Welcome to the 2009 LMA Conference

The 23rd Annual Legal Marketing Association Conference gets underway tomorrow in National Harbor, Maryland, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on the Potomac. The theme is “Change… Now What?”

We’re at the Gaylord, tracking LMA Conference activities and events for attendees, as well as what our colleagues from Hubbard One will be doing.

We’re interested in hearing the perspectives of attendees on their legal marketing efforts and how they are going about their work within the current economic, regulatory and legal industry landscapes.

For more on what Hubbard One will be up to, check out this post on the Hubbard One blog, featuring details on daily surveys in the company’s booth (#232-#236), as well as the conference sessions Hubbard One will be participating in.

Preston McKenzie, vice president and general manager of Client Development at Thomson Reuters, has more information on how you can follow developments from the LMA Conference, plus perspectives on the climate for legal marketers, in this welcome video message:

For more information on the LMA Conference go to its Web site.

Remember to follow us here on WestBlog, and check out the Hubbard One blog too. We’ll also both be providing periodic updates on Twitter (@westlaw and @hubbardone).

The LMA Conference runs through Friday.

Posted by Kevin Hunt, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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West author confirmed to DOJ post

The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed David Kris as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Kris is the co-author of National Security Investigations and Prosecutions, published by West.

His confirmation yesterday is the subject of this article on Law.com.

Kris spent the last six years as senior vice president and deputy general counsel at Time Warner. From 2000 to 2003, he was associate deputy attorney general. In that role, his unclassified responsibilities included supervising the government’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

To hear some of his insight on national security, listen to this Westcast podcast.

Posted by Kevin Hunt, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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Starting a business?

Who hasn’t thought of someday being your own boss, relying on your own efforts - or the work of employees - to reach economic and career success?

A new FindLaw.com survey reveals that says most Americans – 61% – say they have at least considered starting their own business, or have actually done so at least once in their life.

The survey also found:

• 30% of Americans say they have started at least one small business

• An additional 31% of Americans have thought about starting their own business at some point in their lives

• 39% of Americans say they have never started, or even considered starting, their own business

Small businesses are defined as 500 or fewer employees.

They employ about half of all U.S. workers and have generated more than half of net new jobs annually over the last decade, according to the Small Business Administration.

There are an estimated 20 million businesses in the U.S. that consist of only the owner with no additional employees.

The FindLaw Small Business Center  can provide helpful information on starting and managing a small business. It includes resources for business laws and regulations, finance, taxes, business forms and contracts, and a directory for finding attorneys who specialize in small business.

Posted by Kevin Hunt, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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Challenging times for immigration law

Attorney – and West author – Careen Shannon recently paid a visit to the headquarters of the legal businesses of Thomson Reuters to help get the word out about a new book.

Shannon, along with Austin Fragomen and Daniel Montalvo, wrote the State Immigration Employment Compliance Handbook.

Shannon is with Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy. She also is an adjunct professor at at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

In this video interview, she told us there’s a real need for attorneys and businesses to pay closer attention to state immigration laws and the consequences of violating them:

Shannon, along with Fragomen and Montalvo, also is featured in this Westcast audio podcast, discussing the reason for the rise in state immigration laws and the challenges for abiding by them.

Posted by Kevin Hunt, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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See Scalia in a free CLE

Editor’s note: This CLE is no longer available. The podcast excerpt, however, remains on YouTube for viewing.

Part of a continuing legal education event (CLE) featuring United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner, is now available on West LegalEdcenter.

For free.

The unique CLE course from LawProse was based on the book Scalia and Garner co-authored, “Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges,” published by West.

They teamed up for the CLE on July 25, 2008 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The Kennedy Center has granted West permission to post one hour of the five hour event online.

The CLE excerpt provides a glimpse into how Scalia and Garner presented the points in their book about legal reasoning and argument, brief-writing and oral argument to the live audience.

It’s informative and often entertaining, with several memorable quotes from both men. All profits from the event went to Legal Aid of Washington, D.C.

In addition to the excerpt on West LegalEdcenter, highlights from the CLE – featuring clips from Scalia and Garner’s entire event – also are included in this three minute Westcast video podcast, along with an interview with Garner:

IRS chooses Thomson Reuters

We wanted to let you know that West  has been awarded a new multi-year contract from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for comprehensive research services, including legal, tax, news and business information.

It means that up to 25,000 IRS professionals across all of its divisions will have access to a special version of Westlaw geared expressly for tax, legal and regulatory research.

“Over the past several years, the Westlaw team has worked closely with the Tax & Accounting businesses of Thomson Reuters to integrate a content set designed specifically for attorneys and tax practitioners researching legal questions,” said President and CEO Peter Warwick, Thomson Reuters, Legal.

“This tax content has been expanded into a unique offering for the IRS, easily managed in a version of Westlaw that uses the structure of the U.S. Federal Tax code as the primary navigational architecture.”

The Westlaw package was customized for the unique needs of IRS staff and agents. Select assets from across the Legal and Tax & Accounting segments of Thomson Reuters, as well as from BNA, are tightly integrated within a tailored Westlaw interface.

The service also enhanced West’s unique KeyCite citator to allow users to quickly and easily retrieve a list of all Westlaw cases and statutes, administrative decisions and analytical sources that cite a particular subsection or paragraph of the tax code.

“We make it our business to know our customers better than anyone else in this industry,” Warwick said. “The IRS Westlaw platform showcases the unique ability of Thomson Reuters to bring together the right mix of content, analysis, technology and customer service to meet the needs of even our most complex customers. The selection by the IRS is a gratifying endorsement for our work and speaks well of the collective strength of Thomson Reuters.”

