While I was perusing the twitterstream yesterday, @ProfJonathon shared a link to a new web service named CMP.ly. According to the website, it purports to be a “disclosure engine” for everyone online — from bloggers to Agencies.
My first question to ProfJonathon was whether it was recognized by the FTC. Since he was merely sharing a link and was in no way associated with the service, we agreed that it was an interesting intellectual exercise and we each went our separate ways. Then, I got a response from @cmply:

@ProfJonathan @mglickman — Good question. Although the FTC cannot endorse a particular solution we met and reviewed our system. DM for info.

Naturally, I DM’d (DMed?) the @cmply account, offering my email address. The response I received, not 2 hours later, was informative and comprehensive from Tom Chernaik, the principal of CMP.ly’s parent — DigComm. Tom described how DigComm involved the FTC in the design of the CMP.ly service, so that — when implemented properly — it meets and exceeds the FTC’s new guidelines. He also invited further questions and discussion.

I have nothing to do with DigComm or CMP.ly. I don’t even consider myself enough of a blogger to make use of a disclosure engine such as CMP.ly. If I were looking for an answer to disclosure requirements, however, the responsiveness and openness of those in charge of CMP.ly would definitely put my mind at ease.

I had an idea the other day for a service twitter should offer to corporate/registered accounts.
One thing people have noticed is that twitter seems to have very high search engine ranking; so that if I were to Google my name, one of the top links is my twitter page. That has raised some concerns in the past about how a lawyer can be viewed by potential clients who look the lawyer up online.
My idea is to allow firms to leverage this strong search engine ranking of twitter. A firm can have its own twitter ID, but, as any social media guru will tell you, it’s better to have an individual face people can relate to. So a firm will appoint an individual to be the face of the firm on twitter (and whatever other social network it deems necessary). That’s pretty darn straightforward.

The twist came when I started thinking about personal brands in the context of the firm’s larger brand. What if a firm hires someone with a strong and respected personal brand, such as a lateral hire or — I’ll be completely honestly self-centered — a recent law school graduate who built relationships with other legal professionals using social media.
What if twitter would allow a registered account to link or associate an existing individual account to the firm’s account, thereby allowing a search of the firm’s name to also turn up the individual’s twitter account?
The registered account holder would start the process off requesting an account to be associated with it. Then twitter would have to act as the gatekeeper, requiring proof from the requester that there is a valid rationale to associate the individual account with the registered account. Something like proof of employment should do. Then the registered account holder can determine when it it time to disassociate the individual from the registered account.
Revolutionary? No. but I think it could be very useful.

Carolyn Elefant’s recent post on her blog asks the question, what should we do with the small and solo firms who are behind the times and don’t even seem to be aware that there are times to be behind? In short (don’t believe me, go there and read it yourself) she suggests that we should lend a helping hand to the technologically-stunted for the sake of their clients.

I’m not content to let the old firms simply rot and die off if they take clients down in the process.

This is an admirable position. My only problem with this raised itself in the back of my head when I read the following phrase in her post in describing some of these attorneys:

What about the lawyers too busy to return clients’ calls — and who convince clients “that’s just how it is,”…

Someone very close to me recently had to engage a lawyer for a family matter. The lawyer in question is one half of a small local law firm; the firm had come recommended by trustworthy people. I was pretty bummed that I was not able to help this person, being a mere law student and having passed up on Family Law this semester in favor of Law Practice Management. However, since I’m the only person who is at all acquainted with the legal system who is close with this friend, I was kept in the loop and constantly apprised of the legal situation.

Imagine my surprise when my friend started to complain about how phone calls were returned days later, about how my friend was never notified by the lawyer as to a change situation — the lawyer only offered information once my friend called. When my friend raised these issues with the lawyer, the response was that business practice is to call clients 7–10 days later and that my friend should feel lucky that the lawyer was returning calls after only 3–5 days!
I pointed out to my friend that both books we were assigned for LPM, Jay Foonberg’s and Carolyn Elefant’s own “Solo by Choice” suggested that a lawyer return calls within hours and hardly ever more than a day later.
I pointed out to my friend how both experts agree that lawyers should not “nickel and dime” clients over minimal fees when the lawyer charged for 5 minute phone calls.
I had nothing to say when the lawyer started yelling and cursing at my friend for not paying in a manner that this lawyer thought was proper. My friend was paying off the bill, just not fast enough for the lawyer — this after the lawyer failed to even use an engagement letter or fee agreement.
My advice from the beginning was to get rid of the schmuck and find a good lawyer.

