Multi-Blog Post and Message to Plaintiffs' attorneys: Join CAOC!

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George Washington once said:

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

Letter of Instructions to the Captains of the Virginia Regiments [July 29, 1759]. The advocates of consumer rights, viewing the resources of defense firms and corporate defendants, can relate to the trepidation felt by the out-numbered and out-gunned Continental Army. Because of that disparity in resources, Consumer Attorneys of California ("CAOC") consolidates the voices of consumer attorneys throughout the state to (1) preserve and protect the constitutional right to trial by jury for all consumers, (2) champion the cause of those who deserve redress for injury to person or property, (3) encourage and promote changes to California law by legislative, initiative or court action, (4) oppose injustice in existing or contemplated legislation, (5) correct harsh, unjust and oppressive legislation or judicial decisions, (6) advance the common law and promote the public good through the civil justice system and concerted efforts to secure safe products, a safe workplace, a clean environment, and quality health care, (7) uphold the honor, integrity and dignity of the legal profession by encouraging mutual support and cooperation among members, (8) promote the highest standards of professional conduct, and (9) inspire excellence in advocacy. This post is a multi-blog effort to inform consumer attorneys about CAOC's value and encourage participation in CAOC through membership.

CAOC works tirelessly to protect or advance those causes of import to consumers and their attorneys in California. Often those efforts, though valuable, receive little fanfare. For example, CAOC recently sponsored SB 510, which affects the re-sale of what are known as "structured settlements," in which victims receive financial compensation over a period of time for medical expenses and basic living needs, as determined by a jury. Before SB 510 was signed by the Governor, Courts expressed frustration at their inability to prevent the sale of structured settlements on terms that might ultimately lead to long-term financial hardship for the victim. Now, SB 510 gives judges the information they need to make a reasoned decision about the propriety of a structured settlement sale.

Measures like CAOC-sponsored SB 510 help protect the most vulnerable members of our society and ask for nothing in return. They exemplify the spirit of CAOC. However, CAOC is only as effective in its mission as its membership allows it to be. When consumer attorneys join the ranks of CAOC, its voice gains in power and clarity. But if consumer advocates sit on the sidelines, hoping to benefit from the work of others, CAOC is stretched thin, and we are all at risk as a result.

Now, consumer advocate bloggers from across the state are combining their voices to call upon each and every lawyer and firm that regularly represents plaintiffs to join CAOC, thereby strengthening the consumer's first line of defense. The blogs participating in this unified call to action are:

Show your support of consumers' rights by joining and supporting CAOC. Together we can make an impact that we cannot make alone.

Daily Journal article

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Today's Daily Journal includes my article, entitled "When Courts Disagree," in the Perspective column.  It discusses with some interesting data my perception of a rift between the California Supreme Court and the lower courts of California.  The article is posted below with permission of Daily Journal Corp. (2009).

If you have difficulty viewing the flash object, the direct link is here.  I thank the editorial staff of the Daily Journal for quickly providing the posting permission.

Thanks to inter-alia.net for the mention

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Inter-alia.net is a blog dedicated to furthering online legal research. The Complex Litigator was chosen as a Blawg of the Day last week. Thanks to Tom Mighell for the kind mention.  It's a rich resource for uncovering new sources in the ever-changing and expanding world of legal blogs and websites.

New tools added to posts on The Complex Litigator

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Below each post on The Complex Litigator you will now find three new tools: an e-mail article link, a print article link, and a permalink.  The print artile link is perhaps the most useful; it generates a page that contains nothing but the text of the post, for a clean printing page.

I hope you find these additions useful.

Good things sometimes come to those who wait (or wait and work at it)

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Next week is the beginning of a new chapter in my legal career.  I will begin work at Spiro Moss LLP, a boutique class action firm in West Los Angeles.  I have known about Spiro Moss for many years.  Their reputation as skilled and ethical attorneys is unquestioned.  Both sides of the bar speak highly of them.  They've made their presence known at the appellate level for many years as well, with decisions such as Ramirez v. Yosemite Water Co., Inc., 20 Cal. 4th 785 (1999) and, more recently, a collection of cases pending before the California Supreme Court.

I thank them for their vote of confidence, and I am looking forward to the opportunity to continue my prefessional development at a firm where all of the attorneys are highly experienced litigators (and some are regular readers of this blog - I suppose this means that they'll want breaking news first).

Browsers and The Complex Litigator on SquareSpace

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A reader alerted me to an issue that I had not thought to examine after moving from hosting on TypePad to hosting here on SquareSpace.  There appears to be one major browser variant that cannot correctly render this blog.  Care to guess which browser and version?

