bush v Gore

Some alternative locations for the Bush v Gore case.

Google's database of free case law has just been released (Rick Klau (@rklau) tweeted it last night as it went live :), and I am sure there will be additional features in the search functionality and data. It is fantastic that Google has put this case law online for free. Google can even use their hundreds of lawyers to test it out :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Take It Easy, Eagles by the Eagles

ABA Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference, Philadelphia, November 12-13, 2009

Hi Friends,

This years ABA Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference is being held in Philadelphia, November 12-13, 2009. Those who register up before August 31, will save $200-400.

Above the Law's David Lat will be speaking on image control (that should be interesting :) and President and CEO of BBDO New York, John Osborn will be speaking on strategic branding.

If you want nice focused time efficent to-dos in how to approach social media from a law firm marketing perspective... I am on two panels about Web 2.0 and social media marketing, and will be covering LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Friend Feed, Avvo, Google Local, JDSupra, Martindale-Hubbell Connected, Legal OnRamp and the ABA's LegallyMinded. Joining me in sessions moderated by Steve Silverberg, will be Tom Mighell, Greg Siskind and William W. Bowser

And, as always, I and others will be hanging out after sessions to answer individual questions etc...

Tim

:: Something for Nothing, 2112 by Rush

Legal Information Institute Tom Bruce, Dan Nagy & Deborah Schaaf visit Ithaca West (aka Berkeley & the Silicon Valley)

Hi Friends,

Tom Bruce, Dan Nagy and Deborah Schaaf from the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School stopped on by for some meetings with folks on new free information projects. The LII gang met with us, Nolo, Stanford and FreeGovInfo.info :) And there was a talk on privacy on the Internet with David Schellhase & Michael Blum moderated by Kevin Haroff. Here are some pictures of Tom in action making things happen...

Tom and Nolo CEO/Founder Jake Warner discuss legal information and services delivery to the public at Nolo's headquarters in Berkeley and maybe a joint project or two :)

Tom and FreeGovInfo.info / Stanford's James Jacobs discuss free government information. Only trouble will happen when these two guys site down together.

Peace & Yes We Scan!

Tim

Yes We Scan!!!! - Support Carl Malamud to head the Government Printing Office!!!! Support Free Public Information!!!!

:: Sugar Magnolia, American Beauty by the Grateful Dead

Yes We Scan!!! Carl Malamud for Head of the Government Printing Office

Hi Friends,

A few weeks ago the New York Times floated a rumor/great idea that Carl Malamud, the great hard working free information Internet do-gooder, was being mentioned as a potential candidate for head of the Government Printing Office. Of course, we at Justia cheered this idea on -- who better to bring government publishing into the digital age than the man whose will and technology know how has lead millions of court decisions, SEC filings, patents, Congressional videos online and other public domain documents being brough online for all to research and enjoy.

Well, it turns out the rumor is true! We wanted to be among the first to announce our unqualified support for Carl as Public Printer of the United States. Carl's vision for open, secure, and efficient government publishing will be a welcome asset to the Obama Administration, helping to usher in the new era of accessible government.

At Justia, we believe that information produced with taxpayer dollars -- including laws and legal opinions -- belong to the people. We want all Americans to have access to the law, and to achieve that end, we need transparency, accountability, and a spirit of openness in our government. Carl Malamud embodies all of these qualities.

Carl's ability to lead and organize a variety of folks in this effort has been extremely impressive. He has an incredible ability to get folks from a variety of backgrounds to work together on a common goal for the public good. Most recently, through his work with public.resource.org, Carl has made an invaluable contribution to the growing collection of free case law, codes, and regulations on the internet. His Pacer Recycling Program adds court filings, opinions, and other public domain materials.

Carl also understands and supports business. Carl has been a CEO, and he especially knows the Internet business marketplace. He has been very encouraging to us and others to use the data and materials he has collected at public.resource.org to create new products and services. He has been invaluable in helping with technology issues we face in dealing with large amounts of public data. With Carl as head of the GPO, many more small businesses, would greatly benefit from the additional access to public information (and I am sure that many more new businesses would start up as well!).

Carl's demonstrated commitment to preserving and extending our public access to the public record and government works makes him the perfect candidate for the GPO. We are promised change -- and we need someone like Carl to make that happen. Having someone with the technological and leadership skills of Carl Malamud running the Government Printing Office will make the USA a better place for all! We cannot think of a bigger win for public access to government documents!

Please join us in supporting Carl by visiting his "campaign" site and reading his policy documents: www.yeswescan.org. Carl is a great man who deserves all our support!

Peace & Yes We Scan!

Tim, Ken, Stacy, Courtney, Cicely, Vasu, Dan, Nick, Soby and the Rest of the Justia Team!!!

:: It's a New Day by will.i.am

For the Birds: LegalBirds: Twitter Directory for the Legal Community

Hi Friends,

In early December, Justia and the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School setup a pre-beta version of "Legal Birds" of legal twitterers and their tweets, and integrated twitter feeds into the attorney profile pages in our Lawyer Directory. We have now enhanced the twitter section with graphical tools, community-building functions and better search functionality. The updated version can be found at LegalBirds.com.

Currently, LegalBirds.com

lists legal tweeters ("the community") ranked in a few different ways,
displays Twitter user IDs and a hash tag cloud (e.g., #salmonella) for the most mentioned users and terms,
groups tweeters by practice, location and occupation (lawyers, academics, legal professionals) so that you can find kindred spirits,
spotlights tweeters in Google Maps and Google Earth,
provides RSS feeds for subscribing to tweets by category or term,
allows users to perform full-text searches of tweeters and the tweet archive,

We have further integrated Twitter into the Lawyer Directory with ia Twitter tab for individual profiles. And we have opened the directory to accommodate profiles from academics (professors, school librarians, students, etc.), legal professionals (legal publishers, experts, consultants, firm librarians, non-practicing lawyers who want a community profile, but do not want to be in a "lawyer" directory), and the judicary (judges, magistrates, and court staff).

Of course, we will be adding in more features and will be integrating a version of LegalBirds.com into the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School website with some extra academic focus :). And, we will be tying it into Justia BlawgSearch as well (the Justia version of LegalBirds.com design is based on the BlawgSearch.com's look and feel).

Rankings

Everybody loves rankings... and so we have set-up a few different versions. Find the one you rank best on, and use that one when talking with folks. First a few terms:

"Community" members are those tweeters currently in the Legal Birds Community (i.e., LegalBirds.com is indexing their twitter feed). If we are not following your twitter feed, be sure to Join Legal Birds today. We are continually adding feeds from new Legal Birds.

"All" are all twitter users.

"Connections" mean two tweeters are mutually following each other (i.e., tweeter A follows tweeter B AND tweeter B follows tweeter A). We view connections as the most valuable type of relationship because these are more likely to lead to conversations in the twittersphere.

"Followers" are those that follow a tweeter.

We rank tweeters by:

Community Connections - mutual followers from the community of legal tweeters.

Community Followers - followers from the community of legal tweeters.

All Connections - mutual followers from all twitter users.

All Followers - followers from all twitter users.

Tweets Today - the number of tweets a user has made in the last 24 hours.

We have set Community Connections as the default ranking because we value it the most (both tweeters in the legal community, following each other is more likely to lead to interesting legal twitter discussion).

Google Maps and Google Earth

You can view the people in multiple ways:

list view showing their last 4 tweets (often useful when trying to determine who to follow),
grid view which has quick ranking stats and
map view (see below).

We also display community tweeters on Google Maps. You can view all of the community tweeters, those in a particular category or location, or just your own community connections, followers and followees.

Of course, you can also download a KML file to see all of the legal birds on Google Earth. We also provide KML files for each of the categories and for your individual community connections, as well as tweeters you follow and those who are following you. Click here to download the KML file of all Legal Birds.

In any event, enjoy LegalBirds.com, more will be coming soon :)

Peace,

Tim & Ken

:: Free Bird, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Free Lawyer Directory from Justia & Cornell Legal Information Institute

Hi Friends,

Justia and the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School have been building a lawyer directory the last few months to help individuals, families and businesses find lawyers and legal service organizations. (See the Justia Lawyer Directory and the LII Lawyer Directory).

We are happy to announce that this project will be moving out of pre-beta and into beta. Also see the LII Blog announcement: LII launches free lawyer directory service.

Any lawyer licensed to practice in the United States may have a free full profile. Just claim or add your profile and update. It is really easy.

The Lawyer Directory can help lawyers reach new clients. The Lawyer Directory connects consumers and businesses facing legal issues with attorneys and legal services organizations. The directory organizes lawyers throughout the United States by practice area and location. To find a lawyer, a prospective client can browse the directory by practice area or location, or search by keyword and location.

Full lawyer profiles in the directory are free. Lawyers can claim their profiles and enhance them with professional biographical data including practice areas, education, job history, jurisdictions of practice, as well as photos, videos, and links and/or feeds from legal & social networks (JDSupra, Avvo, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and SSRN), and their law firm's web site and blog.

Provide & Promote Free Information and be Rewarded with Higher Rankings in the Lawyer Directory

Lawyers who support the publishing of free legal information online, either through their own direct efforts (such as by blogging) or by helping organizations like the Legal Information Institute, will be listed higher in the rankings.

Currently, the lawyer directory awards a "Blawg" badge to lawyers who have had their blog editorially included in Justia's BlawgSearch.com directory. Submit your Blawg to BlawgSearch.com for editorial consideration - it is free :). We also award a "Legal Birds" badge to lawyers who use Twitter. More participation options will be coming soon. With the badges also come higher lawyer directory rankings - so collect them all.

Support the Legal Information Institute. Lawyers can also earn a LII badge by supporting the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. There are three levels of support: Bronze ($250/yr), Silver ($500/yr) and Gold ($1,000/yr). The support goes to Cornell, and they will use it to hire up programming and editorial talent to put up more free information. What could be better! All of the Justia in-house lawyers have Gold LII badges :). And we are now in the process of encouraging our clients to get badges too.

Blogging, tweeting, or financially supporting LII will lead to higher rankings on listing pages but are not required to be included in the directory with a full profile. They only impact the rank order on the listings pages. So get in the directory no matter what, and then start planning how you can help the online community put up more good free legal research information to make the world a better place and get some marketing credit for yourself.

We are developing more features... but more on those later :)

Peace,

Tim & Ken

:: Revolution Blues, On the Beach by Neil Young

President Barack Obama inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America

President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama's Win on the Web

President Barack Obama

Graphic Copyright Charis Tsevis

Home Foreclosure Resources & The Foreclosure Survival Guide by Steve Elias - New Nolo.com Book

Hi Friends,

As most of us know, Nolo.com is the best Website for consumer and small business USA legal information. Nolo's lawyers-writers-editors are the best. Nolo.com covers everything from starting a business, employment, real estate, intellectual property, immigration, family law, tax, estate planning, bankruptcy, credit law and foreclosures.

