2006 is coming to a close, and it has been a topsy-turvy year, to say the least.
The world of Legal Technology has also had its share of ups and downs in 2006, with companies spying on their boards, the treasury department spying on money transfers, and the government spying on, well, everyone! With all the spying going on, data security was certainly on everyone's mind in 2006, and several key stories arose out of the inability of companies and government agencies to protect their customer and employee data. The new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure also added to the mix with new requirements for companies and other potential litigants to keep in mind as they generate gigabytes and gigabytes of information every day.
We've assembled some of the top software issues that have appeared in the Legal Technology Center over the course of 2006, and we offer them up so you can relive the highs and lows that were 2006.
Adobe's Document Center Offers Hosted Security Solutions for Legal Professionals
Adobe has made a point of reaching out to legal professionals and other knowledge workers with its recent release of Acrobat 8. Now the company is offering a new, hosted document service that also aims to provide useful features for professionals who need to control access to important electronic documents.
Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional: a Revolution for Legal Document Production and Management
It is rare when a new piece of software becomes instantly indispensable for legal practitioners. The release of Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional on November 2 marked just such an occasion.
Privacy Apps Have Potential to Help, Hinder Attorneys
A number of scandals in recent years have revealed the power of the electronic record. From Enron to the Foley page scandal, email and instant messaging technologies have provided evidence of wrongdoing long after their users had assumed that the information had disappeared into the ether.
Enterprise Software Licensing from a Legal Perspective
Selling to enterprise organizations provides extraordinary opportunities for software vendors - opportunities to either establish lucrative relationships with reliable customers, or create burdensome "one-off" deals that can cause your organization major headaches.
When "Free" Downloads Are Also Legal
Free music is now becoming more and more acceptable and mainstream - and believe it or not, it is legal. If this trend continues, it could very well be a long overdue answer to the plight of an arguably devastated music industry.
Creative Commons - Seeking To Build A Layer of "Reasonable Copyright"
Have you heard of Creative Commons? If not yet, you may soon. Creative Commons consists of a US charitable corporation and a UK not-for-profit company that has the underlying message that "some people may not want to exercise all of the intellectual property rights the law affords them."
- When Redaction Goes Wrong: PDF Follies Lead to Unintended Disclosures
In a motion filed on June 21, 2006, the U.S. Attorney's Office accidentally released information that it had sought to keep confidential through redaction. The mistakes that the U.S. Attorneys made - and the ways to avoid them - are important lessons for anyone who ever works with files in the popular Portable Document Format (PDFs.)
Technology changes quickly. For a more up to date discussion on this topic, please visit the Legal Software section at FindLaw’s Technologist blog.