The law firm McDermott Will & Emery has launched Legal Crisis Strategies, a blog devoted to legal crisis management. The blog will provide advice on “preventing, managing and ending a crisis while protecting a company’s reputation and limiting its legal liability.” Notably for those in Massachusetts, one contributor to the blog is William F. Weld, [...]
The Supreme Judicial Court has posted the 2010 edition of the Massachusetts Guide to Evidence. In the absence of formal rules of evidence in Mass., this is the closest the state comes to a document akin to the Federal Rules of Evidence.
The guide is compiled by a committee appointed by the SJC and given the task of assembling “the current law in one easily usable document, along the lines of the Federal Rules of Evidence.” It is derived from the constitution, statutes, common law and rules of court.
This new edition reflects changes in evidence law between Oct. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009. It also adds four new sections on unemployment hearing privilege, inadequate police investigation evidence, access to third-party records prior to trial in criminal cases, and view.
The introduction emphasizes that this is only a guide and not an authoritative statement of rules. “What the Committee has written are not rules, but rather, as the title suggests, a guide to evidence based on the law as it exists today. … Ultimately, the law of evidence in Massachusetts is what is contained in the authoritative decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court and of the Appeals Court, and the statutes duly enacted by the Legislature.”
The guide is also available in a 479-page print edition from the Flaschner Judicial Institute (via Lawyers Weekly) for $69. Every judge in the state receives a complimentary copy.
Law.com now has my extended review of Bloomberg Law, the new legal research service that aims to muscle in on the turf now occupied by Westlaw and LexisNexis.
(Also see my post earlier this week about the Bloomberg Law biometric doohickey.)
(Note: The Law.com version is now behind a paywall. You can find another version of my review here: Bloomberg Law: Can it be a Contender?)
A new Web site launched today, Courtroom Insight, that provides lawyer reviews of expert witnesses, mediators, arbitrators and litigation consultants. The site is a simple-to-search directory of experts, neutrals and consultants. For anyone listed in the directory, registered users can submit ratings and reviews of their services.
Few of the profiles have reviews so far, which is understandable given that the site just launched today. Here is an example of the profile of an arbitrator with one review. As you can see, the review includes ratings of the arbitrator’s legal ability, integrity and objectivity, judicial management, degree of preparedness, communication skills and professionalism.
For expert-witness reviews, ratings grade such factors as prior experience, value for fees, level of involvement, command of information, technical skills, analytical skills, timeliness, objectivity and communication skills.
To help ensure the reliability of reviews, the site manually validates membership requests by attorneys and judges. Non-lawyer reviewers are not validated, but they are asked to provide “honest feedback, including constructive criticism where warranted, written in professional style and demeanor.”
Any expert, neutral or consultant who is listed in the directory can claim his or her profile and verify the basic contact information. The site sells upgraded profiles for $349 a year, which allows listing of more detailed information about one’s professional background.
Access to the site is free, but allows viewing only of reviews posted within the most recent 30 days. Users can opt to purchase a $249 annual subscription, which gives them access to all reviews, whenever posted.
In a statement announcing the launch, Courtroom Insight CEO Mark Torchiana said it will help lawyers find experts with the right experience and abilities to match the needs of a particular case and allow lawyers to better assess how an expert will perform in a courtroom setting. The site can also be used to research opposing experts, he noted.
During the recent LegalTech in New York, I sat down for an interview with John Gilman, president and founder of LegalRelay.com, a new Web site that features user reviews of legal software.
Listen to the interview with LegalRelay.
Last November, I published my review of Bloomberg Law, the recently launched legal research service from business news giant Bloomberg. One aspect of the service I did not mention in my review is the odd piece of hardware required to log-in. Whereas other legal research services rely on usernames and passwords, Bloomberg Law requires you to log-in using something it calls the B-Unit, a credit-card sized, biometric fingerprint reader that ensures that you and only you log-in to your Bloomberg Law account.
