netLs

Blogger move over: Google buys wiki service with blogs and more

2006-11-01T01:12:00.000-07:00

Google buys JotSpot http://jot.com which provides free wiki (read/write collaboration web platform) hosting services with a large number of applications (modules) that add blogs, email list servers, spreadsheets and other features to the web site which is given a distinctive URL like http://inetgroup.jot.com.

Like Google's acquisition of Blogger.com several years ago the premium services which were available at additional charge will be avilable some time after the acquisition for free. Among other premium services, a JotSpot wiki could be assigned to your own web domain address.

For the time being JotSpot is not accepting new accounts. However, you can log on to the http://inetgroup.jot.com site, edit pages, create pages, see all of the applications that can be added and get a feel for what this wiki that Google has acquired will be doing for their portfolio of web based applications. Perhaps JotSpot will become the web infrastructure for building an entire full featured web site around your blog, a wiki or what ever combination of Google applications suit your fancy.

Send me an email with just a bit about yourself if you would like administrator access to tack a good look behind the scenes. If you have been active as a participant in Network-Lawyers -- that was a few years ago -- just say that.

John

P.S. As an example of what can be done with the pages at JotSpot (in addition to on the fly editing from you browser) here is a list of tools available for each page:

* Printable version
* Import Word document
* Import Excel document
* Email this page
* Export wiki as XML

Word v. WordPerfect v. PDF

2005-10-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, there were horror stories in various legal periodicals about confidential material that was disclosed to the opposing side in sensitive negotiations. It seems that counsel for one side had sent drafts of documents via email in Word to his client. The client made changes and comments in the Word file and emailed them back to the attorney. The attorney incorporated the changes and emailed them to the opposition.

The opposition, by use of the "track changes" feature in Word was able to see the history of the document beginning with the original draft, moving through the opposing party's changes and comments, and concluding with the draft actually submitted. This gave the opposition some fairly good insight into the other side's negotiating posture and strategy.

Apparently, some people never learn from the mistakes of others. It appears that the Mehlis Report, produced as a result of the investigation as to who was behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, did not intend to set forth the names of those behind the killings. Instead, the final report was intended to only refer to "senior Lebanese and Syrian officials" as those who decided to assassinate Hariri. However, the change was made in the same Word document which, in an earlier iteration, had set forth the names of the officials involved. By using the "track changes" feature, the names were publicly revealed. The complete story is set out in Mark A. LeVine's (no relation) posting on his blog at the History News Network.

This is but one reason to (i) use WordPerfect rather than Word or (ii), at the least, send out only documents that have been converted to pdf.

Collaborative Law and Cooperative Law featured at ODR Cyberweek 2005

2005-10-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

Collaborative Law and, it's younger brother, Cooperative Law, are among the forum discussions presented during Cyberweek 2005 by the Center for Information, Technology and Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusettes and the International Bar Association.

Collaborative Law, a relatively new form of alternative dispute resolution, has developed over the last 15 years for the resolution of divorce, child custody and related family law matters. The lawyers representing the parties who have opted for Collaborative Law work as a team with the parties, in a series of four-way meetings, to negotiate an overall settlement. If settlement fails, the lawyers withdraw under the terms of the Collaborative Law agreement which bars them from going forward with the case when it becomes adversarial.

Cooperative Law, is an even newer form of ADR, where like Collaborative Law, the parties and their lawyers agree to negotiate rather than littigatge. The difference is that the lawyers are not required by the terms of the agreement to withdraw if the matters are not settled.

The welcome message to the forums on the Collaborative and Cooperative topic are here.

Mighell spots, Gov Track, a super tracker

2005-01-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

Tom Mighell's weekly e-newsletter points us to GovTrack, a very useful web resource -- a blog plus you might say, with a great deal of useful information about pending federal legislation. Like Tom says about his e-newsletter, GovTrack is free! Follow these links to learn more about GovTrack:

2005-01-28. There was a short New York Times article in yesterday's Circuits section about GovTrack, and as a result the number of registered users on the site has topped 1,000! View this item at Gov Track.

2005-01-22. Now that GovTrack is pretty much functionally complete, I'm [Joshua Tauberer, GovTrack's creator is] shifting my focus to how websites with similar goals as GovTrack can share data, collaborate, and generally benefit from each other. View this item at Gov Track.

Perhaps the bloggers and webmasters among us can learn how to maximize RSS and other inter-web stratagies for collaboration between sites from what GovTrack has done and will be doing with other sites to share data and otherwise cooperate.

From Tom's e-newsletter: GovTrack.us does a couple of things. First, you'll be able to track federal legislation, as well as just about anything happening on Capitol Hill, and you can set up an RSS feed to monitor your searches. You can also track what other people think of legislation and other government matters, by monitoring the entries of bloggers. A great use of weblog and RSS technology to help individuals in their legal research.

To subscribe to Tom's excellent e-newsletter, Internet Legal Research Weekly, just visit interalia.net to sign up. John

P.S. I am energized with the prospect of doing one of our gala, week-long seminars on the topic of RSS and other forms of collaboration between blogs and web sites. Drop me a note if you would be willing to assist. Perhaps we can get Joshua of GovTrack fame to join us. More about Joshua and all that he is doing at taubz.for.net. J.

