Patrick DiDomenico

Webinar July 27: Social Media - Addressing Risks and Ensuring Benefits

Social Media, Social Networking No Responses »

Jul 122011

This looks like an interesting webinar.

Here is the re-post from ILTA:

Join us for this free webinar on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at

12:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Central /

10:00 a.m. Mountain / 9:00 a.m. Pacific.

As organizations look to social media to address internal and external business needs, they must walk a fine line between accessibility and governance.

What are the common business needs for using social media? What is the framework for day-to-day governance, collection and preservation of information shared in these platforms?

And how can organizations weave these competing interests together to reap the benefits of the social media revolution?

This session will provide some insightful commentary from experienced panelists who are in the “trenches” with this business solution.

If you’d like to Tweet during this session the hashtag for the Litigation & Practice Support Peer Group is #ILTALPS or#ILTAKM for the Knowledge Management Peer Group.

Speakers:

Ayelette Robinson is the Director of Knowledge Technology and Knowledge Management Counsel at Littler Mendelson P.C., where she is responsible for the design, development and implementation of the firm’s technology-based knowledge management systems. Ayelette works closely with cross-functional teams, leveraging her experience practicing law and her understanding of technology inside and outside the legal industry to assess firmwide knowledge needs and oversee the analysis and maintenance of firmwide practice resources. She can be reached at ayrobinson@littler.com.

Jack Halprin, Esq. is the Vice President of eDiscovery and Compliance with Autonomy. He serves as a subject-matter expert and assists clients with building best practices and defensible processes around electronic discovery and compliance issues. Jack manages the product line strategy for Autonomy’s Legal Hold and Early Case Assessment solutions, and he is a frequent speaker and writer on enterprise legal risk management and e-discovery, legal hold and knowledge management. He can be reached at jack.halprin@autonomy.com.

Peter Ozolin is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Manzama, where he is responsible for leading the company’s strategy and vision. Peter founded Legal Anywhere in 1997, and the company became the leading provider of extranet solutions for the legal profession. Niku Corporation acquired Legal Anywhere in 2000, and he served as Niku’s Vice President and General Manager for the Legal Profession. Peter has also held leadership roles at Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker, Thomson Reuters and Remote Technologies. He has published articles in numerous periodicals and has presented at nationwide conferences and tradeshows. Peter can be reached at peter@manzama.com.

REGISTER online here

Questions? Please contact Kristy Costello at 512.795.4674 orkristina@iltanet.org

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

Courtney Love Sued For Tweeting - Again

Twitter No Responses »

May 312011

Tech Dirt and Entertainment Weekly are reporting that Hole lead singer, and Kurt Cobain widow, Courtney Love, has been sued by her former lawyer, Rhonda Holmes, for Twitter-based defamation.

According to the reports, attorney Holmes represented Love in an attempt to regain money allegedly stolen from the estate of Love’s former husband, Cobain. Love then fired Holmes’ firm, but a few months later sought to rehire the firm. The firm declined. Love responded on Twitter, writing, “‘I was f—ing devastated (sic) when Rhonda J Holmes Esq of San Diego was bought off,’ suggesting that outside forces had bribed Holmes into not working with Love,” according to Entertainment Weekly.

You may recall that Love recently settled a separate Twitter-related defamation lawsuit in March of 2011. She paid fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir $430,000 after allegedly making defamatory statements on Twitter and MySpace.

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

Facebook and E-Discovery

E-Discovery, Facebook No Responses »

May 112011

Please check out my blog post on the Gibbons E-Discovery Law Alert. It’s called How Useful is Facebook’s “Download Your Information” Feature in E-Discovery? Here is a taste:

“In October 2010, Facebook announced a new Download Your Information (“DYI”) feature, billed as ‘an easy way to quickly download to your computer everything you’ve ever posted on Facebook and all your correspondences with friends: your messages, wall posts, photos, status updates and profile information.’ …But, how effective is the DYI feature as a discovery tool? And, is there any way to be sure that the adversary is not hiding any information?”

Read the rest here. Thanks.

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

Data, Information, and Knowledge

Basics, Data, Information, Knowledge, knowledge management No Responses »

Apr 302011

As you may know, I’m a fan of (and perhaps a bit obsessed with) simplicity and concision. So, I’m always looking for good, high-quality ways of making a point without wasting time. When I came across a nice video by Nick Milton of Knoco about the distiction among data, information, and knowledge, I felt compelled to share it. This video (along with other good KM info) is also embedded in Knoco’s FAQ page.

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

Blogs and Facebook Posts as Evidence in Lawsuits

Blogs, E-Discovery, Facebook, Social Networking 1 Response »

Apr 192011

Doh!

The New York Daily News reports that Richmond County Supreme Court Judge Catherine DiDomenico (no relation) terminated a woman’s $850 per month alimony payment after she posted evidence of ability to work on a blog and on Facebook.

