The Connected Lawyer

My current computer bag (a Targus) is getting a little beat up. Thus, I have been shopping for a new bag. Bags that I am looking at include the Bum Back Pack Hamptons Messenger Bag, the MVision S500, the Skooba Satchel, the Waterfield Cargo, the Tom Bihn ID, or the Timbuk2 Messenger Bag.

I know Nerino loves his Bum Back Pack and that Ross is a big fan of the MVision. I am curious about what other experiences that others have had with any of these bags. Or, do you have a bag that you would recommend that I have not mentioned.

The key things I am looking for in a bag include plenty of room to store my computer, miscellaneous papers or a file, a travel mouse, and other assorted electronic items. It should also have a good shoulder strap that makes the bag comfortable to carry. That is the one thing that really attracts me to the Bum Back Back. the strap is easily convertible between a messenger style and a backpack style.

So, I am open to suggestions. Anyone have any suggestions as to what bag I should be looking at?

One of the areas that Illinois is seriously lagging behind on in eFiling of documents and electronic access to court files. I am constantly frustrated when I look at the baby steps that are being taken in Illinois as compared to what has already been completed in other states.

For example, New York has efiling and electronic access to court records. To check out New York’s system, follow the simple instructions provided by Above the Law.

Our backwardness has now reached national attention. In a Law.com article published on February 26, Lynne Marek notes that Illinois courts (along with several others) are lagging behind when it comes to electronic access.

Cook County is one of many U.S. counties, including San Diego in California and Kings in New York, that hasn’t kept pace with 21st century technological advances that have enabled electronic systems to come to some state courts, such as Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona and the district courts of Harris County in Texas.

Those highly wired courts — along with the nearly 10-year-old federal electronic system called Pacer — have set a higher standard for electronic access and are drawing other state courts, such as those in Illinois, Florida and California, toward technological benefits.

The article accurately notes the reasons that attorneys are looking for electronic access:

 For lawyers, the key is electronic access to files over the Internet and the ability to file electronically, allowing them to spend less time and money traveling to the courthouse. It also increases predictability in filing a document in court, attorneys said.

Finally, the electronic dockets help ensure that judges aren’t searching for documents missing from case files during hearings, they added.

In short, eFiling and electronic access is all about using technology to practice law more effectively. Unfortunately, there appears to be an institutional bias against this here in Illinois:

Cook and other counties in Illinois are barred by the state’s Supreme Court from making documents available on the Internet mainly because of privacy concerns. Across the country, such concerns relate to everything from identity theft to children viewing parents’ divorce filings. For many states though, including Illinois, Florida and Texas, guidance from officials is still in flux.

eFiling and electronic access would also help eliminate some of the problems that currently exists with respect to the proper filing of documents in court files. As noted in the article:

When Chicago litigator Victor Henderson sends an assistant to the Cook County Courthouse in Chicago to retrieve a filing, he hopes for a bit of luck.

“We send them over and cross our fingers and hope it will come back,” said Henderson, an attorney in Holland & Knight’s Chicago office. “The confidence level is only 80 or 90 percent that, if you ask for something, it’s going to be there. With a lawsuit, it has to be 100 percent.”

Yesterday, I saw first hand an example of this. I witnessed a contested hearing in front a judge in law division, in a case that had recently been transfered from chancery. In the chancery division, the judge had decided part of the case and that portion was on appeal. The judge questioned the attorneys about where in the appellate process that appeal was. The attorneys explained that the record on appeal still had not yet been filed because the clerk’s office could not find all of the documents in the file. Instead, the clerk’s office was putting together the record on appeal using documents from the court file as well as documents from the attorneys’ files.

I am not saying that eFiling will solve all problems. However, it will certainly make the practice of law more efficient. This efficiency should benefit all parties in the legal system, the parties, the attorneys, the judges, and the clerks.