Well... as our country ~~slowly~~ quickly moves into economic tough times, I thought I would blog on a new book, The Foreclosure Survival Guide written by my friend Steve Elias.

Steve Elias has been writing about legal and consumer financial issues for Nolo.com for nearly thirty years. He has been covering the recent legal and ecomomic changes that folks face, including credit, bankruptcy and foreclosure issues. Steve is currently blogging (with Albin Renauer - Go Blue!) on Nolo's Bankruptcy & Foreclosure Blog, covering the latest issues, as well as legislation on bankruptcy and foreclosure. He also blogs on The Law Reform Soapbox.

Nolo.com also has put together the Property & Money Resource Center with loads of legal and consumer content from Steve and the other Nolo editors. This resource center includes specific sections with articles & FAQs on Foreclosure, Credit Repair & Debt, Bankruptcy and Social Security & Retirement. The Property & Money Resource Center is constantly being updated with the latest information.

Steve has written a new book on foreclosures, appropriately called the The Foreclosure Survival Guide (on Nolo.com the book costs $14.99, and the immediately downloadable ebook pdf costs $12.99, you can also get the book on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com). The Foreclosure Survival Guide has information on mortgages, including adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), short sales, deeds in lieu of foreclosure, judicial and non-judicial foreclosure, credit counseling, liens, and using bankruptcy to deal with foreclosure.

Steve goes into much more detail in his book, but here is some information from his book about nonprofit counselors that may be able to help:

Nonprofit Housing Counselors (from Chapter 10 - Resources Beyond the Book)
I strongly suggest that you find a nonprofit housing counseling agency. The counselors there can help you assess your mortgage situation and, if possible, negotiate a solution with your lender that will keep you in your house. Lenders--which suffer economically from foreclosures and benefit if something can be worked out--are the main source of funds for these agencies. (see Ch. 4 [of The Foreclosure Survival Guide] for an in-depth discussion of finding and working with a nonprofit housing counselor.)

The Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has a list of approved counselors. You can find a hud-approved agency at www.hud.gov/foreclosure/index.cfm or by calling 800-569-4287.

The Homeownership Preservation Foundation website, www.995hope.org, offers free online counseling, among other things. or you can call 888-995-HOPE and talk with someone.

The Homeownership Crisis Resource Center, www.housinghelpnow.org, will link you up with a local nonprofit foreclosure prevention specialist who may or may not be hud approved.

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling will get you to a nonprofit counselor (typically HUD approved) through its toll-free hotline, 866-557-2227.

The foreclosure problems have been going on for a while and could get much worse if something is not done by the lenders and government (who will soon own large stakes in the lenders). As it is in the best interest of the lenders and the neighborhoods to try to keep people in their homes to reduce the number of foreclosures and vacant units, there needs to be something done to revalue some of these loans. We will see what Congress, President Bush and then President ??? do. And then there is the US and world economy as a whole... we will see.

For those facing credit issues, foreclosure or possible bankruptcy, check out Nolo's Property & Money Resource Center for very helpful consumer information. For those facing foreclosure, falling behind on their payments, or just need help with paying their mortgages, check out The Foreclosure Survival Guide. The table of contents of The Foreclosure Survival Guide is in the extended entry of this post.

Peace,

Tim

:: Tangerine, Led Zeppelin III by Led Zeppelin

The Foreclosure Survival Guide - Table of Contents

Deficiency Judgments: Will You Still Owe Money Delay or Stop Foreclosure Delay or Stop Foreclosure

1 Foreclosure: The Big Picture
What to Expect	6
Your Options: An Overview	6
How You Can Stay in Your House Payment Free	17
Why Foreclosure Doesn't Have to Be So Bad	18
Don't Get Scammed by a Foreclosure "Rescue" Company	18
2 Foreclosure Nuts and Bolts
How Much Time You'll Have to Respond	26
In or Out of Court?	28
After the Foreclosure?	36
Taxes	38
3 Can You Keep Your House? Should You?
The Emotional Part of Foreclosure	40
The Economics of Foreclosure: What You Need to Know	45
When It Makes Sense to Keep Your House	52
When It Makes Sense to Give up Your House	54
4 Negotiating a Workout
Do You Have Enough Time to Negotiate?	59
Working With a Nonprofit Housing Counselor	61
Basic Workout Options	69
Workouts for Government-Backed Mortgages	74
Special Protections for Service Members on Active Duty	76
5 How Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Can
Using Chapter 13 to Keep Your House	81
Using Chapter 13 to Delay Foreclosure	90
Coming Up With a Repayment Plan	91
An Overview of the Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Process	93
Will You Need a Lawyer?	96
6 How Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Can
How Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Helps You	101
Using Chapter 7 Bankruptcy to Keep Your House	103
Using Chapter 7 Bankruptcy to Delay a Foreclosure Sale	109
The Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Process: An Overview	115
Do You Qualify for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy?	116
Will You Need a Lawyer?	119
7 Fighting Foreclosure in Court
How Long Can You Delay the Sale of Your House?	123
When It May Be Worth Fighting	125
How to Fight a Foreclosure	139
8 If You Decide to Leave Your House
Let the Foreclosure Proceed	149
Sell the House in a Short Sale	152
Offer the Lender a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure	160
Avoiding Deficiency Judgments	161
Income Tax Liability for Deficiencies	162
9 How Long Can You Stay in Your House for Free?
When You Miss Your First Payment	167
After You Receive a Formal Notice of Intent to Foreclose	168
After the Sale	172
After You Get a Notice to Leave	174
10 Resources Beyond the Book
Nonprofit Housing Counselors	178
Real Estate Brokers	179
Mortgage Brokers	180
Lawyers	180
Bankruptcy Petition Preparers	187
Books	189
Looking Up Foreclosure Statutes	191
Glossary
Appendix State Information
Alabama	219
Alaska	220
Arizona	221
Arkansas	223
California	224
Colorado	225
Connecticut	226
Delaware	227
District of Columbia	228
Florida	229
Georgia	230
Hawaii	231
Idaho	232
Illinois	233
Indiana	234
Iowa	235
Kansas	236
Kentucky	237
Louisiana	238
Maine	239
Maryland	240
Massachusetts	241
Michigan	242
Minnesota	243
Mississippi	244
Missouri	245
Montana	246
Nebraska	247
Nevada	248
New Hampshire	249
New Jersey	250
New Mexico	251
New York	252
North Carolina	253
North Dakota	254
Ohio	255
Oklahoma	256
Oregon	257
Pennsylvania	258
Rhode Island	259
South Carolina	260
South Dakota	261
Tennessee	262
Texas	263
Utah	264
Vermont	265
Virginia	266
Washington	267
West Virginia	268
Wisconsin	269
Wyoming	270

Building Codes, State Codes & Regulations from Carl Malamud & Public.Resource.org

Hi Friends,

As many of you know (at least those in the Open Government & Law Groups), Free Public Information Hero Carl Malamud and Public.Resource.org have been working to get state codes, building codes, electrical codes and other state and city codes online for free... sort of a virtual city of free codes.

You can, right now, download these codes here on Public.Resource.org or through the Internet Archive. As a California bonus, you can also download the California Code of Regulations.

"I think his work is extraordinarily important"
-- Lawrence Lessig

There is a nice article on Carl in last week's Santa Rosa Press Democrat by Nathan Halverson discussing Public.Resource.org's efforts, with some good comments from Larry Lessig and Pamela Samuelson on the policy and legal issues. We will see if this leads to some more litigation with California.

This is a great effort to put up the codes that are the most useful to everyday citizens. More free law to come (and maybe some litigation if needed).

Peace,

Tim

:: Walls, Meet Glen Campbell by Glen Campbell

Google Keyword Search Volume Now Available with the Google's Keyword Tool

Hi Friends,

Google's AdWords Keyword Tool now gives the search approximate monthly search volume for different keywords.

And here are a few words and their approximate monthly search volume

4,090,000 Lawyer
7,480,000 Attorney
1,000,000 Law Firm

7,480,000 Legal
20,400,000 Law

Of course, as can be seen in the image above, Google gives additional suggested terms as well. Should be something fun for people to play with :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Space Cowboy, Brave New World by the Steve Miller Band

Oregon decides not to enforce any copyright claims on the Oregon Revised Statutes

Hi Friends,

Oregon's Legislative Counsel Committee had a meeting this morning to discuss the copyright claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes. After taking legal counsel from Dexter Johnson, talking with Karl Olson, Carl Malamud, three Oregon citizens and myself, they unanimously voted to not to enforce any copyright claims on the Oregon Revised Statutes. This is great!!!

Carl Malamud presents Oregon Senate President Courtney the "Seal of Approval"

Thanks to Dexter and the Committee!!!!

Update: Carl Malamud has put online the Oregon hearing testimony and videos on Public.Resource.org.

Peace,

Tim

WWU, Seattle, Vancouver Visit 2008

Hi Friends,

Dan, Cicely and I flew over Oregon and headed up to LexBlog Country in the great Northwest. We were there to do some interviewing of computer folks... but we also had some fun (Seattle/As game, Vancouver and more :).

Dan and Cicely ran the booth at Western Washington University. We met a lot of great people.

Then it was off to Seattle to meet Kevin O'Keefe at the LexBlog offices to talk blogs and to see a baseball game.

Then off to beautiful Vancouver for fun...

... and a visit the UBC Computer Science Department.

more on copyright and codes later this week...

Peace,

Tim

:: Crystal River, Mudcrutch by Mudcrutch

Cease, Desist & Resist - Oregon's Copyright Claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes

Hi Friends,

Last week, the State of Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee sent Justia a notice of copyright infringement and demand to cease and desist. In its letter, Dexter Johnson, the Legislative Counsel, asked us to remove a copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes stored on our servers (or pay a licensing fee) by April 30, 2008. The letter claimed copyright on many parts of the Oregon Revised Statutes:

[T]he Committee ... claim[s] a copyright in the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables the index and annotations and such other incidents as are work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law.

Now, the letter is more detailed than the copyright claim on the Oregon Revised Statutes website:

The Legislative Counsel Committee claims copyright protection in those parts of Oregon Revised Statutes that are legally subject to copyright protection.

My take after reading the above claim on their website was that the State of Oregon was claiming a copyright to the annotation section and not the code itself. Accordingly, our copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes did not include the annotations. Needless to say Oregon's copyright claim on the code itself was a surprise (understatement).

