JD Scoop

Recently the Electronic Privacy Information Center joined the ranks at JD Supra. To learn more about this public interest group, please visit their profile page. One of EPIC's first posted documents was a Complaint for Injunctive Relief challenging the Federal Trade Commission in its actions to do with the Google-Doubleclick merger (for more details, download the document here.) The Complaint was tagged as newsworthy and as a result appeared in our Hot Document section - JD Supra's media source of the latest newsworthy filings (also available via RSS feed).

Within two hours of uploading, Executive Director Marc Rotenberg was on the phone with someone from the National Law Journal, who had found the Complaint on JD Supra. (We learned this from Mr. Rotenberg, who emailed us a note of thanks.) The result: a mention in the NLJ's IN BRIEF for March 24, 2008, titled "Suit centers on possible conflict in Google deal." (The piece is available here with paid NLJ subscription.)

That, in a nutshell, is JD Supra's Hot Documents section at work. If you are uploading something that deserves media attention, we encourage you to tag it as a "Hot Document."  And, before you prepare document summaries with the media in mind, be sure to read Jordan Furlong's writing tips on the subject. Give content. Get noticed.

Tomorrow: Content marketing with consumers in mind. What's the real question you should be asking yourself?

JD Supra is happy to announce the arrival of two new contributors, each a luminary in the legal marketing field and, despite the following short biographies, really in no need of an introduction:

Often described as the grandfather (and godfather) of Internet legal marketing, Gregory Siskind is the founder of Siskind Susser Bland, one of the largest immigration law firms in North America. He is also a co-founder of Visalaw International - the Global Immigration Law Alliance - and works with many of the world's top immigration specialists assisting companies and individuals to relocate anywhere in the world. Mr. Siskind is the very definition of an early adapter and has leveraged the power of content marketing via online technologies for more than a decade. The Siskind Susser Bland site, launched in June, 1994, "was the first immigration law firm web site and one of the very first law firm web sites in any category." The firm was also the first to distribute their newsletters using listserv and one the first to serve clients via Internet voice and video conferencing. Mr. Siskind is the author of, among other publications, The Lawyers Guide to Marketing on the Internet. You can read his blog here.

Bruce W. Marcus is a pioneer in law firm and professional services marketing. He is the publisher and editor of the online publication The Marcus Letter and the blog, The Marcus Perspective. His writing has appeared in major business, professional, and financial publications, and he has been a regular columnist for several Microsoft industry pages. Mr. Marcus has been a speech writer for many of the Fortune 500 companies, and major national political figures, including Robert Kennedy and Senator Jacob Javits, and was the author of a major report for President Carter. As a marketing consultant and strategic market planner, he has served a diversified clientele that includes most of the Big Four accounting firms and their predecessors, and many major law firms. It is always an extraordinary pleasure to read precise thinking well captured by precise writing - Mr. Marcus typifies the very best of such precision. Be careful: start with just one of his excellent newsletters (available here) and you will find yourself sucked in and thoroughly enjoying them all.

[The above passages borrow language from their respective JD Supra profiles, as well as www.visalaw.com.]

Content marketing is not the wave of the future - it is the essential marketing tool of the present  - and JD Supra contributors are on the crest of this wave.

As Joe Pulizzi reports,"Marketing today is all about publishing":

Leading marketing organizations such as IBM and Siemens are focusing the majority of their time, attention and resources on the creation and distribution of their own content to customers and prospects .

. . . By providing this type of content marketing and setting up the building blocks for a long-term relationship, the opportunity is now available to actually sell your solutions, because they trust you, have a stake in your brand, and believe in your solutions-oriented message.

The whole idea of this, even ten years ago, would seem like the hard way to increase sales. Today, it's the only way.

Just yesterday, Brian Ritchey of More Partner Income also wrote about the increasing role of substantive content provision in business marketing, and the importance of "information-driven business development for law firms" (the post does not seem to be available today). While Brian primarily focused on blogs, the leading marketing organizations are not only blogging, they are creating "relevant and compelling content consistently, and in multiple formats" and syndicating that content on other websites.

