JD Scoop

File under: what's buzzing on the network? Here's a look at handful of hot-topic items we've seen on JD Supra in this last week of June:

- SCOTUS Overturns California's "Violent Video Games" Law

From Davis Wright Tremaine: "The Supreme Court's June 27, 2011, decision in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) invalidated California's 'violent video games' law, which had prohibited sales and rentals to minors and required the games' packaging to bear a large '18' label on the front. Justice Scalia's majority opinion reinforced a number of vital First Amendment principles that bar legislative attempts to create new categories of "unprotected speech," and that establish how relatively little extra leeway the government enjoys even when claiming to regulate in the name of children..." Read DWT's full update here and this from Foley Hoag: Game Over For California Law Prohibiting The Sale Of Violent Video Games to Minors ...

- Patent Reform 2011: House Passes "America Invents Act"

Now that the House has passed the 'America Invents Act' (June 23rd) we're seeing new commentary and analysis on what this might mean for patent reform. We've put together a reading list of new work from the likes of Finnegan, Morgan Lewis, Bracewell & Giuliani, Thompson Coburn, and others. See: Patent Reform 2011: 'America Invents Act' Passes House and Senate for more information...

- Wal-Mart v. Dukes: Class is Dismissed!

Bad puns aside, there's has of course been a lot of attention (and legal analysis) focused on the recent SCOTUS decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes and how it reshapes large-scale class actions. We've compiled a reading list with work by Dechert, Sedgwick, Sutherland, MoFo, Fenwick & West, and numerous other leading firms. For you reference: Wal-Mart v. Dukes: Class Action Impact & Analysis ...

- SCOTUS Has Been Busy   

A handful of other notable decisions from the United States Supreme Court - trending on JD Supra:

• Recent Supreme Court Decision May Affect Federally Funded Research (McNees)
• United States Supreme Court Strikes Down Vermont Pharmaceutical "Data Mining" Law (Foley Hoag)
  
• Supreme Court Strikes Two Blows Against Patient Safety (Patrick Malone & Associates)
• United States Supreme Court Defines Limits of Bankruptcy-Court Jurisdiction, Raises Additional Questions (Bryan Cave)
• The Supreme Court Reins in "Stream of Commerce" Personal Jurisdiction (Dechert LLP)

- Yes ICANN?!

We've seen a spike of interest in the recent ICANN board of directors decision to approve a new, top-level domain name program. Much of the commentary and analysis has been framed around steps to take to protect your brand online. Read more at: ICANN Domain Expansion: What You Need to Know...

- Social Media Law

Finally, in response to ever-increasing interest in the topic, last weekend saw the launch our new(est) Facebook page dedicated to delivering updates and commentary "at the intersecion of Social Media and the Law." Join Social Media Law (click to LIKE the page) for a steady stream of law firm updates and analysis covering the myriad legal issues surrounding the exploding, exciting world of Social Media. You can also follow the topic on our related Twitter feed: @SMediaLaw

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Now you know. Thank you for reading and we'll see you online!

Additional JD Supra Trending Topics streamed daily to Twitter at @JDSupraBuzz

Here's a look at some of our newest contributors, lawyers and law firms distributing their publications and legal content on the JD Supra network. We're thrilled to welcome:

- Bracewell & Giuliani LLP

"Bracewell provides guidance on business law, finance, litigation, government relations and regulatory policy. As a full service firm, Bracewell has considerable bench strength in all requisite practice areas..." View Bracewell & Giuliani Portfolio>>

- Constangy, Brooks & Smith, LLP

"Constangy, Brooks & Smith, LLP, is a management-only labor and employment law firm. We handle litigation prevention and defense, labor relations, benefits, immigration, workers' compensation (selected states only), wage and hour, occupational safety and health, and affirmative action..." View Constangy portfolio>>

- The Association of Media & Entertainment Counsel (AMEC)

"The Association of Media & Entertainment Counsel (AMEC) is the only organization of its kind. Formed in late 2005, AMEC is designed to support the career development and honor the achievements of in-house counsel and business affairs attorneys at major entertainment and media companies...." View AMEC portfolio>>

- The Law Office of Michelle A. Estlund, P.A.

