 |
|
|
|
Joining one of these groups can be one of the most rewarding things you do on the Internet. In this session, you will learn how to maximize the value of membership in list servers and get the information you are looking for as a specialist or smaller law firm attorney seeking to expand your resources in tracking key information. What are the best ways to get your questions answered? What's available? Which groups are best for you? What's the etiquette? How do you measure the best expenditure of your time? We'll also discuss the latest communication medium, push technology, which brings information automatically to the desktop in areas that the user requests.
All these technologies provide ways for you (1) to get information that is useful in your practice, and (2) to market yourself through the distribution of information.
Our discussion is divided into five parts: (1) a few reminders about the applicable rules of netiquette, (2) mailing lists managed by list servers, (3) newsgroups, (4) discussion forums, and (5) "push" technology.
Due to the Internet's origin in the educational and scientific communities, blatant commercialism is frowned on. Consumers of the technologies that are the subject of this session expect news and information, not a flood of self-promotional messages. Follow these simple suggestions:
1. If you are participating in a mailing list, news group or discussion forum, monitor the messages for a while before posting your own message. This will allow you to absorb the atmosphere before plunging in.
2. Avoid cross-posting the same message to a number of groups. That will usually result in many users getting your message several times, much to their annoyance. Pick the most suitable group and post your message there.
3. Put a short descriptive heading on the subject line of your message so that users will not have to peruse the entire message to determine whether they are interested.
4. Avoid long messages. Most users do not want to devote much time to retrieving and absorbing their messages.
5. When you reply, include key portions of the original message so that users who did not see it will understand the discussion.
6. If your response to a message will only be of interest to the author of the original message, reply by direct E-mail. Do not send the message to all participants.
7. Identify yourself with a signature block, but limit it to four lines. Most E-mail software allows you to set up a signature that is automatically added to all outgoing messages. Here is an example of a simple signature block:
Calvin House
http://www.appellate-counsellor.com
CHouse@gutierrez-preciado.com
Tel: 626-449-2300 Fax: 626-449-2330
8. Do NOT use solid capital letters. Internet users interpret that as shouting.
Internet mailing lists consist of discussions carried on by E-mail in view of all subscribers to the list. Software at the server hosting the list handles subscriptions and distribution of messages automatically.
Some lists have a moderator who screens all messages before they are distributed. All lists have one or more owners who may remove subscribers who do not adhere to the protocol for that list.
Lists are organized around topics that may be very narrow, or quite broad. Be sure to become familiar with the nature of list discussions and the permissible topics before posting a message of your own.
To subscribe you send an E-mail message to the server for the list with the appropriate instructions for adding you to the list. The message will usually read something like this:
subscribe appellatepractice-l Calvin House
Upon the acceptance of your subscription, you will usually receive a message describing the nature of the list. You should also receive a message explaining the instructions that you can give to the server to unsubscribe, or to "tweak" your subscription. For example, if you are going to be away for a while, you may want to suspend your subscription so that your mailbox does not fill up.
Two fairly active lists that many lawyers subscribe to are Net-Lawyers and LAWSRC-L Internet Legal Resources. Net-Lawyers focuses on discussions about how to use the Internet in the legal profession. LAWSRC-L is a list for the exchange of information about Internet resources for law teachers, librarians, and practitioners. For further information, and instructions on how to subscribe, consult these Web pages:
http://www.ljx.com/forumpages/netlawyers.html
http://www.rwneill.com/lawsrc.htm
Lyonette Louis-Jacques at the University of Chicago has developed a comprehensive list of law-related mailing lists called "Law Lists," which is available at:
If you wish to venture outside the legal field, consult Liszt at:
Be warned that the discussions in news groups tend to be more uninhibited than those on mailing lists. News groups also tend to attract a lot of non-lawyers looking for free legal advice.
Lyonette Louis-Jacques's "Law Lists" contains hundreds of law-related newsgroups at:
Some subscription online services provide useful forums for legal discussions. For example, if you are interested in high quality legal talk among lawyers, try Counsel Connect. It is a Web-based subscription service from the publishers of the American Lawyer. Discussions are organized around a wide variety of topics. Counsel Connect recently entered into an alliance with the publisher of the National Law Journal, which maintains the Law Journal EXTRA Web site. For further information, go to Counsel Connect's Web site at:
America Online has several law-related areas on its service, all of which may be accessed through the keyword "Legal." These forums tend to have many non-lawyer participants. You will not find much assistance in your own practice, but will have the opportunity to demonstrate your legal skills to potential clients.
If you wish, you can create your own discussion group without much effort or expense with readily available software. For example, if you use Microsoft FrontPage to create a Web site, it includes a wizard that will create a "Discussion Web" for you. Visitors to your Web site can participate in discussions on topics that you designate. You can restrict access to the discussion group by imposing a registration requirement.
"Push" technology has been trumpeted as the next revolution in the distribution of information. The idea is that an information provider would "push" its content out over the Internet to its subscribers on a regular schedule, without having to depend upon its subscribers to "pull" the content down themselves. However, since most Internet users are not connected to the Internet continuously, "push" services usually rely upon the subscriber's computer to connect to the Internet and request the information. The software can be configured to connect automatically on a regular schedule.
Today, anyone with a Web site can use "push" technology to distribute information. For example, if you developed a weekly Web-based newsletter on important developments in a particular area of your practice, you could easily turn it into a "channel" for viewing in Netscape Communicator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, or on the Pointcast service. A channel is just a Web page or pages with some extra coding and, in some instances, associated channel definition pages that together allow the chosen medium to recognize the pages and set up the distribution schedules. You may also have the opportunity to get listed in the chosen medium's directory of available channels. For further information about how to develop channels, consult the home pages of the respective companies:
http://www.netscape.com
http://www.microsoft.com
http://www.pointcast.com
There is an even simpler way to push information out to interested users in the Internet community -- old-fashioned e-mail. Office newsletters, updates on legal developments and firm announcements all can be distributed by e-mail. You can do it all yourself by creating a list with your e-mail software. Or, you can seek assistance from any one of a number of providers who will maintain the list for you. They can also set up a list as a discussion group, if you wish. For further information, see the following:
http://www.egroups.com/
http://www2.databack.com/maillists/
http://www.lsoft.com/ease-head.html
http://www.sparklist.com/
http://www.greenspun.com/spam/index.tcl
