Antidotal

In a considerably lighter vein than Colin Powell before the U.N., pay a visit to The Academy, authored by several recent law grads who surface periodically from their "regularly scheduled billings" to give each other rafts of grief, note questionable (and hilarious) jurisprudential linguistic choices, and discuss the finer points of rubber bath mat design. Loving this. [via The Blawg Ring]

Undoing A Judgment, Without A Retrial

My RSCH appellate group colleagues Jim Martin and Ben Shatz have the cover story (PDF) in this month's Los Angeles Lawyer magazine (PDF of issue here), discussing stipulated reversals on appeal of judgments entered by trial courts. This is something parties might wish to do, for example, as part of a settlement reached during an appeal, but decisions and legislative changes in recent years have made the process more complicated. The article provides context and guidelines pertinent to obtaining such a reversal under California law.

Rosie Predictions for BLAWGISTAN

Sandra Rosenzweig writes what traditionally is my first stop in reviewing the California Lawyer magazine: the monthly round up of "Technicalities." Sandra's columns ("Rosie's Ramblings"), reviews and tips are invaluable to a modern law practice. Blawgs have been on Sandra's radar since at least last summer (see her August and October pieces), and this month she really goes to town on the subject:

I just heard someone predict, in public to a paying audience, that blogging is this year's killer app. That may be, oh, the 34th time I've heard that prognostication, and all I can say is, "This year's?" Where has this guy been for the last few years?

As Sandra explains, she has been trying different blogging tools and writing her own Rosie's Ramblings blog, where she's enjoying the flexibility a blog can provide a professional journalist: "[I]t's rather fun to fiddle with the design of my (mine, all mine) page and offer stuff that I'd never find room for in the hard copy of CALIFORNIA LAWYER." Her column this month highlights the powerful knowledge sharing aspects of this medium, and the convenience of having "your research, resources and collaborations" reside always at your fingertips, on the Web. Wait'll she hears about Blawgistan and the forthcoming BlawgCafe. Whoa, Rosie!

Taking Legal Information "To RSS"

Michael, Ernie and Rory have a good discussion underway on uses of RSS in the legal field. I second (third and fourth) Rory's point about docket information, as I mentioned to Howard recently in response to his call for input on an article about appellate court Web sites.

Using The Source

In a talk last October about digital identity issues, Doc Searls spoke of the need for something to "catch fire" at the open source level. As I paraphrased him from the audience, "Identity infrastructure will be built around sovereign, individual IDs." "Once we empower the customer to come to companies with more ways to relate, we will have the ID structure we want." See also Andre Durand's Three Tiers of Identity: Tier 1 is Personal Identity, "both timeless & unconditional...your true personal digital identity...owned and controlled entirely by you, for your sole benefit." Doc thinks "a killer T1 'Mydentity' app" still is needed, and Andre thinks it won't fully develop until "companies begin to rely upon the integrity of the T1(maintained by the individual)."

As a step in this direction, and a spark to the fire discussed by Doc, Andre and friends are piloting Source ID, which seeks, through open source discussion, experimentation and development, to "enable quality assured and privacy enabling identity interchange between businesses and consumers." It's good to know these efforts are being undertaken by folks who seem to appreciate the critical role of a robust, secure, private and individually controlled "Tier 1." (Still skeptical? It's tough to quibble with the priorities of an outfit that occupies space on Chris Pirillo's chest...)