ABA

Every couple of days I try to scan the items in All Things Digital. There are lots of them and they mostly cover products and news that's of interest to people heavily involved in the technology industry, but every once in a while I run across something that, in my view, at least, should be very interesting to practicing lawyers, too. My most recent "legal find" there was a link to a piece by Nate Anderson, associate editor of Ars Technica, reporting on some DUI cases in Minnesota which had been thrown out by the courts. Defense attorneys had requested that the manufacturer produce the source code from the computers which run the Intoxilyzer 5000EN so that the accuracy of the machine's readings could be investigated and challenged. Given the number of items with onboard computers with which people interact every day, the possibilities for lawyers to challenge results which we used to accept at face value boggle the mind.

MS Office 2007 provides some improvement over MS Office 2003, as well as overall changes in appearance. One of the biggest changes to the appearance in such applications as MS Word and MS PowerPoint is how the menu items are displayed, called "The Ribbon". While the Ribbon helps by grouping similar tasks together under headers that may make more sense to the average user (or not), it takes up a good bit of screen real estate. Once you've learned your way around the Ribbon you may no longer want, or need, to see it in full effect as you are using the application. Users can turn off the Ribbon by going to "Customize Quick Access Toolbar" at the very top of the screen (unless you moved it below the Ribbon) and checking "Minimize the Ribbon". However, this option removes the Ribbon until you uncheck the option again. However, the Ribbon can float in and out only when you need it, with a few mouse-clicks. To create a ?smart? Ribbon view follow these steps: To hide the Ribbon click four times in quick succession (2 double clicks) on the Ribbon tab title (example, in MS Word the tab for ?References? or ?Review?). The Ribbon will disappear. To see the Ribbon options again for that tab simply click once on the tab and the Ribbon will appear again. Select your option, resume work, and the Ribbon disappears again. To have the Ribbon again show permanently clicks on any Ribbon tab again 4 times in rapid succession (2 double clicks). Get back some of your screen real estate with this tip!

During this presidential election cycle energy and climate change have emerged as central issues. With the recent run-up in petroleum prices which has been felt not only at the gas pump but in increasing prices in all corners of the economy, including rising power prices in many parts of the country, and the recent up tick in major weather events, Americans have had a keen focus on energy and climate change...(more)

Apple released a software update for all iPhones, version 2.1. With this latest update, a strong case can be made that the iPhone is the best smartphone for lawyers. When the original iPhone was released in 2007, it was a breakthrough product because it was both one of the most advanced smartphones ever created and also the easiest to use. But it had some limitations that were critical for many lawyers. Most importantly, it lacked integration with Microsoft Exchange, a feature that lawyers with Blackberries, Windows Mobile and Treos running Goodlink have depended upon for years. When a lawyer doesn?t have full access to his or her law firm e-mail, a smartphone just isn?t that smart. The original iPhone also lacked 3G, which made web browsing slow when you were away from WiFi, and lacked the ability to add third party software (unless you hacked it). The original iPhone was still a marvel of design and amazingly stable for a 1.0 release, but the missing features caused many lawyers -- like me -- to wait on the sidelines. On July 11, 2008, Apple released the new 3G iPhone and updated the software to version 2.0. This hardware and software update added what lawyers need: excellent integration with Microsoft Exchange, the speedy 3G AT&T network, and the ability to easily download third party software using Apple?s App Store. But unfortunately, there were some shortcomings with the 2.0 software that took away from the iPhone experience. Battery life was limited (a problem that, to be fair, exists on all 3G phones), syncing to a computer was sometimes painfully slow, callers in some areas of the country had problems with dropped calls, etc. And unlike the very solid first generation iPhone, the 3G iPhone with the 2.0 software had many bugs and would often crash. The crashes were very graceful -- there were no ?blue screens of death;? you simply return to the home screen -- but bugs are always annoying, no matter how small or well handled. So as a result, the iPhone 3G gave lawyers the features that they wanted, but the bugs, battery life issues and other problems detracted from the experience. On September 12th, Apple released a software update for all iPhones, bringing the software to version 2.1. This is a major update. As Apple?s CEO Steve Jobs said a few days before the update was released: ?The 2.1 software update is a big update. It fixes lots of bugs. You?ll get fewer call drops. You will get significantly improved battery life for most customers. We have fixed a lot of bugs where if you have a lot of apps on the phone, you?re not going to get some of the crashes and other things that we?ve seen. Backing up to iTunes is dramatically faster ? and there?s some great new performance enhancements as well. So 2.1 software update is a big one for the iPhone.? As he spoke, you could almost see the thought bubble over Steve Jobs? head with the words ??and this is the version that I wish we had shipped on July 11th.? The update has now been out for just over a week, and by most reports, the update delivers what Steve Jobs promised. For me, syncing has been dramatically faster (before the update it sometimes took over an hour; now it takes a very reasonable minute or two and sometimes just a few seconds), the phone is far more stable, and battery life is much better. With version 2.1 of the software, I now believe that the iPhone 3G is the very best smartphone for lawyers. Much has been written about the unique advantages of the iPhone and I won?t try to capture it all here. For example, there is an excellent and comprehensive series of articles on AppleInsider written by Daniel Eran Dilger of RoughlyDrafted magazine (here are links to parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) and also good are the reviews by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and iLounge. But here are a few of my favorite things on the iPhone 3G. First, the iPhone gives me great access to my Exchange e-mails. The large display with excellent use of graphics and fonts makes e-mail far easier to read and manage than on any other smartphone. Second, the web access