After utilizing a very handy tool from Adobe called BrowserLab, it appears that Internet Explorer 6 and earlier versions of IE break this blog.  After looking at the way in which the page breaks in IE 6, and having experimented with building a personal website that was "standards compliant," I saw at least one source of the trouble.  At this point, if you are not an aspiring techie, please put your fingers in your ears and say, "La, la, la, la, I'm not listening to you."  IE 6 does not handle padding in the same manner as all other browsers.  Padding is a measure of the space around content that is inside an html container (margins are a measure of space outside an element).  Because IE 6 adds up padding measurements differently, when content is spaced with padding inside fixed outer containers (like a page with a set width), stuff breaks.

SquareSpace no longer supports IE 6 (and earlier).  If you happen to be working somewhere that still requires you to use IE 6, talk to the IT people.  At least move up to IE 7.  You might also give Firefox or Google's Chrome a try.  They are standards compliant and render this blog correctly.  If some other browser is breaking the layout (overlapping the columns or other obviously unintended results), use the contact form to send me a message about it, and I will put the excellence of the SquareSpace support team to the test.

Blawg Review #221

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Tough acts to follow. Blawg Review #220 was hosted by Overlawyered, believed by many to be the Internet’s oldest law blog. Then there was Blawg Review #214. We won’t speak much of that blawger from the UK who takes a bit too much delight in his smokedo, and his consumption of alcohol in its many forms, and his jabs at England’s prodigal child, the United States. No, we won’t dally there. And let’s not overlook the beautifully styled and beautifully written Blawg Review #216 (and be sure to “Click this link to continue...” if you want to know what I’m talking about). All of them and many others - tough acts to follow.

And so, realizing that I just have to do what I do best to present a credible Blawg Review #221, I turn back to Overlawyered and Blawg Review #220 for inspiration. Overlawyered comments on (criticizes) the costs of the American legal system. According to Overlawyered, you don't always have to hire a lawyer. Not for every little thing. Sometimes, you “just have to get over it.” But sometimes...if you wait until you have lots of people suffering lots of little things...you just have to file a class action...

 

Remember, remember the Fifth of November...

So I promised that I wouldn’t dwell on “that blawger,” the author of Charon QC and notorious host of several Blawg Reviews. But before I direct your attention to the best (or not necessarily so) of the blawgosphere over the last week, there is something I want to talk about first: Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night. It seems that some well-intentioned, but ever-so-slightly misguided gang of Catholics (including Guy Fawkes) planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London on November 5, 1605. They might have succeeded, too, if one of the conspirators hadn’t been so worried about the number of Catholics in line for collateral damage status that he sent a warning note to Lord Monteagle.

Why do I care about any of this, you ask? It has to do with the resulting holiday and an important lesson that we can draw from it. Until 1859, it was mandatory to celebrate the failed assassination attempt by lighting bonfires each November 5th. So, in England you need an official holiday and an order of the King to light a bonfire. Here, in America, all you need is for a professional sports team to win a championship. See, Man Charged for Arson in Lakers Melee. The child surpasses the parent. Keep your soccer hooligans, England. We have <em>real</em> idiots. By the way, Charon QC, it’s “organization,” not “organisation.” Just thought I’d tweak your English a bit. It seems to have stopped evolving a few centuries back, after all the Americans left. Although I concede that I prefer your punctuation rules for quotation marks.  Lay on, McDuff.

 

Class Actions

Based on the number of daily visitors and readers at The Complex Litigator, the odds are good that you, kind reader, are visiting for the first time. That is not to say that this blog has no readers. It’s just that Blawg Review is at another level entirely. Thus, for those that are new visitors, I will introduce this blog and its primary area of pontification.

This blog is mostly about class actions. I would say that this blog is about “complex litigation,” but what actually qualifies as “complex litigation” is a bit of a judgment call. A class action, on the other hand, is fairly easy to spot, being that it is a lawsuit that calls itself a “class action.”

One might think that there are a lot of class actions, based upon the attention they receive in the media. In so thinking, you’d be wrong. As this blog noted some time back, several thousand class actions are filed each year in California, which compares somewhat poorly against civil filings totaling 1,418,490, and civil dispositions totaling 1,268,153 in FY 2005–2006. In a Judicial Council study, statistics taken from 12 sample courts around California revealed that class action cases represented less than one-half of one percent of all unlimited (greater than $25,000 in controversy) civil filings in the sample courts during the study period spanning 2000-2006.