Online Dispute Resolution Competitions

2005-01-30T14:26:00.000-07:00

The Fourth Annual International Competitions in Online Dispute Resolution(ICODR) will be held beginning in February, 2005.

Negotiation * Mediation * Arbitration * Litigation

The competitions in online dispute resolution involve students from law schools all around the world.

EVALUATORS NEEDED_____

The sponsors are accepting applications for experienced practitioners and academicians to serve as online evaluators. The various programs and related links are listed below.

Visit online evaluators registration to indicate your interest in serving as an evaluator this year. If for any reason that link does not work for you send an email to either Alan Gaitenby or Ben Davis.

The Negotiation competition will be held in two rounds in February 2005. The Harvard Program on Negotiation provided the problems for the online negotiation.

The Mediation competition will be held in two rounds in February 2005. The World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center provided the problems for the online mediation.

The Arbitration competition will be held over two months in February and March 2005. The International Chamber of Commerce Institute of World Business Law provided the problems for the online arbitration.

A prototype Litigation competition, new for this year, will be held from February through mid-April 2005. The International Chamber of Commerce Institute of World Business Law provided the problems for the online litigation.

WestWorkspace/eRooms Technology has accepted to be the platform for the ICODR 2005 competitions. Visit previous competition to explore this platform as it was deployed for prior competitons. (To sign in use: Username: observer2004 and Password: observer2004 If prompted click on browser only.)

For further information please contact the ICODR organizers: Alan Gaitenby or Ben Davis.

The Center and the University of Massachusetts is proud to sponsor ICODR in conjunction with the University of Toledo College of Law, Hamline University School of Law, and Westworkspace.com.

Blogger Pro post by email feature demonstrated

2003-12-30T04:42:00.000-07:00

This is a demonstration of the feature of Blogger Pro used to publish weblog items to the netLs weblog via email.

<i>Voi la!</i> and here you have it :)

Subscribe to netLs by email

2003-12-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

Place an email subscription to receive weblog items as they are posted to the netLs weblog at YahooGroups by subscribing to the netLs discussion list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/netLs

If you don't yet have a Yahoo account, you be requested to sign up for a Yahoo account before you enter your email subscription to the netLs discussion list.

You may comment, ask and answer questions related to weblog items as they are ciruclated in the netLs discussion list. The reply function of your email reader/editor program will work to send your reply back to the list for circulation to the other email subscribers.

By John DeBruyn (http://debruyn.com)

Colorado firm touts its sleazeball attorneys

2003-12-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

Today's Brief, the Law.com daily news round-up, picks up this item from the ABA Journal about the quirky Web site of the Colorado firm Powers Phillips. Reporter Lori Patel writes: "One needs a sense of humor in dealing with Colorado firm Powers Phillips. In fact, the firm insists upon it. As a sort of quirky screening device, it has created a Web site so firmly tongue-in-cheek that some readers may have trouble swallowing. With the site organized in categories such as 'sleazeball attorneys' and 'agonized clients,' the firm's uppity women and token males apologize in advance to readers they may offend. The attorneys add that they take their work -- but not themselves -- quite seriously."

Is Brief Reporter dead?

2003-12-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

What happened to Brief Reporter? My June 2003 column, A Brief Summary: Free Briefs on the Web, mentions this Web source of legal briefs (even though it is not free). But a poster to the law-lib listserv said today that he has been trying to access it for several weeks with no luck. Anyone know its status?

For legal aid lawyers, a technology portal

2003-11-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

If the bad news was the shutting down of the Equal Justice Network, the good news is a site that spun off from it, LStech.Org. Recognizing that few legal services programs have the budget to hire dedicated technology staff, LStech.org is a portal to technology services and information tailored to a legal aid audience. Funded by a Legal Services Corporation Technology Initiative Grant, it is operated as a partnership by the University of Michigan Law School, Legal Services of South Central Michigan, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the National Technology Assistance Project. Its most substantive section is its Tech Library, an extensive collection of articles on technology management, Web development, software, technology for advocates, telecommunications, networks, hardware and the Internet. Another section compiles information on technology projects implemented by poverty law programs throughout the U.S. The site includes online collaboration spaces, listings of tech jobs, and current technology news of interest to the poverty law community.

Equal Justice Network shuts down

2003-11-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that the Equal Justice Network has shut down. It operated as a joint project of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association and the Center for Law and Social Policy, serving as an online meeting place, information source, and connection mechanism for lawyers and other advocates involved in efforts to provide civil legal assistance to low-income people. According to the notice at the site, some of the features have been moved to the NLADA site.

How Appealing's Bashman to present online seminar

2003-11-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Howard Bashman, the publisher/editor of the much acclaimed, widely read and quoted legal weblog, How Appealing, will be the guest speaker for the appellate process segment of the Cybercourts and Online Dispute Resolution seminar that will run next in the Network-Lawyers discussion group. His weblog is at http://appellateblog.blogspot.com

Howard's portion of the seminar, the appellate process, Cybercourts of Appeal, will be begin on Wednesday, December 3, and run through Friday, December 5. The idea of courts going online, Cybercourts is no longer fanciful. With the advent of electronic filing and the trend to limit, and in many cases eliminate oral argument, the courts of appeal are becoming Cybercourts of Appeal. This evolution of the appeals courts and the affect of technology and the internet on the appellate process will be addressed during Howard's segment of the program.