As requested in the letter, I called Oregon's Sean Brennan the same Friday and Sean explained their position, reinforced the copyright claims in Dexter Johnson's letter and said he would get us some licensing information (which is $30,000 for 2 years). He also said that Oregon had been talking with other states about how to raise licensing revenue for their codes. That was somewhat disturbing, as we want states to open up their public laws and regulations.

After the call with Sean, I talked with and sent a copy of the letter to Carl Malamud, who being a former Oregon fire fighter, has a special affection for the state of Oregon. Carl checked out the site, and wrote some letters to Dexter Johnson seeking clarification of their copyright claims.

Thursday, we (Carl Malamud, Nolo's Stephen Elias and I) had a pleasant and constructive conversation with Dexter Johnson and his team. The Oregon folks are going to think through some different options. If Oregon comes up with a solution that promotes free and open access to the laws, then we will likely avoid litigation. If not, then we will likely have to ask the courts to determine whether state governments can prohibit others from downloading, reproducing or distributing the laws. I hope that given Oregon's public interest focus, the State will adopt an approach that promotes open access to laws instead of one that maximizes licensing fees. We should know more next week.

Some prominent legal bloggers have commented on Oregon's copyright claims. See Professor Tim Armstrong's post "Can States Copyright Their Statutes?" on Info/Law and William Patry's post "Oregon goes wacka wacka huna kuna" on the The Patry Copyright Blog and Sam Bayard's post "Oregon Claims Copyright in Its Statutes -- Well, Sort Of" on the Citizen Media Law Project Blog. We agree that public policy demands that state laws remain in the public domain. To otherwise permit the State of Oregon or any other governmental body to restrict access to the laws that govern all of us would make a mockery of the legal doctrine that all persons have presumed knowledge of the law. Fortunately, many courts have rightfully declined to recognize such copyright claims asserted by states and municipalities.

Peace,

Tim

:: Sugaree, Grateful Dead Download Series, Vol. 10 by Grateful Dead

* For those interested, we are working with folks from Public.Resource.Org, Cornell's Legal Information Institute, AltLaw, EFF, Creative Commons, Stanford & Cal, FastCase, as well as many other law schools, commercial organizations, courts, and government agencies on compiling a large archive of law that will be continuously updated and freely shared. Part of that is just getting the raw law, which includes cases, codes, and regulations. As we (quickly) move forward though, we will also have shared annotations and shared publishing tools. We will then want to have copies of the law along with secondary materials on thousands of servers. In addition to providing free access to all at many online locations, we want to provide the opportunity for each government institution, court, law school, nonprofit, company, and blogger to have their very own copy of the full corpus, as well as an easy way to keep it updated. It won't be easy, but it is doable. And it helps that we are working with folks from the government. Hopefully, we will soon be able to work with and include the State of Oregon. :)

US Legislative Histories Sold to Thomson-West by the GAO???

Hi Friends,

As public domain information hero Carl Malamud is working on getting case law online and into the public domain (we have helped a bit :). Carl, donors, and the Public.Resource.org team have done a lot and... more to come...

But in addition to case law, Carl has also been working to get other public legal documents online and into the public domain. These documents include the legislative histories of the laws. So this was interesting... it looks like Thomson-West has signed an exclusive agreement with the GAO to have these legislative histories on WestLaw.

From Carl note (and originally posted on Boing Boing...

The law librarians at GAO have compiled complete federal legislative histories from 1915 on. These are the definitive dossiers that track a bill through the hearing process and into law. If you want to divine the intent of Congress, this is where you go.

GAO cut a contract with Thomson West to have these documents scanned.

Thomson West claims they have exclusive access to these public documents and even go so far as to boast that you should purchase this exclusive "product" from West because the GAO law librarians (public employees!) have done all the work for you!

If you're interesting in tracking this issue, I've created a Scribd group that has all the documents we've obtained so far. Next step: we asked for a copy of every document scanned under the FOIA laws!"

Well I am sure the US Government will give copies over to Carl to put up for free, and then back to the GAO itself to host and Brewster and the Internet Archive and Google and Cornell and the other law schools put online and into the public domain for free.

Peace,

Tim

:: The More Things Change, Heartbreak Station by Cinderella

JDSupra Free User Generated Legal Document, Forms & Brief Library Open to All

Hi Friends,

JDSupra has officially launched and opened its site to the public today. The JDSupra site allows legal professionals to upload legal documents, memos, forms, filings and briefs and share them with the legal community. On the marketing front, lawyers and law firms can have their own detailed profile page that promotes their practice.

Many great organizations and firms have already started contributing documents, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Morrison & Foerster (my former lawyers at my previous company :) and many many others.

Justia is in the process of doing a major data upload of the higher quality research quality briefs and filings we have aggregated from Pacer for our featured case tracking service in Justia News). We are encouraging all of the law firms we work with to participate and share with JDSupra's law library.

By working together we can help build a great new legal research library. This is a very nice start of a new free research service! So check JDSupra out and share. It will only be getting better and better as more people participate!

Peace,

Tim

:: Blue Sky, Eat a Peach by The Allman Brothers Band

The Public Library of Law - the Largest Free US Case Law Database on the Internet from FastCase

Hi Friends,

The team at FastCase have announced the largest free online US case law database at The Public Library of Law at plol.org. The site is GREAT! The database of cases includes all of the Supreme Court cases and US Court of Appeals cases since 1950 (the same data FastCase recently presented to the Legal Commons project) AND US state case law since 1997 for all 50 states in nice standardized searchable, and usable html format for all states (not the random state by state format many other sites have collected the data in).

In addition to the case law, the The Public Library of Law also has online or links to the codes and statutes, constitutions and regulations of the Federal Government and all 50 US state governments.

The Public Library of Law is a beautiful site that works! Congrats FastCase!!!

Peace,

Tim

:: Shower the People, In the Pocket by James Taylor

Legal Commons - Free US Court of Appeals & US Supreme Court Case Law by way of Public.Resource.org and the Creative Commons!

Hi Friends,

Here comes the Legal Commons.

Carl Malamud and the team at Public.Resource.org with Larry Lessig and the Creative Commons gang got the FastCase deal done and the case law online. The cases include all of the Federal Court of Appeals decisions since 1950, and all of the US Supreme Court decisions.

You can obtain a copy of all of the cases at Public.Resource.org case archive. Public.Resource.org has tar balls for easy downloading of the complete data sets. There is still some fixing of the cases going on, and the community will be working to get the internal page numbering for the cases (among other features). We did an initial conversion of the Federal Court of Appeals cases on Justia with some cross linking to other cases etc.... We and many others will be fixing these up, as well as sending changes and issues to Public.Resource.org where the master copy will be provided for free to all.

Carl is inviting developers to work together to provide stronger and more transparent "operating system" for all.

Developers and interested members of the public are invited to join our open discussion group which will evaluate the format of this public domain data. These cases and codes are America’s operating system and for the ﬁrst time Americans can use them with freedom.

The cases will also be up on AltLaw and PreCYdent soon (if not already) and... many many other places :)

Ed Walters CEO of FastCase worked with Carl to really make this happen. The Legal Commons financial support for these datasets came from donars including David Boies, the Elbaz Family Foundation, John Gilmore and the Omidyar Network.

When did Carl start focusing on free law?... Not too bad.

Now on to the state cases, codes and regs (year by year), some legislation updates, annotations and presto free legal stuff for everyone everywhere. LegalCommons.

Public.Resource.org announcement
Creative Commons Blog Post (Mike Linksvayer)

Peace,

Tim

:: American Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Free Case Law from PreCYdent.com

Hi Friends,

More free case law has come online. PreCYdent has added 300,000 Federal cases to their database at http://www.PreCYdent.com. They have built in some nice community tools for commenting and rating the cases. And they have a new search engine that is focused on the link structure of cases. Bob Ambrogi's initial take was that it is pretty good. They are calling their site a "true Alpha" and they are taking comments from all interested parties to improve it. I will test it out over the weekend before the Superbowl :).

It will all be and continue to be free. PreCYdent will support the company with advertising sales.

There is also a nice interview with PreCYdent's Thomas A. Smith on the Law Librarian Blog.

In the interview Tom said that PreCYdent has all of the US Supreme Court cases and US Court of Appeals cases back to the 1950s and that they plan to soon have state cases going back 10 years or more from all 50 states, and ultimately all state and federal cases back to the beginning, as well as statutory and administrative materials.

The PreCYdent site is really nice. Check it out! Congrats to the PreCYdent team!!!

Peace,

Tim

Source: Sophisticated Search for Public Domain Law from Bob Ambrogi's LawSites Blog.

:: Going to California, Led Zeppelin IV by Led Zeppelin

U.S. Supreme Court Photos

I found this photo of the U.S. Supreme Court on flickr, the photo-sharing website owned by Yahoo!. Sure, there are a lot of photos on flickr. However, this photo was uploaded by the Library of Congress. Is this the federal government's entrée into social networking? What next? Barack, Hillary, John, Mitt and Mike "friending" us on Facebook? ;-) In all seriousness, this is a great step towards increasing the accessibility of our government resources. I find it so much easier to find photos on flickr than using the boolean search on the Library of Congress website. And, if you look very closely, you'll only see 48 stars on the U.S. flag.

FCC Announces Accepted Applications for 700 MHz Band Auction

FCC 700 MHz Band Auction
Auction ID: 73
Accepted Applications
(Sorted by Applicant)
Date of Report: 12/18/2007 01:13 PM ET
The following applicants have an Initial filing phase status of "Accepted."

