Stark County Law Library Weblog

Publication Notice

2010-09-02T18:38:29Z

Thursday postings will be made in the late afternoon. My apologies to those who read the blog on thier lunch hour.

Nancy

"Getting Back to Sleep When Work Is on Your Mind"

2010-09-02T18:37:10Z

In the news: "In her former law practice, consultant Debra Bruce had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night with thoughts of work, which she didn't mind, unless she couldn't get back to sleep for hours. For others with the same habit, she has some tips to help them get back to sleep quickly."

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"Find Your Passion: Get Involved in Your Community"

2010-09-02T18:35:14Z

This post was written by Cordell Parvin: "Many of you are like me in that you went to law school with the idea that as a lawyer you would be able to help people and make a difference in your community. Then you started your law practice with a firm and rarely have the feeling that you are actually helping people and making a difference in your community. So you look for non-billable ways to get involved..."

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"I Did The Work... Now What?"

2010-09-02T18:33:06Z

This post was written by Julie A. Fleming: "You've put in your dues. You've worked hard to become the accomplished lawyer you are now, and you have all manner of credentials that demonstrate your expertise. You've worked with a variety of organizations and individuals, you've written articles and book chapters, and you may even have served a turn teaching.

How can you leverage all of that activity to build relationships so you can bring in more business? The answers to that question are as varied as the number of people who might ask. The four ideas I share here will form the springboard for what you decide to do..."

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Source: Life at the Bar, 24 August 2010. © Life at the Bar LLC Blog, reproduced with permission of the author.

"Cleaning Files from Hard Drives"

2010-09-02T18:29:45Z

This post was written by David Canton: "Most of us realize that merely deleting a file doesn't really remove it from the hard drive or other storage media it resides on. (For some background on this issue see a post I wrote a while back.)

Given how we use digital devices today - both for work and personal use - we can't just abandon this issue to our firm IT staff..."

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Source: Slaw.ca, 1 September 2010. Reproduced with permission of Simon Fodden, founder of Slaw.

"Guest Post :: How to Choose Between a Book, a Kindle, and an iPad (Part Three)"

2010-09-02T18:27:23Z

This is a guest post was written by Larry Port: "In April, when the iPad came out, I offered to conduct an experiment for Ben Stevens' The Mac Lawyer blog. The plan: read a traditional book, a second on a Kindle, and a third on an iPad, then write about it. Over the past year I'd been used to reading primarily on my Kindle and the occasional tree-based book, and was interested in figuring out the new publishing terrain once and for all.

Part 3: The iPad Book: The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane

A big thanks is in order to Dennis Lehane, who wrote one of the best and most compelling novels I've read in years, if not ever. The Given Day is a book so gripping and phenomenal, I was able to read it on an iPad without succumbing to sweet Internet temptations lurking just beyond the home button on the gorgeous device..."

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"Legal Blogs Are Dead! Long Live Legal Blogs!"

2010-09-02T18:22:21Z

In the news: "Attorney Robert J. Ambrogi heard that blogs are dead in the legal profession. Indeed, he declares legal blogging alive, well and thriving. Since the future is foretold by the new, Ambrogi highlights recently launched blogs, all of which show continuing vitality in the blawgosphere."

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"An Inside Look at the 2010 Civil Litigation Conference at Duke Law School"

2010-09-02T18:20:36Z

Podcast description from the website: "The 2010 Civil Litigation Conference at Duke Law School inspired a lot of chatter on the e-discovery wires. On this edition of Digital Detectives, co-hosts Sharon D. Nelson, Esq.,President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc. and John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, welcome Magistrate Judge David J. Waxse from Kansas, to reflect on the conference. They look at conference highlights including: the future of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, clarifying the standards regarding governing the preservation of electronically stored information and next steps for the Federal Rules Advisory Committee.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Applied Discovery

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:47 -- 13.6MB)

Related Podcasts

July 27, 2010 -- Decade of E-Discovery, Compliance Challenges & Privacy
July 8, 2010 -- Lawyers as Project Managers
June 30, 2010 -- Law Firms as a Data Collection Business?
June 18, 2010 -- Early Case Assessment, Cost Savings & Privilege Problems
May 13, 2010 -- Recall and Precision in Legal Search"

Active links and podcast are available at the source site listed below.