The seminar organizers are seeking judges, court administrators and other lawyers experienced in appellate practice to join the panel to assist in the presentation of Howard's segment of the program. Please let John DeBruyn at jdebruyn@debruyn.com know if you would be available to join the panel and take an active part in the appellate process discussion that will run Wednesday through Friday.

The trial court segment will begin on Monday, December 1, with Judge Gafni who will be joined by Judge Shelton on Tuesday for a discussion of the impact of the internet and other technology on the trial process including preparation, filing, discovery and case management, trial testimony, documentary evidence and argument.

The speakers will be joined by two dozen other experts on various aspects of online, electronic, technology-enhanced resolution of disputes. There are also tracks on negotiation and mediation as well as public and stakeholder dialogue and policy negotiation with the courts, administrative agencies and legislative bodies. Here is an executive summary about all four segments of the Cybercourts and Online Dispute Resolution Seminar Program:

Negotiation and mediation track

Professor Ethan Katsh, University of Massachusetts Department of Legal Studies, who is the chair of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe's Expert Working Group on Online Dispute Resolution. He is also the moderator of the dispute res discussion list for mediators, arbitrators, lawyers and other professionals interested in alternative dispute resolution.
The seminar is a joint venture between the dispute res and network-lawyers discussion lists.

Trial process track:

Judge Abraham Gafni, retired Pennsylvania state trial court judge who is a Professor at Villanova Law School teaching alternative dispute resolution procedures, and Judge Donald Shelton, Michigan trial court judge who was involved with that state's Cybercourt program which was established by the legislature but not yet funded.

Appellate process track

Howard Bashman, Buchanan Ingersoll, PC., Philadelphia, shareholder and chair of their appellate group. Howard Bashman is publisher/editor of the celebrated and most quoted legal blog, How Appealing, which covers the appellate courts and cases on appeal that are significant or otherwise in the news.

Collective negotiation and dialogue track (third party and stakeholder involvement in the judicial, administrative and legislative processes)

John Helie, mediator and principal, Mediate.Com, a leading online publisher of dispute resolution articles and provider of design and space under the Mediate.Com umbrella of web sites for mediation professionals, their firms and providers of mediation training. John is recognized nationally as an expert on the design and presentation of face-to-face and online dialogues and collective policy negotiations between public agencies, their stakeholders and the public-at-large.

How register to take part at no charge plus links to more information:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/network-lawyers

opensourceCMS demonstration site

2003-11-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

opensourceCMS demonstrations This site was created with one goal in mind. To give you the opportunity to 'try out' some of the best php/mysql based free and open source software systems in the world. You are welcome to be the administrator of any site here, allowing you to decide which system best suits your needs.

Scientific knowledge base to be freely accessible

2003-11-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

Stuart Levine in his Tax & Business Law Commentary notes the appearance of a new organization called the Public Library of Science. This organization will publish on-line journals containing referred papers concerning various aspects of scientific research. Access to the journals will be free and open to the public. It is hoped that the effort will spawn a host of competing publications that will replace the subscription based system currently in place for the publication of scientific papers. The costs of those subscriptions significantly limits the access of researchers, particularly in poorer countries, to research material.

And the context of this item an examination of the expenditure of significant expert resources and corresponding cost to determine questions in the context of our adversarial legal system exposes Stuart's special talent as a renaissance lawyer with a most inquiring mind and, of course, dry wit that makes his ponderings most digestible. More or less a social inquiry about the role of the courts and the public's right to know in New York state where newly formed entities, of a particular flavor, are required to publish written notice upon their formation. The publication requirement was sustained. Stuart observes:

"Something has continued to bother me about the opinion which, as I said, in a narrow sense (i.e., courts should not step on legislative prerogatives), might be correct, but in a broad sense (can anybody really defend the underlying policy behind the requirement without a smirk) is totally unjustified. Yet, substantial intellectual capital was expended by the litigants and the court in determining the issue of whether or not the Emperor really had no clothes."

And more as Stuart pulls these events together.

What's the point of blogging?

2003-10-06T09:36:00.000-06:00

BloggerCon 2003 was held this weekend (October 4) at Havard. Phil Greenspun reports what followed when a young audience member had the courage to ask 'What should I say when someone asks me what the point of having a blog is?' Phil sagely observe that "Indeed this is a variant of the early 1990s question the first personal Web sites went up 'What is the point of having a personal Web site?' Then what IS the point of personal Web site or blog?"

Read what Philip, an MIT accademic, dot.com entreprenuer and internet visionary has to say over at his Weblog: which is among the many hosted courtesy of the blogging-software developer Dave Winner at the Harvard (Law School's blog) farm.

Searching the Web of Yore

2003-09-27T20:39:00.000-06:00

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has indexed and made 11 billion pages of its 30 plus billion pages searchable. Thanks to Tom Mighell of Internet Legal Research Weekly for his weblog article about this development.

The search engine, created by Anna Patterson, has a novel interface that shows hits over time and also categories and topic related to the search. Anna's prepared series of slides that describe how this nifty interface works. It took me a while to find where I could download the free Power Point viewer. Having done that I then discovered--until I learn more about Power Point viewer--that one just clicks on a slide to advance to the next.

