This WEEK in LAW: Now Weekly!

This Week in Law with Denise Howell
Originally uploaded by insidetwit

The most frequent comment I get about TWiL (besides either "I love it!" or "Who needs Ambien?") is:  "Why isn't it weekly?"  Starting today, it is.  You can catch TWiL at 11:00 a.m. Pacific/1:00 Central/2:00 Eastern on TWiT.tv, or on Stickam or UStream. Chat with us real-time at irc.twit.tv or on FriendFeed.  The recorded/podcast version of the show will be available in your favorite podcatcher (such as iTunes) within a few days.  More ways to subscribe and listen here.

Today's guests are Colette Vogele, Ernie Svenson, and Evan Brown. (More great upcoming guests — 9/18: Doug Lichtman, 9/25: Gary Reback.) Discussion notes are being aggregated here (leave a comment on this post, tag something for:thisweekinlaw in del.icio.us, or @ me on Twitter to suggest more). Lots to talk about!

New Column: Goodbye Economy, Hello Balance

My latest column for The American Lawyer posits that belt tightening and work life balance can go hand in hand. It's tempting for law firms and other businesses to view balance as a "perk" to be scaled back when trying to cut costs. But done right it's a way to save money now and emerge competitively from the down economy without big cash outlays.

Thanks for all your feedback on these points as I was putting this together, and please let me know what you think.

[Update] Discussion:

• Caryn Tamber, Work-life balance is dead. Long live work-life balance!
• Sarah Randag, What if Firms Thought of Flexible Work Schedules as ‘Balanomics’?
• Sarah Randag, Can Offering Work Flexibility Help a Firm’s Bottom Line?

Terms Of Service, x2 (#tos)

All YOUR data are belong to U.S.
Originally uploaded by Imamon

Courtesy of Professor Lessig and Boing Boing, here's a great resource from Markus Weiland: his comparison of the rights to user data/submissions required by various video hosting sites.  Definitely something to peruse when deciding on a place to put your videos.  Also see Scott Bourne's commentary and interview with me and Brett Trout:  What Does TOS Mean Anyway?

More interesting discussion of terms of service in the modern era is bound to take place at the upcoming E-Commerce Best Practices conference at Stanford Law School on June 12.  This is a deeply wonky annual event I enjoy attending when possible, but this year preschool graduation takes precedence. So, I won't be at Stanford, but I'd love to hear about it during and after the fact if you will be.  Notable sessions include:

Best Practices for Drafting Terms of Use (including Drafting more user-friendly agreements, Class action waivers, arbitration clauses, choice of law and forum, Dealing with overlap in B2B arrangements, and Adapting Terms of Use to open source environments)

and

User-generated Content (including Copyright liability and the UGC principles, Secondary trademark infringement, Making sense of CDA case law, and International perspectives)

It's good to see "user friendliness" front and center for the Terms of Use session, though it begs the question whether the reference is to comprehensibility, or scope, or both.  This tends to be a very industry-oriented confab.

Input for my next American Lawyer column: work life balance in a dismal economy

A Lawyer's Work is Never Done
Originally uploaded by chrisafer

If greed was good in the '80's, the overriding mood of early '09 seems to be quavering panic, at least in the legal profession. Above the Law's posts are dominated by layoffs (209 entries and counting), slashed salaries, withheld bonuses, bounced checks, and the incredible shrinking perk. Gordon Gecko's obnoxious wardrobe choices — and one can only assume accompanying attitudes — are making a comeback. Law students are scared to death to blog, and billable hours are eating work life balance for breakfast, lunch, and dinner — at their desk, of course.

It seems to me that going fetal in a down economy is "a bad choice" (as I would say to my son), and that innovating and distinguishing one's business methods and philosophies — fishing in a storm — are key to both short- and long-term survival.

Abandoning work life balance and career flexibility considerations in hard times strikes me as unwise and shortsighted. What do you think, and what do you see happening now and in the future?

[Update:] Further discussion spaces in Facebook at Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession and Women Lawyers — Back on Track.

Work life balance - check ✓

We all want that perfect patchwork of personal and professional activity, but how do we get it, and more importantly, how do we know it's happened?

Broken Heart by David Goehring (CarbonNYC)

As of this morning I'm there. How? Finishing preschool Valentines and attending kids' Valentine tea have equal footing on my schedule with conference calls, research, writing, and presentation prep. (The laundry bridge remains to be crossed when we come to it.)

[Update:] My office just received a very special delivery.