The best news of all - unlike IBM and Siemens, we don't need to expend enormous resources to create compelling content - as lawyers, our product is content, and with JD Supra, it is easier than ever to get that content in front of prospective clients in a way they can easily access.

Here's a roundup of some of the newest members of the legal community to join JD Supra. We're proud to say that they create a wonderfully diverse group:

Electronic Privacy Information Center - a public interest research center in Washington, D.C., established in 1994 to focus attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values and to promote the Public Voice in decisions concerning the future of the Internet.

Immigration Legal Counsel, LLC - the firm's president, Sonia Munoz, is a multi-lingual attorney admitted to the Florida Bar with experience in litigation and legal counsel, research and writing in both the private sector and the judicial system. Ms. Munoz has worked as a political analyst with top secret clearance from the CIA; resided and worked in the European Union and for the International Court of The Hague; co-authored a bench book regarding International law and its application and effects on domestic hearings. Barred in several courts.

Hodes, Pessin & Katz, P.A. - with offices in Towson, Columbia, Bel Air, Bethesda and Cambridge, Maryland, HPK’s attorneys are experienced in more than twenty practice areas including corporate law, litigation, environmental, insurance and wealth preservation, to employment, elder law, real estate, white collar criminal defense, and intellectual property and patent law.

Kimbro Legal Services, LLC - a completely virtual law office powered by Virtual Law Office Technology (VLOTECH). The technology is a secure, hosted, software as a service (SaaS) application. Focuses on estate planning, small business assistance and some family law services. Principal: Stephanie Kimbro.

 Melody A. Kramer - Ms. Kramer began her career as Deputy Public Defender in rural Columbus, Nebraska, but soon returned to Lincoln to open her own law firm specializing in criminal defense, juvenile law, and general civil litigation. Never deterred by seeming impossibilities, Ms. Kramer has taken on challenging, sometimes seemingly unwinable cases, with a marked level of success. (Co-founder of the National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals.)

Amal Law Group,  LLC - an Illinois-based law firm law founded (and run) by six Muslim women with diverse ethnic backgrounds including African American, Arab, South Asian and European American. Areas of practice include civil rights,commercial law & contracts , family law, immigration law, real estate, estate planning, and more.


To our latest and members and all of you we say, again: thank you for participating!

One of our newest contributors, the Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC"), is sharing some very Scoop-worthy filings, including the complaint it filed today seeking documents about the federal government's role in an effort to limit accountability of state "Fusion Centers."   According to EPIC, the Virginia Fusion Center is  a database that collects detailed information on ordinary citizens. The Virginia legislature is considering a bill that would limit Virginia's open government and privacy statutes, as well as Virginia's common law right of privacy, for Virginia agencies connected to the Fusion Center - thereby shrouding it in secrecy.

EPIC  had previously submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Virginia State Police for records relating to the Fusion Center.  EPIC's FOIA request focused on the possible role of the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Homeland Security in the development of the Virginia legislation. The Virginia State Police refused to comply with the request, apparently on the grounds that these documents (correspondence and communications between the Police Department and the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice about e.g. the Fusion Center's funding and development) were "relevant to the identification of criminal activity" among other things.

Sign up to JD Supra's RSS Feed for simultaneous access to new filings as this case progresses, and visit EPIC's Information Fusion Centers and Privacy page to learn more about Fusion Centers and the work that EPIC is doing.

In a recent post, Steve Matthews showed how The Scoop section on JD Supra creates an excellent opportunity for you to showcase your work directly to the media.

Indeed, we built The Scoop specifically to generate media attention for our contributors and to give reporters and editors hot leads on new stories with a steady supply of "buzzworthy" legal documents, filings, and decisions before they're available anywhere else. This fresh source of legal news even has its own RSS feed.