Modern entymologists should love this. For example, the incidence of the phrase "world wide web" is declining while the incidence of the words weblog and blog are taking off. Entymologists will grove on the transformation of world wide web to web and of weblog to blog. I think the rate of such changes in word forms is accellerating. Although the results are interesting, I don't know the extent to which the results may be skewed because the archive does not have all pages for all time and, may be more significantly, because the index, at this point, includes only about a third of the pages in the archive.

And I almost forgot, the link to Anna's search engine at the Internet Archives Wayback Machine.

Network-Lawyers Online Seminars

2003-09-07T14:42:00.000-06:00

Network-Lawyers discussion list has scheduled two, week-long online seminars on useful web-based collaboration tools. The seminars feature Steve Yost, the creator, developer and provider, of QuickTopic and QuickDocumentReview as guest speaker.

Steve will be joined in the Network-Lawyers by a panel of experts on email and web-based collaboration and community-building for a lively, informative seminar discussion program for legal professionals on:

QuickTopic, a handy, easy to use web discussion space, where messages may be exchange via browser and/or email, which is scheduled for the week of September 22 thru 26; and

QuickDocumentReview, an equally useful and easy to use tool for reviewing and exchanging comments on documents which is scheduled for the week of October 6 through 10.

The seminar discussion will be open for questions from participants to the speaker and panel all during the week. The term "seminar" was chosen to encourage all the "attendees" to take an active roles in the discussion as the speaker and panel work there way through the seminar agenda. There will, as part of each program, be a hands on demonstration by Steve and the panel of Steve's collaboration tools.

There is no charge for registration or participation in these seminars. Additional information about these programs including the agenda, the panel of experts and how you may participate is on the web page with the Seminar Schedule.

The Network-Lawyers is a continuation of the discussion list founded by Lew Rose in 1994 for lawyers, law students, law professors, legal assistants and other legal professionals on legal technology with, as Lew put it, an emphasis on the internet. Network-Lawyers continues between seminars to function as an ongoing, spontaneous discussion for legal professionals about technology, the internet and related legal topics.

Eric Heels, Rich Klau of Today

2003-08-30T09:23:00.000-06:00

StudentLawTech forum is the name of the email discussion list for law students on the topic of law and technology. Rich Klau and Eric Heels founded the discussion in 1994 while they were law students at the Universities of Richmond and Maine. Eric and Rich were famous in the fledgling online community of lawyers back then for the mega FAQ on legal resources on the internet that they published.

The Eric and Rich's of today are into blogging in a big way. We have started a page on StudentLawBlogs at the Network-Lawyers wiki to keep up with developments on that front. Hopefully the reincarnation of the StudentLawTech forum will gain a following from among the student bloggers and others interested in the law, technology and the internet.

eLawyer Blog: Legal Information vs. Legal Advice

2003-08-12T07:52:00.000-06:00

eLawyer Blog: Legal Information vs. Legal Advice has lots of good leads for lawyers who want to make the most of their public service/marketing program by effectively communicating with the public. Seems to this observor that the provision of high quality, plain-English information to the public coincident with a lawyer's area of practice is a win/win proposition for both the public and the lawyer who puts his or her mind and energy to the task.

The boosters of the eLawyering project and others who have been running with this ball need to get more lawyers into the game--here are a few ideas: (1) incubate an online study group, (2) present an online CLE course and/or (3) consider other ways for lawyers who-are-with-this-program to do some LegalInformationNetwork|ing.

JD2B.com for law school applicants, students & grads

2003-08-11T09:00:00.000-06:00

A law student, Marshall Camp, now recent grad's, JD2B.com weblog is still going strong with coverage of the law school and legal scene of interest to lawyers and law students alike. Billed as a community for law school applicants, students & grads, the site features a list of other law student weblogs, school-specific discussion groups (about which I am going to find out more) and many other links of interest to law and pre-law students.

I also plan to explore other law student weblogs with a view to re-kindling law student participation in the Network-Lawyers discussion group. I recall Eric Heels and Rich Klau, back when the Net-Lawyers started up, had their own law student discussion group as well something like LawStudentTech hosted on the list server at Cornell Law School.

Two Blogs Under Development

2003-08-08T14:14:00.000-06:00

Are blogs a good investment? Draw what lessons you will from my experience: After having had one in operations since January 1, I've found enough value to start two more:

Fedlawyerguy.org will deal with substantive law and practical concerns of interest to lawyers working for federal agencies.
eLawyerblog.org will raise awareness of how lawyers can use technology, especially the Internet, to better provide legal services to Americans of moderate to low income. It will expand on some of the work done by the ABA's eLawyering project, and the work of British lawyer/tech guru Richard Susskind. My review of Susskind's presentation at Legal Tech New York and his ideas on "The Latent Legal Market" illustrate where Susskind is coming from, but the best place to get the full effect is in his book, Transforming the Law.

I'm planning on sort of a "rolling start" for each blog, upgrading the templates and adding links on a continuing basis.