So why all the fuss? One simple answer is that the level of fuss is proportionate to the size of the check written by the typical defendant. In the case of class actions, those checks tend to be much larger and draw more public attention as a result. And, by that measure, class actions are despicable. For example, the Institute of Legal Reform (right...a public service it is), an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (now we see the motivation), writes about The American Export You Don’t Want. It seems that some European countries, which do not have class actions of the type used in the American legal system, are contemplating adopting a form of the class action procedural device for mass litigation management. It’s hard for me to know whether to be excited by this news. On the one hand, Europeans have, as of late, shown the decidedly good judgment of moving away from the implausible socialism that dominated decades past. On the other hand, the E.U. thinks that it knows better than an upstanding American software company whether an Internet browser is or is not part of the core operating system on a computer. Thus, I have no idea whether their interest in class actions is motivated by a desire for market-based regulatory enforcement or some irrational pique.

On that same note, Popehat asks, What Do Rome, England, Germany, and Hamsters Have In Common? Turns out they’ve all conquered France. After the rimshot, Popehat goes on to observe that a representative action on behalf of abused hamsters will likely result in a decidedly American outcome: “If this follows the lead of American class actions, the lawyers will get $36.999 million and the hamsters will each get a coupon good for 10% off of a box of Hamster Chow, redeemable in a store operated by feral cats.” More than fair, I say. Those hamsters need chow anyhow, and a coupon’s a coupon. I apologize if you’ve seen this post that is several weeks old, but it deserves to be here.

In case you were wondering, my political leanings remain a bit vague on this blog, but I am definitely not a socialist. I leave the task of reconciling my occasional political observations and my defense of the class action device to each reader. The most amusing part is hearing the different deconstructions that follow from this reconciliation.

And now, more on class actions and blogging. Nothing about Blawg Review’s guidelines suggested that a post has to be long to be included. So I assume that quality over quantity is an acceptable measure (though we have both right here at The Complex Litigator, if I do say so myself. References available upon request.). The newsworthiness and timeliness of a post is as important as its length. On July 14, 2009, the new blog Oregon Class Action Blog reported that the State of Minnesota sued the National Arbitration Forum on July 14, 2009, over unfair credit card collection arbitrations. On July 19, 2009, Businessweek reported that the National Arbitration Forum was withdrawing from the credit card arbitration business entirely as part of a consent decree. It’s not easy to stay on top of a story lasting 5 days. Good job, Mr. Sugerman.

If you hang out with drugs and medical devices long enough, you end up with (1) a great party, (2) a horror movie, or (3) a whole bunch of opportunities for class actions! Jim Beck and Mark Herrmann hang out with drugs and medical devices, defending their manufacturers, and while I can’t speak about their experiences with options one and two, they do have a bit to say about class actions. This week, Drug and Device Law Blog offers a spirited defense of the proposition that punitive damages are unconstitutional in class actions in their article, Going Our Way? Class Actions, Punitive Damages & Due Process. They call their article something of a “legal smackdown” after a recent law review article criticized their position on the unconstitutionality of class actions for punitive damages, calling their views "tainted." In their post, they reiterate and explain their position, and critique the thesis of the law review article.

Sometimes the helpful government implements regulations that are so impossible to keep straight with other laws and regulations that widespread violations are almost inevitable. Class actions end up as the preferred tool for forcing compliance. HealthBlawg offers a warning to medical providers that they, soon, will need to reconcile their HIPAA and ARRA compliance policies with new rules from the FTC that impact a wide variety of “creditors” in many industries: Red Flags Rule: The FTC piles on, because HIPAA, ARRA and overlapping state laws just weren't enough. Good luck with that, Mr. Harlow. I think I smell blood in the water...

Class actions receive more than their fair share of criticism. But then again, when big piles of money and lots of people are involved, you’re bound to find some naughty behavior. ClassActionBlawg.com writes about one case, in which naughty attorneys promised incentive awards of specific amounts to the potential class representatives: Incentive Awards OK, But Not Incentive Agreements.

I know what you are thinking. The Class Action Fairness Act isn’t a laughing matter. That just means you haven’t read CAFA Law Blog. This past week, CAFA Law Blog explains why Dual Citizenship Does Not Give You a CAFAteria Pass to Eat at the Buffet in Federal Court. CAFA was designed for the primary purpose of dragging all but the smallest class actions and mass actions into federal court. Given the ferocity over which parties fight about remand, you’d have to think that plaintiffs don’t want to be in federal court and defendants do. I wish that there was a source of reliable statistical data tracking contested certification rates in state and federal courts, but I am unaware of comprehensive source. The study prepared by California’s Judicial Council (mentioned above) revealed that certifications occurred in contested cases at a rate that was most likely well below 20%. That’s lower than the appellate reversal rate in recent years in California’s appellate courts. Still, when the stakes are high enough, even single percentage points matter.

