Praise to Carolyn Elefant

Read this review in the ABA Journal.

That's high marks, from on high. I might suppose that the ABA isn't all about the big firms, after this article.

"But I used the cool setting"

FoxNews has this story. Sorry to you Kansans trying to minimize/extinguish the perpetual stereotype. My only comment: They're 2 and 3. How much money does it take to entertain toddlers?

Dad Who Burned Kids in Dryer: Thought They Could Have a Good Time Without Money

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A Hutchinson man is on trial this week on charges he put his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son in a hot clothes dryer.
In a videotaped interview with detectives shown in court Wednesday, Aron Pritchard said he put the children in the dryer to show them they could have a good time without much money. An hour later, the dryer had become hot and the boy had second-degree burns.
Pritchard told the detective that he didn't mean for the boy to get hurt.
Jurors also heard from a pediatrician who testified that the burns, combined with prior injuries including a twice-broken clavicle, could indicate an abusive environment.
Pritchard is charged with aggravated child endangerment and child abuse in the Nov. 28, 2006,
incident.

A new friend or enemy

Today's snippet of the ABA Journal gives an interesting headline story. You can find it here. David Armstrong at the Wall Street Journal also wrote a very extensive article describing the process.

Basically, a defense expert created a mental health test to weed out liars in personal injury cases. I'm not sure of the ramifications, as it only appears to be adopted in Minnesota, but I can't see very many PI attorneys allowing the test. Moreover, what about Daubert?

Oklahoma Western District Alert

Another lawyer in the office just alerted me to this decision filed in the Western District of Oklahoma. Looks like preemption has its affect here also.

BTW: I agree with the decision, even though I think it's too long.

Beholden to the special interests

Let me preface this rant by proclaiming my political interests. I am, and proudly support, a Republican ideology. I studied political communication and political science as an undergraduate, and continue to feast on the current political drama. Until his recent demise, I avidly supported Mitt Romney, because of his dedicated Republican idealism (I'm currently supporting Hillary, but that's another story).

So, considering my right-wing agenda, you'd suppose I too would support the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc. (2008 WL 440744). What's not to love? The medical device industry strikes a crushing blow to those nasty trial lawyers. Big business (and the economy) win, permitting further expansion and more jobs. And the corporate coffers grow more quickly.

Well, Riegel spits in the face of all Republicans who listened to the Court confirmation hearings, and finally felt we were moving closer to the Republican ideal of less restrictive governmental interference. Instead, Riegel proves that we have an activist Court, seeking to advance someone's political interests. I'm frustrated that this case shows the absolute decline in Federalism. I'm sickened by the slippery-slope this ruling promotes - just how restrictive can this become?

Note: check out this newest, but short-lived victory against political special interests. Prepare for an even more restrictive ratchet when the Court hears and decides Wyeth v. Levine next term.

Scary statistics

The local news has this story about teen drivers.

Notice it's funded by State Farm, but the reality is fearsome. Several states, California in particular, have adopted restrictions on teen driving. I wholly encourage these. Moreover, I think they work to promote parental awareness for their teen and his or her behavior.

Have you sat down and really discussed the danger of driving with you teen?

Office Live

When I should be preparing for finals, I've been doing some playing with my Office Live site.

I want to emphasize what a value this is! I talked with an attorney at the office who said he's considering paying $2,000 for a website. I don't think that any attorney needs to pay that much for web content. You should impress your clients with your abilities, NOT your Flash.

Take a minute to reflect on what sets your business model apart from the others. Then, design some content that instills confidence in all those prospective clients.

What should you have? Here's a few suggestions on the pages:

Describe your services;
Describe yourself - make people want to associate/personalize with you;
Provide contact information;
Blog;
Legal help list;
Pictures

I'm not a big fan of "About Us" pages that tout the attorney's "achievements." For the most part, these are law/law school related, and very few clients will care about your law review article or undergraduate research paper titled, "Communicative interaction in an interdisciplinary research team," or something similarly vague.

Your clients want to know that you're going to relate with them, and can personalize your services to their situation. Save the other academic hoopla for the Jones Day interview.

RocketMatter

In lieu of Jim Calloway's recent admonition to our legal practice class, I'm looking at a couple of case management options, although I think I've settled on PracticeMaster. I like the easy-to-use features of the program, and most importantly, the relatively low price (about $700 to start for 1 attorney + 1 assistant).

However, I just got off the phone with a new company called, RocketMatter. I can't remember where I heard of this case management system, but I think this company has created something interesting and very useful. The system "mobilizes" all of your case files, storing them on a web server. Many of the same functions that are found in a system-based program are present in RocketMatter.

There's a couple of things I like about the system, and obviously, like any program, there's a few concerns.

My first love is the prospect of being completely detached from storing my files on my server (prone to crash & burn). This application is truly Web 2.0, and geared to those people always on the go.

Note too that RocketMatter includes a billing and invoice program, which Larry assures me will be improved in the near future. The system integrates a time and manual input for client matters. This is a well rounded program.

The most disheartening problem with RocketMatter is the cost. I'm a little hesistant to pay nearly $800 for 1 attorney and 1 staff member per year (if you're one of the 1st 100) to implement this system. (I've seen previous pricing at $90 per month for each attorney).

Sadly, I predict a slow acceptance and use for this program. I think that far too many attorneys are grounded in traditional practice management systems. To some degree, most people, and especially the dinosaurs, shun applications based on the Web 2.0 model. Even the new comers, like me, hesitate to fully surrender to "the machine."

Let me know what you think, especially if you've demoed the product too.

Microsoft Office Live - the pros & cons

After writing this rather lengthy discourse regarding Microsoft's latest venture into total world domination, I began playing around with my prospective site. Here's my list of the benefits and potentital downsides of using this application:

The Pros

1. Easy to use web designer - create professional looking webpages quickly with the point, click, and type module.
2. 500 MB of storage space - use photos, videos, etc., you'll be hard-pressed to fill up this much space (if you do, you should be doing more lawyering, and less web designing - which one did you go to school for again?)
3. Marketing applications - easily promote your business with "adManager" and Email Marketing
4. Email - download all of your email to MS Office Outlook 2007 (of course) with the Outlook Connector, store up to 5 GB of messages, and create 25 separate "branded" email accounts
5. Price - the service is free for the 1st year, then $14.95 each year after, what's better than that? I paid $200 for 2 years, for my personal family website, and I still had to learn HTML

The Cons

1. No calendar synchronization - without paying more, it's impossible to synchronize your online and offline calendars. For anyone in a larger firm who depends on other attorneys, you should check out alternatives like ShareO. See my analysis here.
2. You're tied to that evil empire
3. Limited web design tools - despite the many design features, there is a limited number of templates, which may look "cheesy."

Certainly, every small firm or solo practitioner will benefit by using the MS Office Live service. This gives you a quick opportunity to establish a web presence and "validate" your law practice.

The lure of solo practice

Here's an article I saw in the ABA Journal.

This wasn't a shocker to me. I want to be able to control my own destiny, especially my legal profession.