Doug Cornelius .com

I decided to poke around and try to list as many Massachusetts based legal blogs as I could find. Here is the list. Sorry if I missed any. Send me the links and I will update this list.

Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog
Covers topics such as felonies, violent crime, assault and battery, drug offenses, and wrongful convictions.
Published by Altman & Altman LLP.
http://www.bostoncriminallawyerblog.com/

Boston Employment Lawyer Blog
Information on age discrimination, employment contracts, hostile work environments and other employment law topics.
Published by Conforto Law Group
http://www.bostonemploymentlawyerblog.com/

Boston ERISA & Insurance Litigation Blog
Covers ERISA, insurance coverage, and insurance bad faith.
Published by Stephen Rosenberg of The McCormack Firm, LLC.
http://www.bostonerisalaw.com/

Boston Immigration & Nationality Blog
Serving immigrants in the Boston and Framingham metro areas
Published by Joshua Daley Paulin
http://bostonimmigrationblog.com/

Boston Injury Lawyer Blog
Discusses topics such as boating, car, motorcycle, and pedestrian accidents.
Published by Altman & Altman LLP.
http://www.bostoninjurylawyerblog.com/

Caselines
This blog addresses topics in litigation knowledge management such as internal expertise identification, collaborative software for lawyers, search methods for lawyers, the convergence of ediscovery and enterprise search, and more.
Published by David Hobbie of Goodwin Procter LLP
http://caselines.blogspot.com/

Cogito Ergo Teneo; an intellectual property blawg
A blawg dedicated to reporting on recent U.S. copyright, trademark, and trade secret law, as well as any other interesting intellectual property news.
Published by Sean FWJ Fowler, general counsel for a technology company in Marlborough, MA.
http://cogitoergoteneo.blogspot.com/

CorpCollblog
The online home and blog of the Law Office of Woodworth & Frisella. They specialize in handling commercial collection matters for all kinds of business with a particular emphasis on software companies.
http://corporatecollections.com/

Eon
The blog of Professor Charles Nesson of the Harvard Law School
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/nesson/

Erik J. Heels
Erik J. Heels is an MIT engineer, patent and trademark lawyer, Red Sox fan, and music lover. This is his blog about Technology, Law, Baseball, and Rock ‘n’ Roll.
http://www.erikjheels.com/

Et Seq.
The Harvard Law School Library Blog
http://etseq.law.harvard.edu/index.php

HealthBlawg
New developments in health care law and policy together with the observations and analysis of David Harlow, of The Harlow Group LLC, a health care law and consulting firm in Newton.
http://healthblawg.typepad.com/healthblawg/

Home Contractor vs. Homeowner
Addresses contractor and homeowner disputes.
Published by Andrea Goldman
http://andreagoldmanlaw.blogspot.com/

John Palfrey
As Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, John’s work focuses on Internet law, intellectual property, and the potential of new technologies to strengthen democracies locally and around the world.
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/

KM Space
The Law Firm Knowledge Management Blog, with postings on knowledge management, enterprise 2.0, legal technology and the practice of law
Published by Doug Cornelius
http://kmspace.blogspot.com/

Law For Life
Estate planning, asset protection, elder law, probate, reverse mortgages and real estate
Published by Gosselin & Associates, P.C.
http://blog.lawforlife.com/

Law Links | Health Links
Connecting legal, health and marketing resources with a New England focus, by Amy Campbell of Infoworks! Amy also publishes Amy Campbell’s Weblog, thinking about new media, web marketing and law firm marketing.
http://lawlinkshealthlinks.blogspot.com/


Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government
Karla J. de Steuben created the Massachusetts Campaign For Open Government website after she was told by a Massachusetts town official that she could not have a copy of a public record she requested because it would only confuse her.
http://maopengov.org/blog.html

Massachusetts Consumer Rights
News on consumer rights issues in Massachusetts by Attorney Kenneth D. Quat.
(The posts on this blog are very sporadic)
http://massachusettsconsumer.blogspot.com/

Massachusetts Divorce & Family Law Blog
Boston area attorney Steven Ballard discusses recent developments in divorce & family law.
http://massachusettsfamilylaw.blogspot.com/

Massachusetts Driving Law
Information on Speeding Tickets, Drunk Driving, OUI, DUI, Moving Violations, Citations, Insurance Surcharges, License Suspensions, Registry of Motor Vehicle Hearings, RMV issues, Clerk’s Hearings, Junior Operators, Hardship Licenses, Revoked Licenses, Ignition Locks, Criminal Complaints, Criminal Charges and other driving related issues for Massachusetts Residents.
Published by Jessica A. Foley
http://massdrivinglaw.typepad.com/

Massachusetts DUI Podcast – MA Drunk Driving Defense Lawyer
Massachusetts DUI Attorney Russell Matson’s Podcast
http://www.madrunkdrivingdefense.com/podcast/dui-podcast.html

Massachusetts Law Updates
From the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries
http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/whatsnew.html

Massachusetts Personal Injury Blog
Information For Those Injured in Massachusetts Motor Vehicle Accidents, Bicycle Accidents, Pedestrian Accidents, Slips and Falls, Dog Bites, Massachusetts Medical Malpractice and other Accidents, by Boston Personal Injury Attorney Christopher F. Earley.
http://christopherfearley.typepad.com/massachusetts_personal_in/

Massachusetts Estate Planning and Elder Law
Information, resources and commentary about estate planning, elder law, MassHealth/Medicaid, care-giving, family matters and growing older in Massachusetts by Leanna Hamill, Attorney at Law. Hingham.
http://lhamillattorney.typepad.com/main/

MassLawBlog.Com
This site focuses on Lee Gesmer‘s practice areas: IP, business law, Internet law, antitrust and practice in the Massachusetts state and federal courts.
http://www.masslawblog.com

Media Law
A blog about freedom of the press
Published by Robert J. Ambrogi
http://www.legaline.com/medialaw.html

MediationChannel.com
Mediation can challenge people to see things differently, bringing new insight and and greater understanding of themselves, each other, and the underlying conflict. That’s the aim behind this blog — to invite you to see things anew.
Published by Greater Boston attorney and mediator Diane Levin
http://mediationchannel.com/

Medical Malpractice Law News
All the medical malpractice news and resources that are fit to click
(Posted anonymously)
http://medicalmalpracticelaw.blogspot.com/

OpenSourceLegal.org
This Website is intended to serve as a current reference for legal issues related to the use of open source software, especially software licensed under the GNU public license, such as Linux.
The Website is currently maintained by Peter Moldave, a partner at Gesmer Updegrove LLP
http://www.opensourcelegal.org/

Out of the Jungle
Thoughts on the present and future of legal information, legal research, and legal education.
http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/

Patricia Bloom-McDonald, Attorney at law
Information on elder law and estate planning
http://mcbloomlaw.blogspot.com/

Real Estate Space
The Commercial Real Estate Finance Law Blog, with notes on real estate law and the real estate business from a Massachusetts lawyer
Doug Cornelius.
http://realestatespace.blogspot.com/

Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites
Tracking new and intriguing Web sites for the legal profession.
Published by Robert J. Ambrogi
http://www.legaline.com/lawsites.html

Standards Blog
Examines how standards are developed, and their impact on business, society, the world, and the future.
Published by Andy Updegrove of Gesmeer Updegrove LLP
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/

Suffolk Law Library Blog
The blog of the Suffolk Law Library
http://suffolklawlibrary.blogspot.com/index.html

The E-Legal Lawyer
Covers small business, cyber law and employment law issues.
Published by Michael Goldstein.
http://www.goldsteinandclegglaw.com/blog

The TTABlog
Keeping tabs on the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Published by John L. Welch of Lowrie, Lando & Anastasi, LLP
http://thettablog.blogspot.com/

Velvel on National Affairs
This progressive blog sets forth the personal views of the Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law on national events. Occasionally, the responses to his views or other interesting articles are also posted.
Published by Lawrence R. Velvel
http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/

Eric Charran published his whitepaper on: Managing social networking with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

The whitepaper points out a few ways that SharePoint can be used to expose more information about a person inside the firm. It does not provide the level of interaction or a flow information as powerful as Facebook.

SharePoint does provide a nice platform for exposing more information about the person by pulling information from multiple systems. In particular, I think the use of the techniques and tools discussed in the whitepaper can be used to exposed internal expertise.

Bill Gates, after paying $240 million for a 1.6% interest in Facebook, has decided to stop using the website for his own profile: Bill Gates is off his Facebook. Thomas Wailgum, the Editor of CIO, has adopted the same philosophy: Bill Gates and I Both Say No to Facebook.

Unless you are as famous as Bill Gates, then his alleged abandonment of Facebook should not be a reason for you think less of it. According to the story, Mr. Gates was getting 8,000 friend requests a day. By comparison, my favorite voice on NPR, Carl Kasell has less than 4,000 friends. Bill Gates is getting twice that number each day.

Unless you are a famous celebrity, Facebook is a great way to stay connected with people you know. This power is especially amplified by Facebook’s ability to pull information from other sources. For example, the blog posts from this blog, the posts from my Real Estate Space blawg and my shared items from Google Reader all get pushed into my Facebook profile (and then to my friends) without me having to go into Facebook. My status updates largely come from my Twitter updates.

The Facebook platform is a great model for knowledge management, especially for expertise location. It is pulling information from various sources and compiling it in one place. You get a pretty full picture of my background and expertise from my Facebook profile. I find this to be a great model for designing an internal expertise system on our intranet.

In the case of McDonald v Rappaport et al, Judge Tauro of the United States District Court of Massachusetts, found that the International House of Pancakes is not a fast food restaurant. Judge Tauro also highlights a few drafting points for restrictive covenants.

In a lease with McDonald’s Corporation, the landlord agreed to a provision that prohibited the landlord allowing a “so-called fast food restaurant, food service establishment, drive-in or walk-up eating facility” on property owned, leased or controlled by the landlord within two miles.

The court found the provision ambiguous as to whether “so-called fast food” modified only “restaurant” or also modified “food service establishment,” “drive-in” and “walk-up.” The court found that “so-called fast food” applied to each term after a bench trial. In evidence was an earlier draft of the provision that did not include “fast food.”

The court also went on to note that a restrictive covenant like this is a restraint on alienation. In Massachusetts, “restrictions on land are disfavored, and they in general are to be construed against the grantor and in favor of freedom of alienation.” [citing Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. v. Urstadt Biddle Props., 740 N.E.2d 1286, 1289 (Mass.App. Ct. 2000)] So the narrower reading of applying the “so-called fast food” modification applies to all of the cited uses.

Even though the McDonald’s lease does not define “so-called fast food,” McDonald’s and IHOP did not dispute that IHOP is not a fast food restaurant under any definition of “fast food” or “quick service.” McDonald’s and IHOP both agreed that IHOP is a full service, family style restaurant.

Mark Herrman, author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law, wrote a piece in The National Law Journal: Blogging Lessons Learned. It turns out he is also co-author of the Drug and Device Law Blog.

Here are his four lessons from legal blogging and my thoughts.

1. “Blogging about substantive legal issues is hard.” A blogger must regularly post fresh content about interesting issues. There is not always interesting legal content on the subject of your legal blog. Often times I will read a case that sounds interesting for my Real Estate Space blog, only to find out the case lacks much meaning.

2. “Blogging is personally satisfying.” Every blog post is a snapshot of an idea that I can easily retrieve. Even if nobody reads the blog post except me, I have created a resource for me. Of course it is great to see others referring to your article. [You like me. You really, really like me.] Even better is getting comments and criticism to help craft and fine tune my thinking.

3. “Law firms, like law schools, are clueless about how to value blogs.” Most law firms are not sure whether to encourage lawyers to write blogs or to forbid them? Should they sponsor blogs (to claim credit) or disavow them (to avoid risk)?

4. “Blogging pays off. It pays off in part by being a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Whether or not you know anything about the topics you cover in your blog, you appear to be an expert in that field. You can hold yourself out there as an expert. But unless people hear what you have to say (or read what you have written), they are not going to buy into your expertise. Also by blogging, I force myself to think about my subject for at least a few minutes a day. Blogging forces me step out of my workflow and “think” rather than just “do.”

One of the most common requests I get for a knowledge management project is to give them a search like “The Google.” They want one simple box that give them their answer.

As anyone who has looked at enterprise search has seen, people are often asking very different questions and expecting very different answers. For example, if you are searching for a phone number for a fellow employee, you would expect a very different view of the search results than if you were looking for that same name in the document collection. There are certainly lots of challenges to combining the plethora of searches inside the enterprise into one single search box.

Can one simple box deliver such different results?

It turns out Google answered that question with their “onebox” search results. ” In addition to providing easy access to billions of web pages, Google has many special features to help you to find exactly what you’re looking for.”

If you enter a movie name, the results show movie listings and reviews:

If you enter an address, you get a map:

Google has a list of their features here: Google Search Features.

Tom Davenport seems to have found some middle ground with Andy McAfee in their battle over Enterprise 2.0: Enterprise 2.0: The New, New Knowledge Management?

“But when Andy said the ultimate value of E2.0 initiatives consists of
greater responsiveness, better “knowledge capture and sharing,” and more
effective “collective intelligence,” there wasn’t much doubt. When he talked
about the need for a willingness to share and a helpful attitude, I
remembered all the times over the past 15 years I’d heard that about KM. . . . Sure, there are a few differences between classical KM and E2.0. The tools are largely different, for one.”

I touched on this in my Law Firm Knowledge Management 2.0 post and the ensuing series of Law Firm Knowledge Management 2.0 posts:

• Summary
• Wikis will be a great way to synthesize knowledge
• Blogs will be a great way to make announcements and summarize meetings
• Email needs to be incorporated
• Document management systems can host
• RSS is there to spread the word
• Search to find all of the good stuff

The City of Chicago is trying to expand the scope of its real estate transfer tax to to be paid even when the buyer forfeits the down payment: City transfer tax may expand to cover incomplete real estate deals. I assume the idea is that the seller got some cash out of the deal and the city wants its piece of it.

This expansion is on top of the increase in the transfer tax from $7.50 to $10.50 for every $1000 of consideration starting on April 1

Thanks to David Stejkowski of the The Dirt Lawyer’s Blog for pointing this out: Chicago’s transfer tax: good grief – what next?

Connie Crosby assembled a bunch of information on wikis in law firms, including a slideshow and a summary of a roundtable discussion: Do Wikis Belong in Law Firms? You can follow the link over to Connie’s blog to get the details.

One item from the discussion caught my eye. The person was surprised that there was “any wiki use in law firms since they see the culture to be competitive, not one conducive to sharing.”

I think you need to make the distinction between lawyers and the law firm culture. Sure lawyers are competitive. It is a harsh job, demanding lots of time and knowledge. In law school everyone realizes that those with the highest grades will have their pick of jobs and those with lesser grades will find it harder to get jobs. Lawyers are competitive.

But law firms are about lawyers organizing to work together and share resources. Partners need each other for their expertise across subject matters. Partners need associates to help get the work done. Associates need the partners to bring in work. Everyone needs their secretaries to help get the work done. The lawyers need the library to staff to help research. More experienced lawyers need to share their knowledge with the junior lawyers so that the junior lawyers can get the work done properly. And so on. The better the sharing of knowledge about the work and sharing of skills, the better the firm will operate.

Sharing your knowledge with others in the firm does not diminish your value to the law firm. It increases your value. Sharing your knowledge just exposes your expertise. You will always know more than you can write down. Whatever you manage to write down and make findable will act as signpost for people to find you and your expertise.

You can hold yourself out there as an expert. But unless people hear what you have to say (or read what you have written), they are not going to buy into your expertise.

The folks over at Lexblog decide to interview me on Real Lawyers Have Blogs: Doug Cornelius of Goodwin Procter [LexBlog Q & A].

Thanks to Rob La Gatta for making me sound reasonably intelligent and Kevin O’Keefe for putting me on the interview list.