Category: Uncategorized
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FOIA Futility
As law librarians, I’m sure most of us have a FOIA request horror story or two (hundred): requests that took months to fill, required numerous follow-ups, or were never fulfilled at all. Unfortunately, our FOIA experiences are not out-of-the-ordinary. According to a recent study most government agencies are doing a poor job of handling FOIA…
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How Impactful Could AALL’s ROI Study Be?
AALL announced details on its plans to produce a ROI study about law librarians and law libraries (press release available here). AALL announced late last week their selection of HBR Consulting to conduct the study. The results of this study will provide empirical data concerning the value of law librarians, which will be a boon…
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Pacer Pro is Pacer Improved
If you have ever pulled a federal court document, then you are familiar with Pacer. Pacer’s critics are many and prone to point out the software’s numerable flaws including its arcane UI and user costs. Luckily, we are riding a wave of programmers and entrepreneurs who have been willing to improve upon this outdated interface…
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How is Bloomberg Law’s New App?
Bloomberg Law has announced the release of a new app that works in conjunction with your Bloomberg Law subscription. The app is available both for the Apple iOS (via the App Store) and the Android operating system (via Google Play).
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Small Firms & the Cloud
Lexis’s new research shows small firms trending towards increasingly adopting cloud technology. Lexis surveyed firms of 1-20 attorneys, finding 39.4% of respondents are using cloud services for legal-related work today, with 72.4% of respondents believing law firms will be more likely to consider a could service in 2014. Lexis put together a handy infographic detailing…
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In Case You Missed It: The Droid Lawyer Connects Google Drive to Your Desktop
The cloud has changed the way we interact with the web—there’s no hyperbole in this statement. Mobile devices, private networks with shared data centers, the rise of apps, dynamic sites—all of these innovations were enabled by cloud computing. But, saving documents and files to a server somewhere out in the universe isn’t always as easy…
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App Review: DkT
If you work in the legal field, there is no doubt you have experienced working with PACER; it’s the interface that enables users to access and file federal court documents. DkT (available here) is a brand new app that puts an easily-navigable, streamlined mobile user interface on top of PACER, enabling users to access documents…
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Same Content, Different Apps: Martindale-Hubbell, Lawyers.com
Lexis has created two apps that do the exact same thing: the Martindale-Hubbell and Lawyers.com apps allow user access to the same, giant directory of attorneys. Lexis, though, clearly has different audiences in mind for the two apps, having tailored Martindale-Hubbell to attorneys and Lawyers.com for the public. The Martindale-Hubbell app is intended to be used…
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Review: SCOTUSblog’s New iOS App
Everybody’s favorite U.S. Supreme Court blog, SCOTUSblog, recently released an accompanying iOS app. At this point, the app’s main feature is to display the blog entries from the SCOTUSblog site, enabling on-the-go attorneys an easy method of staying abreast of the latest happenings at our nation’s court of last resort. Users have the ability to…
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The OverDrive Model: How Lexis Approaches eBooks
OverDrive appears to have established the format of how to distribute eBooks in a public library environment. To oversimplify their business model, OverDrive is essentially the digital middle man between publishers and libraries. Think of them as the library iTunes of the eBook world; libraries who use OverDrive can offer their patrons access to an…
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