Tag Archives: Robert Ambrogi

LexisNexis’ Next-Generation Solution Means End of Lexis.com.

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in FastCase, LexisNexis, Westlaw

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It’s Last Rites for Lexis.com, As LexisNexis Sets Date for Shutdown, by Robert Ambrogi, LawSites Blog

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2016/12/last-rites-lexis-com-lexisnexis-sets-date-shutdown.html

“Prepare last rites for Lexis.com. The legacy legal research service will be leaving this world at the end of 2017.

This week, LexisNexis began notifying Lexis.com customers that it will be shutting down the service over the next 12 months and moving them to the newer Lexis Advance research platform.”

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Need to Turn Your iPad Into Second Monitor? There’s an App for That.

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Technology, Time Management, Windows

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This App Turns Your iPad Into a Second Monitor, by Robert Ambrogi, LawSites Blog

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2016/08/app-turns-ipad-second-monitor.html

When you start using two monitors, many of us are hooked. My favorite feature is the ability to drag documents and websites back and forth. Imagine having a spreadsheet or other document open on one screen, and the document or source of the information you need on the other screen. If you need to keep an eye on email or your docketing calendar, you can keep it up on one screen and work using the other. (If you do not have a second monitor, you can access your other open windows using Alt-Tab.)

I can understand why Mr. Ambrogi is excited about this app. -CCE

I am so dependent on a second monitor that I no longer feel productive without one. That can be a problem when I am away from my office. It is especially a problem when I travel and am hunkered down in a hotel room with important work to get done.

Then I discovered Duet Display, the app that turns your iPad into a monitor.

Get Your Head Out of the Sand.

07 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in Continuing Legal Education, Ethics Opinions, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Recent Links and Articles, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Technology

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Another Two States Adopt Ethical Duty of Technology Competence, by Robert Ambrogi, LawSites Blog

http://bit.ly/2b22uwA

Ambrogi includes a link to all states that have adopted an ethical duty of technology competence. My state is not yet one of them, but there is still no excuse.If your state has not yet adopted this ethical requirement, it is only a matter of time.

I know there are so much technology out there that it is hard to know exactly what you’re supposed to know and what you can pass by. But it’s your duty to find out, and not rely on staff to do it for you. -CCE

As I continue to track the states that have adopted the ethical duty of technology competence, I have two more to add, bringing the total to 23.

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Thomson Reuters Says Westlaw Has A “Glitch.” A Glitch?

16 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Case Law, Research, Westlaw

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Thomson Reuters Says Glitch Left Out Text from 600 Cases Since 2014, by Robert Ambrogi, Law Sites

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2016/04/thomson-reuters-says-left-text-600-cases-since-2014.html

Subscribers to Thomson Reuters Westlaw and hard-copy reporter volumes got a surprise last night: An email informing them that TR had erroneously omitted small portions of text from some 600 cases published since November 2014. . . .

The email said that none of the omissions ‘resulted in any change to the meaning of the law.’

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Casemaker and Fastcase – Why Can’t We All Get Along?

29 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Casemaker, FastCase, Research

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Casemaker Says It Won’t Fight Fastcase Lawsuit Over Georgia Law, by Robert Ambrogi, Law Sites Blog

http://bit.ly/1SvAAF3

Legal publisher Casemaker will not fight the lawsuit filed against it by Fastcase over copyright in Georgia law, its CEO David Harriman told me today. The company agrees that state law should not be subject to copyright and will not file an answer to Fastcase’s complaint, he said. That means that the court could enter a default judgment in Fastcase’s favor. . . .

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Yes, Lawyers Have An Ethical Duty Of Technology Competence.

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Rules of Professional Responsibility, Technology, Technology

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13 States Have Adopted Ethical Duty of Technology Competence, by Robert Ambrogi, Law Sites Blog

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2015/03/11-states-have-adopted-ethical-duty-of-technology-competence.html

If this standard has not yet hit your state, it is only a matter of time. If technology intimidates you, take a deep breath and jump in. I promise the water is nice and warm. As technology has evolved, it has become more intuitive, which makes it easier to learn.

