http://www.legalethics.com Focusing on the ethical issues associated with the use of technology by legal professionals Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:38:04 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The issue resolved in City of Ontario v. Quon, __ US __ (2010), turned on whether a police officer's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when his employer, the police department, reviewed text messages on his pager for legitimate business reasons. The Court held that the search was reasonable. While ... http://www.legalethics.com/?p=478 A law graduate was held unfit to take a bar exam for the combined conduct of engaging in selling 300-500 Chinese knock-off DVDs and not disclosing the subsequent copyright infringement suit in In re Brown (Ohio May 5, 2010). http://www.legalethics.com/?p=477 There's a great story by CBS here concerning the fact that for the last eight years, most digital copies contain a harddrive that retains an image of the last 20,000 copies made. Law firms selling or otherwise discarding their copiers should consider treating them just like a laptop, and ... http://www.legalethics.com/?p=476 The story is here. http://www.legalethics.com/?p=475 Professor Hricik's paper on ethics and the Internet, which includes coverage of ethical issues created by use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as linking by clients to lawyer webpages, and other issues, is available on-line here. http://www.legalethics.com/?p=474 Not making this one up: the opinion is here.  In a split decision, the majority reasoned that "friending" a lawyer who appeared before the judge suggested improper influence. If you see a judge today, don't wave! http://www.legalethics.com/?p=473 An article in Wired Magazine reports that half of the Internet's top websites use a little known feature in the Flash plug-in that allows for tracking of browsing activity and gathering of "private" information.  Ryan Singel, You Deleted Your Cookies?  Think Again (Aug. 2009). http://www.legalethics.com/?p=472 The South Carolina bar association addressed a hypothetical webside that listed attorneys without their involvement, and allows "clients" and others to "rate" the attorney.  The bar association held that a lawyer could claim his listing in this service, but that all comments made about him were subject to the advertising ... http://www.legalethics.com/?p=471 There's an article here about criminals using "anti-virus" software to plant trojan horses that let them intercept communications, and more. http://www.legalethics.com/?p=470      A Tennessee woman was arrested for virtually "poking" someone on Facebook, violating a TRO.  You can read about it here. A few months back, a Philadelphia bar opinion held that a lawyer could not use a fake "name" on facebook to become befriended so as to gain access to an ... http://www.legalethics.com/?p=469