Both are Movable Type blogs, operated in different directories on the same server, off the same installation of Movable Type. I'm renting very inexpensive server space from H2Hosting.com, with no problems so far. I may move my Netlawblog site there as well. The Movable Type platform has some strengths I better appreciate after having used Radio and Blogger.

Blogging in general has strengths that most people have not yet grasped. Some of the benefits are discussed in Internet Roundtable 36, a panel discussion with Ernie Svenson, Tom Mighell, Dennis Kennedy, Brenda Howard and yours truly.

Another article useful article is Legal and Appellate Weblogs: What They Are, Why You Should Read Them, and Why You Should Consider Starting Your Own, by Gary O’Connor (Statutory Construction Zone) and Stephanie Tai (blueblanketblog). In addition to blueblanketblog, Ms. Tai is an organizer of Blawg Review, a superior team blog.

netLs follows German lead

2003-08-04T07:38:00.000-06:00

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? No, but there is an accommodation using the Google translation tool that was recently impliement at the German language Handakte WebLAWg of Rainer Langenhan and at another popular German legal site, JuraWiki with the co-operation of Jura's founder, Ralf Zosel.

We have now done the same here going the other direction, English to German, with the link featuring a little map of Germany and the words Deutsche Version via Google Übersetzung on the NetLs weblog page.

An invitation has been issued to the speakers of French, Spanish, Italian and Portugese to join in the collaboration to create similar tours at JuraWiki from German into their own languages. We are working on a multi-lingual link with six little flag icons--one to engage each of the six languages available currently using the Google translation.

If you would like to can read more about this MultiLingualCollaboration, comment and/or join in this collaboration go to the Network-Lawyers' wiki.

JuraWiki collaboration platform and Google's translation tool

2003-07-30T14:12:00.000-06:00

John DeBruyn reports on his recent visit to JuraWiki. JuraWiki is a truly innovative collaboration platform for lawyers written in the German language about legal matters and law practice.

Using the Google translation tool John was able to read a rough German to English translation of all that is underway at JuraWiki. The lawyers in Germany, especially those at JuraWiki, are moving ahead of their counterparts in the United States in making the most of the read, create and edit page functionality of a wiki collaboration platform.

John established a beach-head for the NetworkLawyers discussion group in the European Union with a NetworkLawyers page at JuraWiki in English. Rainer Langenhan translated that in to a NetworkLawyersGerman page. Hopefully these pages about the NetworkLawyers discussion group will result in more lawyers from Germany and elsewhere joining in the discussion.

You may navigate the JuraWiki site using the Google translation tool starting with the JuraWikiTour page. You can move from page to page with the translation tool left on. This will give you some idea--from reading the rough German to English translation--of all that is going on at JuraWiki. Thanks to Ralf Zosel, JuraWiki's founder, who us gave permission to create English language pages at JuraWiki.

Network-Lawyers discussion reaches out to European Union

2003-07-30T11:45:00.000-06:00

Network-Lawyers discussion group welcomes European Union lawyer, George Giagkoudakis, who practices law in Kavala, on the coast of eastern Macedonia, Greece. George joins one other EU lawyer who actively particpates in the Network-Lawyers discussion group, Rainer Langenhan of Nieder-Olm, Germany. Rainer maintains a legal, German-language weblog Handakte WebLAWg and George maintains a web site for his law practice at GeoCities with a page about himself in English.

How to Copy Text from PDF Documents

2003-07-29T15:17:00.000-06:00

A helpful PDF file on the New Jersey Attoney General's site on how to copy text from a PDF file to another application. Simple, easy to follow illustrations and instructions. This is really great for those online opinons that Courts are prone to lodge in PDF files.

A tip: What I found to be helpful was to first engage the little hand on the PDF tool bar and then move on to the steps beginning with the text select button on the button bar.

InfoGrid site for Internet Research

2003-07-27T15:46:00.000-06:00

A Grid-Lock on Internet Research: Tom Mighell observes in this week's issue of his internet legal research newsletter ... Every now and again, he likes to visit one of the many meta-search tools available on the Internet, to show his readers new and different ways of finding what they need. ... InfoGrid is an awfully busy place to visit. But if you're patient, you can find some really great resources.

Easy remote hosting for audio on Web sites

2003-07-27T11:21:00.000-06:00

Consider how you might use audio "spots" on your web pages, email or web log. Glenn Garnes has jumped in with both feet and will be promoting all manner of uses of audio by law firms and lawyers online. Listen to an audio postcard that Glenn sent to me to help explain the potential of this medium and if you want to know more about the audio hosting service that Glenn is using follow the links on the audio postcard.

Wiki collaboration platform in the current news, magazines and other periodicals

2003-07-21T21:25:00.000-06:00

This Google News search brings up about two dozen recent articles in newspapers, magazines and other periodicals on the wiki collaboration platform, how easy it is to use, et cetera, et cetera and so forth.

Wiki collaboration platform featured on National Public Radio

2003-07-21T19:32:00.000-06:00

All Things Considered audio of program segment about Wikis, what Jerry Lawson dubbed wiki collaboration platform, was sumarized on the NPR site as follows:

It might sound a little crazy, letting just anyone write whatever they want on your Web site. But that's just what Wikis are designed for Wikipedia.org, for example, lets the public collaborate to build a surprisingly accurate encyclopedia. Commentator David Weinberger says wikis are one example of 'social software,' intended to allow people to work together with ease.