Some of my favorite class action and class action-related blogs have been fairly quiet in recent weeks. As a result, while preparing this edition of Blawg Review, I looked back a few weeks for class action news of interest. On Point supplies one story too good to exclude, the end of a class action lawsuit challenging the absence of “Crunch Berries” in Cap’n Crunch cereal: Lawyers’ Cereal Litigation Suffers Crunching Blow. News like this explains why life at Overlawyered is so easy. In baseball parlance, this is known as serving up a fat one. Translated into British English, this is known as throwing a ball that is very easy to hit with one of those funny bats while playing cricket, which is like baseball but much goofier.

Despite the recent lull due to other pressing business, you still shouldn’t overlook The UCL Practitioner, as she comments on all manner of decisions, such her recent post entitled Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court strikes down no-class-action arbitration clause: Feeney v. Dell, Inc., and other decisions affecting consumer litigation. Kimberly Kralowec, author of The UCL Practitioner, is a former host of Blawg Review and is usually out front with posts about class action and consumer law news affecting or of interest to California attorneys.

I want to end my discussion of posts emphasizing class actions with a special note of thanks to Shawn Westrick, a co-worker of mine, and the first true Contributing Author at The Complex Litigator. He earned his title when he came through with a second post in two weeks about recent California Supreme Court decisions involving the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004. PAGA actions will be inspiring confusion and awe in wage & hour actions, now that the California Supreme Court has determined that PAGA actions need not be certified to proceed as representative actions.

 

Sotomayor's Confirmation Hearings

It’s arguably big news that a new United States Supreme Court Justice is, by all accounts, about to be confirmed by the Senate. It’s also allegedly big news that Judge Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic member of the United States Supreme Court. It’s also allegedly big news that Judge Sotomayor will be the third woman to ever sit on the United States Supreme Court. As for the last two, wouldn’t Martin Luther King be so proud to know that we’re still checking off quota boxes to prove how egalitarian we’ve become? Sounds more like a scrivener on Noah’s Ark: “Two lions. Check. A Hispanic. Check. Third Woman – who’s also Hispanic. Double-check.” We’re eventually going to choke ourselves on the fumes of our societal guilt if we don’t move on to a place where ability matters first.

As for the first observation, Judge Sotomayor is more likely than not a “liberal” in a very general sense. She replaces a Justice that was generally liberal. Very exciting. But perhaps that’s just the grumpy cynic in me.

Regardless of your political leanings, you have to admire anyone that makes it as far as one of the United States Court of Appeals and sits on the cusp of appointment to the United States Supreme Court. I recall the giddy sensation when I was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court. I was elated to know that I had permission to speak in front of that Court. I can’t fathom the notion of being confirmed to sit on that Court. Speaking of which, I won’t be holding my breath waiting for my appointment. I recall a reporter saying a few days ago that Senators’ expressions were inscrutable after receiving a briefing from the FBI on their investigation into Sotomayor’s background. If that had been a briefing on my background, the Senators would have returned from the briefing with that sallow look and vomit stained chin seen only on persons whom have received far too much information and wish they could wash their ears out with soap. Or they’d have high-fived me.

I now direct your attention to the wealth of commentary about Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation process.

Balkinization provides a wealth of information about the confirmation process. But first, Balkinization asks, What are Supreme Court confirmation hearings good for? Balkinization answers that questions by delicately suggesting that the confirmations are a dog and pony show for Senators to pontificate, look important, and speak to their core constituents. (The dog and pony show comment is my editorializing.) Next, Balkinization provides A Brief History of Supreme Court Partiality. It turns out that we’ve been blasting nominees for bias since Chief Justice John Marshall announced his retirement. Balkinization completes our education about the confirmation process by reviewing the famous testimony elicited during the Confirmation Hearings of Master Yoda, Day Two:

Senator Patrick Leahy: Now I wanted to get your views on some constitutional issues. To begin with, what is your opinion of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney and their views of executive power?

Yoda: Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice. But which one is the master and which one is the apprentice?

PrawfsBlawg treats the confirmation questioning as an opportunity to discuss how judges can “use” foreign law in the educational, rather than conceptual sense: Misunderstanding Judging: Foreign Law.

