Monday, May 26, 2014

Model Rules for the Modern Lawyer: Leveraging Technology to follow ABA Guidelines

As the rate of new technology increases, it becomes more difficult for lawyers to keep up with industry standards for protecting client data confidentiality. In addition to the rigors of day-to-day practice, attorneys are expected to be familiar with terms such as SSL 256, SaS 70, and SSAE 16. On this episode of the Un-Billable Hour, host Chris T. Anderson interviews The Droid Lawyer blogger, Jeffrey Taylor. Together they discuss the importance of attorneys staying current through workshops, blogs, conferences, and state bar associations. In addition, tune in to learn more about the security issues associated with cloud-based vs. server-based practice management software solutions.
Jeffrey Taylor is the author of The Droid Lawyer blog. The blog discusses Android mobile operating system for lawyers. The Droid Lawyer is one of the ABA Journal's Top 100 law blogs, and one of Biztech Magazine's Top 50 Must Read IT Blogs. Jeff is an attorney in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/un-billable-hour/2014/05/model-rules-modern-lawyer-leveraging-technology-follow-aba-guidelines

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Measures Aimed At Keeping People Out Of Jail Punish The Poor

An exclusive state-by-state survey by NPR found that 49 states now allow or require criminal defendants to pay for their court-ordered electronic monitoring bracelets.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/24/314866421/measures-aimed-at-keeping-people-out-of-jail-punish-the-poor?ft=1&f=1070

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eDiscovery and Globalization: What Attorneys Must Know about the Asian Market Place

Are you engaged in eDiscovery in Asia? Do you think you have all your bases covered? You may want to think again. On this episode of the ESI Report, host Michele Lange interviews eDiscovery experts Jason Velasco and Kate Chan. Together, they delve into the intricacies of eDiscovery in the APAC region.
Jason Velasco is Co-Founder and Consultant for eDJGroup. He has over fifteen years of experience in electronic discovery issues and forensic investigations. Jason has conducted more than 350 computer forensic examinations and 700 CLE courses related to eDiscovery.
Kate Chan is a New York attorney who started practicing on Wall Street. She is a native of Hong Kong and is fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese. She has eight years of experience in eDiscovery and is the current Regional Managing Director of Kroll Ontrack's Legal Technologies unit in Asia Pacific.

Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/esi-report/2014/02/ediscovery-and-globalization-what-attorneys-must-know-about-the-asian-market-place/

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Sunday, May 25, 2014

Malawi president seeks to nullify election results

[JURIST] Malawi President Joyce Banda [BBC profile] announced [press release] Saturday that, due to extreme irregularities in the voting process, she is nullifying the national tripartite results for the presidential, parliamentary and local elections. President Banda cited as her authority Section 88(2) [text, PDF] of the Malawi Constitution, which states that the president shall have the responsibility to "provide executive leadership in the interest of national unity." However, some have questioned [Malawi Voice report] her power to nullify results. Upon...

Source: http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/05/malawi-president-attempts-to-nullify-election-results.php

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Legal Education's Diversity Deficit

National minority enrollment has made only modest gains in the last decade.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202654681880?rss=rss_nlj

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Federal appeals court blocks Idaho same-sex marriage ruling

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] on Tuesday granted [order, PDF] Idaho's request for a stay pending appeal of a recent decision by a federal judge to overturn the state's ban on same-sex marriage. This essentially means that no same-sex marriages will be allowed or recognized in Idaho until the appeal is decided. Judge Andrew Hurwitz stated in the order:It is almost certain that the Supreme Court will eventually resolve the merits of this...