Regardless of whatever excuse you use to avoid updating technology in your law office, you cannot avoid the requirement imposed by an ethical duty. It is not a question of whether your state’s bar association will adopt this standard – it’s when.

Paralegals and other legal support staff — same goes for us too. -CCE

[Update: It is now 14 states. See my 3/27/15 post on the rule’s adoption in Massachusetts.]

In 2012, something happened that I called a sea change in the legal profession: The American Bar Association formally approved a change to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct to make clear that lawyers have a duty to be competent not only in the law and its practice, but also in technology. . . .

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Non-Lawyers Practicing Law? Washington’s Limited License Legal Technician.

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Limited License Legal Technician Program, Paralegals/Legal Assistants, Regulation, Unauthorized Practice of Law

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Debating The Pros and Cons of Non-Lawyers Practicing Law, by Robert Ambrogi, Law Sites Blog

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2015/01/pros-cons-non-lawyers-practicing-law.html

As I noted here recently, I have an article in the current issue of the ABA Journal about the use of non-lawyers to help close the access to justice gap by allowing them to provide legal advice in limited circumstances. A particular focus of the article is Washington state’s limited license legal technician (LLLT) program.

The article prompted two posts last week at Above the Law that considered the pros and cons of allowing non-lawyers to practice law.

In the first, Can Nonlawyers Close The Access-To-Justice Gap?, Sam Wright, a ‘dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding-heart public interest lawyer,’ couldn’t quite decide how he feels about the idea. ‘It’s easy to see how this could be a win for low- and middle-income people who currently find themselves floundering in the access-to-justice gap,’ he writes. But then he goes on to say that it is ‘also easy to see how this could be a blow to the present-day legal profession with its hordes of underemployed lawyers’ and that it is ‘also easy to see how programs like Washington’s could do a poor job closing the access-to-justice gap.’ Wright’s bottom line is to take a wait-and-see position: ‘Regardless, the LLLT program is an interesting approach to a real problem, and I’ll be watching to see what comes of it.’

From everything I’ve learned about this issue, it is clear to me that this is not about displacing lawyers. The magnitude of the A2J gap is so enormous that lawyers can never close it alone. There could never be a sufficient level of pro bono or reduced-fee services to meet the needs. Study upon study has concluded that 80 to 90 percent of low and moderate income people with legal problems are unable to obtain legal representation. That is an enormous problem.

You may have noticed that, even with a glut of lawyers, the problem isn’t getting fixed. . . .

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iWrite Legal – Free iPhone App For Legal Writers.

26 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Apple, Apps, Editing, iPhones, Legal Technology, Legal Writing, Plain Language, Proofreading, Readability

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Can An iPhone App Improve Your Legal Writing?, by Robert Ambrogi, Law Sites Blog

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2013/03/can-an-iphone-app-improve-your-legal-writing.html

Can an iPhone app improve your legal writing? Kathleen Vinson thinks so. A professor of legal writing at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Vinson has developed iWrite Legal, a free iPhone app designed to help legal writers improve their writing skills.

The app consists of three sections — Legal Writing Tips, Legal Writing Checklist and Additional Resources — all aimed at providing advice and guidance on writing, editing and proofreading a legal document.

The first section, Legal Writing Tips, is simply that — a collection of tips, no doubt gleaned from Vinson’s own experience teaching legal writing. Each tip occupies its own screen, with a heading such as ‘Finding the Time to Write,’ ‘Be Consistent’ and ‘One Point at a Time,’ followed by a paragraph that elaborates on the point. For example, under the heading, ‘Writing Efficiently,’ the app offers this tip:

Do you feel that it is taking a long time to draft a document? Good writing takes time but often what slows writers down is trying to edit while you write. Don’t edit/revise while you write or stop to think of the perfect word. Write quickly and then once you have completed a draft, edit slowly. If you have to, cover the screen while you type so you can fight the urge to edit while you write.

