Debate on the Free Access to Law

Apparently there is a fairly robust online debate about the state of the free access to the law. As we know the law is generally found in case opinions and statutes, which are, generally speaking, in the public domain by their nature. Scholarly treatises and law reviews provide analysis and commentary. Other research tools provide help in finding the applicable law.

A professor with long-term ties to West Publishing praised the free access to law movement for increasing competition, but also downplayed free legal research tools as being second rate. (One wonders if the esteemed professor has ever paid for legal research out of his own pocket.) Needless to say his statement provoked responses and you can find links to view his initial video and the responses here.

Well, the free access to the law movement is thriving in Oklahoma. Years ago, our Oklahoma Supreme Court decided that the law should be free and available in Oklahoma. The court's website, OSCN.net, has available to anyone all of the court opinions in a searchable format, back to statehood and even before. The online law library there includes the statutes as well as the case opinions, links to the administrative code, fee and bond schedules and many other resources. The largest counties already have their case files online and work is underway on the other counties.

Any citizen can also go to the local county courthouse and find the county law library and use Westlaw with a subscription paid for by the state.

For legal research in other jurisdictions, the Oklahoma Bar Association provides its member-lawyers access to Fastcase for the other states and federal courts. Last month OBA members had over 30,000 transactions on Fastcase.

There may be a debate about free access to the law in other jurisdictions, but not in the Sooner state. OSCN.net is recognized as our Website of the Week.

150 attend OBA Tech Fair & TECHSHOW Roadshow

We had a great time at the OBA Tech Fair this week. Thanks to Tom Mighell, Debbie Foster and Adriana Linares for taking the time to come teach our members. I have gotten lots of great feedback. And for those of you who didn't attend, from Oklahoma or anywhere else, please consider attending ABA TECHSHOW 2010 March 25-27, 2010 in Chicago.

ABA TECHSHOW Road Show Comes to Oklahoma

On September 24, 2009, the Oklahoma Bar Association is providing a Technology Fair for its members, featuring the ABA TECHSHOW Road Show. We are very excited to have a host of experts who will be joining me speaking to our members, including Debbie Foster (chair of ABA TECHSHOW 2010), Tom Mighell and Adriana Linares.

We have a great lineup of educational presentations and vendor presentations. We are also going to help our members build profiles on our social networking service, Oklahoma Bar Circle, even taking a picture for then to post on their profile.

We plan on having a great day. Thanks to our speakers for participating. This is a great time to remind everyone to mark the date for ABA TECHSHOW 2010 on their calendar. It will be be March 25-27, 2010 at the Chicago Hilton.

Heading off to Oklahoma Bar Solo and Small Firm Conference

Lawyers from all across Oklahoma are heading out to the Oklahoma Bar's Solo and Small Firm Conference today. It is a great event with lots of fun and great CLE presentations. If you are not able to attend, you can read about the details here and see the complete list of programs (PDF) here. If you aren't from Oklahoma and don't have a solo and small firm conference in your state, you can use these links to start lobbying for one. We are happy to be hosting three "world class" CLE presenters in Irwin Karp, Ross Kodner and Nerino Petro. A good time will be had by all and our attendees will go home with some great information to put to use immediately. I hope my friends in Missouri enjoy their Solo and Small Firm Conference as well since it is being held at the same time.

ABA TECHSHOW Roadshow in Boston

Well, I am off to the American Bar Association Midyear meeting in Boston. The ABA Midyear meeting is much smaller (and more committee and board work oriented) than the ABA Annual Meeting. I have a couple of days on my calendar with almost the entire day scheduled starting with breakfast meetings at 8 a.m. and ending at 10 p.m. or so. There will be some hard work and some fun, including the evening Nerino Petro and I have three receptions to hit in just over four hours.

But the most exciting event is when I am scheduled to speak at the first ABA TECHSHOW Roadshow for the Massachusetts Bar Association. It features a very good selection of popular TECHSHOW programs, although not all will be given by the original presenters. Check out the schedule of programs here. This should be an informative program and maybe it will encourage some of the attendees to register for the full ABA TECHSHOW 2009, April 2 -4 in Chicago before prices go up with the expiration of the Feb 28th Early Bird Deadline.  (Oklahoma Bar members can e-mail or call my office or check OBA-NET for our Event Promoters Discount Code to save some more money when registering.)

This will be a great chance to hear some of the top legal technologists in the country at a very reasonable price. Hmmm...... in fact it is such a good idea that I should bring the concept to Oklahoma. Yeah. maybe in September.......

Support Your Local Bar Association

This post was prompted by reading today of a controversy between the Florida Bar and some of its members over selling the member's e-mail addresses. (I don't have a comment on that specific situation.) I've now worked for the OOklahoma Bar Association for over 11 years. Even though we have paid staff, a lot of our efforts depend on lawyers volunteering to serve on committees and do other types of volunteer work. These lawyers receive a lot in return, they tell me. They meet many different lawyers and develop friendships. But they also receive tangible business benefits, such as referrals from other lawyers they have encountered in their bar work. More than a few are now practicing in firms with other lawyers they originally met through volunteer bar work.

There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing a project you have shepherded come to reality, whether it helps other lawyers or helps other in our community. Some bar associations report difficulty with getting "brand new" lawyers to participate. All of us seem to have more to do than the time permits and I am sure that they feel the same way. But I would encourage new lawyers to get involved with the Young Lawyers Division and their state and local bar associations. You may make contacts and friendships there that will last a lifetime! You also have the chance to impact decisions that your bar association makes.