Source: http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/05/federal-appeals-court-blocks-idaho-same-sex-marriage-ruling.php

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WILG, MBA, and Attorney Generals: Meet the Lawyers Keeping the Workplace Safe

Are you concerned about workplace safety? Learn how lawyers from the Workers' Injury Law and Advocacy Group, Massachusetts Bar Association, and Office of the Louisiana Attorney General can help. In this episode of Workers Comp Matters, host Alan Pierce interviews Douglas Sheff, Chuck Davoli, and Will Green to reveal how attorneys are making a big impact in workplace safety.
Douglas Sheff is the current President of the Massachusetts Bar Association and the Senior Partner at Sheff Law. He has over 30 years experience in all aspects of personal injury law and is currently serving as the Chairman for both the Massachusetts Bar Association's Workplace Safety Task Force and the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys' Federal Legislation Committee.
Chuck Davoli is an attorney and sustaining board member for WILG and chairs its Workplace Safety and Occupational Disaster Committee. He is the Managing Partner for Davoli, Krumholt and Price and serves as a labor representative on the Louisiana Governor's Workers' Compensation Advisory Council.
Will Green is currently an Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Louisiana Workforce Commission Office of Workers' Compensation where he assists the Director of the Office of Workers' Compensation in developing and drafting legislation, rules, and policies for workers' compensation. In addition, he serves as general counsel to the Second Injury Board and is the former in-house counsel at Louisiana Workers' Compensation Corporation.

Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/workers-comp-matters/2014/02/wilg-mba-attorney-generals-meet-lawyers-keeping-workplace-safe/

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Payout Resolves Objections to $1.6B Toyota Settlement

Some of the most vocal objectors to the $1.6 billion settlement with Toyota Motor Corp. have agreed to drop their challenge in exchange for $1.5 million to research electronics systems used in cars.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202637032014?rss=rss_nlj

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Straight From The Hole

It's far easier to wrap your head around torture when it involves the infliction of active pain. That doesn't make passive pain, the infliction of often unbearable psychological punishment, an less torturous. And it happens regularly, and many time arbitrarily, as explained in an op-ed by Wilbert Rideau, who served 44 years for manslaughter in Louisiana.

Before you dismiss Rideau as a killer who deserved whatever he got, bear in mind that stories from the inside aren't told by saints. Every once in a while, a former inmate emerges with the erudition necessary to put into words the world that most of us never knew existed. When this happens, it's a window through which we need to look. Rideau offers a view of solitary confinement, the hole.
I know something about solitary confinement, because I’ve been there. I spent a total of 12 years in various solitary confinement cells. And I can tell you that isolating a human being for years in a barren cell the size of a small bathroom is the cruelest thing you can do to a person.

Deprived of all human contact, you lose your feeling of connectedness to the world. You lose your ability to make small talk, even with the guard who shoves your meal through the slot in the door. You live entirely in your head, for there is nothing else. You talk to yourself, answer yourself. You become paranoid, depressed, sleepless. To ward off madness, you must give your mind something to do. In 1970, I counted the 358 rivets that held my steel cell together, over and over. Every time the walls seemed to be closing in on me, I counted them again, to give my mind something to fasten on to.

Without having been there, it's likely inconceivable to understand what happens to a mind in isolation. Some of us have trouble being alone for an hour, an evening, a day. Add day upon day, year upon year. But not the way it is for us, where we still have access to television or internet, even if there is no other living person around.  No, this is completely different.

But to add insult to injury, don't leap to the assumption that if a prisoner ends up in the hole, he must have done something pretty bad to deserve it.

In a world where authorities exercise absolute power and demand abject obedience, prisoners are almost always going to be on the losing side, and they know it.

The typical inmate doesn’t want trouble. He has little to gain and too much to lose: his job, his visits, his recreation time, his phone privileges, his right to buy tuna, ramen and stale bread at inflated prices in the commissary. The ways even a bystander to the most peaceful protest can be punished are limited only by the imagination of the authorities.

Punishment can be deserved or not. There's no due process in prison. There's no one to complain to about being punished based on a false accusation, a trumped up allegation, a guard pissed off by an attitude. Authorities own the lives of prisoners, and can be as harsh as they want to be, as arbitrary as they feel like. And there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

Rideau explains that the prison protests in California are an outgrowth of a system run amok and no other means of addressing their grievance.

