Category «Legal Profession»

Law Librarians Flinch At Change? Can’t Say That I Agree With You David

Greg Lambert eloquently gives voice to truth which has been delivered through action by many fellow professionals throughout the course of our respective (some decades long) careers – we are not “gatekeepers” nor do we impede the purchase and distribution of innovative, subject matter focused, effective, forward moving technologies, services and resources within our respective organizations. To the contrary, change and disruption are often associated with the work of law librarians, knowledge managers and research professionals in firms.

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Subjects: KM, Law Librarians, Legal Education, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Legal Research Training, Legal Technology, Libraries & Librarians

Pain Science and the Administration of Justice

Ken Strutin’s article is a survey of legal scholarship and medical research concerning the study of pain and its significance for the administration of civil and criminal justice. The complexity of pain’s impact on each individual’s life is increasingly relevant in the context of the administration of civil and criminal justice. Strutin’s subject matter expertise in issues of law and justice is further articulated in this this article as he undertakes a timely review of an increasingly relevant issue that impacts the lives of defendants and complainants alike.

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Subjects: Criminal Law, Human Rights, Legal Ethics, Medical Research, Publishing & Publishers (Legal)

Global Skills for U.S. JD Students

This article by Theresa Kaiser-Jarvis, Assistant Dean for International Affairs, University of Michigan Law School, discusses a pivotal issue that represents an increasingly significant development in the practice of law in the United States. Kaiser-Jarvis shines a bright light on the skills, knowledge and abilities that are now required of attorneys as the business world becomes less focused on the United States. She supports the position that as law firms search for new revenue streams and as American internal demographics become more diverse, we can expect that all U.S. lawyers will eventually need to be prepared for global practice.

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Subjects: Business Research, Comparative/Foreign Law, Competitive Intelligence, International Legal Research, Job Hunting, Legal Education, Legal Profession, Legal Research

The Mediachain Project: Developing a Global Creative Rights Database Using Blockchain Technology

Alan Rothman’s article focuses on a creative, innovative effort to deploy the blockchain as a form of global registry of creative works ownership – specifically a global rights database for images. The co-founders of a new metadata protocol they call the Mediachain enables creators working in digital media to write data describing their work along with a timestamp directly onto the blockchain. The implications of this technology impact multiple sectors such as: legal, financial, libraries, museums and archives, and social media.

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Subjects: Copyright, Job Hunting

The Growing Need to Standardize and Validate Online Education Credentials for the Job Market

Learning new skills to support more effective engagement in a competitive job market has attracted many job seekers and employees to online education, most often through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Alan Rothman is proficient in the arena of e-learning and expands the discussion of what courses are available to how they are accredited and subsequently whether they are recognized by potential employers.

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Subjects: Continuing Legal Education, Distance Learning, Internet Resources, Job Hunting, KM, Training, Web-Based Training

New Job De-/script/-ions for Attorneys with Coding and Tech Business Skills

Alan Rothman discusses the growing interest in and need for attorneys who have degrees and skills from another field that serves client requirements, previously focused on areas such as engineering, business and medicine. Already well established in professions that include journalism and economics, the legal arena is increasingly embracing the skills and value added work product associated with technical coding. This is reflected in new course offerings in advanced degree programs as well as in job positions that focus on data management and data analytics.

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Subjects: Continuing Legal Education, Legal Education, Legal Marketing, Legal Profession, Legal Research Training, Recruiting, Technology Trends, Training

Animal Rights on the Road to Personhood

Ken Strutin’s paper addresses a seminal issue that has been an integral part of the personal and collective ethic of diverse peoples around the world. As Strutin states, when life is classified biologically, it is also defined legally. Thus is formed the tension between the natural and juridical worlds. Whether animal rights can ever fall within the ambit of personhood will depend as much on the findings of cognitive science as on the evolution of legal remedies. Indeed, the foundations for nonhuman personhood are being laid in a growing body of litigation and scholarship at the borderlands of science and civil justice.

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Subjects: Animals and the Law, Ethics, Human Rights, Legal Ethics, Legal Research

Cut and Paste Opinions: A Turing Test for Judicial Decision-Making

Ken Strutin argues that cut-and-paste is a laudable method for reducing transcription errors in copying citations and quotations. However, he identifies that a problem arises when it is used to lift verbatim sections of a party’s arguments into a case decision. Stipulations and proposed orders from counsel for both parties might be enviable and practicable, but judgment and fact-finding are solely in the province of the court. This has been a long standing issue that has spanned technologies from shears and paste-pot to typewriters and computers, and which might culminate in a Turing Test for case law.

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Subjects: Case Management, Court Resources, Courts & Technology, KM, Legal Profession

NY bar on ethics of cloud computing again

Nicole Black lauds the the leading edge role taken by the New York State Bar in determining issues related to lawyer use of cloud computing and client confidential data. In two different opinions handed down in the latter half of this year, the New York Bar committee reaffirmed the applicability of the longstanding duty of due diligence when assessing the security of third party service providers, explaining that a lawyer must assess whether the technology offers reasonable protections against disclosure and must also take reasonable precautions when using technology.

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Subjects: Legal Ethics
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