In other bloggish news, the 9th Circuit Court recently cited a blog post by one Sean Sirrine, a first-year law student, in a dissenting opinion. You can see the blog post that the court cited here. While some have claimed that blogs aren't scholarly enough to merit citation from a judge, law blogger Eugene Volokh has said that it is about time that law blogs receive the credit they are due. Volokh, however, has some reservations about the practice of judges citing online sources. This particular citation refers to Sirrine as a member of the bar, though he is a law student. This sort of slipshod fact-checking is problematic with these types of citations, as people tend to get lazy when dealing with online resources.
Mega-firm Baker & McKenzie has egg on its face after an incident involving a preemptive cease and desist letter and a popular weblog. Attorneys from Baker & McKenzie fired off an aggressive cease and desist letter to the website Boing Boing on behalf of firm client Infront Sports and Media, copyright holder for FIFA World Cup soccer matches. The letter said that the firm would be monitoring the site for unauthorized broadcasts of soccer matches. Boing Boing posted the letter on its site, responding that it had no intention of broadcasting soccer matches. The faux pas prompted many other bloggers, such as LexBlog and Human Law, to hold Baker & McKenzie to ridicule. Though some praise the firm for actively protecting its copyright clients, others see the letter as a major public relations blunder.
This week, Tales of a Public Defender Investigator offered up a blog post about using MySpace, blogs, and other websites to conduct investigations into witnesses and victims. Tales of a Public Defender Investigator analyzes the ethical implications of culling investigatory info from the MySpace pages of adults and juveniles. While investigators owe it to their clients to conduct the most thorough investigations possible, attorneys must adhere to the code of ethics. In defense of using personal websites to gather investigatory info, the PDI blog mentions the case of the Woodland, CA, teacher who was arrested for having sex with an underage male student and how the teacher's MySpace page led to her apprehension. The NSA also utilizes such resources, monitoring the information people post about themselves on the Internet. With the blogosphere growing exponentially, there is no limit to the amount of info people are willing to reveal about themselves online.
Several law bloggers and business analysts have come out in support of a new mode of billing clients known as value bidding. Proponents of value billing say it's fair and preferred by clients. Rather than billing a standard rate for billable hours, under the value billing system, clients pay more for positive outcomes and less for other results. Supporters of the new system claim it is a more sound economic structure than the contingency-fee system. Value billing has its detractors, however. David Gialcone of the now-defunct law blog formerly known as Formerly Known as F/K/A claims the system will allow attorneys to bilk clients who don't understand how to assess the worth of a lawyer's service. Carolyn Elefant of Inside Opinions finds the whole thing too complicated. For now, the biggest advocate of value billing is Ronald J. Baker, who claims that one-third of small firms have already implemented the system.
Police in Los Angeles County have violated the attorney-client privilege by recording attorney-client consultations and handing the tapes over to opposing counsel, according to Public Defender Dude's blog. The blog relates the tale of the Pasadena police, who recorded a conversation between two co-defendants and their lawyer in which one co-defendant implores the other to take a plea bargain deal. The tape was damning evidence in their trial. Public Defender Dude sees this as another example of eroding civil liberties. Another public defender blog, Defending Those People featured another story involving cops seemingly overstepping their boundaries. Check the link to see video of a prosecutor's daughter being manhandled by police after being hauled in on a noise disturbance charge.
And finally, you can click here for exclusive photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's baby.
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