The second part of the app consists of four legal writing checklists. They cover the initial stages of writing, revising, editing and proofreading. For example, the checklist for the initial stages of writing lists items such as, ‘What is the purpose of the document?’, ‘What relief do you want from the court?’ and ‘Why is your client entitled to this relief?’ As you satisfy yourself that you have covered each element, touch that element in the app to check it off.

The final component of the app, Additional Resources, simply provides links to the Suffolk Law Legal Practice Skills program’s Twitter feed, YouTube video and Legal Writing Tips podcasts.

So will this app make you a better writer? . . . .

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ABA Journal’s 2014 Top Ranked Law Blogs.

27 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by in Blogs, Law Office Management, Legal Blogs, Legal Technology

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Comparing The Top-Ranked Law Blogs To The ABA Blawg 100, by Robert Ambrogi, LawSites Blog

http://tinyurl.com/m72nj4p

Includes the ABA Journal’s Law Blawg Hall of Fame, which are no longer listed in its top 100 legal blawgs. Don’t worry. They’re not gone. They’ve just moved to a higher plane. -CCE

Jayne Navarre has an interesting post at her Virtual Marketing Officer blog in which she looks at how the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100 list lines up with the top-ranked law blogs generally. Her post underscores the vagaries in “top” lists of any kind. But her primary premise seems to be that the Blawg 100 list omits several outstanding law blogs, and that those blogs’ high rankings using other metrics validates her position that they should be included in the Blawg 100.

Sadly though, this year I note that a number of really outstanding law blogs, which had made prior years top 100, are now off the list. Out with the old, in with the new. Got me thinking. Have these once power house blogs been diminished? To cure my intellectual curiosity, I set off to find out: Does the Blawg 100 stack up to the top ranked law blogs?

To make her comparison, Jayne turns to the BlogRank list of the top 50 law blogs. This list ranks blogs using more than 20 different factors, including RSS subscribers; incoming links; Compete, Alexa and Technorati ranking; and popularity on social networking sites. . . .

ClearView Social App – Sharing Social Media or Spam?

24 Saturday May 2014

Posted by in Advertising, Law Firm Web Sites, Law Office Management, Legal Blogs, Technology

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Pseudo Social Sharing Isn’t Smart, It’s Spam, by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mkqjkpu

I have to admit I was taken aback by the premise of ClearView Social, the new app being developed by social marketing consultant Adrian Dayton. Targeted at medium and large firms, the app ‘helps attorneys more easily share content with their professional networks through LinkedIn, Twitter and other platforms,’ according to the press release last February.

That sounds harmless enough. But further reading reveals more about what the app does:

ClearView Social allows one person in the firm – for example, a designated marketer – to create a queue of content to be shared in an email template. When attorneys receive the email, they can click a link, which launches the application for sharing the content via various social media platforms, including LinkedIn and Twitter, which are integrated in the tool. This allows attorneys to share on those networks without leaving ClearView Social. It’s as easy as responding to an email.

So the app doesn’t actually help attorneys share content they find worthwhile. Rather, it makes the attorneys the conduits or redistributors of content someone else chooses to share. . . .

Law Student Invents App To Write Case Briefs.

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Apps, Case Briefs, Headnotes, iPad, IRAC, Legal Analysis, Legal Technology, Legal Writing

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‘BriefCase’ App Automates Creation of Case Briefs, by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites Blog

http://perma.cc/YXN4-HN3W

 

It will be interesting to see legal writing professors’ take on this. Please note that this App only works on iPads. -CCE

A third-year student at The University of Michigan Law School has created an iPad app, BriefCase, that automates the creation of case briefs.

The student, David Lutz, found it cumbersome to have to print out PDFs of cases, annotate them, and then type all the annotated information into a brief. The app lets you do all that on an iPad. (There are no iPhone or Android versions.) . . . .

Lexis Launches “Evidence Challenge” For Law Students.