FRN	Name	Bidding Credit Revenue Range
0002805596	Adams Telcom, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0014061097	Aeronet Wireless Broadband Corp.	0 - 15,000,000
0000021188	AlasConnect, Inc.
0016161788	Aristotle Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0016927360	AWS Spectrum, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017118837	Bayou Internet, Inc.
0002477636	BEK Communications Cooperative	0 - 15,000,000
0003764727	Bend Cable Communications, LLC
0003766201	Blanca Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017147406	Blue Sky Cell, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0010698868	Bluegrass Wireless LLC
0017194473	Bresnan Communications, Inc.
0017181199	Broadband Wireless Unlimited, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0008394215	Budget Phone
0015024631	Cavalier Wireless, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0001649508	Central Texas Telephone Investments, LP
0002532497	Chariton Valley Communication Corporation, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0003707775	Chester Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017191172	Clearcom, Inc.
0017146051	COLI Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0001711837	Command Connect, LLC
0017171950	Cricket Licensee 2007, LLC
0001700616	Cross Telephone Company, LLC
0003777919	CTC Telcom, Inc.
0017166422	Data-Max Wireless LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0017118084	Delmarva Broadband LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0001858760	Ellijay Telephone Company
0001754738	Farmers Telecommunications Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0004338489	Farmers Telephone Company, Inc.
0014955017	Fidelity Communications Company
0002480085	Forum Communications Company
0004600268	FTC Management Group, Inc.
0002388262	Glenwood Telephone Membership, Corporation	0 - 15,000,000
0002333839	Golden Belt Telephone Association, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017171182	Google Airwaves Inc.
0017184268	Grain Spectrum LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0017176173	Great American Broadband, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0016191827	GreenFly LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0002331601	H & B Communications, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0001886944	Horry Telephone Cooperative, Inc.
0009639923	Inland Cellular Telephone Company
0001523125	IT&E Overseas, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017169087	KeyOn Spectrum Holdings, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0017164583	Kinex Networking Solutions, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0002212314	Kingdom Telephone Company	0 - 15,000,000
0003548443	Kurian, Thomas K	0 - 15,000,000
0004334702	Lackawaxen Long Distance Company, Inc.
0017166240	Landover PCS Holdings, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0002576791	MAC Wireless, LLC
0015031065	Manti Telephone Company	0 - 15,000,000
0004344776	Medicine Park Telephone Company, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0014993794	Midwest AWS Limited Partnership	0 - 15,000,000
0017195561	Miller, David	0 - 15,000,000
0011146479	Mt. Vernnon.Net Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0014999585	MTN3B Consortium	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0002886984	Mulberry Cooperative Telephone Company, Inc	0 - 15,000,000
0008209629	N.E. Colorado Wireless Technologies, Inc.
0012841458	Neptuno Media	0 - 15,000,000
0004337044	Northeast Missouri Rural Telephone Company	0 - 15,000,000
0002388882	Northeast Nebraska Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0014990436	Northern Iowa Communications Partners, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0001704246	Panhandle Telecommunication Systems, Inc.
0002644953	Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc.
0017036799	PBP Bidco LLC
0005746508	PCS Partners, L.P.	0 - 15,000,000
0001887140	Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0003740040	Polar Communications Mutual Aid Corporation
0007024607	Public Service Wireless Services, Inc.
0003742384	Red River Rural Telephone Association, Inc.
0001886464	Sandhill Communications, LLC	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0001551241	Siskiyou Telephone Company	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017182528	Small Ventures USA, L.P.	0 - 15,000,000
0017183237	Spectrum Acquisitions, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0001960962	Star Telephone Membership Corporation	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0002901817	Swayzee Telephone Co. Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0003744406	TCT West, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017057787	Terra World Communications, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0005097381	The Chillicothe Telephone Company
0005069323	The Tri-County Telephone Association, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0002337509	The World Company
0015467749	Towerstream Corporation	0 - 15,000,000
0010907244	Tri-Valley Communications, LLC
0017182742	Triad 700, LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0016655912	USA Choice Internet Services Company LLC	0 - 15,000,000
0001685718	Valley Telephone Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0014045504	Van Buren Wireless, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0017176207	Vavasi NexGen Inc.
0005209374	Vermont Telephone Company, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0007028723	Vulcan Spectrum LLC
0003936994	Washington County Rural Telephone Cooperative, Inc	0 - 15,000,000
0002722049	West Wisconsin Telcom Cooperative, Inc.	15,000,000 - 40,000,000
0017195678	Wi2	0 - 15,000,000
0002624856	Wireless Communications Venture
0017164179	Worldcall Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0003801362	WUE, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000
0016099210	Xpressweb Internet Services, Inc.	0 - 15,000,000

Of course, Google Airwaves, Inc. is the one bidder that is attracting all the attention. A number of other companies are interested as well.

Free Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 and all US Supreme Court decisions since 1754 Coming Soon

Hi Friends,

Carl Malamud and Public.Resource.org have gotten together with Ed Walters CEO of FastCase and are happy to announce that they will be putting online an archive of US Appeal Court decisions since 1950 and all of the US Supreme Court cases since 1754. Here is their announcement.

Announcement

1.8 million pages of federal case law to become freely available.

WASHINGTON, D.C. / SEBASTOPOL, CA—November 14, 2007—Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and usable by anyone for any purpose.

“The U.S. judiciary has allowed their entire work product to be locked up behind a cash register,” said Carl Malamud, CEO of Public.Resource.Org. “Law is the operating system of our society and today's agreement means anybody can read the source for a substantial amount of case law that was previously unavailable.”

Fastcase, the leading developer of next-generation American legal research, has agreed to provide Public.Resource.Org with 1.8 million pages of federal case law. This is a marked departure for the online legal research industry, which traditionally has charged expensive subscription fees to access this information.

“For eight years, Fastcase has been ahead of the market curve, working to democratize access to the law,” said Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase, Inc. “At the same time, we have been advancing the science of search, combining the precision of traditional legal research with the simplicity of Web-based searches.”

Fastcase has reversed the traditional subscription model for lawyers, contracting directly with 11 state bar associations to make the national law library free for lawyers in their states. “Through this agreement with Public.Resource.Org, we are proud to expand our efforts beyond lawyers, and to make more of the law available to the general public at no cost,” Walters said.

The agreement calls for definitive paperwork approved by both parties within 30 days with Public.Resource.Org making developer snapshots of the archive available in early 2008. Public.Resource.Org is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in this transaction. The cases will be marked with a new Creative Commons mark—CC-Ø—that signals that there are no copyrights or other related rights attached to the content.

This transaction represents a one-time purchase of a copy of data. This corpus will be integrated into the ongoing public services from organizations such as AltLaw and the Legal Information Institute, thus providing continuity of coverage into the future. Further announcements will be forthcoming on the availability of other case law, including Federal District and pre-1949 Appellate decisions.

Public.Resource.Org intends to perform an initial transformation on the federal case law archive obtained from Fastcase using open source “star” mapping software, which will allow the insertion of markers that will approximate page breaks based on user-furnished parameters such as page size, margins, and fonts. “Wiki” technology will be used to allow the public to move around these “star” markers, as well as add summaries, classifications, keywords, alternate numbering systems for citation purposes, and ratings or “diggs” on opinions.

Media Contacts

Lisa Miller	Carl Malamud
Fleishman-Hillard/Fastcase, Inc.	Public.Resource.Org
+1.202.857.2209	+1.707.827.7290
lisa.miller@fleishman.com	carl at media dot org

About Fastcase

Fastcase is the leading American provider of next-generation legal research, making the law accessible to more people by providing the national law library at a fraction of the cost of traditional companies. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy legal professionals sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling users to re-sort results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 275,000 paid subscribers from around the world. It is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.fastcase.com.

About Public.Resource.Org

Public.Resource.Org was founded in 2007 to spearhead the creation of public works projects for the Internet. A 501(c)(3) registered public charity, Public.Resource.Org has worked across all three branches of the U.S. government to enhance the public domain.

Beautiful!!!! Thanks Ed, FastCase, Carl & Public.Resource.org!!!!

Peace,

Tim

:: Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin IV by Led Zeppelin

Message from Ithaca

We are waiting... but will not wait too long.

Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Website Updated!!!

Hi Friends,

The new Stanford Copyright & Fair Use site is up :) And I have not even gotten on the plane...

Mary Minow, Jon Silver and Justia's Cicely, Courtney, Dan, Nick and Vasu made it happen.

More info on the site once I land in beautiful Ithaca :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Ordinary People, Chrome Dreams II by Neil Young

Cornell LII Director Tom Bruce visits Stanford & Justia

Hi Friends,

One of the biggest forces in free online legal information, Tom Bruce, Director of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School stopped by to meet with the gang at Justia. It was great talking through ideas about the future of legal information. We are going to do some work together on new fun projects which will benefit the populations of the Internets :) It is going to be fantastic!!!

Tom visits the Cornell West campus near Palo Alto. We stopped by the key buildings on campus, the Gates' Computer Science building and the law school :)

Tom and some of the Justia programming team... who can't wait to put more free stuff online :)

Tom, Rio and Tim (me). Great beards. More photos will be up in the Justia Facebook Group :)

We are really looking forward to working with LII and putting more free stuff online! Here we go... :)

A Message from the Birds to the Pugs :)

Peace,

Tim

:: #9 Dream, Walls and Bridges by John Lennon

New Jurist Server Enters the Cage

Hi Friends,

Last night I had a good "trip" to the cage to add a new fast Web server for the Jurist Community and News Website run by Professor Bernard Hibbitts and his team. Ok... well technically I just watched my friend - Jurist's Technical Director Jeremiah Lee put it into the cage. The switch to the new machine will happen in the next month or so... Here Jeremiah finishes configuring the Jurist machine (the top one on the right-hand side rack) in record time. The easiest install ever. And now Jeremiah can start programming away all the new kewl Jurist features to come :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Thunder Road, Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

Free Federal District Court Opinions Database with RSS Feeds & Full Text Search

Hi Friends,

We recently added the a FREE database of Federal District Court Opinions since 2004 that are available using the opinion report in the Federal Courts' ECF. The database is updated daily.

Here is the URL for the Federal District Court Opinions:

http://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/

Categorization & Rss Feeds - We have categorized the opinions by state, court, type of lawsuit and judge and combinations of judge and type of lawsuit. You can also subscribe to each of categories through RSS feeds to track a judge or court's decisions on different issues. And we also give the cause of action for each case.

Full Text Search - We are using Google's hosted Business Custom Search Engine (http://www.google.com/enterprise/csbe/) for the full text search.

Google is now OCRing PDF image files, so even PDF files that have images of scanned documents will be, in most cases, full text indexable and searchable (just like the OCR of Google's Book Search). You will need to look at the cached copy to see the highlighted searched text though, and then find in the original PDF to be 100% that what you are reading is correct. Google should be doing a pretty good job of indexing and ocring these court decisions, although it may take a few days for a new document to show up in the index.

We allow one to search across all of the documents, or to limit the search to Federal District Courts in a particular state or an individual Federal District Court. You can also search by party name, court and filed date.

Data Limitations - This data set does NOT include all of the Federal District Court opinions.

a. Not all of the courts have upgraded to ECF 2.4. So we do not have opinions for those courts that have not upgraded.

b. Not all opinions and orders are included by the Judges. As is stated on the PACER site

"Written opinions have been defined by the Judicial Conference as 'any document issued by a judge or judges of the court sitting in that capacity, that sets forth a reasoned explanation for a court's decision.' The responsibility for determining which documents meet this definition rests with the authoring judge."

Some judges have chosen not to include any of their opinions in the opinion report.

c. Some scans of are such poor quality that the OCR failed.