Network-Lawyers has its own wiki collaboration platform at http://network-lawyers.org and let me suggest that you start with the SandBox page where you may take the wiki full-page editor for a test drive.

Google <-> Blog Conspiracy

2003-07-20T11:29:00.000-06:00

Jerry Lawson backs John DeBruyn's bet that should Google create a separate Google-News-like aggregation for weblogs--Google will not eliminate them, as one web pundit speculated a few months ago, from Google's general search of the Web. Jerry explains the background to this mini-controversy is that large businesses mistakenly assume that they have a God-given right to appear at the top of search engine listings. (This message of Jerry's did not make it over to Gmane for some unexplained reason.)

"Blog It," Newsaggregators and Google is watching

2003-07-18T16:42:00.000-06:00

Several comments, tips, and warnings from Jeff Beard following up on the "Blog-It" discussions in Network-Lawyers. Jeff reports that he recently searched for and tried many of the newer, graphical Newsreaders (some are called newsaggregators) that let you divide up the window into viewing panes. Of all of them, he liked Newzcrawler as the most full-featured and the most stable, quite surprising for a beta release.

Jeff particularly likes the 'Blog this' feature which works with a number of blogging apps, including Movable Type. Newscrawler is only $25. His discussion includes a warning about Newzcrawler's lack of a pedigree for those who may be concerned about international transactions with unknow parties in Russia.

There is also a warning about the Google tool bar--with the "Blog It" with Blogspot feature--watching where you do your Web surfing plus the word from Jeff on another Newsagreegator--called FeedDemon--which Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy are using. Jeff's message with all this is at Gmane.

Gmane -- Google's "blog this" and Blogger

2003-07-18T11:39:00.000-06:00

Late breaking news about integrating messages from Network-Lawyers into the netLs blog (you are reading the blog now :) to messages in the message archives at Gmane like this one: Google's "blog this" and Blogger about the Google Tool bar feature that Bob just mentioned for the posting of a web page link.

As explaned in the previous article here the "blog this" feature works with web pages in general and, since the messages in the Gmane archives are web pages with a uninque URL it is no problem to do as I am doing here to create a posting to the netLs weblog via the "blog this" button on the Google tool bar. There's more about this in the Network-Lawyers Gmane archive in the message correponding to this weblog article--which is another edited example of publishing of a segment of text from a Web page plus a link to that Web page using the "blog this" feature.

Google Toolbar includes "blog this" feature

2003-07-18T10:45:00.000-06:00

Look ma no hands. Well, almost with the Google Toolbar 2.0 BETA I created this article by clicking on "BlogThis!" while I was viewing the Web page at Google Toolbar 2.0 BETA. The "blog this" feature grabs the URL to the web page you're visiting and, if you select text on the page, that text also appears in the blog article that you are creating.

To enable the BlogThis! button, access the Options page from the toolbar's Google pull-down menu. You must have a blog already set up to take advantage of this feature. To create a free blog using Google's Blogger service, visit blogger.com. The foregoing is an edited example of what you could create using the "BlogThis!" feature of the Google Tool bar to grab a selected portion of a Web page as well as the URL for the page.

Web Logs for Lawyers: Why?

2003-06-13T09:50:00.000-06:00

Still wondering why all the fuss about blogs? My article at LLRX.com entitled Web Logs for Lawyers: Lessons From Ernie The Attorney explains some of the reasons why they are becoming popular.

Jerry Lawson
net.law.blog

Comments enabled

2003-04-13T16:35:00.000-06:00

The SquawkBox comment system is now employed here at netLs weblog.

Network-Lawyers Portal

2003-03-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

Check out the NetLsPortal is the staging area for all of the various tools and Web publishing applications available to the members of the Network-Lawyers discussion group. Besides the netLs weblog, which is where you are now, there is a collection of read/write Web pages and other open source Web applications that you are invited to use. John DeBruyn (March 2, 2003)

ODR-XML Conference

2003-03-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

The archives of the recent ODR-XML conference hosted by the University of Massachusetts Center for Information Technology & Dispute Resolution are available. Good job by Jon Kennedy, Colin Rule, Dan Greenwood, Jim Keane, Atul Grova, Debbie Miller-Moore, Bob Ambrogi and organizers Ethan Katash and John DeBruyn.

Jerry Lawson
net.law.blog

ADR Cyberlaw Week 2003

2003-02-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

Cyberweek 2003, a free all-online conference focused on the use of technology in dispute resolution, holds its fifth annual session February 24-28th. Cyberweek consists of online discussions, simulations and other activities, including a negotiation competition with teams from 35 law schools. Hosts: Ethan Katsh, the University of Massachusetts Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution and the Online Dispute Resolution Section of the Association for Conflict Resolution.

Jerry Lawson
net.law.blog

Article on electronic documents

2003-02-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

As my first contribution to this page, I provide a link to my article entitled Lawyers and Their Documents - From Electrons to Paper and Back Again. This is a PDF file which contains the full text of the original article as well as two related "concept documents". A smaller and somewhat editor-mangled version of the article was published in the Michigan Lawyers Weekly on January 20, 2003.