"Michelle A. Estlund, P.A. is a law firm dedicated exclusively to the practice of criminal defense. Our clients are people accused of violating federal and state laws, people facing extradition due to international criminal charges, and people being investigated for possible criminal violations...." View Estlund portfolio>>

-  Cyrus Wadia - Cooper, White & Cooper LLP

"I am chair of Cooper's Intellectual Property and Music & Recording Industry Practice Groups, focusing on trademarks, copyrights, Internet-related transactions and litigation, and the music industry. I am also an experienced commercial litigator with an emphasis on real property, telecommunications, and class action consumer litigation....." View Cyrus Wadia portfolio>>

- Miles Cooper - Rouda Feder Tietjen & McGuinn

"Miles B. Cooper focuses on prosecuting large exposure cases and complex civil jury trials. He is frequently asked by other lawyers to consult, associate, or substitute into cases as trial counsel or help with cases that are likely to try...." View Miles Cooper portfolio>>

- Donna Wilson - BuckleySandler LLP

"Donna Wilson represents financial services providers including banks, mortgage companies, retailers, franchisors, telecommunications and media companies and others. She is a highly experienced litigator and mediator with experience in class actions, defense of mass torts, and deceptive trade practices matters." View Donna Wilson portfolio>>

- The Pollution Lawyers

"The Pollution Lawyers have represented many thousands of people in environmental contamination class action suits over the past decade, and recovered in excess of $65 million from polluters. Their cases are typically "David vs. Goliath" scenarios..." View The Pollution Lawyers portfolio>>

-  Marie Cheung-Truslow - Smith & Brink, P.C.

"Attorney Marie Cheung-Truslow, Chair of the firm's Property Insurance and Subrogation Practice Group has over 20 years experience litigating complex insurance coverage, arson and fraud defense, class action defense involving bad faith claims, and large loss subrogation. ..." View Marie Cheung-Truslow portfolio>>

- Nancie G. Marzulla

"I am a takings lawyer--with a practice focused on litigating takings claims in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. I handle water rights, real property, environmental, business, and intangible property takings claims..." View Nancy G. Marzulla portfolio>>

- Maureen Veterano - Underwriting Manager & Associate General Counsel at IPIS

"Manage work flow for a team of six professional intellectual property underwriters. Research and analyze data to predict likelihood and severity of litigation. Communicate results to insurance carriers, insured's and their counsel. Negotiate terms for insurance contracts for transfer of IP infringement risk..." View Maureen Veterano portfolio>>

- Collins & Lacy, P.C.

"Collins & Lacy has attorneys who know experience matters most when protecting your business.At Collins & Lacy, we place a premium on the attorney-client relationship, ethics and professionalism. Our attorneys strive to meet each client's expectations through intelligent counsel, insight into the nuances of law, sound judgment and strong representation. ..." View Collins & Lacy portfolio>>

- Sharon Berman -  Berbay Corp.

"Sharon Berman is Principal of Berbay Corp., a marketing consulting firm specializing in working with professional services firms. Since 1995, Berbay Corp. has put our marketing and public relations expertise to work for our law firm clients to brand them in their markets' minds, and get the phone to ring!..." View Sharon Berman portfolio>>

- Cordell Parvin LLC

"Drawing on 36 years of experience as a construction law rainmaker, Cordell Parvin works with lawyers and law firms to develop the next generation of great attorneys. He guides lawyers in finding the right attitude, setting appropriate goals, developing strategies for time management and building networking skills. ..." View Cordell Parvin portfolio>>

- SEO | Law Firm

"America's mid-size to large law firms have unique online legal marketing needs that set them apart from smaller firms. With offices all across the country, lawyers in every major metro area and oftentimes a diverse menu of practice areas, find that an out-of-the-box legal marketing solution is not going to work...." View SEO Law Firm portfolio>>

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What about you? Ready to increase your online visibility with a JD Supra portfolio?

Get started with JD Supra now>>

File under: "put down the glass, move away from the wall." Here are five ways to monitor what people are saying about your law firm online. 

I'm curious to know which online monitoring tools you use.

Connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know. 

As time permits, I'll add your suggestions here.

For your reference here is an interesting video currently making the rounds: a smart conversation that deserves a listen if you are a law firm marketer who cares about using content in your marketing strategy.

The ostensible focus: a look at all of the ways Thomson Reuters has leveraged current tools and practices to reach and engage audiences via content - but really, the wide-ranging conversation is of value to anyone who wants to get a handle on content marketing.

My bullet point notes, hastily written, included below:



Adrian's Take-aways:

Derek Gordon of Reimagine Group touches upon many issues in this video. I highlight a few below; stand-out remarks that I think every law firm marketer needs to underscore when they bring a content strategy to their firm.

