The Connected Lawyer

Erblawg reports that GoDaddy now offers incorporation services in all 50 states. according to the owner of Go Daddy, the service allows customers to “launch a legitimate business without having to hire a lawyer.” I agree with the poster at Erblawg, however, that this really isn’t the case. Anyone who does corporate work, knows that filing the documents with the Secretary of State is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of forming a corporation properly. Erblawg explains:

Customer can in fact launch a legitimate business, but it’s quite questionable how legitimate that business will be over time. Why is that? Well, it’s shocking how many businesses never issue stocks, elect a board, or appoint officers, sign operating agreements, elect S treatment, or hold annual meetings. As long as everyone gets along, there may not be a problem. As soon as two “owners” of the company disagree or someone sues the company, those little details become important. After all, if no stock is issued, no one really owns the company, and if there’s no board or officers, than no one is really authorized to run it. And if someone sues a company with no minutes or worse, no officers, that company isn’t going to provide a whole lot of protection.

Many of the people I meet with who want to talk about incorporation don’t know why they want to incorporate or what they think they can gain from it. Instead, many want to incorporate because that is what you are supposed to do to protect yourself.

I also get those who complain about the fees that I charge to incorporate a business. I explain all of the services that I provide and why they are necessary to ensuring proper protection. However, some people can’t seem to get past the idea that I am doing something more than filing a form with the Secretary of State.

The reality is that at sometime the person is likely going to have to pay someone to straighten out the incorporation mess. As Erblawg explained,

As the saying goes, you can pay me now or you can pay me later. Later is always more expensive.

I just wished that more clients realized this.

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The big news that broke last week was that Google Scholar now allows you to search state and federal court opinions. The official announcement is here. I think this is awesome. In general, I believe that making information more available is a good thing. Making our laws freely available and easily searchable is a great thing, for both attorneys and nonattorneys.

Now, I don’t think that Google Scholar is going to replace West or Lexis anytime soon. Although, like Carolyn Elefant, I have concerns for other providers of legal research. Carolyn explains:

As I see it, Google’s free legal research services won’t put a dent in LEXIS or Westlaw, at least not for a long, long time,  Instead, they pose a threat to what I’ve collectively termed the “second city” providers like Versuslaw, Casemaker, FastCase or Loislaw.  Right now, most lawyers are able to access those services for free or cheap through deals with the bars – but will bars continue to support those subscriptions when there’s a robust free option available?  My heart goes out to these companies because they served as an oasis for solos when no other options, save the law library and manual research, existed.  Yet I don’t see all of them able to survive the Google onslaught.

Of these, the greatest concern is likely for those companies whose market is primarily individual attorneys and individual law firms, rather than those companies that provide services to attorneys as a bar association member benefit. Nevertheless, I expect that Google Scholar will eventually affect the business models of these companies. Also, I would not be surprised if Google continues to improve their service and eventually draws a not insignificant portion of the West/Lexis customers away. Yes, there are those who use West and Lexis for their specialized databases. However, those who aren’t using the specialized databases may, in the near future, decide that it is not worth the amount being charged by Lexis and West.

For other thoughts on this announcement, you can check out the rest of Carolyn’s post, as well as posts by Crime and Federalism, TechnoEsq, Lex Tek, Ernie the Attorney, Jim Calloway, and Rick Klau.

[Update]

Check out this analysis of the service from Law on My Phone.

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I had a submission published on the blog of The society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. This was a sign in a parking garage where we parked when I went to a Jonathan Coulton concert recently with a friend. The worst part was that this was not an isolated sign. My friend and I saw at least a half a dozen signs in the part of the garage we were in.

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If you have ever taken a look at the vast number of products that Google offers (and this doesn’t count the stuff that is secretly in development) it is no wonder that some people believe that Google is on a quest to take over the world. I just hope that if that is the case, they are benevolent dictators.

Anyway, if you use Google products and want to find out what Google knows about you, you need to check out Google Dashboard.

To find out more about Google Dashboard, check out the video below (which, of course, is hosted on You Tube, which is owned by Google).

