Articles Posted in December, 2005

Bing Crosby couldn’t make it, but equally entertaining is Lawrence Savell, the lawyer, songwriter and performer who joins us for our holiday podcast, Holidays with Lawyers. Savell has recorded three humorous holiday albums for lawyers, all available at Lawtunes.com. Join my cohost J. Craig Williams and me as we listen to samples…

The Internal Revenue Service has unveiled the first major redesign of its Web site since 2002, and eWeek reports that the overhaul succeeds in making the site less taxing.…

Microsoft Corp. last week unveiled a beta version of Windows Live Local, a mapping tool with an array of useful features — plus an almost frightening ability to zoom in for a “bird’s-eye view” of certain locations. While other mapping tools such as Google maps offer straight-down aerial imagery, this new bird’s-eye view is…

What happens to a state law after a court strikes it down as unconstitutional? In Utah, it seems, the law stays on the books. Such was the finding of a report by the The Salt Lake Tribune, Killed by courts, some laws live on in the Utah code.…

The U.S. Department of Labor has redesigned and relaunched its Compliance Assistance Web Portal, a site designed to help workers and employers understand and comply with federal employment laws and regulations.

The redesigned site features enhanced navigation and content. Included within the site are fact sheets on a variety of employment law issues,…

The latest entry in the field of automated, online dispute resolution is The Courthouse Steps. It appears to be similar in operation to one of the older kids on this virtual block, Cybersettle.com, in that offers and demands are compared electronically and the matter is settled if preset parameters are met.

Here is…

Over on my Media Law blog, I report on a case today from Massachusetts’ highest court holding that the First Amendment does not protect against discipline for a lawyer who criticizes a judge in a pending case unless the lawyer has “an objectively reasonable basis” for the criticism.…

Earlier this week, Law.com posted my column proclaiming 2005 as Year of the Podcast. Now we learn that the New Oxford American Dictionary has selected “podcast” as the word of the year. The announcement explains:

“Only a year ago, podcasting was an arcane activity, the domain of a few techies and self-admitted

Coast to Coast this week looks at military recruiting at law schools and the case argued earlier this week before the Supreme Court, Rumsfeld v. FAIR. Our guest today was Lara Schwartz, chief legislative counsel for Human Rights Campaign, an organization devoted to promoting lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender equal rights. …

Gallup has released its annual poll asking Americans to rate the honesty and ethical standards of those in various professions, reports Editor & Publisher, and lawyers rank near the bottom of the list. The good news: lawyers rank higher than senators, congressmen, labor union leaders and car salesman. But they rank behind funeral directors,…

At 11 a.m. ET today, C-SPAN will stream the oral arguments in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, involving the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, requiring universities to allow military recruiters on campus or lose federal funds.…

I wrote last week about BlawgWorld 2006, the TechnoLawyer e-book featuring representative posts from 51 “of the most influential” law-related blogs. Since then, I have found it interesting to read some of the reviews and comments posted around the blogosphere. While many had praise and kind words for the effort, others were…