We use this language here at JD Supra every day:

1. It starts with knowing your audience deeply.

You must deeply understand your audience: who are they? Where do they gather? Where do they like to read the information they care about? What do they care about?

2. Marketing departments need to act like publishers.

Think of yourself as a mini New York Times. Write articles, blog posts, case studies - repurpose content across many channels.

3. Social is a channel.

Social media - that catch-all phrase - is a channel for distribution and engagement. Use your channels to promote your content.

However, regarding this third point: the video opens with a key observation. Content marketing is not about pitching - via brochures etc. - your firm's products and services, but rather engagng your target constituents by giving them something they care about.

In other words: don't use social channels to spam your story. Address the needs of the people you want to engage.

I stopped counting the number of times I heard "know your audience" - a key point. (Audience response to your promotional materials: "Enough about you, what about us.")

Further, consider your content strategy in three segments:

1. Content - the work you are creating to reach people, and the degree to which it is optimized for Search and Social.
2. Cloud - summed up as the characteristic of this age: always being available, whenever people want what they are looking for. (One take-away: don't put your content behind a screen. Also: deliver to people where they gather.)
3. Technology - leveraging what is available to you today to open channels to reach your audience.

All good stuff. All affirmed by what we see at JD Supra daily. The best firms and lawyers participating on JD Supra today regularly write content that means something to the audience they are trying to reach, and they see the work from the point of view of audience need.

Don't under-appreciate the notion of figuring out where your audience gathers. This, in my view, is one key point defining the shape of the online landscape today: content is portable. You don't have to "build it" and wait for "them" to come. Now, more than ever, you can take your work to where people gather. And, while everyone in our space seems to argue about whether lawyers gather on the likes of Facebook and Twitter (we know lawyers gather on LinkedIn!) ... here's a truth: their/your clients gather on those platforms.

Which is why your firm should be participating there.

(Hat tip to Ed Adams for tweeting the vid.)
 

For your reference, here's a look at what lawyers are writing about the May 26, 2011, Supreme Court Whiting decision to do with Arizona immigration law and mandatory E-Verify participation. The case has implications for employers in other states:

- Supreme Court Decision Clears The Way For States To Mandate E-Verify

From law firm Miler & Martin PLLC: "On Thursday, May 26, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld an Arizona law that makes employer participation in E Verify mandatory and which provides for the revocation of business licenses for employers that employ unauthorized workers. Georgia, Tennessee, and a number of other states have recently enacted similar laws, and the Supreme Court's ruling eliminates the primary challenge to the enforceability of those laws. In other words, it is now much more likely that the various employment-authorization mandates being imposed on employers in Georgia, Tennessee, and other states will take effect and apply to employers within those states..." Read entire update>>

- U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Arizona's E-Verify Law and Penalty Provisions for Employing Unauthorized Workers

From law firm Fisher & Phillips LLP: "In July 2007, Arizona enacted the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which prohibits Arizona employers from knowingly or intentionally employing individuals unauthorized to work in the U.S. Under the Act, any person may submit a complaint alleging that an employer employs unauthorized workers. Once the complaint is investigated and determined not to be false, the state will initiate legal action against the employer. During the court proceeding, the state is limited to the federal government's determination of the employee's lawful status. If the employer is found to have knowingly or intentionally hired a person unauthorized to work in the U.S., the Act permits the court to impose various penalties including the suspension of its license to operate a business in the state of Arizona.

After the Act was passed in 2007, a group of business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed a complaint in Federal Court challenging the Act on the grounds that the Act was expressly preempted by federal law, specifically the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 ("IRCA")...." Read entire update>>

- Supreme Court Immigration Decision Means "Patchwork Regulation" For Employers

From law firm Constangy, Brooks & Smith LLP: "The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Whiting, which upheld an Arizona statute that sanctioned employers for knowingly or intentionally employing unauthorized aliens, means that employers with multi-state operations will have to conform to a patchwork of laws rather than a single, uniform federal standard ...now that the legal hurdles have been lifted, more states will be encouraged to pass laws similar to Arizona's, imposing compliance burdens on companies operating in multiple states." Read entire update>>

- Supreme Court Approves E-Verify Mandate

From immigration attorney Ronald Shapiro: "Chief Justice Roberts, writing the opinion for a 5-3 majority in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, asserted that the Arizona law was consistent with the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act provisions allowing states to impose immigration sanctions related to business "licensing and permitting." He also noted that the Arizona law exactly tracked the federal definition of "unauthorized alien" and was in other ways crafted not to contradict or supplement federal immigration law, which is the exclusive province of the U.S. government.