Posted by Angelique Schaffer, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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FindLaw’s version of “24″

The character of Jack Bauer on Fox’s “24″ has nothing on a team of 10 FindLaw employees.

At least in terms of the know-how and expertise for Web site design and deployment.

The group representing FindLaw was one of 12 teams that was selected to participate in Sierra Bravo’s Overnight Website Challenge, Feb. 28-March 1, in St. Paul.

The teams were assigned to overhaul the Web sites of 12 non-profit organizations, who had been chosen by Sierra Bravo. FindLaw was paired with Global Citizens Network (GCN).

We chronicled the FindLaw effort over the course of the 24-hour competition in this Westcast video podcast (on YouTube or Vimeo):

By the way, here’s GCN’s old site:

And, here’s a mockup of their new home page designed by FindLaw:

Collin Gravalin was team leader for the FindLaw group.

“FindLaw is so big on promoting giving back to the community,” Gravalin told us at the end of the challenge. “They even let you take a paid volunteer day and this is one of those things that we all wanted to do. We all wanted to be here and I think the end result, the end product, is something to be proud of.”

“GCN is very lucky to be working with this amazing team. They’re brilliant! Everything we asked for, they’re making it happen,” said Linda Stuart, executive director of GCN. “It’s like a dream come true.”

“Our team tackled many challenges that we’ve never seen before or rarely see in our daily work at FindLaw,” said Gravalin. “When everything is done, Global Citizens Network will have a main Web site with more than 80 custom written and optimized pages. They’ll also have a separate blog and a separate client forum. GCN is essentially getting three Web sites.”

In addition to Gravalin, the members of the FindLaw team included Matt Biersdorf, Clay Chelmo, Derrick Gall, Nathan Hein, Patrick Noonan, Jessica Skrebes, Ryan Tvenge, Susan Staupe and Nate Weber.

Besides our video podcast about the FindLaw team, Sierra Bravo also posted some great videos from throughout the day and night on their Inside the Nerdery blog, including this one.

You also can read the news release from Sierra Bravo for a recap of the event.

Posted by Kevin Hunt, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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State immigration laws

Noted immigration attorney and author Austin T. Fragomen Jr. says the increase in states enacting their own laws about the employment of unauthorized foreign workers requires businesses to learn more about those regulations and their relationship to federal laws.

“Companies frequently don’t understand the consequences of these state immigration laws,” said Fragomen. “This is a very fast-changing area of the law.”

Fragomen co-authored the newly-released State Immigration Employment Compliance Handbook, published by West, with Careen Shannon and Daniel Montalvo.

All three also participated in this Westcast podcast discussion about state immigration laws and the challenges for businesses and attorneys who need to understand them.

They also discuss the resources contained in their book which includes the full text of relevant state laws and state regulations for employing noncitizens and in-depth analysis of those laws.

“The specter of a state revoking a corporation’s license to do business in that state is a pretty profound and significant penalty,” says Fragomen. “So, this in an important area for a new publication.”

Austin Fragomen is chairman, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, P.C; Careen Shannon, of the same firm, also is an adjunct professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; and Daniel Montalvo is an immigration lawyer and author.

In addition to the State Immigration Employment Compliance Handbook, Fragomen, Shannon and Montalvo wrote the Immigration Employment Compliance Handbook, which covers federal immigration laws. 

Posted by Kevin Hunt, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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Eagan TV coverage on the Web

The Star Tribune recently highlighted the Thomson Reuters partnership with Eagan (Minn.) Community Television.

We first mentioned the arrangement in a previous post (“Broadcasting from our basement”) here on WestBlog.

The partnership with the city has resulted in a broadcast studio within the headquarters of our legal businesses in Eagan. The studio also received coverage last week in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

(Photo: David Brewster, Star Tribune)

E-TV also has gotten coverage in the community newspapers that serve Eagan, including an article and video in This Week Eagan and a story and video on YouTube from the Eagan Sun-Current.

Posted by Kevin Hunt, senior communications specialist, Thomson Reuters

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The future of the book business

This is a guest post to WestBlog from Peter Jackson, chief scientist and vice president at Thomson Reuters in Eagan, Minn.:

A Nov. 2007 National Endowment for the Arts study showed that both book reading and book purchases are in decline (see “To Read Or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence”).

This is true even for popular titles, and even among college graduates. Meanwhile, online sellers are eroding book sales in stores, and the used book market is stronger than ever. With the recent advent of the Amazon Kindle, even the physical manifestation of the book seems to be in a state of flux.

What is the future of the book business?

Is there a patent holder in the building?

Having a patent bearing your name may be a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. For Thomson Reuters employees Mark Bluhm and Jon Verreaux, it’s the tip of the iceberg.

Bluhm and Verreaux, along with a team of roughly 30, received the news on Jan. 20 that the application they’d submitted nearly three years earlier had been granted, making this the second patent bearing Bluhm’s name, and the first for Verreaux.

Both patents focus on the Novus platforms that allow us to search and load information into and out of servers with the speed, accuracy and efficiency we’ve come to rely on each day.

For many of our products, like Westlaw, the ability to both load and retrieve information quickly is critical in order to stay competitive in the market.

This latest patent, number 7,480,644, identifies an information retrieval system that can store and retrieve load data from multiple servers at the same time. Similarly to how information is now loaded into servers, a lot of information loaded at once using multiple servers, data can now be retrieved in the same way – using multiple servers.

“We’re able to provide our clients with up to date information at the very moment they need it, all the time” said Bluhm.

Don’t be surprised to hear more from this innovative team – they’ve got six applications still in review with the patent office.

Posted by Nicole Hansen, communications coordinator, Thomson Reuters

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