Recently in Web 2.0 Category

This post was written by Connie Crosby: "Three weeks ago I spoke on a panel at the Legal IT 4.0 conference in Montreal. I spoke alongside Olivier Charbonneau of Concordia University and Michel Gamache of Heenan Blaikie in Montreal; we explored the role of Web 2.0 and whether it is becoming a threat to legal knowledge.

In my part of the presentation, I took on the idea that Richard Susskind put forward in his 2008 book The End of Lawyers? whether the work of lawyers will be replaced by non-lawyer people supported by sophisticated Web 2.0 systems.

Is Web 2.0 a Threat to Legal Knowledge? -- Legal Services via the Internet

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Source: Connie Crosby, 17 May 2010, reproduced with permission of the author.

Article by Jonathan S. Goodgold: "Case law coming down throughout not only New Jersey, but across the nation, on both the state and federal levels, are just beginning to touch on the employment ramifications of Web 2.0. While most of the cases reported have not yet encompassed the differences between employee-owned versus employer-issued computers, PDAs, BlackBerrys, etc., they are important for policies and notices given to employees about what activity is considered improper and what activity could be punishable by up to and including termination."

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Source: Law Technology News, 18 March 2010

In the news: "In order to protect brands and trademarks, brand owners should plan to conduct regular assessments of available social networking and Web 2.0 sites, with an eye to determining their popularity with the brand's target consumers and the ease of using these sites for infringement purposes."

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Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 1 December 2009. Copyright 2008.  ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.

Posted by Randall Ryder: "Maybe you have not considered the power of "the internets" or "the Google," but even lawyers can use viral videos as a marketing tool.

Ten years ago, few people would have thought potential clients would search for attorneys on the internet rather than the phone book. Trying something unique may not always succeed, but it does allow you to reach out in ways that most firms will not consider. [click to continue...]

Read more from Lawyerist:

• Target (and Get) the Clients You Want
• Use Google Local Business Center to Attract Clients
• Marketing Malpractice Means Not Having a Website

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Lawyerist.com, 18 November 2009

Posted by Connie Crosby: "Still doubtful about video as a marketing vehicle? A few recent milestones from YouTube, the leading site for video distribution, be it entertainment-related or professional:

• as of October, YouTube is now up to over a billion views each day
• as of May, at least 20 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute
• Increased high definition (HD) resolution is coming to YouTube starting this week.  1080p HD will be the new maximum resolution, up from the previous 720p HD. This is in response to the increasing resolution of consumer cameras.  See the blog post for comparative examples.  

For more discussion about law firm marketing and YouTube, check out this March 2009 blog post by Larry Bodine."

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Source: Slaw.ca, 16 November 2009

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi: "A new video site wants to play matchmaker for lawyers and clients. The idea behind LegalTube is to help potential clients find the right lawyer by letting them view videos of the lawyers discussing themselves and their areas of practice.

"LegalTube is the only legal directory where finding a lawyer or the answers to your law-related questions is as easy as channel surfing," the site promises. "It's a way to connect attorneys and potential clients by offering 'face time' in the comfort of your living room."

The site is just getting started and has only a handful of videos, from what I could see. Search for a personal injury lawyer in California and there is only one video, for a firm in Newport Beach. The same search for Texas yields just two firms, each with one video. For most states, the search turns up no firms or videos. Instead, potential clients are invited to fill out a form and have LegalTube arrange for an attorney to respond

Another section of the site is designed to feature videos of lawyers answering common legal questions. Again, there is not much here yet. The PI section has two Q&A videos, both from the same Alabama lawyer. Most other sections had no videos, just a message saying that the section has "no Expert Q&A" yet. 

It isn't all business at LegalTube. The site includes three sections of videos described as "arresting entertainment": Law Laughs, in which lawyers tell lawyer jokes and relate courtroom bloopers; Law Tales, where lawyers tell "strange but true stories" from their practices; and Law After Dark, described as "our original webisode reality series that follows night court judges and the very real cases they encounter." The three episodes posted so far show what appears to be an actual night court judge in Alabama as he confronts such situations as a man who wore shorts to court and a woman who can't seem to understand why she shouldn't drive without a license. 

Although there is not much here yet, it certainly makes sense for lawyer directories to match videos with profiles. Videos let potential clients get a sense of the lawyer in a way that simple text never could. Plenty of lawyers have already discovered this with videos on YouTube. Take those YouTube-style videos and arrange them by city, state and practice area, and you could have something useful for consumers. This site is not there yet, but it might be heading in the right direction."

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Source: Legal Blog Watch, 29 September 2009

From the e-newsletter: "Whether it's LinkedIn or Legal OnRamp, Twitter or del.icio.us, Web 2.0 is very quickly transforming the way law firms market themselves and their attorneys."

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Source: FindLaw's Practice Paper. 22 July 2009 Copyright © 2008 FindLaw, a Thomson Business. Subscribe <http://newsletters.findlaw.com/>.

From the blog: "If you have not already heard, the U.S. Courts offer podcasts on news and federal rulemaking. Some of the latest news podcasts cover a jury phone scam and new sentences for crack cocaine. The rulemaking podcasts are recordings of meetings on proposed amendments to federal rules, including proposed changes to Federal Civil Rule 56."

In the news: "Today's law students are more proficient in technology and organic self-marketing than most law firms realize. In a down market when everyone must increase their business development, consultant Ari Kaplan advises you harness that talent to increase your firm's Web 2.0 presence."

Topics discussed include: LinkedIn, FaceBook, opitmizing Google visibility and blogging.

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Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 11 June 2009. Copyright 2008.  ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.

Posted by Sabrina Pacifici: "Navigating the Enterprise 2.0 Highway: Heather Colman provides an overview of Hicks Morley's implementation of ThoughtFarmer, an Enterprise 2.0/wiki style intranet platform, one year ago. Despite a few growing pains, she describes how the application was successful at meeting the primary objectives to decentralize content updates and increase knowledge sharing and collaboration within the firm.

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Source: beSpacific - Accurate, focused law and technology news by Sabrina I. Pacifici. 27 May 2009 Copyright ©2002-2009. BeSpacific LLC. All Rights Reserved. Subscribe <http://www.bespacific.com/mt/subscribe.html>.