And yet, sometimes things get so bad that prisoners feel compelled to protest, with work stoppages, riots or hunger strikes. On July 8, some 30,000 inmates in the custody of the California Department of Corrections went on a hunger strike to demand improvements in prison conditions. Their biggest complaint was the runaway use of solitary confinement, the fact that thousands of prisoners are consigned to this cruelty indefinitely, some for decades.

While prisoners are sentenced to incarceration, no judge sentences them to isolation for decades. There is no requirement that any neutral party review the decision to inflict this torture on another human being. It can be imposed for a sound reason or no reason at all. Who is to disagree?  But no matter what the reason or nonreason, to put a person in the hole for years, for decades, is to impose psychological torture of a terrible kind on a human being.  And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, the prisoner can do about it. 

In California, inmates did the only thing left for them to do, protest. Not too many of us care about what happened to "criminals." After all, bad dudes who did bad things to other people. A pox on them. They get what they deserve and their out of sight, out of mind.  But there is good reason to give them just a little bit of though. For one thing, they are still people, and we are still purportedly a civilized society that doesn't condone the needless brutal treatment of people. But if you lack anything remotely resembling empathy, than do it for your own sake:

Why should you be concerned about the inhumane conditions of prolonged solitary confinement, with all the social, emotional and mental deterioration that it entails? Well, every year men from California’s Pelican Bay and other supermax prisons around the nation are released directly from the vacuum of their cells into free society, to live and work among you and your loved ones. As a matter of self-preservation, maybe we should all join the prisoners’ request for rehabilitative opportunities that will improve the mental health of those in solitary.

Go say "hi" to the guy who moved in down the block kids. So what if he spent the last two decades in the hole and seems a bit odd. I'm sure he'll get over it.



© 2007-13 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.

Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/07/17/straight-from-the-hole.aspx?ref=rss

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The 2014 Midsize Hot List

The National Law Journal spotlights 20 law firms from across the country that are succeeding at a time when many of their bigger competitors are struggling amid high headcounts and overhead.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1400871102476?rss=rss_nlj

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U.K. High Court Extends Whistleblower Protections to Law Firm Partners

U.K.'s highest court has expanded the rights of lawyers in the country to blow the whistle against their firms.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/05/22/u-k-high-court-extends-whistleblower-protections-to-law-firm-partners/?mod=WSJBlog

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Saturday, May 24, 2014

Poor People Can Pay Twice After Committing A Crime

NPR Investigative Correspondent Joe Shapiro tells host Michel Martin about the growing use of fines in the criminal justice system.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/22/314875465/poor-people-can-pay-twice-after-committing-a-crime?ft=1&f=1070

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The Power of a Structured Settlement: A Personal Story

Today on Ringler Radio, host, Larry Cohen and his co-host, Jim Early, talk with Congressman Jim Langevin, a Democrat, representing constituents from the 2nd District in Rhode Island since 2001. Congressman Langevin talks about his own personal experience with a structured settlement years ago that helped him and public policy for structured settlements today. Hear one of the best cases for the long-term security of a structured settlement instead of a lump sum settlement.

Source: http://ringlerradio.com/podcasts/ringler-radio/2014/03/the-power-of-a-structured-settlement-a-personal-story/

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How to Manage Your Paralegal Career in Today’s Economy

Today's economy can be challenging for paralegals. Make sure you're taking the right steps to advance your career. On this episode of the Paralegal Voice, host Vicki Voisin interviews future President of NALS Karen McElroy. Together they discuss what you should be doing as a paralegal to get ahead and stay ahead in this job market.
Karen McElroy will become the President of NALS at the end of February 2014. She has been working in law since 1981 in a multitude of capacities including legal secretary, legal assistant, and paralegal. Karen is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and Ohio Air National Guard. Special thanks to our sponsor, NALA.

Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/paralegal-voice/2014/02/manage-paralegal-career-todays-economy

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Perils of Law Firms Possessing Massive Amounts of Unreviewed Client Data

Some experts believe that, in addition to being prohibitively expensive for law firms to manage, maintaining immense amounts of client data increases the probability that it will be exposed to the public through a security breach or hack. That is why many like-minded firms are outsourcing data management to companies that specialize in it. On this episode of Digital Detectives, hosts Sharon Nelson and John Simek interview Ralph C. Losey from Jackson Lewis P.C. Together, they discuss how to manage large amounts of data, when to outsource, and what to do with unprocessed information. Tune in to learn more about dark data, how to select outside vendors, and hosting costs vs. storage costs.
Ralph C. Losey is a shareholder of Jackson Lewis P.C., a law firm specializing in labor and employment law with over 52 offices nationwide and 800 attorneys. Ralph serves as the firm's National e-Discovery Counsel in charge of electronic discovery issues. Ralph has limited his practice to e-discovery since 2006 and is the author of five books on e-discovery law and multiple law review articles. Ralph is also co-founder of the IT-Lex foundation and the Electronic Discovery Best Practices group, and the developer of an online training course in e-discovery, e-DiscoveryTeamTraining.com. Ralph is a frequent speaker at e-discovery conferences worldwide and a leading contributor in the field of Legal Search.
Special thanks to our sponsor, Digital WarRoom.

Source: http://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/digital-detectives/2014/04/perils-law-firms-possessing-massive-amounts-unreviewed-client-data

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Invoking 'Castle Doctrine,' Mont. Man Pleads Not Guilty In Teen's Death

A Montana man says he was justified in shooting a prowler, a German exchange student, in his garage. The case has revived the debate over how far Americans should be able to go to defend their homes.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/314600250/invoking-castle-doctrine-man-pleads-not-guilty-in-teens-death?ft=1&f=1070

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GOP Sues to End Fundraising Limits on Political Parties

In the latest attack on campaign-finance limits, the Republican Party and a leading conservative lawyer filed a federal lawsuit Friday seeking to allow the political parties to raise unlimited funds from donors to spend on elections.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/05/23/gop-sues-to-end-fundraising-limits-on-political-parties/?mod=WSJBlog

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Hookah Copyright Claim Goes Up in Smoke

Although available in various designs and colors, the shape of a hookah's water container is not copyrightable, according to a federal appeals court.

Source: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202637627585?rss=rss_nlj

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David Barron Confirmed to First Circuit

The Senate confirmed David Barron for a slot on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Thursday over objections rooted in his work on legal memos that justified targeted drone strikes against Americans abroad.

Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/law/sign_me_in.jsp?article=http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/legaltimes/PubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202656424586&rss=newswire

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Friday, May 23, 2014

I Spoke Too Soon

My expectations that SJ would be moving to new digs at WordPress yesterday were brutally dashed. My initial reaction was to say "screw it, this isn't worth the hassle anymore," but I spoke with a few friends who persuaded me not to give up the effort. 

It appears that my plans, having already gone through at least three iterations, need to be redrawn. While I remain disinclined to spend a substantial amount of money to make this happen as a matter of principle, the amount of work needed to accomplish this task has proven to be far harder, more involved and less interesting than previously thought.  At the moment, I have neither a solution nor a plan being carried out for an imminent move.  Without one, SJ will vanish one day when GoDaddy pulls the plug.

Hopefully, I will figure out a way to accomplish the move before that. In the meantime, I'll resume what I do here and if it ends up vanishing one day for lack of a viable plan, so be it.  It's the best I can do for the time being and under the circumstances. Sorry that things haven't worked out better thus far, but I'm still working on it.


© 2007-13 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.

Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/07/12/i-spoke-too-soon.aspx?ref=rss

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