Encryption is an essential tool for lawyers handling confidential information. Now, a new Firefox plug-in called freenigma enables you to send and receive encrypted e-mail using browser-based e-mail services such as Google Mail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. The free plug-in adds a toolbar that appears when you log in to the e-mail service.…

The Federal Trade Commission last week launched a blog designed to serve as a lead-in to November public hearings on protecting consumers in the face of new technologies. The blog, Tech-ade Blog, will continue up to and during the Nov. 6-8 hearings, Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade. It will be written primarily…

I will be participating tomorrow (Oct. 12) in an online teleconference, Marketing for Mediators and Lawyers. The one-hour seminar is free and starts at 2 p.m. Eastern. Participants may connect by phone or Skype and also participate in live chat. A set of PowerPoint slides will be presented through the Web site. Follow the…

Nearly 20 percent of law firms publish their own blog, according to a survey of law firm e-marketing practices published last week. The Survey of Law Firm E-Marketing Practices, published by the Primary Research Group, found that firms with 20 or more practice groups were the most likely to publish blogs, with nearly…

It’s that time of year, when many a lawyer’s thoughts turn to baseball playoffs. But for two lawyers in particular, baseball is almost an obsession, one defined by debunking common myths and legends about America’s past time. They are Howard M. Bloom and Michael Kun, authors of the book, The Baseball Uncyclopedia:…

The RSS feed of a prominent legal blogger recently carried an item tagged “breaking news” describing an important federal circuit court opinion. But when I followed the link from the feed to the blog to read the full item, all I got was “page not found.” I checked the time and date of the feed…

My older son nearly died this week, all from an unlabeled peanut butter cookie. We’ve known of his peanut allergy since he was an infant and thought we had it pretty well in hand. But one taste of an unmarked cookie from his school cafeteria sent him into critical anaphylactic shock and required him to…

One of the nice features of the Firefox browser is the ability to customize its search bar with search plug-ins for a variety of sites. Now, Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute offers a selection of five LII Search plugins. Of the five, one allows you to search the entire LII…

As I mentioned Friday, as part of Cyberweek 2006, I will be participating in an online panel today at 4 p.m. Eastern on Mediation Excellence in Cyberspace. Participation is free and can be via either phone or Skype. Included on the panel of ADR and ODR professionals will be two other bloggers,…

When Boston lawyer Edward A. Prisby was rear-ended by a Cambridge city councilor, he wrote an angry rant about it on his blog, Prizblog. Later, when Prisby was called as a witness at a hearing to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to charge the city councilor with DUI, the councilor’s lawyers…

The annual, all-online and entirely free Cyberweek conference starts Monday, focused on the future of online dispute resolution and online justice. The conference is organized by the University of Massachusetts Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution and InternetBar.org. Here is the nutshell description:

Cyberweek consists of many different kinds of activities

In a significant development for anyone who conducts historical research, the New York Times announced today that its online archive of news stories now includes all articles back to Sept. 18, 1851, the day the paper started publishing. Until now, the archives went back only to 1981. Searches for pre-1981 articles produce PDF files…