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Using Security as a Selling Point for Your Practice

December 17, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

A few weeks ago, Jordan Furlong (who’s North America’s answer to Richard Susskind) tipped me off to Clearspire, a new, “new kind of law firm.” Billing itself as a revolutionary law firm, Clearspire’s website reads like a page out of Susskind, hitting all of the buzz words like alternative billing, combining legal advice with business [...]

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Avoid the Client-Portal Potty

December 6, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

What’s not to like about an online client portal?  Setting up a site that enables clients to access their records or check the status of their case 24/7 offers the benefit of convenience and saves costs by eliminating the need for staff to respond to client requests for information. Client portals aren’t pricey either.  Technologies [...]

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Should You Warn Your Client About Hacked Email Services?

September 14, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

After posting last night about the trade-off between confidentiality and client communication, I came across Joe Hodnicki’s post at the Law Librarian’s Blog about the rise of services like Yourhackerz.com which enables users to buy a password to another anyone’s online email accounts like AOL, Yahoo, gmail or social networking sites like Facebook for one [...]

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Client Confidentiality Is Paramount, But Communication Matters More

September 13, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

Back in the day when I started my law firm and handled court appointed criminal cases, my first meeting with my clients usually took place in the noisy, cramped holding cell behind the courtrooms.  On warm days especially, the cells teemed with waiting defendants and I’d have to yell my client’s name loudly so they’d [...]

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More on Metadata

May 9, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Evan Schaeffer has these comments on the Florida Bar’s Ethics Committee proposed advisory opinion on metadata.  The opinion instructs attorneys to safeguard metadata in documents, but at the same time, directs lawyers who receive documents not to view metadata if not intended for them.  Evan wonders why Florida doesn’t put the onus on the transmitting [...]

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If You Never “Met-a” Data You Didn’t Like, You May Be Acting Unethically

February 1, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Jim Calloway has a terrific round up post on the ethics of lawyers accessing meta data. Jim starts by explaining what meta data is (it’s basically data about data, embedded in your documents) and how to access it.  He then cites the various views on meta data, on the one hand, the Florida Bar’s initial [...]

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Security Breach At LEXIS

March 10, 2005 by Carolyn Elefant

This article, Personal Data Bared in LexisNexis breach,  Oregonlive.com (3/10/05) reports that intruders managed to steal customer passwords and access personal information from LexisNexis’ Accurint database.  Lexis acquired Seisent, parent company of Accurint, (a darling of solo practitioners given its low cost capability of tracking people and assets), in August 2004 – and at that [...]

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