Federal District Court Case Filings Database Updated

We the US Federal District Court Case Filings database has been updated with Nice Opinion Icons. When we have a judge's opinion (you will see a little gavel :). The case filings are at:

http://dockets.justia.com

And we have added browse pages and RSS feeds by judge. That should make it easier to find other cases a particular judge has ruled on that are covering similar issues (at least at the broad case type level). If we have the opinions or orders online, you can see what the judge wrote, or you may need to log into the court's ECF system and obtain the briefs and other filings (and pay a small per page fee).

The case filings and opinion databases are related, as they both have Federal Court data, it is just that the opinions database is limited to those cases where we have opinions.

More to come: We have one more features we are going to be providing for the the Federal District Court Case Filings, and another one we are going to providing for the Federal District Court Opinions that will be very kewl. But we are all going to have to wait for Vasu, Nick and Dan to finish these up this week (the pressure is on now that I have practically pre-announced more new stuff this week :)

Peace,

Tim

:: The Promised Land, Darkness On the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen

Carl Malamud, Public.Resource.Org and Free Case Law

Hi Friends,

Our friend & hero Carl Malamud stopped by the "Justia offices" to talk about his new public interest public information project.... making the case law and codes of the United States of America (state and federal) freely accessible in a public domain archive. See Tim O'Reilly's blog post on Carl's project (and read the comments from other big names in the free law space, including Cornell's Tom Bruce and HyperLaw's Alan Sugarman :) This archived data can then be used and worked on by the folks at Cornell, Google, Stanford.... and everyone!

Carl's high energy, amazing track record of success of making government information freely accessible (EDGAR, Patents, Smithsonian, CSPAN, Congressional Hearings...), connections with the technology, educational, political and online information communities will help make free case law happen. We are excited to be helping and we are giving our full support!

Rio, Carl, Sheba and Tim posterized poster and posterized :) Ready to work!!!

Here is Carl giving a Google Tech talk a year or so ago about getting Congressional video onto Google Video and other places like the Internet Archive. He gives a nice overview of some of previous free information projects (I am sure there will be a new Google Tech talk on the free case law project soon :)

Dogs in the Office? Carl is for them! So are we!

Check out Public.Resource.Org... Just the beginning... but this is going to be Great!!!!!

Peace,

Tim

And in our own blast from the past (term taken from the O'Reilly blog comments of Alan Sugarman and Tom Bruce :)... Hal Varian, Cal SIMS econ-info-library professor, and now Google's Chief Economist, is part of Public.Resource.Org. When Stacy, Martin and I were starting FindLaw, Hal was there at the very beginning, the Northern California Law Libraries meeting where the site started. Later on, Hal connected us up with Northwestern's & Oyez's Jerry Goldman, who we are still working with to this day (although with Justia, not FindLaw) on the Oyez and the Supreme Court Center.

:: Give It Away, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers

New LexBlog - Real Lawyers Have Blogs - Blog

Hi Friends,

Kevin O'Keefe and the LexBlog team have updated the design and features of the LexBlog's "Real Lawyers Have Blogs" Blog.

LexBlog has changed the blog into a resource center for legal bloggers, with a Chicago Cubs look and feel :) Very nice... check it out (like we do every day :)

Peace,

Tim

:: It Don't Come Easy, Photograph: The Digital Greatest Hits by Ringo Starr

WM 8/27/1966 - 9/7/1982

Bellingham Law Office and Riley the dog.

Hi Friends,

Cicely traveled up to Bellingham, Washington to meet with a new client Anderson, Connell & Carey to check out what the Bellingham work environment of ocean views and clean air is really like.

Debra Sheldon stands outside the office :)

Riley hangs out on the deck (more photos below).

Clean air, just like the Silicon Valley :)

A few more photos below in the extended entry... to get to Bellingham... just visit LexBlog and drive north 80 miles or and drive south 40 miles :).

Peace,

Tim

:: Instant Karma!, Lennon Legend by John Lennon

Riley hanging out inside.

Anderson, Connell & Carey Bellingham Office view... :)

BlawgSearch Top Law Professor Blogs by edu visitors and Top Blawgs for August 2007

Hi Friends,

First, here are the top ten law professor blogs as determined by vistors on .edu networks on BlawgSearch.com. I set this filter up for Professor J. Robert Brown, Jr. and a paper he was writing on blogs and reputation. You can read his post about it here. While most .edu visitors are not all law professors, they do seek out more academic blogs. Anyway here is the list.

PrawfsBlawg [feed]
By Professors Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib, Rob Howse, Paul Horwitz, Rick Garnett, Matt Bodie, Steve Vladeck and Orly Lobel.
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/
Conglomerate [feed]
Covers business, law, economics and society. By Professors Gordon Smith, Christine Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, and Lisa Fairfax.
http://www.theconglomerate.org/
Legal Theory Blog [feed]
Covers constitutional theory, feminist legal theory, law and economics, normative legal theory and more. By University of Illinois Professor Lawrence B. Solum.
http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/
Empirical Legal Studies [feed]
Covers emerging empirical legal scholarship, conference updates and empirical claims. Edited by Professors Jason Czarnezki, Michael Heise, Theodore Eisenberg, William Ford, Sara Benesh, William Henderson, and Frank Cross.
http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/
Discourse.net [feed]
Covers civil liberties, the Internet, Guantanamo, Iraq attrocities, politics and more. By University of Miami law professor Michael Froomkin.
http://www.discourse.net/
Sentencing Law and Policy [feed]
By Moritz College of Law Professor Douglas A. Berman.
http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/
The Volokh Conspiracy [feed]
By Eugene Volokh, Dale Carpenter, David Kopel, David Bernstein, David Post, Erik Jaffe, Ilya Somin, Jim Lindgren, Jonathan Adler, Kevan Choset, Orin Kerr, Randy Barnett, Russell Korobkin, Sasha Volokh, Stuart Benjamin, Todd Zywicki & Tyler Cowen.
http://volokh.com/
Religion Clause [feed]
By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.
http://religionclause.blogspot.com
Technology & Marketing Law Blog [feed]
Covers Internet, technology and online marketing legal issues. Published by Santa Clara University School of Law Professor Eric Goldman.
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/
Balkinization [feed]
By Yale Law School Professor Jack M. Balkin.
http://balkin.blogspot.com

And Here are the overall most popular blogs on BlawgSearch.com for August 2007. David Badertscher's New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library Blog lead the way.

New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library Blog [feed]
News and information gateway to web based services provided by the New York State Supreme Court Criminal Term Library in New York County.
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/PLL
Above the Law [feed]
A legal tabloid that provides news and gossip about the profession's colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments.
http://www.abovethelaw.com/
The Indiana Law Blog [feed]
Covers Indiana law, as well as interesting developments in law and government. By Marcia Oddi.
http://indianalawblog.com/
Class Action Defense Blog [feed]
Covers CAFA, class certification, employment law, FCRA, FDCPA and multidistrict litigation. Published by Michael Hassen of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP.
http://classactiondefense.jmbm.com/
Law Blog [feed]
Covers law and business and the business of law. By the Wall Street Journal.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law
DealBook [feed]
Covers mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, IPOs, private equity, hedge funds, venture capital and law. A Financial News Service of The New York Times.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com
Psychology of Compliance & Due Diligence Law [feed]
Covers due diligence, lawsuits, Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, and recovery of losses. By Michael Webster.
http://www.bizop.ca/blog2/
How Appealing [feed]
Covers appellate litigation. By Howard J. Bashman.
http://howappealing.law.com/
Religion Clause [feed]
By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.
http://religionclause.blogspot.com
Information Governance Engagement Area [feed]
Established with the goal of aggregating key compliance and electronic discovery news for further review, study, and consideration by legal and corporate professionals. Published by Rob Robinson.
http://infogovernance.blogspot.com

You can view the Top 200 Legal Blogs for May 2007 or view the most popular blogs in August for each of hundreds of categories. And you can view the main page of the rankings for August 2007 here.

Peace,

Tim

:: Patience, G N' R Lies by Guns N' Roses

ABA Journal Website - News, Articles, Blawgs!!!

Hi Friends,

Let me start our new month of blogging with a post on the great new ABA Journal Website. The site went live a few weeks ago, and includes articles from the magazine, updated daily news and a legal blog directory. The site is from ABA Journal Editor and Publisher Ed Adams, Fred Faulkner IV and the ABA Journal Web development and editorial team.

If you have not checked the new ABA Journal Website out already, you definitely should!

The new ABA Journal site brings a new focus on current legal news, which you can subscribe to by way of a RSS feed. The over look and feel is very clean and good looking, with a lot of focus on the user experience.

ABA Journal Magazine articles from the current and past issues are available to all... for free :)

And there is the ABA blawg directory that categorizes over a thousand blogs. Very nicely done.

You can read more about the new ABA Journal Website from Bob Amrbogi and Blawg.com's Bill Gratsch who wrote about it when the ABA Journal Website first came out :)

Again, check out the site if you have not already. There is a great amount of information on the site of interest to lawyers and anyone interested in law.

Peace,

Tim

:: #9 Dream, Walls and Bridges by John Lennon

Back to Blogging.. and Congrats to Appalachian State

Hi Friends,

Ken, Stacy and I are going to get back to blogging... finally :) We have been working on a few legal information projects this summer... which we talk about in the next few weeks.

But first, congrats to Appalachian State for beating Michigan on Saturday. It was a great game that they deserved to win. Not everyday a division IAA schools visits the number #5 team in the nation and beats them in front of every 109,000 fans. In fact never before, not even something close. Well maybe Michigan can win the rest of their games, win the BCS championship and be the second best team in the country.... And for my other school.. I went to the Stanford - UCLA game, and UCLA won (on the positive side, my seats are in the shade and UCLA is my third favorite team :).

UPDATE: LexBlog - Montana student Colin O'Keefe interviewed Appalachian State athletic director Charlie Cobb on the Grizzoulian blog. Now I am sure he is off to interview GT AD Dan Radakovich:)

Peace,

Tim

:: Hail, Hail,No Code by Pearl Jam

TechnoLawyer BlawgWorld 2007 eBook Released

Hi Friends,

This years BlawgWorld e-book is out from Neil Squillante, Sara Skiff and the TechnoLawyer Team.

The BlawgWorld 2007 ebook has sample posts from a number of blogs, AND a legal technology solutions guide. You can download the ebook here. It is free :)

You can also check out the ebook press materials, including a video on the TechnoLawyer blog.

So download away, read a few posts, and check out the solutions guide as well!