Roberts also rejected arguments that the law imposed a kind of "business death penalty" on potentially inadvertent mistakes, noting that the law provides first-time offenders with lenient breaks and reserves its harshest penalties for deliberate repeat offenders." Read entire update>> 

- U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Law Sanctioning Employers for Hiring Unauthorized (Illegal) Aliens

From Davis Wright Tremaine LLP: "...it is quite likely, perhaps probable, that Alaska and other Pacific Region states will see comparable measures enacted at either the state or local level. Suggested next steps for Alaskan and other Pacific Region employers:

Businesses that operate in more than one state should be sure that they update their hiring procedures to reflect local requirements.

In anticipation of similar measures being introduced in Alaska and other Pacific Region states, employers should self-audit to make sure that their I-9 procedures comply with all legal requirements.

Employers not already using E-Verify may wish to review the system and familiarize themselves with its features..." Read entire update>>
 
- Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Law On Illegal Immigration

From Foley Hoag LLP: ""The majority's decision in Whiting means that under the rubric of licensing laws, a state may restrict an employers ability to transact business there as a sanction for employing unauthorized aliens. As noted by Justice Sotomayor in her dissent, employers may be subjected to a patchwork of enforcement schemes wherever they do business. At least ten other states (Colorado, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, and Utah) have passed laws similar to that of Arizona, and the decision may encourage other states to do the same." Read entire update>>

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Follow Immigration Law on: LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | RSS

 

Want to build your very own magazine of timely and trending legal updates on an iPad? Create a daily dose of digestible commentary, analysis, and news by some of the nation's leading lawyers and law firms writing about developments in your industry, profession, field of interest? Easy! Here's how:

Use Flipboard.

Generally, there's a progression of excitement that follows the purchase of an iPad and it goes something like this:

1. "I'm going to buy an iPad, I am really excited."
2. "Wow, I love my iPad. I'm finding all kinds of cool apps."
3. "ZOMG HAVE YOU SEEN FLIPBOARD? IT IS. SO. FRIGGIN. AWESOME!"

Flipboard takes a feed of content (your choice) and reformats it into a magazine-like structure for easy consumption on the iPad. Tell Flipboard who you are via Facebook and/or Twitter, and the app will build a slick magazine out of all of the updates and links your connections have shared.

Like many people, at launch I was struck by the out-of-the box brilliance of the app, with its simple but (IMHO) game-changing message:

in this information economy, not all links need to look like ... links.

And so, instead of a steady stream of shares, one after the other, passing through our screens via RSS, Twitter, Facebook, etc - now Flipboard curates what matters to us and makes the vast accumulation of shared information browsable, readable, digestable. The magazine of the future is here.

As the app has grown so have the various ways we can build magazines on it. One easy method is to designate a particular @Twitter account as your feed of choice. The app will build a zine out of all content tweeted by that account. And this, frankly, is one of the easiest ways to create your own mag of legal updates. How?



Flipboard: Meet JD Supra

Screenshots in this post are from one of JD Supra's many subject-specific Twitter feeds - specifically @JDSupraBuzz, a feed of legal updates, alerts, and articles currently trending on the site. Goofing around in the office, we built a magazine around "JD Supra Buzz" in about 30 seconds. You could do the same with that feed - a daily dose of what's interesting and popular on JD Supra, covering all subjects.

Or, build a magazine around any of our other feeds: Tech Law, Business Law, Real Estate, Securities Law, Intellectual Property, Social Media Law, Employment Law, and many, many others.

In return, you'll get a daily diet of updates on topics of the day from a mix of some of the biggest law firms in the country all the way to solo practitioners focused on growing their practice by sharing substantive legal content online.

Quick and easy steps to creating a JD Supra Legal Magazine on Flipboard:

1. Open Flipboard on the iPad
2. Click to "Add a Section"
3. Glide on over to the "Twitter Users" section and type in the name of the legal feed you're going to add. (Link is to a long list of ours - choose your preference. We have legal updates covering just about every industry or profession or field. Choose whatever applies to you.)

Done. You've just built yourself a good-looking magazine of legal content that matters to you - and it looks something like this - inasmuch as the width column of this blog can do it justice>>



What feeds your Flipboard? Tell us. 

For your reference, a list of some of the most-viewed documents on JD Supra for May, 2011: