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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/

Thank You!

cdean@tjsl.eduTwitter.com/CharlesDeantjsllibrary.wordpress.com