Most of you know I am a believer in using keyboard shortcuts. It is a lot quicker to hit a pair of keys as opposed to navigating with the mouse. I’ve blogged about this before and provided a downloadable keyboard shortcut "cheat sheet." But today I want to talk about one particular keyboard shortcut that protects your privacy as well as your clients’ privacy. That is hitting the Windows key (with the Windows logo) and at the same time the L key (for lock.)  This locks the computer and no one can access it again until you hit Cntrl+Alt+Delete and enter your password.

If you are leaving the computer to take a brief break, make a habit of locking it every time. I know you don’t allow anyone access to your office whom you do not trust. But still, maybe you don’t want your secretary to read that e-mail from your spouse or see just how far along you really are on that brief or view that open online game. This is just a good business privacy habit.

If the article and cheat sheet linked above are not enough for you, check out Wikipedia’s keyboard shortcut table.

One of my interests is how the Internet allows the formation of online communities of interest. This allows groups of people with like interests to communicate and interact even though they may be separated by distance. For some people these online groups become a significant part of their support group, their peers, their friends and, oddly, their enemies. If you work the graveyard shift, you may not get to see your neighbors much, but the online community is there for you 7/24/365. These communities may exist through electronic mailing lists, public or private message boards, blogs with comments allowed, or hosted Web sites ranging from Digg to MySpace.

As someone who participates in several online communities and tries to moderate one, often in vain I enjoyed this week’s article from Cory Doctorow entitled "How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community." (Doctorow is an writer who publishes the blog Boing Boing. A Directory of Wonderful Things, which is currently ranked by Technorati as the 1st or 2nd most popular blog of them all.)

Doctorow appreciates the emotional attachment that many have for their online communities."

  • "If you’re part of a nice little community of hamster-fanciers, Trekkers, or Volkswagen enthusiasts, it’s easy to slip into a kind of camaraderie, a social setting in which everyone talks about life, aspirations, family problems, personal triumphs. In some ways, it doesn’t matter what brought you together — the fact that you’re together is what matters."

But he points out a problem that anyone who has been a member of any online community for very long has experienced.

  • "The Internet Tough Guy is a feature in all Internet social forums. These are people who poison discussions with anger, hatred, and threats. Some are malicious. Some are crazy. Some are just afflicted with a rotten sense of humor. Whatever their motives, they’re a scourge. It takes precious little trolling to sour a message-board. A "troll" — someone who comes onto an online community looking to pick fights — has two victory conditions: Either everyone ends up talking about him, or no one talks at all…."

The entire article is worth reading. I hoped to find a solution that I had not yet tried, but did not find one. Although the concept of a troll whisperer is both cute and interesting.

One online community for solo and small firm lawyers is Solosez. They have had to totally ban political discussions. One announcement of a news item or happening is allowed, but no discussion thereafter. You’d think that since a lot of political activity has to do with the passing of laws there would be some interesting political discussions there. But experience shows otherwise. Rarely would a political discussion get past the first four or five e-mails until someone insulted another or questioned their proper parentage. It actually became sort of a running joke as to how many messages it took before someone compared someone they disagree with to the Nazis.

In Oklahoma, we have the OBA-NET. Participation is limited to Oklahoma lawyers only. Our rules for discussing emphasize respect and never attacking other people personally while you might disagree with their ideas. This week there was a discussion of a certain deceased political/religious leader. One person questioned the meaning of one person’s comment, which was met with the retort that if they couldn’t understand it, they should "turn in their bar card." So much for no personal attacks, I guess. A few months ago a lawyer questioned my mental ability because we disagreed on a court access policy, of all things.

The ironic thing is that both of these people are nice people in person. But when they post online they use rhetoric that I think they would likely never use in person. As we have all learned from e-mail, the  cold text of typed information separated from any other context is easily misunderstood. In a friendly debate around the office water coolor, a disparaging comment about someone’s lack of mental ability said with a grin would have little chance of being misunderstood and certainly couldn’t be located with Google years later.

Sports discussion groups often encourage insults and flaming. For many it is all in good fun. But I am sure people leave every week with hurt feelings. Lawyers should consider just how many biting words they wish to leave online to be indexed by Google and found years later. We’re pretty good at using our words. But sometimes not using some words may be the strongest tactic of all.

OBA-NET remains a vibrant online community. Young lawyers can receive mentoring. Every Oklahoma lawyer can get obscure questions answered. I’ve purchased several items online after being alerted to an Internet bargain by one of our members. If you are an Oklahoma lawyer and have never participated or have not logged in for while, come and see us here. Hopefully you won’t encounter any trolls.

if you want to read more about online communities of lawyers, check out Ellen Freedman’s post on the topic.

