Got Milk?

World Breastfeeding Week starts tomorrow.

Down Underware*

David Starkoff has been on my blawgroll for awhile, but I just now checked out his "somewhat meagre and humble case citation to URL translator." Meagerness and humilty aside, this is a cool idea. The concept is brilliantly simple: if you know the reporter citation of a case, you plug it into the translator and it points you to where the case resides on the Web. David is in Australia and the translator focuses on his courts, but the U.S. Supreme Court is represented. So is the WIPO UDRP arbitration tribunal. How great would it be if:

1. courts put their decisions online in HTML (for a recent example of the power of putting frequently cited documents in HTML see Kottke's version of the The 9/11 Commission Report executive summary), and


2. there was a comprehensive tool like David's?

I've been preoccupied lately with how technologies available today but largely unutilized by the legal field will shape how we practice law and access legal decisions and thinkers. (More on this soon I hope on the Blawg Channel.) One thing happening right here and now (as David also notes): interesting congressmen (Boucher) and judges (Posner) are guest-blogging for interesting vacationing law professors.

*Not to be confused with...

Anything But

Apple [via PRNewswire]:

We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod(R), and we are investigating the implications of their actions under the DMCA and other laws. We strongly caution Real and their customers that when we update our iPod software from time to time it is highly likely that Real's Harmony technology will cease to work with current and future iPods.

RealNetworks:

Harmony follows in a well-established tradition of fully legal, independently developed paths to achieve compatibility. There is ample and clear precedent for this activity, for instance the first IBM compatible PCs from Compaq. Harmony creates a way to lock content from Real's music store in a way that is compatible with the iPod, Windows Media DRM devices, and Helix DRM devices. Harmony technology does not remove or disable any DRM system. Apple has suggested that new laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [DMCA] are relevant to this dispute. In fact, the DMCA is not designed to prevent the creation of new methods of locking content, and explicitly allows the creation of interoperable software.

We remain fully committed to Harmony and to giving millions of consumers who own portable music devices, including the Apple iPod, choice and compatibility.

The High Cost Of Lost Emails

My colleague Tom Freeman has written a useful bulletin [PDF] about severe penalties recently imposed by a federal district judge on UBS Warburg for destroying relevant emails while litigation was pending. (It's the kind of thing you want to show clients before this becomes an issue!)

On July 20, 2004, in her fifth written opinion in a "relatively routine employment discrimination dispute," Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York imposed sanctions against UBS Warburg ("UBS") for destroying relevant e-mail messages during the litigation. The Court ordered UBS to pay expenses and attorney fees incurred by plaintiff Laura Zubulake in pursuit of the missing e-mails. Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, et al., S.D.N.Y 02 CV 1234 (SAS) 7/20/04; 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS (S.D.N.Y, July 20, 2004). In addition to the monetary sanctions, Judge Scheindlin also granted plaintiff's request for additional discovery and for a jury instruction permitting a negative inference to be drawn from the missing evidence.

[...]

[Link added] The Order [PDF] is definitely worth reading in its own right:

Commenting on the importance of speaking clearly and listening closely, Phillip Roth memorably quipped, "The English language is a form of communication!... Words aren't only bombs and bullets — no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!" What is true in love is equally true in law: lawyers and their clients need to communicate effectively with one another to ensure that litigation proceeds efficiently. When communication between counsel and client breaks down, conversation becomes "just crossfire," and there are usually casualties.

[...]

[Footnotes omitted]

Fixer-Uppers

Just stumbled on Mark Hurst's This Is Broken, a blog full of photos and commentary about stuff that should work better but doesn't. It's a little like the dark side of Gizmodo and Engadget, and covers a wide range of material (like the golf course sign that doesn't spell out the "No Tank Top" rule until the 4th hole). Mark also writes the Good Experience blog and newsletter.

One of Mark's readers writes that her Blackberry is broken. I haven't completely decided how I feel about the things, but I think I might agree. Akin Gump associate Natasha Kohne is not a fan, but her concerns don't focus on usability so much as the device's tendency to Eat Manhattan (or your life) like a B-movie creature. I'd be more likely to cozy up if it had an RSS reader...barring that, I'm finding it redundant tech. (I have a better phone. I have WiFi, a better browser, and a better email app.) Maybe they grow on you.