Peace,

Tim

:: You Get What You Give, Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too by the New Radicals

New York Lawyer Advertising Rules Found Unconstitutional by Federal District Court - New Rules Violate First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted a permanent injunction against a number of the amended rules on attorney advertising that had become effective in February, finding portions of the new rules unconstitutional as protected free speech under the First Amendment. In particular, the court enjoined the enforcement of Disciplinary Rules of the Code of Professional Responsibility contained in N.Y. Comp. Codes R. & Regs. tit. 22, SS 1200.6(c)(1), (3), (5), (7), and (g)(1). These include rules against the use of client testimonials, the portrayal of judges, attention-getting techniques, nicknames and mottos, and Internet pop-up ads.

The suit was brought by Public Citizen and member attorney James L. Alexander and his law firm, Alexander & Catalano. Alexander & Catalano had been required to change its advertising earlier this year to comply with the more restrictive rules.

New York's Code of Professional Responsibility for lawyers is designed to protect consumers by prohibiting false and misleading lawyer advertisements. The court found that although the state has a substantial interest in encouraging the clean flow of truthful, helpful, relevant, verifiable information about attorney services, it had failed to show that the amendments on client testimonials, attention getting and the use of nicknames and mottos materially advanced the state interest, and that the amendment on the portrayal of judges was narrowly tailored in advancing that interest. Further, the court rejected the defendant's assertion that the restriction on pop-up ads was necessary because of their fleeting nature, explaining that there is no evidence that the regulation of pop-up or pop-under ads is any more difficult than regulating TV, radio or Websites.

The court upheld rules on use of deceptive domain names and the thirty-day moratorium on contacting victims, their families or representatives.

Public Citizen also challenged the rules' application to non-commercial speech, such as offers by lawyers to represent clients pro bono in civil rights cases, and the court construed the challenged amendments not to apply to nonprofit legal services.

References:

Read the Federal Court decision and filings by both parties.

Read the statement from New York State Bar President Kathryn Grant Madigan in response to the court decision.

Read Public Citizen's press release in response to the decision.

Court TV reBranded truTV

Hi Friends,

Turner Entertainment Networks has announced plans to re-brand Court TV as truTV starting January 1, 2008. The network will also sport a new logo, new look and expanded line-up focused on the psychographic known as "Real Engagers". truTv plans to continue with its six-hour block of trial coverage every weekday morning. Afternoons will feature Star Jones' new talk show, and prime time, early fringe and late night will continue to offer currently running series such as Forensic Files, Haunting Evidence and Speeders, and add a host of new shows in development to the line up. Exciting must watch TV...

Peace,

Tim

:: Video, The Forgotten Arm by Aimee Mann

ALM (American Lawyer Media) Sold for $630 Million to London Bases Incisive Media

Hi Friends,

ALM has been sold for $630 Million to Incisive Media. You can read more about in the press releases here and here.

See Bob Ambrogi's post and Mark Obbie's post (found on LawSites) for more info...

Peace,

Tim

:: Peace Frog, Morrison Hotel by The Doors

Avvo sued over lawyer rating system - Update 3

Hi Friends,

A class action law suit was filed today against Avvo. You can get more information from LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe's blog and/or read the complaint. Kevin has some additional commentary and resources about the case, so news.justia.com (which is in pre-alpha). The complaint and other case documents, as they are filed, can be found on our Avvo case (Browne et al v. Avvo Inc et al) tracking page . You can then get daily updates and download new filings, and even track updates for the case with a case specific RSS feed. (as you can do with any of the cases we are currently featuring).

We will add the Avvo case to those we are tracking on news.justia.com (which is in pre-alpha) once the initial complaint is in the Western Washington Federal District Court's electronic filing system. You can then get daily updates and download new filings, and even track updates for the case with a case specific RSS feed. (as you can do with any of the cases we are currently featuring). I will update this post once the documents are in our system with a link to the Avvo case page.

And while the litigation begins, the Avvo site continues to make adjustments. It looks the current Western Washington Federal District Judges are no longer Avvo rated. In fact it looks like there has been a large purge of judge ratings. Which I guess makes sense, as they are not practicing as lawyers, although I am not sure why they are even listed in the lawyer directory... shouldn't you just remove judges? or at least note on their profile they are a judge and not available for hire. You don't really want people trying to contact and hire judges, even "not rated" judges. Anyway we will see what happens.

UPDATE 1: Eric Goldman also has some interesting commentary on the Avvo case, and how it relates to the current Roomates.com case and the "additional layer of information" provided by a host site to that produced by users/visitors [ Eric Goldman's Roomates.com Blog Post | Judge Kozinski's 9th Circuit Decision].

UPDATE 2: We now have Avvo case (Browne et al v. Avvo Inc et al) in our news section. We will be checking for new documents in the case daily. You can track new documents in the Avvo case here or subscribe to an RSS feed to track new documents.

UPDATE 3: The Avvo case will be discussed on this weeks Lawyer 2 Lawyer Plaintiff John Henry Browne will join Carolyn Elefant and Denise Howell [DH's ZDNet Blog] in a discussion withBob Ambrogi and J Craig Williams. You can download the podcast of this conversation on Monday from the main Lawyer 2 Lawyer home page, or subscribe by RSS or through iTunes.

And Avvo Mark Britton's statement on the law suit can be on the Avvo blog (as well as Bob Ambrogi's LawSites, which was my original source for Mark's comments).

Peace,

Tim

:: Century City, Damn the Torpedoes by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Lawyer Videos on Websites, Blogs and GoogTube et al

Hi Friends,

In the next week, I will be writing a series of posts on making and using video in your Website or blog. Many people, and a few lawyers, are making and uploading video for use on their Websites or blogs, as well as uploading to video hosting services like YouTube, Google Video or any of the numerous other online video sharing services.

I have made a few videos with my pugs and birthday parties. Of course if you are a law firm, you might want to have professionals, or at least qualified amateurs, film and edit your video. But even if you want to have a high quality professional video, like the Google Mini video below, you can still use a pug (pugs go nice with the Google Mini :).

And you can embed a video from Google Video...

... or YouTube directly in your Website or blog.

In the upcoming posts, I will cover video filming and production, including finding help to film your video (if needed) without breaking your budget, suggest what to present in your video (as a lawyer, not a pug :), how to convert and save your video to Web friendly formats, how to upload your video to GoogTube et al, and finally how to embed your (or someone else's) video into your Website or blog. All of this is pretty straight forward, but there are a lot of small parts, so I am going to break it up into multiple posts.

And if you like Glen Campbell's singing as much as I do, you can visit my video blog, and view Glen Campbell singing"Wichita Lineman" through the years...

Ok... some info you can use coming soon :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Wichita Lineman, Glen Campbell: 20 Greatest Hits by Glen Campbell

Blawg Review #112

Hi Friends,

Welcome to our take on the blawgosphere in this Blawg Review #112 of the review of blawgs. It has been a fun week of reading blogs and interesting posts. Many thanks to the Blawg Review editors for giving us this opportunity to write this week's Blawg Review. It is impossible to cover all of the great blogs and posts out there, so consider this a small slice of last week's posts (and I now realize we have a lot of great blogs to add to BlawgSearch.com this week).

Law and Economics

The University of Chicago team of Economics Noble Prize Winner Gary Becker and US 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner Judge publish the great Becker-Posner Blog. This is one I have read every week since it came out. I often disagree, but I love it.

This week, Gary Becker did a post about Women's earning power in the economy. It is an interesting verbal analysis. He focused a bit on the increasing education and earning power of woman, but was not sure that at the highest income levels they would be competitive with men because many women take time off to raise young children. As Professor Becker stated... "even if the average hourly earnings of women reached parity or surpassed that of men, it is unlikely even without discrimination against women that they will be as represented as men at the top of the earnings distribution. For while combining household with market activities hurts average earnings, it is a really strong hindrance to having enough time to make that supreme commitment to work that is usually necessary to achieve great financial success." Judge Posner commented on Becker's post and covered some additional issues. In particular he noted that if women get better grades in college on average (as the data shows) that maybe they are being discriminated against during the admission process. He said this might be rational on the schools part, if men donate more money.

That is just an example of the economic analysis Becker and Posner bring to legal issues, at least once a week. I strongly recommend reading this blog, just to bring a different perspective to your thinking if nothing else.

Legal Marketing and Practice

I first heard of using blogs to market your law practice from Rick Klau during a panel we were on together back in 2003. Rick told a story about how he had written a post on Brobeck (the former marketing power house...) and been contacted by the press. At that time I thought... reach the press, who need information that is quickly updated, that makes sense. That week I made a quick blog on blogger, it was going to be a new product. Then I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to have some quality time to relax and think. So I made my first real blog with my dog Little Sheba the Hug Pug. Once Justia came online as a development company in 2005, Ken and I started writing the Justia Legal SEO & Marketing Blog (this one) and we have recently added the Justia Law Review Blog. Rick was right... blogging is a good tool for legal marketing.

The big legal marketing story this week was the new Avvo lawyer directory. It was in stealth for over a year (except for their VC funding press releases) and is now in beta. Kevin O'Keefe broke the news on Monday. And sure enough Avvo was released on Tuesday.

Mark Britton gave the reason for Avvo to the Seattle Times (Tuesday, June 5, 2007):

"There's no established brand in the legal industry," Britton said.

"When you are looking for a book, there's Amazon; when travel, you have Expedia; for jobs, there's Monster; and when it comes to search, there's Google. But when it comes to legal, there's nothing."

Maybe Avvo Board Member Lou Andreozzi can tell Mark about Martindale-Hubbell and Lawyers.com. But on to the blawgospehere analysis...

The blog reviews of Avvo were mixed, with most legal blogs being somewhat negative. The basic issues were the (1) numeric scoring, (2) incorrect and missing data and (3) functionality (having to use a credit card to claim a profile... etc...). Bob Ambrogi sort of summed up the thoughts of many in the legal community about Avvo:

So can the worth of a lawyer be calculated in a numerical score? Call me a skeptic. The problem is that the qualities that make a great lawyer are intangible. Yes, a disciplinary record is a tangible fact that reflects poorly on a lawyer. But what about a lawyer's win/loss record in the courtroom? Perhaps the lawyer has lost more than won, but perhaps that is because the lawyer is a committed advocate willing to take on the tough cases no one else will. What kind of scoring system could calculate that? What kind of mathematical scoring system could measure a lawyer's ability to provide sage counsel to distraught individuals or troubled businesses?

The problems inherent in a site such as this are illustrated in an article published today by CNET's Declan McCullagh, Lawyer Rating Site Not Without Objections. After testing Avvo, McCullagh found it "riddled with bizarre errors, profiles of attorneys who have been dead for more than a century and inexplicable scores in which some felons received better ratings than law school deans and internationally renowned litigators."