Volokh Conspiracy presented a look from the inside of the confirmation circus; Ilya Somin testified at the confirmation hearings and blogged about the experience.

PointofLaw theorizes that Judge Sotomayor’s very controlled testimony may undermine President Obama’s ability to appoint Justices with a more decidedly liberal bend. Additional thoughts can be found in the post entitled Deconstructing Law and Sotomayor’s Testimony.

ScotusBlog runs with the baseball imagery (no cricket for us yanks) in Box Score: Calling “balls and strikes” at Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing. Here’s a preview: “An (incomplete) review of the senators’ written statements and oral testimony finds the phrase ‘balls and strikes’ used 11 times, ‘umpire’ or ‘umpires’ used 16 times, and ‘playing field’ used twice today.”

Likelihood of Success expresses second thoughts about guarded enthusiasm for Sotomayor when asking Was Rosen Really Right?

Carolyn Elefant, at My Shingle, uses the confirmation hearings to discuss an interesting ethics issue. In The Lessons of Sotomayor and Associates, My Shingle discusses the bending of the truth by solo practitioners that append to their firm names “and Associates,” which Sotomayor apparently did some years ago.

I’ll wrap up the Sotomayor-inspired posts by mentioning Concurring Opinions, which also talks (briefly) about The Confirmation Hearings.

 

Around The World And Back Again

Class actions often utilize statistics to determine all sorts of information, from liability to damages. But Carl Gardner explores what happens when you take sacrifice common sense for statistical methods in Truth, bias and blue taxis.

Charon QC reviews and raves about the book BabyBarista and the Art of War. After reading the book, Charon QC says that “whatever he was drinking as he plotted out and wrote BabyBarista and The Art of War... I want some... it certainly does the business.” According to Charon QC, BabyBarista is proof that not all barristers are boring. Geeklawyer’s Blog concurs and revels, “BabyBarista enters the fray with his Machiavellian flailing, undoing all attempts at the rehabilitation of our image. Excellent.”

China Law Blog explains that it’s not as hard as one might thing to do business in China: Enforcing Contracts In China. Way, Way Better Than You Think.

Family Lore describes a nearly inoperative family law court that is Barely Functioning. That phenomenon isn’t unique to family law, or England. For example, courts in Los Angeles are now closed one day a month because of the bankrupt state I live in is so incompetently run that even its massive resources are insufficient to fix freeways and keep courts open.

Defending People lauds Anita Mugeni: Criminal Defense Hero of the Day for her work in Rwanda, where she is one of only 300 lawyers and was responsible for training 80 of them to work as criminal defense lawyers.

Idealawg offers guidance on the art of storytelling in closing arguments.

 

The Law Beyond: What I Don't Practice

I know something about class actions. I know a bit about employment law. I’ve handled a fair number of appeals. And I’ve learned that what I know is a drop in the bucket. Here are some posts from the wide variety of legal subjects that comprise bits and pieces of “the law.”

Ideoblog explains that legislators are thinking of crushing non-public businesses with SOX-like disclosure requirements: SOX for the little guy.

TradingSecrets discusses IBM’s ongoing efforts to restrict post-IBM employment of its former executives: First Apple, Now Dell: IBM Pursues a Departing Executive.

I don’t know what to say about The Arab-Israeli Peace Process as a Real Estate Transaction, but I commend Opinio Juris for writing it.

The photographer of the image used for the Obama “Hope” poster has joined the fracas over the use of the photo. Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog comments about the new player in The Obama “Hope” Poster Case — Mannie Garcia Weighs In.

In HITECH Headaches: HIPAA issues for Business Associates, The Employment News Spot explains that HIPPA penalties now apply to entities providing services to covered entities. Here’s yet another example of a significant law sliding into operation without much fanfare but with much potential to trip up companies unaware of its passage.

Does your insurance company cover you for cyber attacks or denial of service outages? Corporate Insurance Blog discusses this new frontier of insurance.

 

Interesting Miscellany

Eugene Volokh, of the famous Conspiracy, politely let a Feminist Law Professor feel his ire in his post "Where Are The Women? A precious few were published in recent addition of the UCLA Law Review", after she criticized the lack of female authors in a Symposium edition dedicated to the Second Amendment.

Google continues to face challenges by trademark holders over its AdWords practices. Blogger Eric Goldman tries to keep up with the mounting suits but is showing signs of fatigue.