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in eBooks, Evidence, LexisNexis

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It’s Game On for Lexis with Launch of ‘Evidence Challenge,’ posted by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambroi’s Law Sites

http://tinyurl.com/ngsud5p

Over the last two years, LexisNexis has been ramping up its library of ebooks, with a growing list of titles for both practitioners and law students. Law students, in particular, are key consumers of ebooks, Lexis says, citing statistics that say six in 10 college students prefer digital books over print. One of the advantages of an ebook over print is the ability to link interactive features that augment and enhance the core text.

That is what Lexis is aiming to do with Evidence Challenge, its new interactive role-playing game designed to help second- and third-year law students test their knowledge of evidence law. . . .

JD Supra Changes Its Name and Scope.

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Appellate Law, United States Supreme Court

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 New Tagline for JD Supra Underscores Business Focus, by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambrogi’s Law Sites

 http://tinyurl.com/kvpd6yc

Without any fanfare, JD Supra changed its tagline last month, to ‘JDSupra Business Advisor.’ The move emphasizes the company’s evolution from a simple aggregator of law-related content to a publisher, distributor and curator focused on delivering legal information to the business world.

“Hercules and the Umpire” and Other Judges’ Blogs.

04 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in Judges

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Federal Judge Hangs Up His Blogging Robes, by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambrogi’s Law Sites

http://tinyurl.com/ktmc7dd

Last summer, Law Technology News published my article, Blogging From the Bench, in which I surveyed the fairly paltry number of judges who blog. In a subsequent post here, I added more blogging judges.

Prominently featured in the LTN piece was Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf, who last February launched the blog Hercules and the Umpire and quickly found notoriety when he published a post in which he declared, ‘A lot of what the Supreme Court does is simply irrelevant to what federal trial judges do on a daily basis.’

Yesterday, after writing 416 posts in the last year that generated some 425,000 page views and 3,700 comments, Judge Kopf announced the end of his blog.

Robert Ambrogi’s Most Popular 2013 Posts

02 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Adobe Acrobat, Clouds, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Social Media, Using Social Media

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My Most Popular Posts of 2013, by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambrogi’s Web Sites

http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2013/12/popular-posts-2013.html

Use Wickr To Send Encrypted Information On iOs And Android Phones

05 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Android Phones, Cell Phones, Confidentiality, Emails, iPhones, Legal Technology

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Send Secure, Self-Destructing Messages with Wickr, by Robert Ambrogi at Robert Ambrogi’s Web Sites

http://bit.ly/HEj6aw

Lawyers have an ethical obligation to protect the confidentiality and security of communications with their clients. The more we learn about NSA snooping, the more we realize what a challenge that can be.

Named “The Best Legal Blogs of 2013” – so far. . . .

26 Saturday Oct 2013

Posted by in Law Office Management, Legal Blogs

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Although I think it is too soon to call it, these blogs have been named, to date, the top legal blogs for 2013. Some great blogs may be missing, but everything here deserves the title. There are many top-notch regional or special legal area blogs deserving of high recognition regardless of whether they make a national list. Even though the ABA will not announce its list of the top 100 blogs until later this year, my guess is that the majority listed below will no doubt will make the cut.

Best Law Blogs of 2013, by Andrew Cabasso, JurisPage Blog
http://bit.ly/1cjRpkz

Top 30 Law Blogs of 2013, By Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog
http://bit.ly/1hjv0Uj

BlawgWorld Rounds Up the Best of Legal Blogs, by Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites
http://bit.ly/1dWBxoQ

If you are interested, the ABA’s choice picks for 2012, posted December 1, 2012, were:

6th Annual ABA Journal Blawg 100 (a correction has been made to this story), by Molly McDonough, Sarah Randag, and Lee Rawles
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/6th_annual_blawg_100

Two Trial Masters, F. Lee Bailey and Kenneth Fishman, Share Tips on Cross-Examination

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Cross-Examination, Trial Tips and Techniques

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F. Lee Bailey and Kenneth Fishman on Excellence in Cross-Examination, by Robert Ambrogi, Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites
http://bit.ly/17fFhza