When you think of wikis, you may think only of Wikipedia. But in fact there are quite a few law-related wikis. For a discussion of the tool and a list of links to law-related wikis, check out Bob Ambrogi’s article "Legal Wikis are Bound to Wow You."

It seems like a lot of medium-sized law firms would benefit by setting up an internal, private wiki as a knowledge management tool.

Ellen Freedman is the practice management advisor for the Pennsylvania Bar. Most PMA’s are employees of their various bars, but Ellen provides her services via contract and has a private consulting services as well. Ellen is an accomplished consultant, writer, speaker, trainer and a real character as well. Ellen has several web publications. Many of you know of her blog, PA Law Practice Management. She has a resource-filled site for Freedman Consulting, Inc. But, for this week’s Website of the Week, I want to focus on a sub-part of her consulting site. I am calling it The Ellen Freedman Collection. There she keeps a PDF archive of her articles that have been published in the Pennsylvania Bar News or other venues.

There is a lot of good material here. You can spent some productive time scrolling up and down this list of titles. Here’s a link to the latest addition, Much Ado About DOCS. This is a really outstanding article ranging from document assembly to document management. I’ve used the phrase too much lately, but this is another "must read," considering how much of our professional lives is tied to documents.

I hope this is opening up a new resource for many of you. I envision lots of visitors to her site downloading lots of these articles. So ……………..  release the hounds!

"The Rise and Fall of the Dictation Tape" is my article in the Oklahoma Bar Journal this month. If you do a lot of dictation, this article may be very useful for you. It is amazing how quickly tape dictation units are being phased out of law firms in favor of digital dictation. Even if you do not dictate much now, you should be aware of the versatility and features of these new products.

I just received my copy of the ABA eReport.  One interesting feature this week was the regular Answers of the Week which featured responses from lawyers about best tips for getting and staying organized. Some answers are very useful and others were very entertaining. (One person advocates using grocery bags for organization.) You can read the selected responses here, whether or not you are not an ABA member.

One noteworthy thing is that little attention was given in these responses to the most important method of a law practice being organized, which is practice management software. I don’t know if few responded with that idea or if the editors didn’t publish them because presumably these responses would have mentioned specific products. Have fun reading these responses, but don’t forget practice management software as a great organizational tool.

It seems to me that one of the trends we will see in legal blogging is an emergence of group blogs. After all, really significant well thought-out blog posts can take some time to craft and a lot of really great lawyers don’t have a lot of free time on their hands. Combining efforts can mean a more regular stream of content and likely a greater readership of the posts one does make. It may dillute some of the marketing effect, but that may not be a primary goal of some of these lawyer-bloggers anyway.

The Trial Lawyer Resource Center is an excellent example of this kind of blog. It is very visually appealing. The contributions of thirteen Contributing Attorneys and guest posters keep regular content flowing. The site breaks with the usual blog convention of posts chronologically displayed in favor of focusing on the categories, with two or three recent posts displayed under categories like "Openings and Closings" or "Case Work Up." You can explore the category for more content. Instead of visiting an online diary or journal, here the feeling is more like stopping by a concise reference library. Using the About tab to explain the three best ways to peruse the site is a nice touch, particularly since many trial lawyers who are not regular readers of blogs may visit here. This is a relatively new blog, with regular postings beginning in August, 2006.

The TLRC already has a lot of nice content and has a huge potential for growth. Do some trial lawyers you know a favor and send them the URL for this blog. (Or send them the Permalink for this post.)

The Trial Lawyer Resource Center is my Website of the Week.

But, just in case any of those involved with this great site read this post, let me offer a couple of bits of constructive criticism. Even though I love the appearance and know many readers will just subscribe to the RSS or e-mail feed, you still will have many visitors to the site. Most everyone likes to know what the latest news is. Instead of having to scroll alllllll the way down for the Recent Updates list, move that up "above the fold" and bump one of the categories lower. My second concern? Well, gee, you don’t have any practice management blogs in the your lists of other blogs. (Hint, hint.)

Like many others, I love a program about tech-related gadgets. Too bad none of us can afford all of the gadgets we want. Barbara Fullerton, Manager, Librarian Relations, 10-K Wizard, Sabrina Pacifici, Editor & Publisher, LLRX.com and beSpacific.com and Aaron Schmidt, Director, North Plains Public Library, gave their annual presentation on gadgets at the Computers in Libraries meeting. They have posted a PDF of their PowerPoint for all to enjoy. This is one of the best gadget round-ups you will find. They even include gadgets not yet available. Hat tip to beSpacific for the link.