You can use it to log-in from anywhere you have Web access. After you enter your usual username and password, a screen prompts you for the B-Unit. Turn it on and its asks you to “present finger.” Assuming it recognizes you, an small LCD display says, “ID valid.” You then hold the B-Unit in front of your computer screen. After a few moments, a four-digit verification code appears in its LCD screen. Enter that in the space provided on the log-in screen, and you are good to go.
Below are some pictures. And, by the way, I’m pretty sure “doohickey” is the correct technical term.
 |
| From Blog Pictures |
 |
| From Blog Pictures |
 |
| From Blog Pictures |
[I came across the following chronology among some old files. I originally compiled it in 1995 in conjunction with a magazine article I wrote.]
The fax machine is invented by a Scottish physicist. Images were sent by wire and the receiving machine recorded the images on damp electrolytic paper.
The typewriter becomes available.
Carbon paper invented.
The mimeograph invented.
West Publishing introduces Key Numbers
Xerography developed.
First electronic digital computer, ENIAC, weighing in at 30 tons and containing 18,000 vacuum tubes. Price: $487,000.
Transistors and miniaturized circuits lead to invention of the silicon chip.
Xerox introduces the first office copier.
Mead Data introduces Lexis, providing full text of Ohio and New York codes and cases, the U.S. Code and some federal cases.
West introduces a database of digests and key numbers, called Westlaw
Tandy Corp. becomes the first major electronics firm to produce a personal computer.
Westlaw adds full-text information.
Lexis adds Nexis, providing the Washington Post, Newsweek, The Economist, U.S. News & World Report, Dun’s Review, and the Reuters and Associated Press news wires.
VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet software, is introduced for the Apple II.
Some 724,000 pcs are sold.
Lexis reports annual sales of $31.9 million, up from $15.8 million in 1978 and $3.9 million in 1975.
Among new products:
WordPefect, word-processing software for use with a Data General minicomputer, from Satellite Software.
IBM introduces its first personal computer.
1.4 million pcs are sold.
Average price of a facsimile machine: $10,500.
2.8 million PCs are sold, ranging from the $77.95 Timex-Sinclair 1000 to a $4,000 IBM. (Biggest sellers: Timex, Commodore, Atari, Apple, IBM and Tandy.)
A Fortune magazine study determines that corporate legal offices would realize direct cost savings by using computers.
Among new products:
Apple’s Lisa computer, the first to allow users to carry out many functions by using a “mouse” to click on an icon.
Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software.
Time magazine declares the personal computer the “Machine of the Year” for 1982, in place of its traditional Man of the Year.
Harvard Law School prohibits students from using PCs during final exams.
Lexis becomes accessible thru an IBM PC, rather than exclusively through Mead Data’s proprietary terminals. (This was already the case with Westlaw.)
The price of a Kurzweil Optical Character Recognition unit goes down, from $89,800 to $69,800.
Among new products:
Syntrex introduces a new dedicated word processor targeted at the legal community, with automatic table of authorities generation, automatic index generaton, line numbering, and full-text searching.
IBM introduces the XT microcomputer, with a 10mb hard disk, for $5,675.
IBM introduces the System/36 minicomputer
Lassen Software introduces Personal Lawyer/Wills, a general purpose will writer for the IBM-PC targeted at non-lawyers ($50)
General Robotics Corp., La Jolla, Calif., offers an “electronic jury” for people who want to have their disputes resolved by computer.
Legal Talk, intended for the blind, reads aloud the results of Westlaw searches.
The Official Airline Guide goes online as an electronic database.
The Matthew Bender Automated Will Drafting System is introduced for lawyers.
A Westlaw interface for the IBM Displaywriter is introduced.
Dialog Information Service adds Trademarkscan, a database of all registered and pending U.S. trademarks.
Top-selling word processing software were WordStar and MultiMate
Among new products:
The Macintosh computer, from Apple, which, in a radical departure, used a 3.5-inch floppy disk rather than the standard 5.25-inch. Price: $2,495 for 128K of memory.)