If there are lawyers and small firms out there who are deliberately holding out on ways to better serve their clients, we’d be better off educating the clients about what they should expect and demand from their lawyers. If the clients decide to cut-bait and run, deservedly so.

Let me be honest here: I know very little about SEO. I have vague ideas of links and headers, but I know that there are a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous. (10 points to who gets the movie reference) One thing that bothers me about the SEO craze, however, is that most people aren’t looking to generate their revenue from the web.

If you have a web-based business or you’re specifically looking to get customers via the web, by all means, optimize to your heart’s content. I would assume that most people, including law firms, are not looking at web surfers for the bulk of their business. If you’re in this category, why spend time, effort and possibly money on SEOizing your site? (I know that’s conjugated incorrectly. I don’t care.) Every firm should have a website, but the website is something you point potential customers to rather than the site pointing potential customers to you.

The most recent Lawyer2Lawyer podcast had guest appearances by @KevinOKeefe and @ScottGreenfield concerning the use of twitter by lawyers.

Kevin had requested questions or concerns people had with twitter, and the first thing that popped into my mind was oversharing. I’m obviously not talking about when you give too many graphic details at the dinner table; rather, when you share information regarding what you are working on.

I recently volunteered to help do research on a case. (As an aside, this is the first bit of practical legal experience I am getting. To give credit where due, I was referred to the attorney through my law school. One of my professors mentioned — in passing — that he knew someone who was looking for help and I approached the professor after class to get the attorney’s contact information.) In my excitement to be working on something real, I twitted the general issue I was researching. Before I hit the “tweet” button, however, I hesitated. How much information does someone really need to piece together the rest of the picture?

That started me thinking about the possible pitfalls of twitter in general — the biggest one being the complacency we fall into when there is a perception of security. Password breaches aside, twitter’s “direct message” feature poses a huge risk for people hoping to direct message sensitive, confidential or private communications. If someone uses the wrong format in sending the message, even if it’s only a single character discrepancy, the private message is posted for the entire globe to read.

I hardly ever use the SMS functionality to update my twitter status, yet I still allow SMS notification of direct messages. When I tried to respond to someone with my email address I completely failed to preface my message with a “d”, thereby publishing my personal email address for all to see. Fortunately I’m a nobody, so I’m safe and unhassled.

Privacy Disaster At Twitter: Direct Messages Exposed (Update: GroupTweet Is Likely Culprit)

dm fail!

There are a myriad of articles on how to use twitter (some days it seems that’s all anyone ever writes about. And it’s not as if each article is chock-full of original information…) and many of them suggest that you use the direct message function rather than @replies so as not to overburden the poor people who voluntarily asked to be shown your every last fleeting thought. This theory works hand-in-hand with the theory that twitter is a useful way to communicate with coworkers, as a sort of mass IM mechanism. I think that it’s safe to assume that your communications with your coworkers will include privileged information. Try to remember that unless you very, very carefully direct message someone, the information is knowable to anyone with an internet connection. Or people sitting next to someone with an internet connection.

I don’t mean to harp on twitter — the issue is the same with all social media:
Apple staffer’s online leak points to new iPhone processor | Betanews
I simply feel that the nature of twitter more easily lends itself to be misused.

I mentioned the ABA EDDE Case Digest I received by email in my last post. Since training at work is over and I only have 3 finals left, I took some time to look over the digest.

In general, the cases cited simply reinforce the notion that attorneys must be savvy enough to know what to ask for during discovery and that if you don’t request it, you don’t get it. One thing that stuck out at me, though, is the list of types of metadata in the Sedona Principles:

“a. Substantive Metadata”

“Substantive metadata, also known as application metadata, is “created as a
function of the application software used to create the document or file“
and reflects substantive changes made by the user. Sedona Principles 2d Cmt.
12a; Md. Protocol 26. This category of metadata reflects modifications to a
document, such as prior edits or editorial comments, and includes data that
instructs the computer how to display the fonts and spacing in a document.
Sedona Principles 2d Cmt. 12a. Substantive metadata is embedded in the
document it describes and remains with the document when it is moved or
copied. Id. A working group in the District of Maryland has concluded that
substantive metadata “need not be routinely produced” unless the requesting
party shows good cause. Md. Protocol 26. ”

