Google Scholar Adds Legal Journals and Opinions

In a move with possible profound implications, Google Scholar has added a dedicated search for legal journals and court opinions. Check it out here. Apparently they have the entire Heinonline database included as I located a couple of articles I wrote back in 2005 that I didn't know were available on the free web. My first guess is that this will not convince many lawyers to move from their current legal research tools, especially since so many now enjoy free legal research via their bar associations. But for those who pay for a limited plan, there may be a way to find cases outside of the plan for free. Many may now find that they have access to legal journals previously not available.

In a related note, the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center has just released a free full-text online law review/law journal search engine that searches the free full-text of over 300 online law reviews and law journals as well as other document repositories.

Social Media for Lawyers

I got a chance to meet Gerry Riskin and hear him speak last week. As many of you know, Gerry is a principal of Edge International and shares his wisdom with us through his Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices blog.

Gerry discussed Social Media as it related to the legal profession. Social Media suffers in our legal community by its name. It sounds more like a dating service or chat service than something a hard-nosed lawyer would have time to deal with. Gerry showed us a video that I'd like to share with you. Please trust me not to waste your 4 minutes and 33 seconds. It is a great video with good production values. But it is full of the kind of statistics that a good lawyer would use to prove a case. Be sure and view it in full screen mode.

The Travel Site Less Visited

For this September's Sites for Sore Eyes column in the GP/Solo Technology eReport, Courtney Kennaday and I review some online travel resources. It's just too bad we don't get to make more use of them!

Online Reputation Management: First Rule is to Avoid Self-Inflicted Wounds

A lot of people are concerned about online reputation management. They are worried about things posted online about them or their families. Lawyers in particular worry that unhappy former clients will post untrue things about the lawyer online that are difficult or impossible to refute.

Our Rules of Professional Conduct say a lawyer may reveal information relating to representation of a client "to establish a claim or defense on behalf of the lawyer in a controversy between the lawyer and the client" or " to respond to allegations in any proceeding concerning the lawyer's representation of the client." ORPC 1.6(b)(5)

OK, who thinks that applies because you didn't like something a former client said on Twitter or Facebook? Yeah. Me neither. Well, maybe if it libels the lawyer. But proving the fact of libel as a defense to an ethics complaint is not a road most of us would choose to travel.

So to me, the key to online reputation management is to put lots of positive information about you online and to tell your story. Just overwhelm any critics.

As we have seen with many well-documented Facebook and Twitter stories, the biggest potential danger area for damage to your online reputation is you. We saw it happen with flame e-mailing when angry and now you can post your anger or missteps online for the entire world to see with social networking.

Today's example is from a lawyer who uses Twitter. This lawyer is one of those who tweets many times a day and certainly has more followers than I do. I'm not going to identify that lawyer because I do understand if you do that many tweets a day not all will be award-winners.

But here's what he posted on Twitter as a "rule," not just an offhand remark: "If your lawyer's email address ends in hotmail.com, gmail.com or yahoo.com (or aol.com), find a new lawyer." Now don't bother searching. His identity is not the point. And the rule was apparently reprinted from a national publication.

But that jewel coming from a lawyer insulted a lot of people and made a lot of them angry. He's already had one blogger today react negatively. When I read those words, even now hours later, my reaction is "You judgmental self-important jerk. How dare you tell people to fire their lawyers because of the e-mail service they use?" I recognized this person's name as a lawyer whose Twitter posts I had read before. I had a neutral, leaning positive opinion of him. But now for a long time, this is what I will think of when I see his name.

The ironic thing is I don't disagree with his general thinking. Lawyers in private practice representing clients should use an e-mail address that includes the law firm domain name in most cases. But failure to do so is not a firing offense. So the point gets obscured by the message. A few minutes ago a very, very techno-savvy sent several of us an e-mail using his Gmail account because of temporary problems with his primary e-mail account. (That's OK, Erik. None of us can fire you.) One of the most techno-savvy lawyers I know uses a Yahoo address and has for well over a decade. Right, Dan?

In fact, every techno-savvy lawyer I know has a GMail account!

Still somewhere, some person will search Twitter for "find a new lawyer" and learn that someone thinks they should fire their lawyer because of his or her e-mail address. If they are searching for that, they obviously aren't happy and maybe that will be the tipping point to fire their lawyer. Maybe they will even file a bar complaint.

So why am i going on about this? Because it is an unneeded, serious self-inflicted wound. It would be one thing entirely if this person sold e-mail services or was writing a paper on e-mail services. I have heard lawyers make the case that Gmail should not be used for confidential client e-mails because of Google's Terms of Service. That's a defensible opinion. But even the most jealous advocate of that theory knows it wouldn't be smart to insult the audience.