M. Sean Fosmire
Garan Lucow Miller, P.C.
Marquette, Michigan

Blawgistan News

2003-01-29T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Blawgistan News is a sort of meta-blawg that contains links to key legal blogs, with the titles of recent postings. It's a real timesaver--a great idea, well executed.

Jerry Lawson

Legally Inclined Blogs in a Web Ring

2003-01-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

netLs is now listed in Web Ring for Legally Inclined Blogs which is hosted at:

http://www.ringsurf.com

Collaboration -- co-blogers and dialog with readers

2003-01-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

. . . . . an excellently worked example of collaborative blogging (outside of the legal arena) is Cory Doctorow's http://boingboing.net/. (Cory is a close friend, but I wouldn't mention his or any other blog unless it deserved mention on the merits.) There's no way he can keep up with all there is to keep up with, so he uses many co-bloggers, and, IMO, that adds to the blog, not subtracts. Each co-blogger has his/her own particular interests (consistent with the blog's overall theme), reading many voices, points of view is a plus to me. (Inside the legal arena, an example of collaborative blogging is UCLA Law Prof's "The Volokh Conspiracy" at http://volokh.blogspot.com/)

BTW, note how, for every blog entry in Cory's, there's a "discuss" link to quicktopic.com (fka takeitoffline.com). If you don't want or can't handle the bandwidth of reader comments within your own blogosphere, it's a great way to give readers feedback/comment opportunity, on quicktopic's bandwidth dime. That isn't unethical, btw, that's why quicktopic exists. James S. Tyre mailto:jstyre@jstyre.com

A BONL--Best Of Network-Lawyers discussion--item forwarded by John DeBruyn

B O N L . . . . Best Of Network-Lawyers discussion

2003-01-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

BONL translates to Best Of Network-Lawyers ... a new feature here at netLs the Network Lawyer's collaborative weblog. Members of the Network-Lawyers discussion are encouraged to copy messages from the discussion that exemplify the value of the Network-Lawyers discussion and past them into this space, the netLs weblog. Edit this page by adding a weblog item

Members of the Network-Lawyers discussion are invited to go behind the sceens here at netLs to see how this weblog works and, if you would like to help, to join the editorial team. Last I looked: Stuart, Jerry and Bob have joined netLs weblog to boost our collaboration here. (this item added by John DeBruyn)

Spamnet makes my life better by Jerry Lawson

2003-01-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

When I get time I want to write an article called "Why I Love Spamnet." It has improved my quality of life. In the mean time here is what Jerry has to say from a recent Network-Lawyers discussion:

As far as I can see, Cloudmark's signature product, Spamnet, uses by far the most promising approach: collaborative filtering. Instead of deleting messages that escape its initial screening, you select the remaining spam and "block" them. This sends a message back to Spamnet's database. The central database uses the information to refine the filter even further. In other words, you are not wasting your time by developing your own set of filters. It gives you the option of checking the messages it has flagged as spam before you delete them, but I have to admit that after going for weeks without every having seen it misflag a message I wanted to keep, more and more often I just delete the trash without looking at it first.

Searching the Internet used to be a challenging task, but Google's sophisticated use of a form of massive collaborative filtering (through weighted links from web masters) made it a lot easier. Spamnet will not make the spam problem disappear, but I think it can make a major dent in it, the same way Google made it much easier to find relevant material on the Internet.

I get a lot of spam because my e-mail address is given as the contact at several web sites, and I post to a lot of e-mail discussion groups. Some people advocate systems whereby senders not on a "white list" have to confirm that they are not spammers, etc. These won't work for me, because I get a lot of requests to speak or write articles by e-mail. A certain percentage of senders would simply not follow through, and I would not have a chance to consider the invitations.

When I get time I want to write an article called "Why I Love Spamnet." It has improved my quality of life.

Jerry Lawson

Network webring

2003-01-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

The webring is an tool for sharing links to member weblogs, web sites and other web resources. The WebRing Hub is where is where all of the sites are listed. Anyone may suggest a weblog, website or other resource to be added to the webring.

The WebRing Hub is also the control tower where the web ring masters (your are invited) control all aspects of the WebRing including the contents of the box with the webring links that are relayed to the participating web pages via java script. The relatively short java script that is inserted on a web page to call the contents of the rectangular box shown above and its contents above looks like this:

<script language=javascript src="http://ss.webring.com/navbar?f=j;y=netled;u=10081101">

You may go behind the sceens at WebRing to look over the set up for the maintainance of the Network-Lawyers-Network web ring. To assume the role of webring master, you should use the same User ID and password as you would use for access here. That User ID is Netled. If you need the password that works here and at the Network-Lawyers-Network webring use the form at email the password to me.

Blogs recommended by members

2003-01-16T20:39:00.000-07:00

Members of the Network-Lawyers discussion group are invited to add weblogs to a listing of Blogs hosted at the Blogs Directory of the Network-Lawyers links area.