For quite a while I have wanted a GPS. This desire comes not from the fact that I tend to get lost, but instead from the fact that I think they are really cool. One drawback was that I really didn’t want to have to keep track of another device and have to decide whether to take it with me everyday or leave it at home. Despite the coolness factor, it seemed like a bit of a hassle.

For my birthday, however, I recently received the most hassle free GPS I can imagine. It is the Freedom Keychain GPS 2000. This device is only the GPS receiver. To use it, you must connect it to your Treo via Bluetooth. Also, the device comes with no maps. You have to decide on your own what maps you wish to use.

What makes the Freedom absolutely hassle free is the fact that it is tiny (it weighs .77 oz). In fact, it is smaller than the key fob for my wife’s car. It charges via a mini USB port (all devices should have to do this) and it comes with a car charger. The battery life is 9 hours and my use of it shows that this is likely the case.

To be able to get around, I need more than the GPS, however, I also need the software that goes with with it. The map data is not cheap. However it is available from a variety of companies, most of which produce versions compatible with a Treo. In my case, I first tried DeLorme’s Street Atlas USA. After trying it for a few days, I didn’t like the interface that it had with my Treo. Thus, I returned it, and bought TomTom Navigator 6.

I love this software. It was easy to install and it works flawlessly on my Treo. Also, it integrated easily with the Freedom GPS and I have had no connection problems between the two devices at all.

The aspect about this solution that I love the most is that I have a full GPS solution, yet the only additional thing that I am carrying with me is a key fob. How great is that.

I bought my copy of Navigator 6 from Amazon and saved a few bucks over the price direct from TomTom.

I plan on doing a more in depth review of the Navigator software later. In the meantime, you can find a great review on the Freedom GPS at Treonauts. You can find a review of the earlier version of the Freedom at treocentral.

I admit that I am a grammar geek. Thus, I was quite interested to see this story in the New York Times about the use of a semicolon on a public service placard. The story was ok, but the best part comes at the end of the story.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 19, 2008
An article in some editions on Monday about a New York City Transit employee’s deft use of the semicolon in a public service placard was less deft in its punctuation of the title of a book by Lynne Truss, who called the placard a “lovely example” of proper punctuation. The title of the book is “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” — not “Eats Shoots & Leaves.” (The subtitle of Ms. Truss’s book is “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.”)

I love the irony.

Normally I don’t just link to other things. However, you need to check out the latest post from Lowering the Bar. The post discusses a recent ballot proposal in San Francisco to turn Alcatraz into a Global Peace Center. This post is too good to be missed.

Recently TSA has started a blog. On balance I think this is a good thing. Anything that allows TSA to communicate more directly can only benefit all of us. Plus, it looks like the blog and its comments have lead directly to TSA taking action to limit inconsistent application of its rules.

Nevertheless, the blog provides a great opportunity to poke a little fun at TSA. In this vein, I am particularly fond of a post from Steve Johnson, the Chicago Tribune’s Internet Critic. In his post, Steve provides the Rules of the TSA Blog. These include things such as:

1. Commenters must arrive at the blog 45 minutes before attempting to post a comment.

3. Comments that are longer than three paragraphs are subject to confiscation. For more on the handling of comments, see our post, “Why 1-Quart Zip-Loc Bags are Much More Secure than 1-Gallon Zip-Loc Bags.”

9. The rule about no lithium batteries in checked bags is not TSA’s rule. To complain about that, please visit the FAA’s blog. Oh, that’s right. The FAA doesn’t have a blog. Which agency do you like better now?

My favorite zinger, though, deals with the TSA’s blog title, Evolution of Security:

4. The use of the term “evolution” in the blog’s title does not constitute endorsement by the TSA or this administration of the concept of evolution, generally. TSA believes it may well be possible that airport security is the result of Intelligent Design.

Check out Steve’s entire post to see what else he has to say about the TSA’s new blog.

I have a terrible time coming up with gifts to send to people. The main reason for this is that I might think of a gift for someone for Christmas or their birthday, but I will think of it months before the occasion. By the time the date rolls around I have forgotten what I wanted to send. I am also in the bad habit of not remembering other people’s birthdays or anniversaries until the day of the event.