We've all been there. I have one rather infamous e-mail in my past I'd still like to have back. If you tweet multiple times per day, you are going to hit a few foul balls. I'll probably anger some people with this post. But, I think I am trying to make a point, which is let's all be careful out there on the Internet, OK?

By the way, three people subscribed to my blog e-mail alert service today. One used Hotmail and one used Gmail.

E-mail Management: Unsubscribing Works

I hate spam e-mail. It fills my inbox and wastes my time. I saw a report from a bar association this week that 94% of its incoming e-mail was spam. Of course, they filter most of that out.

But today I want to make sure you understand that some of the advice you received in the old days is not good advice anymore.

While there are many kinds of spammers, for today's discussion, let's assume there are two kinds: lawbreakers and legitimate businesses.

For lawbreakers and those who operate in the gray areas, we need help from the FBI, IT people, spam filters and the like. We can't do much on our own.

But many otherwise legitmate businesses use "e-mail marketing." Surely, I am not the only one who has noticed that when I toss business cards into fishbowls, trying to win a nicer iPod or some other great prize, what I always seems to win is being added to the company's e-mail marketing list. Other companies seem to add me just because they ran across my blog and found my e-mail address.

But, In the old days we were told never to click on "Unsubscribe" links at the bottom of spam e-mail as it just confirmed your identity and generated more spam. But since the federal CAN SPAM Act is being enforced, that is no longer true. So I regularly click on unsubscribe links to reduce the inflow of unwanted commercial e-mail. If I get spam e-mail that doesn't have an unsubscrobe option at the bottom, I will reply with a warning of legal consequences and a link to the FTC's page on requirements for commercial e-mailers. Often I get a quick apology by return e-mail. A person who built illegal spamming tools even got a jail sentence earlier this summer. Try it. It even makes you feel good.

The Value Of Twitter Is In “The Power Of Passed Links”

That's what Fred Wilson says and I agree. I think it is becoming clear now that there are many ways to use Twitter and many reasons to use Twitter. But to me the best thing about Twitter is the fact that it provides me with a large group of friends, professional acquaintances, some total strangers and some technology superstars who all voluntarily serve as a clipping service for me with links to news articles, blog posts, product launches and more. They also toss in their "special" content, too. New York Times tech columnist David Pogue gets wound up with some pretty funny stuff at night as he assembles his book based on readers' Tweets. Check him out here and see what I mean. (Twitter registration not required.)

Walk around in your own wireless cloud

This about-to-be released MiFi card really looks cool.  You can carry your own wireless cloud with you and share it with up to four other users. There are lots of very interesting possibilities, including, as one poster noted, saving a lot of money if you exhibit at trade shows where they charge through the nose for Internet access.

Here's David Pogue's review.

Here's his CNBC interview.

Release date is May 17,  2009.

ABA TECHSHOW 60 Sites in 60 Minutes Posted

The last presentation of ABA TECHSHOW 2009 was 60 Sites in 60 Minutes, a program that is likely the longest running tradition of ABA TECHSHOW. I was honored to be asked to do that presentation with Lincoln Mead, Laura Calloway and Barron Henley. The list of and links to the 60 sites have now been posted. There are many useful sites there as well as a few fun ones. Laura ended the presentation (and the show) with the shadow images on NervousRat.com. It was a great way to end a conference and would be a great way for you to end your day. (My apologies in advance if it gets changed to something inappropriate for the office.)

Site of the Week: Wordle

One of the sites I showed at ABA TECHSHOW'S 60 Sites in 60 Minutes was Wordle. The producers even call it a toy. They say "Wordle is a toy for generating 'word clouds' from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text." But there is actually some value in examining word frequency in an easy-to-understand graphical format. Here is a Wordle of the year to date posts in my Law Practice Tips blog.

And Carolyn Elefant tells the story of how she used this toy---er--tool with great results for, of all things, a talk on marine renewables energy.

You can paste the text from a long document into Wordle. Try it with a brief or long article. You can also alter colors, horizontal to vertical ratio, font and other items. But to see if your trial brief emphases what you planned by word count can be a useful exercise.

I did a program for the Oklahoma State Webmasters Group on Web 2.0 last month. The paper created such interesting word clouds that I saved two of them. Click to expand.       

Kick your Gmail Account into High Gear

For those of you using Gmail from Google, you will want to check out 90 Tools And Tips To Make You A Gmail Pro. I haven't tried any of the add-ons, but the list comes highly recommended.