Any JD Supra member can include a document in The Scoop by designating it as "Hot" during the posting process (on the document upload page). But if you do plan on participating, please start by reading these extraordinarily helpful writing tips, put together for the JD Supra community by lawyer and legal journalist Jordan Furlong.  "Think like a reporter." That's Mr. Furlong's first tip (and he would know: currently he serves as editor-in-chief of the Canadian Bar Association's magazine, National, and writes a blog at http://law21.ca). Additional tips (example: "Don't write like a lawyer") and samples of excellent document summaries are available for your consideration here.

We're thrilled and grateful that a member the legal media would not only be excited by The Scoop but go so far as to contribute writing tips to make it more useful and usable for his journalist colleagues. Thank you, Jordan Furlong.

[Stay tuned for an upcoming round-up of recent Scoops.]

JD Supra contributor, Patrick Barone, has been steadily posting filings, decisions, and articles related to his specialty - drunk driving litigation. Today, he posted the March 17, 2008 decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court in the case of State v. Chun. The Court held that the Alcotest was a scientifically reliable way to test alcohol levels for prosecution of defendants under New Jersey's drunk driving laws, and that its results were admissible in court, though the machine contained certain errors that required correction. While Mr. Barone is not involved in this litigation, he is friendly with the lawyers involved - and is certainly an expert on the scientific issues surrounding alcohol level testing.

Mr. Barone received an undergraduate degree in Science and Biology. After law school, he worked as a medical malpractice defense attorney, but then turned his attention to drunk driving defense. According to Mr. Barone, his scientific background enables him to better represent his clients, as drunk driving prosecutions are often rife with troubling scientific issues. These issues are not limited to breath tests but include, among other things, the ankle bracelet known as SCRAM, which purports to measure  alcohol levels through skin perspiration. Mr. Barone will be lecturing on this device at the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association's 15th Annual "Mastering Scientific Evidence in DWI/DUI Cases" on March 27, 2008.

For more information about Patrick Barone, peruse his JD Supra profile and documents, and visit his website.
 

Greetings again from the floor of the ABA TechShow in Chicago, where earlier I had the pleasure of meeting Jordan Furlong, in his own words: "a lawyer and legal journalist specializing in law practice innovation, legal business trends, and the changing landscape of the legal profession." (He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Bar Association's magazine National; you can keep up with his blog at http://law21.ca.)

Look for an upcoming article he kindly wrote for us - for you, really - regarding ways to craft posts to JD Supra's "The Scoop" section specifically with journalists in mind. I hope Jordan doesn't mind me sharing this funny story: apparently when he arrived at the TechShow and saw the JD Supra logo on all of our name tags, he assumed they belonged to employees. "That person works at JD Supra," he thought. "And that person. And that person" And so on.

Took him a while to realize JD Supra had sponsored the lanyard. I am here, though, and I most certainly do work for JD Supra. Next year we'll have a booth. In the meantime, if you are hoping to meet for a tour of our service or just a conversation, please feel free to call me directly on my cell phone (415-209-4138).

And if the ABA sponsorship has brought you to JD Supra, I say: welcome, thanks for visiting! I know you don't work for us, but we most certainly can work for you. Please join us!

I am running from one great event to another, here in Chicago at the ABA TechShow 2008, which is jam-packed with presentations by some of the greatest minds in legal technology today. 

I just attended the fascinating keynote address by Marc Rotenberg, entitled "Who's Watching You? A Conversation About Privacy on the Internet."  Marc is the Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which is doing great work to protect our right to privacy.

Among the interesting topics discussed (and on which EPIC has often taken a stand):

• Government efforts not only to track existing information about individuals, but also to create new tracking methods such as the ability to follow an individual's movements in public spaces - through surveillance combined with face recognition technology (spooky).

• Warrantless border searches of laptops and, worse yet, "body imaging" by the TSA and Homeland Security - which, in the process of going through our airline security checkpoints, essentially captures a nude digital image of fully dressed individuals without their knowledge, that can be shown on any PC compatible device.

