What the heck is “Law 2.0″?

Ok, I’ll fess up: this new blog came about because I wrote a crap law revew article trying to expound upon Law 2.0, an area in which I have been working in the trenches for more than 10 years. I had a lot of great ideas, but my transition sentences weren’t up to snuff and well, my paragraphs just didn’t play together well.

To be honest, I didn’t put in the time to do it properly, so after the initial dissappointment, it seemed to me that the law review format will have to wait. It’s too stressful for someone as stream as consiousness as I to worry about that level of perfection. Since my motto has always been “I reserve the right to change my mind,” it makes more sense to use blogs as a way of holding forth.

Not only can I correct my ideas, but I can get feedback. In other words, I couldn’t give a shit about that sort of thing when what I really like to do is get out there and mix it up with normal people! Eh…well, normal people who dig code, mash-ups and tag clouds!

Ahem.

So, anyway, the last 10+ years, I have taught-myself to program html, scripts and databases (which makes me a fully-qualified Web 2.0 “Programmer”) and used those tools to improve my ability to provide services as a lawyer (which maks me qualified to talk about the impact of the net on the practice of law). And, I have a hard-rive full of articles, so blogging gives me a way to work through things, move them from the mental had-drive so I can get back to work wth a clear mind. No one in their right mind would have as many projects going as I do, but ther’s a method to the madness, and I’m confident that the thematic glue is there.

So, yeah, I could do this blog on one of my own websites, but I thought it would be funner…:o)…to use WordPress, and join the crowd at least for this one effort. Outsourcing is the wave of the future, and I really want people to read and comment upon it. W/P already as the spam blocker set up, an I’ve loved this product ever since moving away from GrayMatter (my first blog platform).

So, to get back on line: what’s up with this Law 2.0? Is it more marketing, or is there something to it?

Well, basically, the definition is up in the air, but I can try to fashion a non-hyped, couldn’t-care-less about VC funding definition and offer the following:

Law 2.0 is…

a collaborative environment leveraging the power of online networks to facilitate the understanding of law

Ok, that works for now.

If we take it apart, we see the buzzwords are: collaboration, leverage, network, facilitate, understanding and law. More on those later, but those concepts (subject to refiement), I elieve encapsulate Law 2.0 and are fundamentally important to the success of any legal software, blawgs and web sites relating to law.

There are several efforts and trends which make this apparent and I’m looking at both issues in web projects under development.
The first is the amazing amount of legislative and court information that is now freely available on the web. When I started practicing law, firms still bought bounds copies of court opinions and legislation. They subscribed to large numbers of law reviews and journals, necessitating huge office expnditures. A firm’s library was a major asset,–and sales point for prospective associates, who were destined to spend 90% of their waking hours in it! Now, research can be done on the slopes. Literally.

The second is the proliferation of blawgs. No one likes to pontificate like your average lawyer, and this medium makes it a no-brainer. Anyone can blog, which means any lawyer can blog. Which means that the mystique is going to face pretty fast. Lawyers can let their air down, and indeed will have to, because no one wants to read a stodgy blawg!

Third, there is a growing awareness that the browser environment now offers many of the benefits previously only accessible in desktop applications, which means that lawyers have the “benefit” of 24-7 access to work and clients can get drafts whenever they want them or check on the progress of their own cases through court websites.

Of course, Google is betting on it, but (and I’ll be reporting on this here in much more detail), many legal software vendors are moving towards collaboration models which enable lawyers to share data more effectively.

I recall back around 1997 whilst litigating against some huge law firm, that I asked the ###hole lawyer on the other side to consent to exchange discovery through e-mail. He had no idea what I was talking about, and wouldn’t consent to it on priniple, well, because he was an &&&hole.

Now, there are many jurisdictions in which courts require E-Filing, which means that the litigator who doesn’t have e-mail must have a small town practice. Further, there is a body of caselaw developing around attorney-court relationships (note to self: find the case and brief it here, as well), testing the reliability of e-mail as matter of evidence.
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As for my article, well, I can’t bear to look at it yet [nor, with my beta of Microsoft Ofice 2007 can I], so I’m going to wait until the weekend to figure out how to open it. Then, I’ll begin to take it apart and piece by piece, and offer daily or weekly burnt offerings to the gods of coherency as I blog about it here.

This ain’t no stinkin’ treatsise…which is why I thought it would be particularly funny to call it “Mullen on Law 2.0.” It’s a lawyer thang.

Anywa, there’s so much to talk about, –that’s surely enough for now.