Fortunately, Amazon.com has come to my rescue with their new feature Amazon Gift Central.  Amazon’s gift organizer gives you a great place to keep track of both gifts that you have given to people as well as gifts that you would like to give to people in the future.

Setting up the organizer was a piece of cake. I simply went to the site and clicked on add recipients. Amazon then looked at the people to whom I had already shipped items from Amazon and offered them as the first choices as possible recipients. I could then add additional recipients and, if I wished, I could add all or part of their birthday. This is so Amazon can remind you to buy something to send to them.

Once you have this set up, if you are browsing through Amazon and you see something you would like to give as a present, you simply click on the drop down arrow beside wishlist and chose which recipient’s list to add it to.

I live far away from all but my immediate family. Thus, any gifts I send, I would have to ship anyway. Because of this, I have used Amazon for years to send gifts to friends and relatives. Also, I have found shopping at Amazon much more convenient, and generally cheaper, than shopping at brick and mortar stores. Thus, this a great option for me.

Even if you do not shop at Amazon, however, this organizer could still be a great thing for you. As the post at 43 Folders explains,

Now, the cool part of all this — even if you don’t use Amazon very much — is that Amazon.com is friggin huge. Which means that they (or their “Marketplace” partners) carry a ridiculously high percentage of the purchasable, shippable items available in the consumer universe. So, if you start using the Gift Organizer today — even for stuff you have no intention of buying from Amazon — your life is going to be much easier the next time a gift-giving occasion rolls around; you’ve capitalized on several months of passive, half-assed attention to actually do something useful.

Thus, relieve the stress of gift giving from your life and set up your Amazon gift organizer today.

Disclaimer: I know that there may be privacy issues related to this, especially if you are entering your recipient’s full birthdays. Whether this convenience is worth the privacy risk is up to you. In my case, I am sure that Amazon already knows more about me than I do.

I was in court today and I witnessed another attorney call his office to speak to his assistant. He instructed his assistant to contact another attorney in the office who had authored an initial draft of a brief. The assistant was to get two things from the other attorney that were referenced in the draft: (1) a portion of a transcript, and (2) a document.

What I found amusing was that in the amount of time that the attorney spent on the telephone telling his assistant what he wanted, I could have probably found the same information in one of my files. This is because I keep all of my files paperless and I use the CaseMap suite of programs to manage my documents, facts, and transcripts.

Finding information in a transcript is as easy as looking for the relevant words. Similarly, finding a document is as easy as searching for any number of fields including the author, recipient, date, or relevant information.

I am not saying that you have to use the same programs that I use. There are a variety of programs available to help you manage your documents, transcripts, and other case information. The programs include programs such as Lexis-Nexis Front Office, Summation, Concordance, iConect, JFS Litigator’s Notebook, and LiveNote.

The important point is that you should be using some program to keep your information organized and available to you at a moment’s notice.

Not only with this make you more efficient, it also means that you won’t be using time of your assistant and other attorneys to track down information.

I have two fun things I want to point out today. One is “scary-fun” and the other is “cute-fun,” but it’s probably only that if you have small children.

First, the scary-fun.

From Wellington Grey comes a  great little slide show demonstrating some of the more inane aspects of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The subtitle to the slide show is “An Example of Anglogue Circumvention and Idiocy.”

Anyway, check it out to see a clever analogy that demonstrates some of the idiocy of the DMCA.

The next item comes from the Cafe Press store of Redhead Esq. Clearly playing off the great children’s book Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Redhead Esq offers a selection of items, from bibs to tote bags, telling the story of ten little monkeys who call a lawyer instead of a doctor:

10 little monkeys jumpin’ on the bed

One fell off and bumped his head

Mama called the lawyer and the lawyer said

Have the monkeys sign a release and indemnification agreement holding you harmless from any injury or damage which may occur should they continue to jump on the bed.

Now that is a bedtime story.