Three years ago, Dorothy McGurk won the settlement from her husband when she claimed that a 1997 car accident left her unable to work. When her ex-husband, Brian McGurk, saw her blog posts in which she wrote about belly dancing every day, he brought the matter back before the court. McGurk’s lawyer, Thomas Kyle, “said the blog posts convinced [the judge that] the dancer was fit enough to fend for herself.” Kyle continued, “If she could blog for hours, if she could dance the day away in Manhattan, then how is it she couldn’t hold down a job?”

Dorothy McGurk also helped dig her own grave with a Facebook post. When a Facebook friend asked why she hadn’t posted pictures of her belly dancing on the social network, McGurk reportedly replied, “Gotta be careful what goes on line pookies, …The ex would love to fry me with that.” Ironic.

Judge DiDomenico terminated the monthly payments from the ex-husband and awarded him $5,000, plus interest for lawyer’s fees. The judge also ordered the ex-wife to move out of the couples’ house and awarded the ex-husband 60% of it’s value.

This story is a good example of some of the social media lessons that I constantly teach:

Assume that whatever you post online is public and that anyone can find it. Indeed, the ability for people to find your stuff is the purpose of a blog, or other website. If you want to keep something private, keep it offline.
Don’t assume that your social networking is private — even if you restrict your posts to a small number of Facebook (or other social network) friends; you never know how what you write may surface. McGurk certainly didn’t expect her Facebook comment to be read by her ex husband.
If you’re a lawyer, use social media as a tool to help win your case.

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

Leverage Your Other Work For Blog Posts

Blogs, Business, knowledge management, Social Media No Responses »

Mar 102011

During some recent speaking engagements, I mentioned how lawyers can benefit from using social media, among them, blogs. Countering one common reason for resistance to blogging–”I don’t have the time”–I pointed out how to use leverage to your advantage.

The idea is simple: turn the work you already do into a blog post. Lawyers do lots of work. They draft briefs, contracts, opinion letters, etc. Some even try to develop business by drafting newsletters, presenting pitches, and speaking at bar association functions, trade shows, and the like.

Of course, you can’t just copy and paste a client pitch, opinion letter, or brief into a blog post. I hope it goes without saying that you shouldn’t disclose confidential or proprietary information in a blog post. You also need to edit the content for your audience. The bad news is that it will require a little work. The good news is that unlike the newsletter that just goes out to the people on your mailing list, your blog audience is potentially limited only to those with web access.

You’ll also need to convert your content so that it works for the web. This means, among other things, that you’ll need to “tighten it up.” Make your posts short and to the point. The web is giving us all A.D.D. If you can’t hook your readers quickly, you’ll lose them fast. But that is also good news. It forces you to chop up your otherwise lengthy materials into bite-sized pieces, which in turn, means more blog posts.

You work hard. Recycle some of that work into blog posts. I just did. And I intend to do it more in the near future.

Knowledge Management, Technology & Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firms

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

The Future of Presentations?

Innovation, knowledge management, presentations 4 Responses »

Jan 282011

On the heels of my last post about using PowerPoint as a résumé, a law school friend of mine told me about Prezi – a web application that allows you to make really interesting presentations. This PowerPoint alternative just might be the future of presentations. Here’s an example that I made (in about ten minutes). Let me know what you think. Click the “play” triangle to start and then keep clicking it or use < arrow > keys to make it go:

This is the Future of Presentations on Prezi

Knowledge Management, Technology & Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firms

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

PowerPoint Your Résumé? - A Challenge

Innovation, knowledge management, presentations 4 Responses »

Jan 262011

If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, then you know that I’m looking to hire a Knowledge Management Department & Library Coordinator. That’s not the focus of this post, but my experience (not necessarily recently) of reviewing résumés got me thinking about innovative ways to do things. I’ve also been thinking a lot about presentations — PowerPoint presentations in particular (as you may know from my previous post). Could combining the two–résumés and PowerPoint presentations–be the way to stand out from the crowd? The chocolate and peanut butter of self-promotion?

The examples below, from SlideShare, are great. When was the last time you were so engaged by a résumé? Continue reading »

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

I Don't Hate PowerPoint

Business, Communication, Conference, knowledge management 3 Responses »

Jan 022011

The Master

Recently, before a conference I attended, someone said to me, “Oh, I know you hate PowerPoint presentations. So do I. This will be horrible.”

To the contrary, I don’t hate PowerPoint presentations (or Apple Keynote presentations, for that matter). I do feel a bit tortured when someone misuses PowerPoint to kill an otherwise good and interesting presentation. I’m not alone, of course. So many of us have been subjected to so many bad presentations that some people have sworn off PowerPoint altogether. But for you presenters out there, my advice is: don’t give up hope. Just give up the bad practices that make bad PowerPoint presentations.

So here are a few points I think are important. I certainly won’t cover all there is to know about making presentations. I’m no expert, but there are some great expert resources out there (see below for a list).

Don’t Read Your Slides

Everyone knows this. Everyone says, “don’t do it.” Everyone hates when others do it. So why do so many people still do it? Continue reading »

Post to Delicious Stumble This Post

Older Entries Newer Entries