Mad Kane’s Political Madness is pretty angry about Amazon.com’s ability to yank books you’ve purchased off your Kindle. I have to admit, it would be strange to come home and find that your paperback book had been repossessed and replaced with a credit for future purchases.

In Search Of Perfect Client Service challenges the notion that you can’t be dedicated to your profession and enjoy a quality of life outside work in the post: Work Life Balance and the Kobayashi Maru. As an employee of a law firm, I have no comment. None. Simple Justice offers the contrarian view to the work-life balance debate.

Above The Law weighs in on the controversy surrounding a visiting professor at NYU Law School. Dr. Li-ann Thio is credited with some remarks that would not be described as supportive of a non-hetero lifestyle (I’m not interested in having filters block my blog, hence the circumspection). The Volokh Conspiracy weighs in with a discussion that is somewhat more academic in its approach. That’s “academic” as in scholarly, not simple.

 

The Periphery: All That Stuff You Want Or Need To Practice Law Better

Lawyers need to write well. I say that Twitter won’t help to improve your writing. But there are ways to do so: 7 Simple Ways to Improve Everything You Write.

Lawyers, those scoundrels, aren’t considered entirely trustworthy. But lawyers need to be trusted. Learn techniques for making your firm more trustworthy: Four Principles of Organizational Trust: How to Make Your Company Trustworthy. Speaking of trust, Adrian Dayton hosts the July edition of the Carnival of Trust.

I love my iPhone and it loves me. I stroke it and it tells me things. Sui Generis – a New York law blog says Practicing law: There's an iPhone app for that. Not the phone-stroking part... Just wanted to clear that up.

Oh, look, Another new networking site for lawyers, at Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites. The site is HubSTREET. I can barely keep up with the ones I do use, so what makes anyone think that I’m going to add another?

 

Ethics

I grew up in Las Vegas. As a kid, I thought it seemed like a shady place. Legally Unbound agrees, noting that Nevada Needs Strict Judicial Canons, Increased Judicial Evaluations, Not Judicial Appointment By The Governor.

Unsilent partners writes about The legalo-ethics position on assisted suicide. No jokes to see here.

Twitter. Facebook. LinkeIn. Do you spend any time considering the ethical implications of these new marketing tools. Lawyerist.com does, in Legal marketing ethics in a web 2.0 world.

 

That last paragraph mentioned Twitter. That’s makes this as good a time as any to wrap this edition of Blawg Review. After all, Twitter is the alpha and the omega of legal networking. It is the panacea that will solve all problems, build community, develop clients and spread accurate news with greater speed than any conventional media. I’d better upload this post so I can Twitter about it. I not supposed to thank the sherpas, so I won’t.

Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

Settling in at SquareSpace

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After several weeks working on a new hosting service, a few comments are in order.  First, the new appearance has changed what information is presented on each page.  I decided to work with a 2-column format.  It improves readability because text has more room to breathe.  However, the cost of that change is a limitation of what can be included in sidebar areas.

Second, every post from the prior hosting service, TypePad, has been moved over.  There are qualifiers to that statement.  When posts were copied over, I found and corrected some errors where the tile of the post was replaced with other text.  I think I fixed all of those instances, but I offer no guarantees.  Similarly, some posting dates changed.  I think I fixed those as well, but some may have fallen through the cracks.  If you find a non sequitur in historical posts, either in the title or because of a data that makes no sense, excuse it as an error in the migration tools that I used.

Because SquareSpace is so flexible, I may tinker with formatting over time, so don't be surprised if parts of the blog's appearance change and then change back with no explanation.  By the way, SquareSpace is more than a blog hosting platform.  For smaller lawfirms looking at creating or updating a stale website, you could spend a few weeks using the free test account and see what you think.

Thanks for the support.  Please enjoy the new home of The Complex Litigator.

"3 Geeks and a Law Blog" (aka geeklawblog.com) collects some must read blog posts of 2009

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Visit 3 Geeks and a Law Blog for a diverse list of "must read" posts of 2009 (so far, including a few of 2008's greatest hits).  The Complex Litigator is thankful for the inclusion on that list.  Most importantly, though, is the diversity of topics included on the list.  If you haven't visited 3 Geeks and a Law Blog yet, it's worth you time to visit a site self-described as: "A law blog addressing the foci of 3 intrepid law geeks, specializing in their respective fields of knowledge management, internet marketing and library sciences, melding together to form the Dynamic Trio."

You can follow the authors Lisa Salazar, Greg Lambert, and Toby Brown on Twitter:

@glambert
@lihsa
@gnawledge