To the Barricades!
Hmmm. New York has proposed changes in their ethics rules that would require all electronics communications from lawyers to carry the word "ADVERTISING," and defines advertising as "any public communication made by or on behalf of a lawyer or law firm about a lawyer or law firm, or about a lawyer's or law firm's services." It would unquestionably apply to email -- the proposed rules change requires that "ATTORNEY ADVERTISING" appear in the subject heading -- and there's a question of whether it would apply to legal blogs, like this one. Of course, that's New York, and this is Ohio, so assuming the normal pace of things, when Ohio adopts such a rule it would apply to my great-grandchildren. But should the pace be accelerated, you can rest assured that I'll comply with such nonsense only when they pry the computer keyboard out of my cold, dead hands.
Tomorrow's Turkey Day, and as you might guess, I'm not exactly in the mood to be doing any intensive research, so we'll just throw out some odds and ends. The 6th Circuit decided a case last year, US v. McClain, which upheld a search with a warrant under the "good faith" exception, despite the fact that the warrant itself was based on information obtained in a previous illegal search. Earlier this year, the court denied an en banc hearing over some particularly acrid dissents, and last week the Supreme Court denied cert.
Speaking of the 6th Circuit, it's going to have oral arguments en banc in December on a case involving the 2004 elections and the applicability of the Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore to the question of whether using punch card ballots in only some counties was a violation of equal protection. If you're so inclined, you can read more -- much, much more -- about it here.
If you've got a big case, and you'd like to do a mock jury but don't want to spend big bucks doing it, you might want to take a look at this. It's a company that's put up a web site which will allow you to submit a case and have it decided by online jurors similar to ones that wind up on real juries. A written presentation costs $1500, an audio one $2000, and a video one $2500. They have a demo on the site that you can check out.
And last but not least, I am now going to provide you something more useful than all the posts I've put up here over the past six months: the 2006 Holiday Gift Guide for Lawyers. It was put together by Reid Trautz, author of Reid My Blog!, a legal blog devoted to legal management and technology issues. The first offering definitely sets the tone:
Most of the Parrotheads I know are lawyers, and everyone of them would love to have the Margaritaville® Frozen Concoction™ Maker in their particular harbor. About $300 from Jimmy's Margaritaville Cargo.
Think I'll have one of those tomorrow. Sounds very Turkey Day-ish.
See you on Monday.
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