Legal Technology

The importance of extranets ...

cannot be overstated. And of course, it should not be understated either, or else your competition will get the best of you. Mark Gerow showed us that extranets were an easy mechanism to marshal law firm computer resources. But they also lend themselves well to clients.

Clients can log into extranets and get access to forms and information from their legal team. Attorneys can create tasks for clients to complete and even provide a calendar of events for the client to attend. For example, a court date.

New York attorneys Willem and Margaretha Gravett have taken extranets to the divorce industry. These happily-married divorce attorneys of Gravett & Gravett recently unveiled an extranet for clients to access all the information and documentation surrounding their legal proceedings, 24 by 7. Kudos to the Gravetts.

BlackBerry Blackout

A major service outage is casting a shadow over BlackBerry smart phones across the United States and Canada today (Monday 2008-02-11) -- and it is not discriminating by carrier. That is, all customers of all wireless carriers have been affected.

Lawyer-Client E-Mail Loses Privilege Over Employer's Facilities

Kudman Trachten Aloe partner Paul Aloe reports that  Scott v. Beth Israel Medical Center serves as a "stark" warning for professionals communicating with clients over electronic communications provided by employers. Although N.Y. CPLR 4548 provides that "[n]o communication otherwise privileged under this article shall lose its privileged character for the sole reason that it is communicated by electronic means or because persons necessary for the delivery or facilitation of such electronic communication may have access to the content of the communication," Judge Ramos held that e-mails between a lawyer and client enjoyed no privilege because the employer had a policy of prohibiting personal use of its e-mail, phone and fax systems and a policy that such communication could be viewed by the employer.

Keeping a Secret

Computers were not designed to keep a secret. Really. From the ground up, computer security was, and is, an afterthought. But Princeton researchers put security in forethought and invented a computer architecture (secret protected or SP) that enables the secure transmission of critical information to first responders during life-threatening events such as natural disasters, fires or terrorist attacks using a key and a hash. Princeton University, Engineering School. "New Computer Architecture Aids Emergency Response." ScienceDaily 2 November 2007. 9 November 2007.