Over the last several years we have announced several member benefits from the Oklahoma Bar Association that are law practice management oriented. These include a subscription to the Factcase legal research service that is free to members as a part of their bar dues, discounts on Corevault online backup service for data protection and the OBA Law Firm Merchant Account to provide a system for lawyers to process credit card payments to the office and trust accounts. Just think what great things your bar association might do over the next few years with your input and time.

Advanced Internet Research Webinar by Tom Mighell and Jim Calloway

UPDATE: While this program has already taken place, you can still enjoy the entire program online through the OBA-CLE's online offerings. Just click this link to see about purchasing the online program. We enjoyed doing the program and have gotten some very good feedback on it.

Tom Mighell, chair of ABA TECHSHOW 2008, will join me for a two hour webinar on Advanced Internet Research on May 13, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. CST. Tom and I have done several versions of this program over the years. We will explain different types of search tools available and we will also discuss search strategies. Of course, we will have some relatively new cutting edge material. Here's a good way to become a power Internet researcher quickly. Anyone can enroll in this online CLE program,  not just Oklahoma lawyers. To enroll or to get more specific information, click here.

The Great Oklahoma Ice Storm of 2007

Blogging slowed this month as I dealt with, among other things, The Great Oklahoma Ice Storm of 2007. (No slight is intended to those of you in Missouri and other states that were hit as well.)

Edgar Rice Burroughs used the phrase "the thin veneer of civilization." Well, let me tell you that thin veneer can be fairly easily cracked when you and all of your neighbors have no electrical power for several days in the ice and cold. I was awake before daylight (with no power) on the day of the ice storm listening to crash after crash of branches and trees covered with ice. My limited experience and prior thinking about disasters had me at the door of a local farm supply store when they opened that morning in the line to purchase generators. I got one, but the people who were there 15 minutes after the store opened probably did not.

One reason this ice storm was so devastating is that many leaves were still in trees providing a platform for ice accumulation. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power for days. You've probably read that one of three Oklahoma households were without power at some point and that 12 days later about 12,000 still had no power.

The first questions are about survival; shelter, food and warmth. Soon things like showers and doing laundry become important. Of course, many lawyers were soon asking the question "How do I practice law without electricity?" Even though we were without power for three days, we were lucky. My family overruled my generator plans when good friends offered to take us in. But it is hard to relate the mental stress of dealing with a disaster. You lose focus. You are preoccupied. You forget things. You make mistakes. A huge amount of time is spent looking for things with flashlights in the dark, figuring out how to eat or contacting insurance adjusters. You mourn your lost trees.

We lost two outstanding Tulsa lawyers, Jim Lang and Sharon Corbitt, when a fire started downstairs around their fireplace at their home. I assume that the battery backup of their home security system had been exhausted after so long without power and they had no working smoke detector. They died from smoke inhalation while asleep upstairs. Words cannot express the loss to our bar and our state. These were two great people.

Some of us have now thought about getting those large natural gas-fired generators that start automatically when there is a power loss. But for now, I think the main lesson is to spend some time in your law firm and with your family updating your personal disaster plans to include a response to prolonged power loss. It might make sense for your law firm to invest in alternative sources for power. My prompt trip to purchase a generator wasn't a result of being smart. It was the result of advance thinking about disasters.

Oklahoma Bar Offers Law Firm Merchant Account Member Benefit

Today the Oklahoma Bar Association announces its latest member benefit- law firm merchant accounts for credit card processing for its members. There is no more need to spend time dealing with issues about the service charges on retainers and other trust account deposits and no more depositing of small checks just to cover service charges. It is as simple as can be. When a client uses a credit card, the law firm designates the account to be credited, either the operating account (for payment for services already delivered) or the trust account (for retainers and other trust funds.) But with this plan, all service charges or potential charge backs all come from the operating account, never the trust account.

The client who gives you a retainer has 100% of it in your trust account with your firm absorbing any service charges. Concerns of keeping client trust funds in a "merchant account subject to invasion" are satisfied. See California Bar Ethics opinion 2007-172 for a discussion of the issues.

We are excited about this new way to simply our lawyer's professional lives. More details are on the bar's Webpage here. As I wrote way back in 2003 in 'Do You Accept Credit Cards?' I think it is very important for law firms whose clients are primarily individuals to accept credit cards. Other law firms can make their own decisions. But if an inanimate gas pump accepts credit cards, how do you tell your client that your law firm cannot?

From Business Boot Camp to The New Lawyer Experience

The American Bar Association publication Your ABA recently highlighted a program that had me as one of the panelists at ABA Annual Meeting. Read this nice article about our Business Boot Camp for Lawyers. We had a nice audience and my co-panelists were great.

In Oklahoma, it is time for lawyers who are either in the process of opening or thinking about opening a private law practice to register for The New Lawyer Experience. This free program will be held September 28, 2007 at the Tulsa County Bar Center and October 2, 2007 at the Oklahoma Bar Center. Oklahoma lawyers can see the schedule and get more details online here. We'll cover a lot of the basics that you may not have learned in law school, but we'll also have some cutting edges concepts to discuss.

While we schedule this program to take place a few days after the admittance ceremony for new lawyers, we always have a good number of experienced lawyers who are either changing careers or just updating/refreshing their information. I hope to see many of you who follow this blog at the program. However, you don't have to be an Oklahoma lawyer to benefit from this program in one way. Our Starting a Law Practice Web Directory has lots of information for you to read and review.