Legal Technology

Journey Into Consumer Electronics Land

I was on the hunt today for a 68-pin SCSI-3 to SCSI VHDCI (Very High Density Cable Interconnect) cable. I came up empty-handed, but it was the journey that mattered.

I walked up and down Market Street and visited three electronics stores, asking them if they had any SCSI cables or converters. I received questions for answers. "What's that?" "What do you use that for?" And even, "why would you want to do that?" That last question really got me thinking about life, the universe, green tea and Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker series, but I had to stay focused.

I was relieved to walk into CompUSA. Once in the door, I thought "OK, I'm in the land where someone should know something about computers." A quick perusal of the floor for cable interconnects only landed some internal IDE cables, USB cables and some external floppy cables. The external floppy cables should have tipped me off.

I went up to the counter and asked a clerk if they had any SCSI cables. A quick search on the computer yielded no results. I asked "what kind of a super store is this -- how are you spelling SCSI?"

The clerk responded "how are you spelling it?"
"S-C-S-I," I said.
"Oh. Let me check that."

I didn't even want to know how he spelled it, because I just realized I was a computer guy in consumer electronics land.

I walked back to the office waving my white towel overhead. In downtown San Francisco on Saturday, I blended right in ...

The Tortoise and the Hare ...

Law and policy will forever be behind technology. Otherwise, we might still be using a DOS loader and a barbaric version of someone's windows. But don't be lulled into complacency as technology advances. There are steps you can take to protect your assets in a high tech work place.

Whatever the firm size, an acceptable-use policy for computers and the Internet will inform employees that employers own the equipment and the network and protect employers if the relationship goes bad. For an in-depth look at the legal issues, see Barbara A. Lee's "Reading Your Employees' Personal E-Mail in the New Jersey Law Journal.

Best Things ... Small Packages

In support of "some of the best things can be found in small packages," Attorney and consultant Ari Kaplan recently attended IQPC's "Best Practices for Information Retention and E-Discovery Management" conference. Although the conference lacked LegalTech's size and ILTA's vibe, Attorney Kaplan observed that it had the right mix of substance and schmooze in a venue that lent itself a few, key contacts worth taking away.

Tangled Up

If you are like me, we're constantly looking for the gremlins who tangle up our Ethernet and power cables underneath desks and in closets. And I'm not even going to mention the difficulty I have with a weed wacker on an extension cord -- only my neighbors know and appreciate the humor. But it's nice to know that there are some professionals thinking along our same, tangled cords. Researchers have unraveled the mystery behind how cords get tangled and knotted up when we're not looking. But I'm still going to keep an eye out for gremlins.

Follow the money ...

When I look at what IT professionals have on their plate, I see a good dish of broadband wireless. Many, however, may think the coverage is lacking or the technology is premature. But don't rest on that theory too long. The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a trade group consisting of the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, spent $130,000 in the first six months to lobby the federal government for more radio spectrum for wireless high-speed Internet. They are even looking to grab unused television spectrum for broadband access.

Scan IT

Hewlett-Packard's scanning technology helps solo practitioners and small law offices keep pace with the resources of a large firm. To support that statement, I took a look at HP's Scanet 7650N and found it to be an easy-to-install scanning device that puts paper documents, photographs and slides into a digital format and and onto network shares at the press of a button. HP recently released a their Scanjet N7710 for the small- to medium-sized law offices that needs a dedicated document scanner wed to a document management workflow.