Bob's partner on the Legal Talk Network (see below) J. Craig Williams was dead man practicing for awhile on Avvo (see Avvo-cadabra; It's Got Me As A Cadaver on JCW's May it Please the Court blog), but a data error was fixed, some data added and now JCW is a 10.

Carolyn Elefant also gave a detailed analysis of the Avvo directory on Legal Blog Watch and on her own My Shingle blog with her post "Judge Bork's choice of counsel and the Avvo rating system" (Judge Bork chose Randy Mastro of Gibson Dunn) in Judge Bork's personal injury case against the Yale Club for $1 Million (you can also read about the Judge Bork law suit on Overlawyered, Legal Juice, Eric Turkewitz's New York Personal Injury Law Blog). Her analysis was a number would not tell the true value of an attorney, even if the profile information was complete. There is more to it than just skill, there is the relationship between the lawyer and the client.

On the pro Avvo side Mazi Hedayat wrote a a defense of Avvo which included his response to Carolyn's Legal Blog Watch post.

And Larry Bodine also gave a run through on Avvo, including my own "Looks Good" post (it is pretty, and I see the ratings are primarily as a way to "get" the lawyers to update their profiles, which will be of value, even if the rating itself never is). And of course there might be a few Avvo related lawsuits.

Onto other marketing news, Tom Kane had an interesting post on his blog "Letting Partners Go Is Nothing New" about some of the recent firings at Mayer Brown. The key point is a reference to a previous post he wrote a year and a half ago.... "Rainmakers Don't Get Fired" (worth reading again for those working in large firms -- nonrainmaking solo's don't get fired, they starve).

Susan Cartier Liebel had an interesting post on firing your clients. This is a great post to read, and it applies to more than just law firms. I especially liked how she classified the clients into Star Customers, Vulnerable Customers, Free Riders, and The Lost Cause. Check out this and other articles on Susan's blog.

And there are a number of blogs that help lawyers blog better. One of the best is LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe's Real Lawyers Have Blogs. Kevin posts everyday (often multiple times a day), finding information on other lawyer and general marketing blogs and helping apply what he learns to information you can use in your legal blogging. In the last week, Kevin has covered search engine optimization, blog design, using blogs to build your personal brand, as well as numerous other topics (including breaking the Avvo release news). Kevin uses his time on the Bainbridge to Seattle ferry twice a day to bring you the news. I like Kevin, but I love his blog :)

Blogging in Court

Of course there can be some dangers of blogging. Eric Turkewitz has a few interesting posts on his New York Personal Injury Law Blog about a doctor who was blogging live during his own trial. He has a rundown of the case in a post he did a couple of weeks ago. This week Eric wrote 3 new posts on the blogging doctor case - deconstructing the Trial of Flea Part 1 Part 2 and Part 3. The last post talks about the morality of the Boston Globe publishing the doctors name, thus assuring that the doctor will be associated with the case for many years to come... thanks to Google (I agree with Eric that the name was not necessary to the story, so I will not repeat it here).

Privacy

There were some posts on privacy issues this week. Two of my favorites were from Professor Froomkin and Professor Bainbridge.

Those of us in the San Francisco Bay area who have bought a FasTrak pass to avoid toll booths and use electronic metering when crossing the bridges have saved time, but have lost our privacy. Professor Michael Froomkin posted about how lawyers in the SF Bay area have issued subpoenas to get FasTrak data (which tracks when a FasTrak car crosses a toll bridge). Professor Froomkin also notes that he had predicted this in his Stanford Law Review article The Death of Privacy?, 52 Stan L. Rev. 1461 (2000).

Another privacy post favorite is Professor Stephen Bainbridge's take on Google Street View and (the lack of) privacy. Well there has been a lot of talk about how Google Street View has been impacting privacy. Professor Bainbridge was so upset that he removed his Google widgets. Professor Bainbridge is also upset about a number of other things Google is or is not doing (no Memorial Day logo on a private company's home page on Memorial Day? part of his list as to why those who run Google are evil). Interestingly, Professor Bainbridge links to photo highlights of the privacy violations he complains about (I do not see pictures on a public street as privacy violations - so here are the links on Google Blogscoped and Laudontech). In any case even when I disagree with him, the ProfessorBainbridge.com blog is another blog I love to read. And Professor Bainbridge announced that he will be speaking about Sarbanes-Oxley at the Center for Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute in New York City on Tuesday June 19th at noon.

PodCasts

And Professor Bainbridge transitions us to the Lawyer 2 Lawyer show with the up from the dead J Craig Williams (Bob Amrbogi had the day off). Professor Bainbridge and Dr. Robert Klitzman were the panelists on the show about Andrew Speaker's potential liability (and morality) in traveling with drug resistant form of TB. You can get more information about the show here or subscribe to an RSS feed or listen to on iTunes.

Mary Minow noted on the Library Law Blog that there is a podcast on the Section 108 Study Group with member Peter Hirtle, the Intellectual Property Officer at the Cornell University Libraries on Public Knowledge's Website. (Section 108 of the Copyright Law covers copyright exceptions for libraries and archives). You can download the mp3 here. And Mary is now tracking the documents filed in a some Federal cases involving libraries (see case list) using a backend Justia helped set up for her.

WisBlawg's Bonnie Shucha had information on the CALI Survey of Law Student Use of Faculty Podcasts. CALI is working with law schools to enable professors to record their lectures. 75% of students rated podcasts value as Excellent or Above Average. Most students used a PC to listen to the podcasts.

Case Updates

There are number of blogs that cover new case decisions. Here are few of my favorites.

Professor Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog covers many of the breaking Internet and technology cases in the Federal and state courts. This week he covered a couple of cases brought buy Zango against PC Tools and Kaspersky (post 2 and post 3) (Adware maker Zango does not want PC Tools or Kaspersky security products to detect and keep Zango software from installing), as well as some jurisdictional issues in other cases. Of course Professor Goldman's blog has more than just case updates.

Michael Hassen's Class Action Defense Blog has great summaries of recent Federal and California class action cases. And although they did not have any posts this week, The Maryland Court Watcher Blog is a great blog for learning about new Maryland cases. Ron Miller also gives some interesting legal analysis of cases, along with trial and practice tips in his Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. And Steven Merican's Illinois Appellate Lawyer Blog contains case summaries and analysis of many Illinois opinions, including a few this week.

Information Posts

There is no way I can match the excellent (organized and long :) Blawg Review #111 that Bill Gratsch did last week. Dennis Kennedy wrote a complementary post after reading Bill's Blawg Review, and thought it might be a good idea to reread the future of blogging conversation on betweenlawyers from a couple of years ago, and think about how it ties into the Bill's Blawg Review #111.

Covering the blawgosphere is one of the great features of Blawg's Blawg. Bill writes the Blawg.com Sunday Paper post, where he does a his own summary of posts from different blogs. You can read this week's Sunday Paper, covering everything from women's legal practice area choices to knowledge management and Avandia law suits, Patent policy and more... It is a nice discovery tool of new blogs and ideas that can be read in addition to Blawg Review. Check out the Sunday Paper archive.

Sabrina I. Pacifici BeSpacific blog constantly alerts readers to legal and government resources, as well as private Websites and other services and products of interest to lawyers. This is a blog I always check and follow.

Additional Posts of Interest

Ken Adams has a nice post on the dos and don'ts of contract drafting. I found it quite informative, as I am finalizing up a lease for new office space right now.

The Family Law Prof Blog has a post on the largest divorce award in history... $184 million for Maya Polsky.

Raul Jose at PaperStreet announced on their blog that they have launched the Umdoni and Vulamehlo HIV/AIDS Association Website. The association focuses on the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on rural communities in the UGU district of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Profoessor Paul L. Caron wrote a post about a Pennsylvania Court ruling that a Google search is not sufficient for the government to sell property for back taxes. The court ruled they should have also tried the phone book.

Marc Andreessen's Blog

Marc Andreessen (the founder of Ning... and a couple of other companies) came out with his own blog this week. And he started it out with a bang... he is switching to a Mac (there you go Larry).

There is also a post on productivity (no meetings), on hiring the best people and a three part article on the truth about VCs (parts 1, 2 and 3). A must read for startup folks. Read the VC posts with this article in Inc about Friendster. Marc's article gives good advice of when and when not to raise funds. And the Inc article gives an interesting view of how the VCs and professional startup managers play in the system while looking for the home run. Marc's blog is not exactly about law, although he says ex-lawyer VCs might be good at fixing parking tickets.

Law Dawg Blawg Dawg of the Week

Finally, this weeks Dawg of the Week on the Dawg Law Blawg is Dooley. He looks very happy and nice and is recovering from heart worm disease (he wants everyone to know that they should have their dogs checked for heart worms too - you can learn more from the American Heartworm Society). For us at Justia, the Dawg Law Blawg Dawg of the Week is the most important post of the week. It is the one we all look forward to!

Well there are some of the seemingly random blogs I read, with a few others posts thrown in, and few blogs left out (because they did not post this week or I ran out of time :) Keep on blawging, and please submit your own blawg to BlawgSearch.com (and Blawg.com :) if it is good :).

Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

Peace,

Tim

:: Carnival, Tigerlily by Natalie Merchant

Avvo Lawyer Directoy is Live --- Looks Good

Hi Friends,

LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe called it.... Avvo is live. Nice clean graphics and fonts that look like Google Analytics (bold Arial).

The focus is on the attorney, not the law firm, and listings are free. There will be additional advertising and featured placements for law firms to purchase in the future.

Key features:From what I see, beyond the beauty of the site, Avvo has two key features.... (1) a "rating system" based on public information (how many years admitted, where you went to school, publications, disciplinary record) and (2) reviews and endorsements by attorneys and clients.

I put "ratings" in quotes because they are not accurate right now. But the ratings will be of great value in collecting data to the directory, at which point the ratings and client and attorney comments may become valuable to users of the site.

My rating is a 7.2, and that is without mention of my real resume and my law review article and a few SSRN articles from the early-90s, or some of the organizations I have been involved with, like the California State Bar's Law Practice and Technology Executive Committee (and many others, especially on the computer/tech organization side...).

I am going to add my info, trying to get my rating up to an 8, with a long term goal of 9.3 :). And adding data is exactly what Avvo wants, and exactly what I am going to do :).

On the tech side, it appears the site is using Ruby On Rails and a Mongrel Web Server.... for those who care :)

And Avvo has added the Avvo blog.

It is just the beginning... but very nice :) Good job Avvo!!!

Peace,

Tim

:: Lawyers, Guns and Money, Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon

Avvo to Release Tomorrow?

Hi Friends,

There is a mention on LexBlog's Kevin O'Keefe's Blog that Avvo may release their site tomorrow.

