For lawyers interested in practice-building, there are few methods more proven than law blogging (or blawging, if you prefer) and getting social via social media online.

As I wrote in a recent paper, Social Media, A Vital Tool for the Modern Family Law Practice, delivered at an Ontario Bar Association CPD programme for family law lawyers last month:

Increasingly, the sophisticated shopper for legal services is looking online for the legal professionals he or she will hire. A strong social media footprint will help these shoppers to find you. Quality content, branded and delivered authentically and professionally, will help

Today’s Tip is a story: I was asked to find what a particular web-available document would have read in the early 2000s.  This is a pretty typical request for a law librarian. The general strategy:

• Is the current version on a website? (yes)
• Is the point in time version archived on that site? (no)
• Plug the site into Internet Archive and locate.

Which works unless the domain for the website has changed.  If it has, where do you find the previous website address?  Here are a few tips:

• If it is a business or organization that publishes something, look in

Activating a password-protected screensaver is a simple and very effective way to prevent an unauthorized person from rifling through the data on a computer or other device that’s been inadvertently left on or lost. All versions of Windows and Apple operating systems allow you to add a password to a screensaver. Remember to log out of any applications containing sensitive data and lock your screen when you leave your desk, or set a fairly short wait time on your screensaver so that it locks automatically if you step away. BlackBerry, Android, iOS and Windows mobile devices also have an automatic …

Where do all these email alerts, newsletters, updates, sales pitches and unrequested announcements come from?

Inspired by my co-Tipster David Bilinsky’s recent posts on the elusive quest for Inbox Zero, I’ve been in a mood to purge all those unwanted or redundant messages that clutter up  my own, perpetual Inbox Five Hundred.  

In the last few days alone, I’ve hit unsubscribe and said goodbye forever to emails from REM, Quora, Legendary Motor Cars, Carswell (I know, sacrilege), ManChef, Houzz, Cater Trends, Joel from Buffer, Go Daddy, Facebook, CPD On Time, Digg, NY Times, York University, LawCrossing, Sky Auction and …

Thanks to an intriguing post at Bob Ambrogi’s LawSites blog today’s tip is to check out CourtListener for access to US decisions.

CourtListener is a core project of the Free Law Project, a non-profit with the lofty and laudable goals of providing free, public, and permanent access to primary legal materials and to develop, implement, and provide public access to technologies useful for legal research (among other things),

CourtListener has a clean, easy interface, clear messaging on coverage, and the ability to filter by percedential decisions, which they have over 2.2 million of.  Check it out.

CourtListener has created …

It is very important to remember that installing updates can unintentionally interfere with the way your computer/device or individual programs/apps on it operate. It is possible that a program/app may not operate properly or at all, that data could be lost, or that a device will fail to restart after an update is installed. Creating a restore point (a temporary backup of your configuration and data) and/or making a proper backup of all the programs and data on a device before you install updates can help you recover if there are unanticipated problems. Always remember to back things up before …

♫  Nothing, now you live with zero, nothing nada
Now you live with zero
Now you live with zero…♫

Music and lyrics by Keyshia Cole, Vidal Davis, Tyler Williams, Guordan Banks, Jessyca Wilson, Robert Williams, recorded by Keyshia Cole.

This post continues our journey towards achieving ‘inbox zero’.  This time we are delving into more shall we say, ‘drastic’ ways of dealing with the email avalanche.

• Step 1: Admit it.  You are not going to get to those emails that are 2 years old and still sitting in your inbox.  In fact if you are facing brass

I gave a presentation today to the CBA Alberta Branch Research Lawyers South section. The slide deck is available on my LinkedIn profile. Posting the slide deck reminded me that interesting bits of information are available in slide decks posted all over the web.

For a slide deck starting point, check out professional associations and organizations past conferences.  Try company websites and blogs, lawblogs.ca is a good place to start for firms. SlideShare is a social platform specifically for sharing and searching presentation information.

Don’t believe me that legal people share their slides? Check out this recent post from …

Ideally you have one or more types of properly updated anti-malware software running on your computers and networks. And hopefully that software detects and prevents any malware infections from occurring. However, because anti-malware software may not detect an infection, watch for the symptoms that can indicate a computer is infected with malware. These include:

• It takes longer than usual for your computer to start up, it restarts on its own or doesn’t start up at all;
• It takes a long time for one or more programs to launch;
• Your computer and/or programs frequently lock up or crash;
• Programs are starting

  I want to tell her that I love her but the point is prob’ly moot..♫

Lyrics, Music and recorded by Rick Springfield.

West Coast Environmental Law is inviting law students from across Canada to participate in a unique Canadian social media competition!

The “Twitter Moot” will be held on Friday, February 28th, 2014, at 10am PST.  This event, now into its third year, will see teams from Law Schools from all across Canada participate in a mock court hearing over the Twitter social media platform, arguing an appeal to the Supreme Twitter Court of Canada. Students are invited to …