The Wall Street Journal ran a feature today titled Even Lawyers Get the Blues: Opening Up About Depression. One quote from the article might be surprising to law students or those outside of the legal profession. "That lawyers are among the most miserable of men — and women — is well-known. Some 19% of lawyers suffer depression at any given time, compared with 6.7% of the population as a whole, says the University of Arizona’s Connie Beck, a leading researcher on the subject." Oklahoma City attorney Jim Webb and some other Oklahomans are featured in the video clip.

The online version of the ABA Journal also discussed this today in an article titled Lawyer Depression Comes Out of the Closet. This article makes note of the "fact" that "[p]essimists excel at law, but they are at risk for depression." I found that interesting and dug a little deeper. It was based on a study indicating that pessimistic law students got better grades, were more likely to make law review and get "better" job offers. It is probably equally true that those who had no social or personal life outside of law school did better in those three categories as well. Would they have better lives or enjoy more success? As noted in the comments to a prior ABA article, I’m not sure that one can make that leap of logic. Thanks to Carly for giving us the link to the original article, outlining the positive contributions of being optimistic.

At one time we were experiencing at least one lawyer suicide per month in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Bar responded with an improved crisis hotline and initial free mental health counseling for lawyers. They have fielded a lot of calls. We work in a stressful profession. People bring us their problems and expect us to fix them. We search for the truth in adversarial courtroom settings. We often deal with important and significant high-stakes situations. Your law practice tip today is to be alert for your own mood changes and to take care of yourself this holiday season.

I’m a bit late congratulating my friend Dennis Kennedy on his new gig as technology columnist for the ABA Journal.  He will make interesting use of that platform.

His first column was titled "Finding It—Difficult." He noted how desktop search tools allow you to save interesting articles quickly, perhaps all in one folder, and be able to find them later. I’ve been using that approach for well over a year now with my My Library folder and it has paid dividends. I know that the librarian and cataloger types must cringe at the "toss them all together, let search tools sort them out" approach. But it works for me, primarily because I don’t have to take the time to figure out which folder or classification to use when I want to save something. I do save the items with a long descriptive file name.

The second column from Dennis is Power Passwords. Some savvy readers will be familiar with this information, but a lot of ABA Journal readers will probably learn some important concepts that are new to them.

Congratulations, Dennis. We look forward to more wit and wisdom from you. And, for the four or five readers of my blog who have never visited Dennis’s blog, stop by there, too.

Regular readers of this blog will need no introduction to Ross Kodner, tech consultant extraordinaire. He does some really nice blog posts on his blog, Ross Ipsa Loquitor, and participates in many legal technology-related lists (to pick two of many things i could say about Ross.)

But you really, really, really need to read his post on Great Truths About Data Backup. Afterwards, you probably want to e-mail the link to anyone in your office with any responsibility for back up and tell them to read it! Given today’s law office environment, a catastrophic data loss where there is no current data backup can quite literally destroy your law practice. Don’t risk it.

OK, I admit I do like keyboard shortcuts most than most lawyers (in spite of the fact that I’ve probably forgotten more of them than I retain.) It is almost always quicker to hit a key combination than to grab the mouse and start aiming for your target. Memorize and use the keyboard shortcuts for tasks you do several times a day or week. The mouse clicks are for things used less frequently.

KeyXL.com claims to be "the largest online database of keyboard shortcuts in the world." After a few experimental searches I didn’t find anything to make me doubt that. You can get long printable lists of shortcuts for many programs. Hat tip to Tom Mighell for the link to KeyXL.

Well, the ABA Journal has really improved its online content this year and this week’s new feature is the Blawg 100, which features "the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal." So you can click on the link above and go vote for your favorites among the 100. I’m pleased that Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips was included and would appreciate your vote. As I understand it, you can vote for as many blawgs as you wish, but only once for each one. It’s worth your time to visit the collection just because you will undoubtedly find some blogs you have missed or forgotten. The blogs are classified by category and mine is included in Lawyer’s Toolkit. You can jump to that section directly by clicking here. (In case you are in a real hurry to vote!) Other categories include Lawyers Behaving Badly (aka ethics blawgs) and Your So-Called Life.

As I said, the ABA Journal has really improved its website during 2007 and it is definitely an improved news source. They’ve also provided a Blawg Directory, with guides and links to over 1500 blawgs (or legal blogs if you prefer,) so it a good place to see whether there might be a blawg featuring the specialized legal content you desire. Just for an example, check out their guide to Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips, and you can see the screen capture, the link to the RSS feed and the first few sentences of the 10 lastest posts with links to the entire post. All in all, a nice one page summary of my work, and a fine way to quickly review dozens of blogs.

So, as the saying goes, vote early and often.  <Grin>

I know there are other search engine options besides Google, but Google still dominates the search engine landscape. Most lawyers are proficient at using search engines because the techniques are not that different from digital legal research. But power searching is one area where the poor need to improve and the good can always get better. GoogleGuide lets you start your path to improvement by selecting whether you are a novice, an expert or a teen. The lessons are simple and clear. But what really caught my attention was GoogleGuide’s pair of 2 page quick reference guides, suitable for printing on both sides of a paper and maybe even laminating. I’ll bet even the Google "experts" out there will appreciate the Google Calculator Cheat Sheet.

Just in time for the kickoff of holiday shopping season is Reid Trautz’s 2007 Holiday Gift Guide for Lawyers. It includes lots of interesting ideas for presents for lawyers and laypeople alike, delivered with Reid’s typical understated humorous style. "OK, I want that and that and …."

Courtney Kennaday, Practice Management Advisor for the South Carolina Bar sent me an e-mail today noting another nifty gadget, the Drive eRazer, a bit of hardware that permanently erases data from a hard drive, allowing the hard drive to be safely re-used or donated to a charity. Now if you think that might make a great holiday gift for a lawyer or law firm administrator, well, you really need a serious attitude adjustment.

This month I decided to put together a legal technology quiz. Take the quiz here.

I will confess up front that entertainment was the primary goal here rather than true benchmarking of knowledge. Nevertheless, if you get a 3 or 4, you might have some cause for concern. I will note that the best possible score a non-Oklahoma lawyer can get is 14 rather than 15, so adjust the scoring accordingly. No use of Google or other search engines is allowed. Gray matter searches only please.

I also notice that the Beckman and Hirsh technology column in the October, 2007 ABA Journal also included a quiz, but in a much more serious vein. Take that quiz here. I must note that this appears to be the last Beckman and Hirsh column in the ABA Journal, at least as a regular feature. Thanks to David Beckman and David Hirsh for their many years of service to the legal community.

One of the bad things about having a blog now is the PR e-mail you receive.

"Hi Jim, I read your blog all the time. Here’s my latest piece of corporate promotional crap. Would you please give it free publicity for me?" (No offense intended to those who actually do read my blog all the time.)

Nevertheless, a polite e-mail from Magicmud caught my eye. Custom designed lawyer figurines at a decent price do seem to be a cute gift for the senior partner in your life.