Currently neither TechCrunch Attorney Michael Arrington nor ValleyWag has info on the new Avvo site... yet... so confirmation is a leak away. We may even need to wait until the press conference, press release (and launch party) when it comes out tomorrow (?).

Here is the Seattle Post Intelligencer article by John Cook (cited in Kevin's post) about their funding from Benchmark.

My guess is it is a lawyer directory with maps, maybe with consumer legal information to draw people in. Then add a referral program where lawyers can login and get leads. But I really have no idea. Great job of keeping it secret though, Avvo is the Apple Computer of law services (and I mean that in a good way :) tomorrow should be fun :) Should be a big push out the gate! And a nice contrast to Justia's projects... that always seem to get released in Alpha/Beta -- a new one will be coming out soon :).

Onward Avvo!!!

Peace,

Tim

:: The Waiting, Hard Promises by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Justia BlawgSearch.com May 2007 Most Popular Blogs

Hi Friends,

Here are the most popular blogs on BlawgSearch.com for May 2007. Above the Law dominated nearly every day.

Above the Law [feed]
A legal tabloid that provides news and gossip about the profession's colorful personalities and powerful institutions, as well as original commentary on breaking legal developments.
http://www.abovethelaw.com/
New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library Blog [feed]
News and information gateway to web based services provided by the New York State Supreme Court Criminal Term Library in New York County.
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/PLL
Law Blog [feed]
Covers law and business and the business of law. By the Wall Street Journal.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law
The Indiana Law Blog [feed]
Covers Indiana law, as well as interesting developments in law and government. By Marcia Oddi.
http://indianalawblog.com/
The FRAUDfiles Blog [feed]
Covers fraud and forensic accounting, including tax fraud and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. By Tracy Coenen.
http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfiles
Class Action Defense Blog [feed]
Covers CAFA, class certification, employment law, FCRA, FDCPA and multidistrict litigation. Published by Michael Hassen of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Marmaro LLP.
http://classactiondefense.jmbm.com/
How Appealing [feed]
Covers appellate litigation. By Howard J. Bashman.
http://howappealing.law.com/
DealBook [feed]
Covers mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, IPOs, private equity, hedge funds, venture capital and law. A Financial News Service of The New York Times.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com
TaxProf Blog [feed]
By University of Cincinnati Law Professor Paul L. Caron and Ron Jones.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/
Maryland Courts Watcher [feed]
Features the synopses of opinions from Maryland courts, including the Court of Appeals and the Court of Special Appeals.
http://marylandcourts.blogspot.com/

You can view the Top 200 Legal Blogs for May 2007 or view the most popular blogs in May for each of hundreds of categories. And you can view the main page of the rankings for May 2007 here. Ok... back to work :)

Peace,

Tim

:: Thunder Island, Thunder Island by Jay Ferguson

Add BlawgSearch.com Search Results to your Website or Blog

Hi Friends,

We have added the ability for you to have BlawgSearch search results on your Website or Blog with your own look and feel.

The html code for adding the Blawg Search results to your Website or legal Blog is given here: http://blawgsearch.justia.com/friendsearch.aspx

We provide a small amount of html and Javascript code that uses AJAX to pull just the BlawgSearch results to your Web page. You just need to paste the code we provide where you would like the results to appear. You can return 5, 10 or 20 results at a time.

You can view a generic search page here.

BLAWG CATEGORY SEARCHES
You can also limit search results to any of the categories of the BlawgSearch directory. You just select the category you would like to search and the code will be generated for you (with an option to search all of the legal blogs as well).

For example one could search Civil Rights or all of the Legal Blogs with a generic header and footer.

Of course you can choose your own category to focus on, for example Law Librarian Blogs, Law Practice Blogs, California Legal Blogs, or even a particular law school, such as Stanford Law School Blogs (our puppy, Little Sheba the Hug Pug, has a Dog Law Website with the Animal Law blogs category).

ADD SEARCH TO BLOG OR WEBSITE SIDEBAR
The search and search results can also fit in the side bar of a blog, like we have just added to our legal marketing blog on the left hand side of this page). We are returning 5 results at a time for the sidebar legal blog search.

Again, here is where you go to add Blawg Search search results to your Web site or Blog or even an Intranet Web page: http://blawgsearch.justia.com/friendsearch.aspx

Feel free to try it out, and if you have any feedback, that will be greatly appreciated (feedback from the first version got us to switch from iframes to AJAX :)

Peace,

Tim

:: The Core, Slowhand by Eric Clapton

Yapta.com - Tracking Airline Fare Price Drops & Getting Coupons

Hi Friends,

I initially wrote this up for the LMA list, but after rereading my email I figured it would be a good post. And it has Bellingham Washington in it, which is good.

There is a new free service that will be of interest to those who travel a lot. It is called Yapta and it tracks price changes in flights and then alerts you to price drops so you can obtain refunds or traffic coupons on the difference in price. Yapta just opened up their beta to new users. The url is http://yapta.com.

Slightly reworded cut down version of the Yapta press release to describe the service...

Yapta.com allows users to track specific flights from online itineraries offered at leading domestic airline websites (eg American Airlines, Delta...) or online travel agents (eg Orbitz, Expedia...), and have pricing continually monitored thereafter. Yapta thus assures that users get alerted to the lowest possible price for airline tickets. Bringing to light pro-consumer "guaranteed airfare rules" offered by many airlines, the service helps air travelers obtain travel vouchers -- and in some cases, cash refunds -- when the price decreases on tickets that have already been purchased.

In December 2006, Yapta initiated a private-beta test of the service, allowing select consumers to tag flights, receive alerts on airfare price drops, and capture refunds and travel vouchers. In just three months, Yapta alerted its 275 test users to approximately $30,000 in eligible savings and refunds, for an average net benefit of $109 per traveler.

If you or some in your firm travel a lot (eg bizdev or lawyers :), it is a good service to check out. You use it by either entering in your flight plans or tagging flights on Orbitz, Expedia or other services. (just like using del.icio.us or Google Bookmarks).

Yapta is not another airline search service, it is really best used to track decreases in prices of tickets you have already bought (or to track price changes in flights you are considering taking if the price falls). Again, the beta is now open and the url is http://yapta.com

Here are some additional resources:

Yapta.com

Yapta Press Release

TechCrunch Review

Wall Street Journal Article

I am sure the Yapta service will lead to a lot of cost savings by making the airline pricing more transparent.

Peace,

Tim

:: Jet Airliner, Book of Dreams by the Steve Miller Band

BlawgSearch.com Current & Historical Blawg Rankings

Hi Friends,

We have added historical snapshots of the most popular blawgs on a monthly basis since we released BlawgSearch in October of 2006. For each month we have listed the 200 most popular blawgs overall, as well as the top 20 blawgs in each category.

While we have been showing the most popular blawgs on BlawgSearch on the BlawgSearch home page, the historical rankings seemed interesting (and are likely to be more interesting in a few years :).

You can check out the monthly historical snapshots here and the overall leaders since the beginning of (BlawgSearch) time here. And note: the Justia BlawgSearch legal blog directory allows you to sort blawgs by popularity on a daily, weekly, monthly or all time basis as well as alphabetically or by last post date.

We rank the blawgs based on the number of visits or podcast plays the blawg receives from the BlawgSearch.com and Blawgs.FM sites. We also include any visits that comes from the AJAX or iframe search results being used by others on their sites (more on that tomorrow :). We have some protections in place to guard against rankings click fraud and we have slightly discounted our own Blawgs (no Justia team clicks :). There are different weights depending on where the clicks occur, but basically if people see your blawg on BlawgSearch and decide to visit your Blawg, your blawg is ranked higher.

You might want to compare the category rankings we have with those on Blawg.com (the highly respected and well known directory and search engine of legal blawgs).

And the most "popular"? Above the Law. AtL has been leading now for a number of months and seems to be at or near the top everyday.

In this blog's category... the most popular legal marketing blawg of "all time"? a blog by some guy named Kevin who works at LexBlog but Professor Eric Goldman is starting to catch up. Check out the current and past leaders in any of the hundred plus categories from law professors to technology.

Finally I am not sure how meaningful the rankings are, they do not indicate what is a good blawg or bad blawg (I second everything Bill wrote in his post), but people love law blog metrics.

Peace,

Tim

:: Popular, High/Low by Nada Surf

Legal Newswire for Thomson-Reuters?

Hi Friends,

This from Today's New York Times...

While no decisions have yet been made, he [Tom Glocer] said Reuters might hire about 50 additional journalists to create a legal news wire, integrating it with Thomson’s current offerings to lawyers.

Interesting... and I believe that Thomson will use some of their education division sale money to purchase American Lawyer Media. We will see... in the mean time, I am taking bets.

Peace,

Tim

Source: Thomson Adds Reuters in $17 Billion Bid to Be Giant New York Times (16 May 2007).

:: Thrasher, Rust Never Sleeps by Neil Young

Gino Wins!!!

Stacy, Dana and I went to the Contra Costa Bodybuilding, Figure & Fitness Championships on Saturday to cheer our friend Gino Eagle Johnson on in the Ultra Grand Masters category.

The Ultra Grand Masters is the division for those over 60. Gino is 70 years young and he won his class! Gino is a personal trainer at Gold's Gym in Mountain View (where we work out :), and he plans to compete in the Nationals in Pittsburgh this July. What an inspiration!

Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler performed as the guest poser. He put on a great show posing and also talking individually to fans. Mr. Olympia shared the inspiring story of how he won the Olympia after being told he would never win it or compete professionally for that matter. Through hard work and determination he achieved his life dream.

Other Mountain View Gold's folks also competed. Doug placed 2nd in the Grand Masters division. And Saraya placed 4th in her very first bodybuilding competition with a salsa-inspired posing routine.

There are more pictures in the extended entry.

Congratulations to all!

Peace,

Tim

:: Eye of the Tiger, Ultimate Survivor by Survivor

More Photos :)

Tom Glocer's Blog - Reuters' CEO and New Thomson CEO???

Hi Friends,

Tom Glocer, Reuters' CEO and likely new Thomson CEO to be, has his own blog. Just a few posts, but Tom is posting himself. Click here to read Tom's Blog.

Source: WSJ Law Blog Comment

Peace,

Tim

:: HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business School Publishing

LLRX.com - New Design is Live

Hi Friends,

The new LLRX.com Web site that we worked on for/with Sabrina Pacifici is now live. While it is primarily an editorial research Website, there is a section on law firm marketing, and a lot of tech tips that are useful marketers and lawyers alike. And, from a marketing perspective, Sabrina did change the colors and add in pictures to the home page :) There is more work left to do on it, but it is live. More information on LLRX is on our law review blog.

Peace,

Tim

:: Take It Easy, Eagles by the Eagles