On Feb. 23, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration would no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act in cases pending in federal court.  On this week’s Lawyer2Lawyer, we discuss the implications of this announcement. Helping us do that are two guests who fall on opposite sides…

Thanks to a reader comment posted to this blog, I became aware of an advertisement for Smart Litigator running this week in the print edition of the New York Law Journal that features a quote from my review of the product and a picture of me that…

A new website provides a searchable database of mobile apps for law and lawyers, You can use it to find apps compatible with any mobile device, whether you use an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Android or Palm PC.

The site, Mobile Apps for Law, says it includes more than 800 applications, with more being…

The new Web-based practice management application from LexisNexis, LexisNexis Firm Manager, is now officially out of beta testing and available in a commercial version. The introductory price for those who sign up by May 1 is $44.95 a month per user. You can try it free for 30 days.

I first wrote…

Only a third of lawyers use a case, matter or practice management system — just a slight increase from a decade ago, when a quarter of all lawyers used such a system. Among lawyers who have not adopted a case management system, the most common reason they give is that their “current method works and…

On this week’s episode of the legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer, we look at the documentary, Out of the Ashes: 9/11. The film documents the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund. Created just 11 days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it remains the largest public entitlement program ever.

We speak with the executive producer, writer and co-director…

For some 15 years, legal marketer Larry Bodine has operated the LawMarketing Portal as a free news and information site about marketing and business development in the legal profession. Over the years, that has added up to hundreds of articles by marketing professionals on a range of topics.

Now Bodine is taking the…

Some lawyers still squirm at the mention of Avvo, the website that purports to rate every lawyer in the U.S. (and now every doctor too). My belief is that ratings are a good thing, in that they help consumers make a better-informed decision. We all check consumer ratings and reviews when we…

The online CLE provider Lawline.com has launched a mobile-enhanced website that allows all of its more than 300 video CLE programs to be viewed on most mobile phones and smartphones. While it is not the first to provide audio of CLE through a mobile phone, it is the first to make it…

From left: MBF Executive Director Beth Lynch, Attorney General Coakley, Past President Laurence Johnson, President Joseph Vrabel, Vice President Jerry Cohen, Treasurer Robert Ward Jr., and me.

I am honored to report that at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation on Jan. 25, I was elected MBF secretary. The…

When snow and ice result in personal injury or property damage, who is legally responsible? The answer will likely depend on the law of the state where the accident occurs. For more than 100 years, Massachusetts applied a rule that a property owner is not liable in tort for failing to remove a natural accumulation…

The public beta release last week of LexisNexis Firm Manager adds yet another choice for lawyers to use Software as a Service, or SaaS, to manage their law practices. Already offering law practice management in the cloud are such sites as Clio and Rocket Matter. Do SaaS applications make sense for lawyers?…