http://tjsllibrary.wordpress.com/
Internet Research Strategies: Web 2.0 Tools for Attorneys
Charles Dean, TJSL LibraryMCLE Class
Fish & Richardson P.C.February 12, 2009
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“Internet 1.0”
• E-mail• Listservs• Usenet• FTP• Telnet• pre-WWW
Web 2.0
• Social/Professional networking sites• Blogs and wikis• Podcasts (audio and video)• SMS text-messaging, IM, chat• APIs, mashups, and mobile devices• Law 2.0?
Law 2.0 Tools for…
A.) Current legal awareness
B.) Finding expert witnesses
C.) Researching “back end” Internet
Potential for rain-making and client and employee due diligence(?)
A.) Current Awareness: Twitter
• Micro-blog, IM service, e-mail “lite”• Concise, rapid updates (140 chars.)• Alerts w/ links (tiny URLs)• Use it to update Facebook status from
mobile device• “Follow” law-related Twitterers• http://twitter.com/
JD Supra
• Twitter feed “Law Practice News”• http://twitter.com/Law_Practice• Digital repository• Articles, pre-prints, scholarly publishing• Work product collection (KM)• http://www.jdsupra.com/
LexMonitor
• http://twitter.com/LexMonitor• Daily review of 2,000 legal blogs and
journals• RSS feeds by practice area, legal
education, and editors’ picks• http://www.lexmonitor.com/
http://scoop.jdsupra.com/2008/10/articles/another-category/legal-news-feeds-on-twitter/
http://scoop.jdsupra.com/2008/09/articles/law-firm-marketing/145-lawyers-
and-legal-professionals-to-follow-on-twitter/
http://legalbirds.justia.com/
ThomChat
• TJSL Library blog• Law news, current awareness, legal IT• Topics now include FOI, privacy, First
Amendment• Topics will include Library resources and
services of special interest to alumni• http://tjsllibrary.wordpress.com/
B.) Finding Expert Witnesses
• Search blogosphere on “accident reconstruction”
• http://www.serph.com/
• Search LinkedIn on “expert witness” using occupation = medical practice vs. kw = vascular surgery
• http://www.linkedin.com/search
http://www.expertwitnessblog.com/
C.) Researching “back end” Internet
• Example locating contact information of site owner for serving cease-and-desist using domain name server (DNS) lookup
• Example finding old product specifications in patent infringement or product liability suit using site archives
Researching “back end” Internet
• Locating point of contact info of site owner for serving cease-and-desist
http://blog.wellsfargo.com/StudentLoanDown/index.html
Whois
• Domain name (DNS) lookup• http://www.internic.net/
• Numeric address (IP) lookup• http://ws.arin.net/whois
• Command line “ping” for IP lookup
Researching “back end” Internet
• Finding old product specifications for patent infringement or product liability suit
• Strategies for searching past versions of site and/or content of old documents
1.) Search Engine Caches
• Caching policy varies between search services
• Cached version might be the previous version of a page before the last update, or pages no older than a few weeks or months
2.) Search Archive of Sites
• Terms of Use about downloading site content may limit attempts to retrieve old documents (see FAQs)
• http://www.internetarchive.org/
• http://web.archive.org/collections/web/advanced.html
3.) Search the Site Archives
http://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/index.html
http://www.infineon.convergy.de/Default.aspx
Some Other Useful Links
• http://lawyerkm.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/best-practices-for-online-networking-for-lawyers-web-20/
• http://ustandout.com/index.php/social-media/top-twelve-twitter-tools/