Monday Miscellany

Kevin Heller has an option for associates who can't be contacted through their firm's sites. And, more to the point, a Legal Jobs Blog.

Young people + theater = good. Support the San Jose Young People's Theater Group. [Via Kevin Marks]

Craig Patchett on "[W]hy a legal podcast with RIAA music is currently not viable." [Via Adam Curry] (And neato — though I haven't yet been able to make it to an OC Podcasters Meetup, at least I can eavesdrop.)

Hey Mad: you couldn't have picked a John Bolton song for your John Bolton parody? Ah well, still funny (and my thought probably has already been done to death).

Gotta get to NYC. Why? Monty Python's Spamalot (official site): "and yes, 'what happens in Camelot, stays in Camelot.'"

New from ThePodcastNetwork, the BizBlog Show: "Primarily, as the name suggests, this show will focus on the world of business blogging. What companies are doing it, how they're doing it, what's working, what isn't... What companies aren't doing it, why they aren't doing it, what some possibilities are for their organization, etc... We'll be talking to blog consultants, CEO's, CTO's, middle managers and everything in between." Hosted by Jeremy Wright. (feed)

National Geographic producer David Hamlin blogs Tiny Humans.

Phoney Firms

This article about law firms hiding associate contact information in an effort to thwart third party recruitment has been making the rounds. My $.02:

• I don't care where we are in the economic cycle. The single most unassailable truth about the legal profession in the last 20 years is that lawyers are free agents at all junctures of their careers. They move fluidly between firms, go in-house, leave in-house jobs and go to firms, leave big firms for small firms or solo practices and vice versa, leave firms to work in the judicial system or politics or academia and vice versa, and leave the field altogether. Fighting that tide by refusing to put contact information on a Web site is like brandishing a bucket at the Pacific. Heck, people move around so much in the legal field even the folks behind the blog that attempted to chronicle its comings and goings have moved on to other things.


• Make your firm a great place to work and no amount of headhunter calls will distract your abundant and dedicated work force. In the immortal words of Tony Pierce [via the latest, and always rockin', Belly]:

all you need to do is rock

and do it every f-----g day.

Nobody Expects The Email Inquisition

Dennis Kennedy entertainingly studies the metaphysics of his inbox.

Shields Down

JurisPundit has the rundown and links regarding today's California Superior Court (that's the trial court level of our state judicial system) ruling on the lack of shield law protection for sites accused of disclosing Apple trade secrets. While JMoore seems disappointed the judge didn't try to draw a line between bloggers and journalists in this situation, as is pretty clear from the EFF press release it doesn't seem like such a distinction would have been necessary or appropriate here. Either the shield law applies or it doesn't, and the Court of Appeal will have the chance to weigh in on that issue. The good news is there doesn't seem to have been any treatment of online journalists as second class citizens, as John Palfrey feared might occur. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, the issue teed up seems to be the scope of the shield law vis à vis the information in question, not the means by which it was reported.

More links and information at How Appealing [Update: and yet more later], and the So Cal Lawyer is doing his level best to encourage the blogosphere to keep a level head: "Given the narrow set of facts presented in this case, the allegations of property right violations and given that it is a trial level decision with no precedential value, bloggers should not panic. The case merely holds that Califorina courts will not and should not protect the identities of those who break the law."

Three Times An Ernie

Hey, happy third blogday, Ernie! (Here's a riddle for you, prompted by Ernie's first post: just how many blogs has Buzz maintained? Answer: way more than three!)