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I do almost all of my simple administrative tasks myself. Mostly because I try to automate them to make the tasks simple and fast to perform. There is one thing, however, that I hate doing: certified mail. It is a pain to deal with and I always delegate that task to my assistant. I have recently discovered a new service that may make certified mail as easy to handle as other routine tasks. This service, called Simple Certified Mail, automates much of the process. Recently I was able to find out more about this service from Keith Pickholz, Marketing Director at Simple Certified Mail.  An interview with Charles Crutchfield, the founder of Simple Certified Mail appears below.

What is SimpleCertifiedMail.com?

SimpleCertifiedMail.com is an easy-to-use, web-based service that dramatically speeds up and simplifies the preparation and management of Certified Mail, which is a key process at many law firms. In fact, customers report 75% improvements in productivity when using SimpleCertifiedMail.com.

Tell me more about SimpleCertifiedMail.com. Why is it better?

SimpleCertifiedMail.com improves every step of the Certified Mail process.  Let’s start with preparing and sending Certified Mail.

With SimpleCertifiedMail.com, there are no manual forms to fill out, or special forms to put through your printer. And there’s no need to apply stamps or use a postal meter. You simply login to our service, enter the recipient address, and select whether the item is being sent with or without Return Receipt (Electronic). SimpleCertifiedMail.com prints the address and the electronic postage, along with the appropriate Certified Mail bar codes (what we call a Certified Mail “label”) on standard paper from any printer. Everything you need to mail the item, and the whole process takes 30 seconds.

Once you’ve printed the Certified Mail “label” you just slip the Certified Mail label, and your document, into one of the special window envelopes we supply for free, and drop in any mailbox. That’s it for mailing.

Sounds like it saves a lot of time. But what about getting Proof of Delivery?

Good question. Of course, the reason people use Certified Mail is to get signed Proofs of Delivery. SimpleCertifiedMail.com eliminates the old-fashioned green cards, what the US Post Office calls the PS3811. There are lots of problems with green cards: wondering whether they have been signed; waiting for their return; and then having to file the cards to make sure they don’t get lost. Ten years ago the Post Office developed a more modern system, called Return Receipt (Electronic) that returns the Signature and Proof of Delivery as a PDF file, and carries the same legal clout, but normally you have to go to the Post Office counter to request it for every single Certified Mail item.

SimpleCertifiedMail.com plugs you right into Return Receipt (Electronic) without leaving your desk. When one of our Certified Mail letters is delivered, the Mail Carrier collects the signature from the recipient on a form, and it is posted as a PDF file on our web site the very next morning. So you get the signature immediately, you can print out the PDF; you can save it to your case file; and you can leave it on our servers where we maintain all your records for seven years.

The rest of the interview appears below the break

Continue Reading »

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I read a recent story at Wired’s Threat Level Blog in which the artist who produced the Obama Hope image admitted that he had lied and destroyed and fabricated evidence to support his claim. I am no expert in copyright or fair use law, however, I am pretty sure that the artists actions in lying, destroying evidence, and fabricating evidence did more damage to his case than any actual real evidence ever could.

The blog posts explains:

Fairey [the artist] had long claimed he based his abstract graphic rendition on a photo of Obama seated next to actor George Clooney. In court documents (.pdf) filed Friday, Fairey admitted he actually used a solo shot of Obama from the same event, and had destroyed and fabricated evidence to support his lie.

A review of the linked to court documents reveals that the evidence he attempted to destroy were computer files. I am not sure when, but one of the days I think clients will finally understand that they cannot conceal their electronic actions. If the case is big enough or important enough, someone will eventually discover that electronic evidence has been tampered with. Moreover, in all likelihood the resulting sanctions or adverse inference instruction will probably do much more damage to the case than the destroyed evidence ever would.

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I am too young to have enjoyed Dick Cavett. Sure, I know who he is. However, I just never watched him on television.

Now I get the opportunity to experience him a new with his blog at the New York Times. He writes about a variety of topics and I find myself enjoying his posts more often than not. His latest post focuses on fame, but touches on a variety of other topics as well, including being careful about what conclusions we draw about people.

I know this has nothing to do with either technology or the law. However, I urge you to check out what he has to say.

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To all of those who are serving or have served: Thank You.

In the meantime, if you have not seen the photo essay on the making of an American solder, today is the perfect day to check it out. More can be found here.

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