Articles Posted in May, 2017

This has been the year of the legal keyboard. Earlier this year, I wrote about the launch of the LegalBoard, a computer keyboard designed specifically for lawyers. Then, six weeks ago, came another one designed just for lawyers, called Citepad. Unlike the LegalBoard, which is an actual hardware keyboard, the Citepad is an application…

LexisNexis will turn off its Firm Manager practice management platform on Oct. 31, 2017. This follows news reported here in January that LexisNexis was discontinuing sales and suspending development of Firm Manager.

A LexisNexis spokesperson said that the company will continue to support and operate the platform until Oct. 31, but that…

Just ahead of the annual meeting of the International Trademark Association (INTA), where an expected 10,000 trademark lawyers will gather starting Saturday in Barcelona, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. and Alt Legal are announcing an integration that will provide one-click access to WK Trademark Navigator from within Alt Legal.

Through…

This year is the 25th anniversary of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School, literally the first legal site on the Internet. Not only did the LII set the standard for open access to law a quarter-century ago, it continues to set the standard today.

The LII invited me to contribute a…

The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility has issued a major new opinion providing guidance on the steps lawyers should take to protect client confidentiality in electronic communications.

The new opinion, Formal Opinion 477 (embedded copy below), updates Formal Opinion 99-413, issued in 1999, to reflect changes in the…

A startup founded by a law professor is using algorithms to help law students get better class grades and pass the bar examination.

Called SeRiouS, or just SRS, it uses the learning technique of spaced repetition to help students remember much more of what they study. The company projects that students using its software…

You may think of Amazon’s voice-activated virtual assistant Alexa as a fun accessory for your home, allowing you to ask for a song or check the weather. But a new tool from Thomson Reuters might encourage you to take Alexa to your law office, where it can now track your billable hours and…

One of Canada’s oldest legal publishers is about to launch what could turn out to be the country’s most cutting-edge and comprehensive legal research suite.

Last November, Maritime Law Book Ltd., a Canadian case law publisher founded in 1969, came under new ownership, led by a new CEO, Colin Lachance, the former president…

I happened to catch this picture of Arredondo at work during a visit last week to the Casetext offices.

Every year at its annual meeting, the American Association of Law Libraries presents an award for the new product of the year. This week, it announced that this year’s honoree will be…

Since at least 2013, the website of Judicata has been teasing visitors with the promise of a better legal research service. “We’re mapping the legal genome to help you better understand the law,” said its home page. The San Francisco-based company was started even earlier, in November 2011. Along the way, it…

Now you can add bills for accounts payable within CosmoLex.

CosmoLex today released an update to its cloud-based practice management platform that adds a new module for managing a law firm’s accounts payable. While some desktop practice management systems include accounts payable functions, this is the first cloud-based platform to add this,…

A few weeks ago in my column at Above the Law, I wrote about the growing number of law-related chatbots. “Suddenly, it seems, new law-related chatbots are springing up regularly,” I wrote. “It is premature to say they are taking off in the legal industry, but they are certainly making a splash and…