The Laserjet, from Hewlett-Packard, the first “affordable” laser printer. Price: $3,495; $220 for each extra type font.
IBM introduces the Portable PC, with 256K of memory and a 5.25 inch disk drive. Price: $2,795.
IBM introduces the “Cluster Program,” which allows up to 64 PCs to connect and share files.
IBM upgrades memory of System/36 minicomputer to 1024K and stroage from 400 Mb to 800 Mb.
IBM introudces new electronic typewriter that includes a disk drive for storage.
Among new products:
Windows, from Microsoft.
The Apple LaserWriter. Price: $6,995.
WordStar 2000, the latest release of the popular word-processing software from MicroPro.
The IBM PC AT, with an 80286 processor instead of the 8088s used in other IBM pcs. Price: $5,795.
As WordPerfect takes the No. 1 slot among word processors, its parent company, Satellite Software, renames itself WordPerfect Corp.
300,000 fax machines are sold, compared with 500,000 in all prior years.
IBM discontinues its DisplayWriter dedicated word processor.
Among new products:
Timeslips time and billing software. Price: $100. (Compare with another legal time and billing package then available that cost $18,000.)
An upgraded IBM PC XT, which now includes a 20 mb hard disk. Price: $2,895.
The Deskpro 386, from Compaq, with 40 Mb hard disk and 1 Mb of ram. Price: $6,499.
A battery-powered “laptop” computer, from IBM. Price: $1,995.
WordPerfect version 4.2.
BRS/Search, a full-text-search, litigation-support system, from NBI. Price: $18,000
Computer Systems News declares the IBM System/36 and System/38 mimicomputers “dead products.”
500,000 fax machines are sold, as the average cost of a machine drops to $3,000.
Private e-mail services now have 5.6 million subscribers, up from 3.9 million a year earlier.
Use of Telex drops to 200 million minutes, from a peak of 397 million minutes in 1984.
Kelly Services announces that it will begin training temps to use PCs.
Harvard law School and Lawyers Cooperative Publishing team up to create an interactive trial-skills tutor using PCs and laser disks.
Corrections officers in Massachusetts begin using PC-linked “electronic bracelets” to monitor house arrests.
Among new products:
IBM introduces its new operating system, OS/2.
Macintosh II, from Apple. Price: $3,769; with 40 Mb hard disk, keyboard a
nd color monitor: $6,996.
The Series II Laser Jet, from Hewlett-Packard. Price: $2,495.
IBM introduces four “Solution Pacs” for the legal profession: Lawyer Assistant, $1,991; Law Firm Secretarial, $1,921; Law Firm Financial, $2,632; and Law Firm Practice Management, $1,932.
CompareRite document-comparison software, from JuriSoft.
Cost of a low-end fax machine drops below $1,000.
The IRS first experiments with electronic filing of returns via modem.
Sales of Apple computers surpass IBM computers for the first time, 1.27 million to 1.23 million.
Among new products:
WordStar releases a legal edition of its owrd processing software.
West introduces its first CD ROM titles, including Federal Civil Practice Library, Federal Tax Libarry, Bankruptcy Library, Government Contracts Library.
Timeslips releases a Macintosh version.
WordPerfect version 5.0.
Police in Ottawa County, Mich., begin using PCs and modems to transmit search-warrant applications to judges.
A study concludes that automation has enabled attorneys in the U.S. Justice Dept. to increase the time they spend on “thought work” from 49 to 69 percent.
Mead Data purchases Jurisoft, maker of CiteRite and CompareRite.
A Minnesota law firm buys 750 Macintosh computers.
In probably the largest deal to date in the legal market, Kodak Legal Systems contracts with Mayer, Brown & Platt for 1,000 networked workstations at seven locations, tied to 200 DECservers.
Among new products:
WordPerfect introduces a version of Black’s Law Dictionary to use with its spell checker.
Fifty-nine percent of small-firm lawyers now use PCs, an ABA survey reports, but only 3 percent use electronic mail.
