At some point or another, every computer user has had Windows or another program lock-up and crash. After this happens, you will sometimes be lucky enough to get an error message. On occasion, that error message will actually give you helpful information about why the computer crashed.

But all too often, the error message will be complete gibberish and offer absolutely nothing that will help you understand why the crash happened, much less what you need to do to fix it. Here is a sample:

Say what????

Next time this happens to you, don’t despair. You can safely assume loads …

Max Amsterdam once said: “Business is the art of extracting money from another man’s pocket without resorting to violence.”

The purpose of having a written agreement between all parties in the firm is that everyone then knows the terms of the arrangement between them: the expectations, the consequences and the means to implement those consequences. Failing to have such an agreement between lawyers is the equivalent of a shoemaker’s children running around barefoot.

Office-sharing agreements cover issues between solos sharing the same office suite. Common issues include management of the suite, lease payments, confidentiality, signage and sharing of …

There is good leagal content that doesn’t necessarily come in the neat packages that we usually look in.  Though our commercial legal database subscriptions have linked, vetted, edited, and easily available content, legal researchers would be remiss if they didn’t look for open access journal content as well.

Regular Slaw and Slaw Tips readers will be aware of legal content on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).  See Lyonette Louis-Jacques’ May 2011 Slaw post for indexes to this and other journal content.

The University of Windsor Law Library has a nice list of open access law journals. Worth a look …

When you need to collaborate on a document displayed on your screen, it’s great to have a colleague from down the hall come into your office and look over your shoulder.

But what happens when that person is across the city or on the other side of the world?

You can use join.me – a ridiculously simple screen sharing tool for meetings on the fly with up to 250 people. Use it for collaborating on a document, a training session, computer trouble-shooting and anything else that requires you to share a computer screen. You can also share files and chat …

You should assess whether you can accept the financial risks associated with taking the matter, just as clients will assess whether they can (and will) pay your fee. Spend time at the beginning of the relationship to learn if the client is able and willing to pay a reasonable fee for the legal work the client wants done.

Today’s Tip is a simple reminder to view by “latest activity date”.

The Parliament is back in session and those Slaw Tips readers for whom monitoring legislation is a regular task will appreciate one of the features of LegisINFO. This feature is to view the new information added to the service using the Latest Activity Date filter.  Latest activity date is a Sort by feature.  The default sort is by Bill number, which is useful if you know what you are looking for, or if you want a snapshot of status for multiple bills.

Check out Sort by Latest …

When everyone in the firm is required to report monthly to all other partners, you instill a culture in the firm that is self-correcting. If someone fails to regularly meet their financial goals, you have a decision to make and a forum within which it can be made.

Today’s Tip: Dig Deep

By deep, I mean the deep or invisible web.  According to Marcus Zillman, there are somewhere in the vicinity of 1 trillion plus pages of information out there on the world wide web that search engines might not see.

Marcus was kind enough to update his annual article at LLRX.com, Deep Web Research 2012.

This report and guide is designed to give you the resources you need to better understand the history of the deep web research, as well as various classified resources that allow you to search through the currently available web

…

It is a huge financial mistake to not record in writing the very nature of the contractual relationship with each and every one of your clients.

Susan Van Dyke wrote at Slaw on How to Avoid Resource-Draining One-Off Marketing Activities. She inspired this post with one of her ideas:

• Review your current orphans and if you’re not getting any results after a good effort of at least a couple of years, see about dropping some of these, especially if you can’t make a reasonable business case to support it.

Susan was speaking about marketing events, but this advice could apply to many things – library services, database content, use of website features, technology solutions, margarine vs. butter.

For legal research, I believe it is important …