“b. System Metadata”

” System metadata “reflects information created by the user or by the
organization’s information management system.” Sedona Principles 2d Cmt.
12a. This data may not be embedded within the file it describes, but can
usually be easily retrieved from whatever operating system is in use. See
id. Examples of system metadata include data concerning “the author, date
and time of creation, and the date a document was modified.” Md. Protocol
26. Courts have commented that most system (and substantive) metadata lacks
evidentiary value because it is not relevant. See Mich. First Credit Union
v. Cumis Ins. Soc’y, Inc., No. Civ. 05–74423, 2007 WL 4098213, at *2
(E.D.Mich. Nov. 16, 2007); Ky. Speedway, LLC v. Nat’l Assoc. of Stock Car
Auto Racing, No. Civ. 05–138, 2006 WL 5097354, at *8 (E.D.Ky. Dec. 18,
2006); Wyeth v. Impax Labs., Inc., 248 F.R.D. 169, 170 (D.Del.2006). System
metadata is relevant, however, if the authenticity of a document is
questioned or if establishing “who received what information and when” is
important to the claims or defenses of a party. See Hagenbuch v. 3B6 Sistemi
Elettronici Industriali S.R.L., No. 04 Civ. 3109, 2006 WL 665005, at *3
(N.D.Ill. Mar. 8, 2006). This type of metadata also makes electronic
documents more functional because it significantly improves a party’s
ability to access, search, and sort large numbers of documents efficiently.
Sedona Principles 2d Cmt. 12a.”

“c. Embedded Metadata”

“Embedded metadata consists of “text, numbers, content, data, or other
information that is directly or indirectly inputted into a [n]ative [f]ile
by a user and which is not typically visible to the user viewing the output
display” of the native file. Md. Protocol 27. Examples include spreadsheet
formulas, hidden columns, externally or internally linked files (such as
sound files), hyperlinks, references and fields, and database information.
Id. This type of metadata is often crucial to understanding an electronic
document. For instance, a complicated spreadsheet may be difficult to
comprehend without the ability to view the formulas underlying the output in
each cell. For this reason, the District of Maryland working group concluded
that embedded metadata is “generally discoverable” and “should be produced
as a matter of course.” Id. at 27–28.”

It’s a start, but I think the principles are going about this the wrong way. Some of these distinctions are artificially created for the purpose of the list. Take the new MS Word file format — the files are now xml based. That means that embedded within the file there can be substantive metadata as well as system metadata. What do you demand? You can’t expect the opposing side to parse through the code in a plain text editor and weed out the important stuff; instead they’ll claim that it’s not necessary to produce any of it.

So what can we do? We can treat metadata like we treat any other type of data or information or document that exists; don’t pretend that metadata is special.

DISCLAIMER:  When I say “we” I mean “you”. I’m only a lowly law student who had J. Grimm for Evidence.

I’m in training this week for Scripting and Automating WebSphere Application Server (WAS) v.6.1. I currently script and automate WASv.6.1 but I do it much the way a typical toddler solves differential calculus. Hence, the training.

Betwixt the lectures and labs I’ve been seeing some interesting things I wanted to share (read as tweet) but haven’t been able to (thanks to a bandwidth tight agency around the holidays restricting everything from twitter to gmail):

• EverNote and Eye-Fi teamed up, hopefully making the whole so much more than the sum of its parts: http://lifehacker.com/5106529/evernote-teams-up-with-eye+fi-for-wireless-photo-upload
  • While we’re on the topic, I wonder if EverNote ever plans to allow users to “draw” on photos? That would be one killer addition to the currently great mobile version.
• I downloaded and installed the newest ceTwit for WindowsMobile touchscreen phones. http://www.kosertech.com/blog/?page_id=5
  • Great job on it, but I’d love touch scrolling functionality.
• I got an interesting email from the E-Discovery section of ABA discussing Aguilar v. US Immigration and Customs… http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/getopn.pl?OPINION=07–1819.01A
• Will post more when I have time to review the salient points of the email.

Well, that’s all for now. Time to head home.