U.S. Supreme Court begins distributing decisions electronically under the auspices of Project Hermes.
Lexis reports nearly 270,000 users.
Soon after WordPerfect releases version 5.1, it becomes the top-selling word processing software.
“The PC revolution is over, and the PC industry has taken over the castle,” declares Lotus Development Chairman Jim Manzi
Among new products:
Compaq releases its LTE and LTE/286 notebook (under seven pounds) computers.
Westlaw adds a “transparent” gateway to the Dialog news and business database.
Among new products:
A number of notebook computers are introduced at Comdex.
DOS version 5.0 is released.
WordPerfect for Windows is introduced.
Apple releases the PowerBook portable computer.
Lexis now has more than 621,000 users.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announces plans to put EDGAR, its online filing database, on the Internet.
E-mail grows in popularity among lawyers and firms.
Apple announces plans to make the Macintosh DOS compatible.
Among new products:
The Thinkpad computer, from IBM.
WordPerfect version 6.0 for DOS and Windows.
Windows NT.
The Newton MessagePad personal digital assistant, from Apple.
The Pentium chip, from Intel.
DOS version 6.0, from Microsoft.
Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti becomes first law firm to establish a site on the Internet’s World Wide Web; a number of others follow.
An Arizona law firm creates controversy by posting ads to thousands of news groups on the Internet, a severe breach of Netiquette.
Novell and WordPerfect merge.
Reed Elsevier buys Mead Data, owner of Lexis/Nexis, for $1.5 billion.
Among new products:
Several companies introduce automated speech-to-text dictations systems.
Eighty-seven percent of solo and small-firm lawyers now use a PC, an ABA survey finds, and 23 percent use e-mail.
Lexis Counsel Connect and Martindale-Hubbell announce that they will assign every lawyer an e-mail address.
Lexis has 707,000 users.
Among new products:
Windows 95.
Law Journal Extra, an online service from the publisher of the National Law Journal.
Copyright 2010 Robert J. Ambrogi
The murder of a young woman in Massachusetts raises new questions about the laws and the legal system in cases involving abusive relationships. Nineteen-year old Allison Myrick was stabbed to death, her ex-boyfriend charged with murder. Could the legal system have done more to prevent this tragedy? What can lawyers, judges and other legal professionals do to prevent similar tragedies?
This week on the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, my cohost J. Craig Williams and I discuss these issues with Marsha Kazarosian, principal of Kazarosian Law Offices, and Judge Eugene M. Hyman from the Santa Clara County Superior Court in California. We consider how the legal system, lawyers, legislators and others can better protect victims in abusive relationships and what roles communities and families play in helping to prevent these tragedies.
Listen to or download the show from the Legal Talk Network.
Note: If you or someone you know is involved in an abusive relationship, call National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233) or contact Break The Cycle. You may donate in Allison Myrick’s honor on line at: www.breakthecycle.org/donate or by phone at, 310-286-3383 x805
The Judiciary/Media Committee of the Supreme Judicial Court is considering revisions to the Guidelines on the Public’s Right of Access to Judicial Proceedings and Records. In order to evaluate whether the guidelines should be amended or expanded and what other initiatives the committee might wish to pursue, the committee is asking members of the news media to complete a survey on media access to the courts.
As a member of the Judiciary/Media Committee and in my capacity as executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, I am helping to disseminate the survey and compile its results. If you are a journalist who covers the Massachusetts courts, please take a moment to complete the survey and return it to me.
You can download the survey here, in Microsoft Word format: Survey of Media Access to Courts.
During LegalTech, I recorded this conversation with the founders of Rocket Matter, Larry Port and Ariel Jatib. Rocket Matter is a Web-based practice management and time-and-billing application. They talk about their product, the cloud, social media and the cow in their office. Lots of background noise, and Ariel is softer than Larry, but listenable.
Listen to or download the MP3 file: rocketmatterinterview.mp3.