We will be setting up the link just below the links to members' weblogs over on the left. (this item added by John DeBruyn)

Bravenet hit counter

2003-01-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

Stuart also put me on to Bravenet which hosts many tools for webmaster and weblog proprietors. The tool that Stuart recomended was their hit counter/statistics collector which is installed here at netLs weblog. It is over on the right below the links and the subscription box. Click on the bravenet.com icon for access to the page at Bravenet where the statistics for this page are collected. (this item added by John DeBruyn)

Bloglet email subscriptions to weblogs

2003-01-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

Stuart Levine added email subscriptions to his weblog Tax and Business Law Commentary using the Bloglet subscription interface and tools that are available from Bloglet for free (donations accepted :). This is a snap to do, I just did it here for our netLs weblog. Look over in the right hand column just under the listing of members' weblogs where you will see the nifty subscription form that Bloglet supplies.

Bloglet supports Blogger, which is the flavor of this weblog, Stuart's T&B Law Commentaryand Bob Ambrogi's Lawsites and also Radio (the type of blog selected by Jerry Lawson for his Netlawtools plus four or five other blog flavors (all listed on the Bloglet site. (this item added and revised by John DeBruyn)

Links in the side bar and blogging on

2003-01-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have set up the links sidebar. A few comments:

First, what I know about HTML can be put into a very small thimble. Consequently, the way I set up the sidebar was by "reverse engineering" what was already in the frame.

Second, I discovered that Jerry's posting of Bob's link had an error in it. Specifically, at the end of the link there was a superfluous "." (The superfluous character was a period, not the quotation marks.) Since I had copied the link into the link section via copy and paste (see above comment), the mistake repeated itself. I have now corrected both the link in the link section and in Jerry's original posting.

I point this out not to earn brownie points, but to make a point. I find the blog process to be somewhat exhilarating since it involves a sort of detective work. However, I am mindful that the process only has value if the blog imparts value. By this I mean that my site must be valuable to readers because it imparts matters of substance concerning tax and business law. In this sense, knowledge of a little HTML is necessary, but the real value of offerings such as Blogger, etc. is that they allow individuals with little knowledge of the underlying superstructure to make substantive postings in areas that they presumably know something about.

The reason that we are able to use computers in our daily work is that a lot of programmers managed to create programs (Windows, WP, e-mail, etc.) that allow us to do our work virtually unmindful of the superstructure that they work on. (Think of it this way: How many authors or newspaper reporters ever really understood the process of making a printed page. Perhaps newspaper reporters did, to some extent, at least in the old days because they worked in the same building that the printers who put the paper together worked in. My understanding that this is no longer the case. Yet another example of the isolation of various classes of workers.)

My hope is that the blogger phenomenom will, in essence, extend this capability to a wider group of contributors who don't know and either don't want to know or don't have the time to learn a good deal about the underlying process that allows them to disseminate their knowledge and comments.

Network-Lawyers members' weblogs

2003-01-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

For those not familiar with it, Network-Lawyers, the online discussion group sponsoring this this blog, is devoted to practical discussions of lawyer use of the Internet. Hosted by Yahoo Groups, it is the successor to the mailing list previously moderated by Lew Rose on the same topic. This blog was set up to let members of the group familiarize themselves with this exciting new technology.

Several members of the Network-Lawyers groups operate their own blogs already, including:

Lawsites, by Robert Ambrogi
Tax and Business Law Commentary, by Stuart Levine
Netlawtools, by yours truly

If you have a blog and I have missed you, let me know, or better yet, log in here yourself and let us know.

Jerry Lawson
Netlawtools: Internet Tools for Lawyers
WWW | Blog | Book

Jerry, Bob and Stuart sign in

2003-01-02T17:39:00.000-07:00

And another belated user logs in ...

I tried to set up another blog here yesterday as www.spinfair.blogspot.com, but it wouldn't upload for some reason. The help file (dated October) said only that they were aware of the problem, and were working on it.

Fortunately, I had no trouble logging into this one. This service appears to have a lot of potential.

Jerry Lawson, Burke, Virgina

2002-11-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

Took me awhile, but here I am. Bob Ambrogi, Rockport, MA.

2002-11-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

So far Stuart, Bob and John have signed in. If you do sign in to participate in the Network-Lawyers collaboration here, please send to Stuart, Bob, Jerry and John an email to let us know you droped by and signed in. Thanks, John (John DeBruyn, Denver, CO)

2002-11-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

I am in. Stuart Levine, Baltimore MD

2002-11-12T16:14:00.000-07:00

Bob Ambrogi pointed me to the appellate blog at http://appellateblog.blogspot.com/ where I found a very informative coverage of appeals and appeallate court news with links to articles and other resources on the Web. The bLog space at blogspot is free for the asking so .....

Join in the collaboration

2002-11-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

netLs is an experimental bLog run in tandem with Network-Laywers an email and Web-based discussion group for lawyers and allied professionals dealing with the internet, technology and the law. Home base is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/network-lawyers which is where you may subscribe to the discussion group.

This will be a true collaboration open to all subscribers. We can figure out the rules later, but in the mean time add yourself as a member of the netLs team. First get your NetLs weblog password << click me

Then, after you receive your password by email, go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in using:

the password that came to you by email; and
netled as your ID.

Add yourself as a team member and/or administrator if you are willing to help others in maintaining netLs. (That is the shared administrative ID and password which we may need to ditch once we get organized and a sufficient number of team members to handle adding team members and such.)

JohnDeBruyn (jdebruyn@debruyn.com) November 12, 2002

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