For the first time in living memory, the environment is receiving significant attention in a presidential election. Both Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) have given speeches and run television advertisements on the issue and (after a slow start) are being asked questions by the national press about where they stand on climate change and energy....(more)

Professor Richard Susskind, renowned legal technology specialist from London, England, will answer this and other questions of pressing interest to practicing lawyers when he joins us at ABA TECHSHOW 2009 as keynote speaker. Professor Susskind has specialized in legal technology for 25 years. During his keynote presentation on Thursday, April 2, he will discuss topics from his latest book, The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services (OUP, 2008). This book examines the effect of advances in information technology on legal practice, analyzing anticipated developments in the next decade. Can the role of the traditional lawyer be sustained in the face of the challenging trends in the legal market and new techniques and technologies for the delivery of services? The answer is important to your future. An independent adviser to major professional firms and to national governments, Professor Susskind lectures internationally and has been invited to speak in over 40 countries. He has written and edited numerous books, including Expert Systems in Law (OUP, 1987), The Future of Law (OUP, 1996) , Transforming the Law (OUP, 2000) and The Susskind Interviews: Legal Experts in Changing Times (Sweet & Maxwell, 2005) and is a law columnist for T he Times (of London). Professor Susskind has advised on numerous government inquiries and, since 1998, has been IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England. In 2003, he was appointed by the Cabinet Office as Chair of the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information. He holds law professorships at Gresham College in London and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Professor Susskind has a first class honors degree in law from the University of Glasgow and a doctorate in law and computers from Balliol College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the British Computer Society, and was awarded an OBE in the Millennium New Year's Honours List for services to IT in the Law and to the Administration of Justice. The insights into the future of your legal practice this phenomenal keynote speaker will bring is just one more reason to mark April 2-4, 2009 on your calendar and start making plans now to attend ABA TECHSHOW 2009.

Excel is one of those programs that has a thousand and one uses in a law office, but getting the most out of it can sometime be a challenge. I am always on the lookout for ways to do more, easier with Excel and came across this post titled Hidden Gems in Excel 2007 at Office Online in the Office Hours section. More Office Hour articles can be found at the Office Hours Home Page. Originally posted on Compujurist (http://compujurist.com )

On June 8th, the World Information Access released its "Blogger Arrest Report," which indicated that 64 people around the globe have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog since 2003. The arrests were for blogging about various things, such as government corruption, human rights abuses, or criticizing public policies or officials. Many of the bloggers arrested were put in jail, with the average jail time being 15 months and the longest jail time 8 years. Over half of the arrests were made in China, Egypt and Iran. The report credits the increased importance and popularity in blogging for the increase, and predicts that the number of bloggers arrested would increase from the 36 arrests in 2007. The full story may be found at http://www.wiareport.org/index.php/56/blogger-arrests

In this decision from the Ninth Circuit, the plaintiff was a police officer in Ontario California. He used a text messaging device provided by the city. The city had an e-mail and internet policy stating that there was no expectation of privacy on city-owned systems and that information on them was city property, but a superior had previously verbally stated that messaged would not be reviewed as long as long as overage charges were paid by the employee using the device. The city decided to investigate excess usage of the devices, and examined messages on, among others, the plaintiff?s device. Plaintiff sued, alleging a violation of the Stored Communications Act and the 4th amendment. The 9th Circuit concluded that because of the verbal statements by the superior, the plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore the city could have and should have used a less intrusive means of investigating excess usage than reading the messages. This case is significant for a couple of reasons: most businesses have a computer and e-mail policy similar to the one at issue, and the general rule is that a policy of this sort is reasonable and enforceable. The case calls into question the viability of any such policy in the 9th Circuit, and may force multi-state employers into having two policies: one for the 9th Circuit states,and one for the rest of the country. Further, it encourages draconian enforcement of any such policy, at least in the 9th Circuit, since any lenient enforcement or lack of enforcement may give rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy and in effect invalidate the policy.

The current struggle for internet browser supremacy has primarily been a fight between Microsoft?s Internet Explorer and Mozilla, with secondary roles by Opera Software?s Opera web browser and Apple?s Safari web browser. The battle lines haven?t changed a great deal in the past several years, although Internet Explorer has slowly been losing ground to Firefox. The future of the browser war looked to continue in much the same fashion until Monday September 1, 2008. Google, the internet search company, announced that it would release a new, open source web browser called Chrome on Tuesday September 2, 2008. This move may have a serious impact on the current struggle for browser supremacy and could possibly be the beginning of the end for internet browsers as we know them. For more information and links on this news, check out my post on Compujurist at http://compujurist.com/2008/09/02/google-chrome-takes-on-microsoft-and-mozilla/