"Use Gmail for More Than E-Mail"

2010-09-02T18:18:25Z

This post was written by Randall Ryder: "Right after I wrote a post about enhancing Gmail's usefulness, they added more goodness.

Now you can make phone calls from Gmail without a Google Voice number. You can also download a free extension called Rapportive that shows the email sender's digital profile..."

Continue reading this interesting post and reach the active links by clicking on the author's name.

"Google Launches Gmail Priority Inbox"

2010-09-01T14:13:20Z

This post was written by Connie Crosby: "Yesterday the Twitter was awash with messages about this revolutionary new Gmail Priority Inbox. The beta version just arrived in my email, and have to say that I am already in love with it. Essentially what it does is bring new, unopened, important messages to the top, then lists those messages that are "starred" (which I have flagged with a star), and then lists everything else. It learns which are important messages over time depending on which are opened and which are responded to. In other words, its accuracy gets better over time..."

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Source: Slaw.ca, 31 August 2010. Reproduced with permission of Simon Fodden, founder of Slaw.

"New Features from Google Docs"

2010-09-01T14:12:45Z

This post was written by Tom Mighell: "Want to grab the text from a PDF and throw it into a Google Doc? Well, now you can. When you upload PDF files to Google Docs, you'll now have the ability to convert text from PDFs or even images and store the text in a Google Docs document. It's not a perfect process, and there are definitely more efficient ways of doing this if you have to OCR (many people have turned the term Optical Character Recognition into a verb) a large number of documents."

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Source: Inter Alia, 31 August 2010, reproduced with permission of the author.

"Project Management (Part 14): The power of checklists"

2010-09-01T14:11:15Z

This post was written by Jim Hassett: "In the business bestseller The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande makes a powerful case for the value of this simple project management tool.

As the book jacket notes, "The volume and complexity of knowledge today has exceeded our ability as individuals to properly deliver it to people - consistently, correctly, and safely." Checklists can solve this problem by addressing two problems that every busy expert faces: "The first is the fallibility of human memory and attention, especially when it comes to mundane routine matters that are easily overlooked under the strain of more pressing events....[The second] is that people can lull themselves into skipping steps, even when they remember them" (p. 36).

The book gives examples of the power of checklists ranging from flying the B-17 bomber (p. 34) to building skyscrapers (p. 54). Since Gawande is an endocrine surgeon at the Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, many of his examples relate to hospitals. The most compelling story in the book describes a medical procedure commonly performed in intensive care units..."

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Source: Legal Business Development, 1 September 2010, reproduced with permission of the author.

"When to Return a Client's Fee"

2010-09-01T14:08:56Z

This post was written by Allison Shields: "A lawyer recently faced a situation in which she had agreed to represent a client at a hearing, had collected the fee in advance and made arrangements to meet the client at another location before the hearing. The lawyer prepared for the hearing and went to the agreed-upon meeting place, but the client did not show up. Later, the lawyer learned that the client went directly to the hearing before the scheduled hearing time and handled it themselves. Then the client requested that the lawyer return the fee.

Should the fee be returned?..."

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"Discover the Client's Need, Before Selling the Solution"

2010-09-01T14:07:14Z

This post was written by Tom Kane: "Doesn't every lawyer do that? Well maybe not so much. Sometimes professionals are too busy talking about the solution to a problem they assume the client has, when in fact the client may not even recognize they have a problem. In other words, you can't solve a problem that the client doesn't know exists.

So the key, according to marketing guru Seth Godin, is that you must sell the problem before you sell the solution..."

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Source: Legal Marketing Blog.com, 31 August 2010, reproduced with permission of the author

"Social Networking Use Exploding in Age Groups Targeted by Law Firms for Business Development"

2010-09-01T14:05:18Z

This post was written by Kevin O'Keefe: "Law firms dismissing social networking as an effective means of enhancing relationships with their clients, prospective clients, and referral sources because they don't these folks use online social networks ought to think again.

Social networking use (LinkedIn and Facebook) among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled--from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010 pursuant to a survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project..."

Continue reading this interesting post and reach the active link by clicking on the author's name.