• The ability (or lack thereof) to remove your personal data from social networking sites. According to Marc, site operators may make it increasingly possible to remove this data - which heretofore has been difficult to achieve. But, of course, there are also sites that aggregate this data from other sources, and may not allow you to remove it. (As an aside: JD Supra's Terms give every contributor the right to remove their content from the site in the unlikely event they wish to do so and prohibit unauthorized use of the site content by third parties.)

I had an opportunity to speak with Marc after his presentation - and hopefully, EPIC will be sharing some of its great work in the law with all of us on JD Supra, soon :)

JD Supra is a proud sponsor of the ABA TechShow 2008.

It's going to be a great event. Aside from the all-star list of speakers and programs,  you won't want to miss the ABA TechShow After Dark on Thursday night, or Beer for Bloggers on Friday night. 

I'll be there. Shoot me an e-mail if you want to meet up; or find me in the crowd. From my JD Supra profile, here is what I look like:




See you at the show,
Aviva

Marc Stern recently wrote that JD Supra takes lawyer marketing into the 21st century. Well, there's no question that our contributors live and work in the here-and-now. Just look at these smart (one might even say hip) profile portraits for proof of that:







Not your grandfather's legal directory.

[From top left to bottom right, these JD Supra members are: Scott Riddle, Ekaterina Schoenefeld, Connie Crosby, Dan Canon, Faith L. Charles, Robert Chilvers, Janet H. Moore, and Lisa Solomon.]

When Seattle Center implemented rules prohibiting park performers from engaging in free speech activities without first obtaining a permit, and limiting the locations in which they could perform,  sole practitioner and JD Supra contributor Elena Garella stepped in. The District Court agreed with Elena and local performer, Magic Mike, that these rules violated the First Amendment on their face, but the 9th Circuit reversed.  Elena has now petitioned for rehearing en banc, and is hopeful the Court will grant her petition as it almost immediately requested that the City file a response.

This case, posted as a JD Supra Scoop, caught my attention. I was intrigued by the contrast between this decision (which involved a physical public forum and the right of individuals to avoid speech activities by others) and the ruling in the WikLeak's case, also posted in the Scoop (which involved the virtual public forum of the Internet and the right of individuals to have access to speech).

But, as I looked at the brief something else caught my eye: the significance of a sole practitioner embroiled in a multi-year constitutional case for a client with limited resources, and the presence of Davis Wright Tremaine attorneys on Elena's petition. I telephoned Elena to learn more.  She explained that First Amendment cases give her a lot of satisfaction - she takes them when she is moved by a client's story. Her complete discretion to take these kind of cases is one of the things she cherishes most about her solo practice. Nevertheless, such cases can be taxing. 

So, when the 9th Circuit reversed the district court's ruling, and an attorney at Davis Wright Tremaine contacted Elena and offered the assistance of their First Amendment experts, pro bono, Elena gladly accepted. The collaboration, according to Elena, has been a very positive experience.

Kudos to Elena for pursuing her passion, and to Davis Wright Tremaine for sharing their expertise  pro bono in support of a cause in which they believe.

Can publication of confidential and allegedly forged bank records justify shutting down an entire website? Apparently not - thanks to EFF and other public interest groups.

Yesterday, Judge Jeffrey S. White dissolved an injunction that locked the wikileaks.org domain name and disabled the WikiLeaks website. Among the most interesting aspects of this decision:

1. EFF and other public interest organizations intervened as the sole champions of users' First Amendment rights (and did so on a very tight schedule) - one of the defendants (Dynadot) had stipulated to the injunction, and neither defendant briefed this issue;
2. The judge's decision was based, in large part, on his recognition that shutting down WikiLeaks could not, in this day and age, prevent dissemination of the challenged documents - and, in fact, had increased their visibility (p.6); and
3. The judge recognized that, if any order were appropriate, it would be the far more narrow order of requiring the documents to be redacted (p.6).

Whether or not you agree with the decision (I do) - kudos to EFF and the other interveners for stepping up on such short notice to so capably make sure the public's First Amendment rights were addressed.

[More information about this case is available at: JD Supra;  WikiLeaks, and EFF]