August 2011 Archives

Throughout the year, FindLaw attends a variety of legal conventions nationwide to interact with legal professionals and stay connected with our current and potential customers.

We have had a busy summer meeting with you at conferences and tradeshows from coast to coast. And we will continue our heavy travel schedule in September with two important legal conventions:

• Consumer Attorney of Los Angeles (CAALA) Annual Convention
• Kentucky Justice Association (KJA) Annual Convention and Seminar

Attending legal conventions is one of the many ways that FindLaw connects with the legal community in local, regional and national venues. FindLaw attends all manner of legal conventions throughout the year.

We continue our Friday round-up of what is newest, best and brightest at FindLaw.com. Below, you will find this week's offerings from various areas of FindLaw's unique content, including: core legal content, blogs, news and case law. Take a look at what's new:

Legal Blogs

• Michigan Marijuana Law: Sale of Pot Between Patients is Illegal: FindLaw's Decided dissects a Michigan state appellate ruling that pokes a hole in the state's medical marijuana law. Michigan's medical marijuana law does not permit the sale of pot between patients. As such, a Michigan dispensary was found to be in violation of the state's public health code and marijuana drug laws, allowing officials to shut it down as a public nuisance.

Welcome to another post from our "Meet the FindLaw Team" series. "Meet the FindLaw Team" provides insight into the day-to-day lives of our colleagues. Today we feature FindLaw SEO Strategist Jason Atwater. Get to know Jason by reading about his experiences at FindLaw below.

What is your current title?

SEO Strategist

Making the law easy to access. FindLaw.com’s involvement with Facebook is another chance for us to reach our users on additional platforms and make the legal information our users are seeking even easier to access. The new FindLaw for Legal Professionals Facebook page is a place to share thoughts, ask questions and read about interesting legal news that is relevant to the business of law and our users’ legal interests.

More than just connecting friends and colleagues, Facebook is a great platform for users to connect with information valuable to their practice. The FindLaw for Legal Professionals Facebook page allows lawyers, paralegals, professors, law students and other legal professionals to not only enjoy our wealth of free information, but to interact with it.  

We continue our Friday round-up of what is newest, best and brightest at FindLaw.com. Below, you will find this week's offerings from various areas of FindLaw's unique content, including: core legal content, blogs, news and case law. Take a look at what's new:

Legal Blogs

• California Plaintiffs Can't Claim Billed Costs, Only Actual Costs: FindLaw's Decided dissects the California Supreme Court's ruling that personal injury plaintiffs cannot seek billed medical costs over actual costs paid by their insurers. Rebecca Howell, the plaintiff, was injured in an automobile accident. She sued Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc., in a personal injury lawsuit seeking damages for her medical expenses.

Social media is everywhere. Merging breaking legal news that is relevant and interesting to your legal practice with blogs, Twitter and Facebook is something that should be specifically tailored to each social media outlet. Your participation with one or multiple social media outlets allows you to connect to your readers (and potential clients) in a unique way. It also turns what was once static content into a social experience by empowering readers to experience media through their friends and easily discover and share great content.

Last time we looked at two legal cases that were getting a tremendous amount of publicity: Casey Anthony and Roger Clemens. Turning legal news into social news does not have to be limited to celebrity figures. Here at FindLaw, we post a range of legal features on our consumer blogs and have noticed recent interest in employment rights as well as recent restrictions on Facebook use as it relates to workplace relationships. Both these topics are a perfect example of how you can reach out to your clients and bridge the gap between a strictly legal story and a social legal story.

In the summer, a manager's mind turns to the traditional summertime thoughts: Is the air conditioning working? What are my team's vacation schedules? And most importantly, do we have our summer interns? Last summer, we looked in on the internship program in the FindLaw Customer Operations team. This year, FindLaw Technology is one more team that has a strong internship program giving students a chance to learn, and the group a chance to grow.

In 2009, FindLaw Technology partnered with Maverick Software Consulting and the University of Minnesota to begin the University of Minnesota Maverick Program. This program brings talented students from the University onto the FindLaw campus to gain real-world experience in software engineering projects like testing features, writing code and developing web enhancements. This opportunity has already led to three Maverick program students interning this summer at FindLaw. In addition, one former Maverick grad is now a full-time employee with the team.

FindLaw is the spot for useful, practical legal information. Visitors rely on FindLaw to provide the kind of legal background to current events and trends that others just can't offer.

This helpful information can always be found in our daily blogs, constantly-updated legal content and our Answers communities. However, FindLaw also prepares news releases and other sources of information to bring legal news to an even wider audience.

And the latest press release is ripped from today's headlines: job loss in this struggling economy. With volatile stock markets and a 9% unemployment rate, many Americans fear being laid off.

Scribd is the world's largest social reading and publishing company. FindLaw is world's most popular online source for legal information. In addition to being industry leaders, both sites have one more thing in common that makes them so appealing -- they are both free! It only makes sense that FindLaw would participate on a site that is making valuable information accessible to so many.

FindLaw's presence on Scribd is another chance for the company to connect the online community with the legal information they are looking for. It's no secret that the law is constantly changing and FindLaw.com wants to help our audience not only to keep up with the way law affects their lives, but to keep ahead of the trends. We do this by allowing our users and clients to access information across multiple sources. FindLaw visitors can choose whatever way works best for them to access the legal information they need -- anywhere, anytime.

Visitors to FindLaw know that this is the place for useful, practical legal information. Our consumers and our attorney clients rely on FindLaw to provide the kind of legal background to current events and trends that others just don't offer.

This helpful information can always be found in our daily blogs, news articles, constantly-updated legal content and our Answers communities. However, FindLaw also prepares surveys, news releases and other sources of information to bring legal news to an even wider audience.

One such hot-button news item is that of property taxes for homeowners. Property tax bills are never fun, and sometimes the government may well overcharge or overvalue your home. Fear not, as FindLaw offers information on how to challenge property tax bills.

In a recent release and survey on property taxes, FindLaw announced that "1 in 4 Americans Have Challenged Property Taxes."

And the result? Often, a property tax reduction.

Summer is upon us, and for many attorneys that means the legal convention season is underway. Time to earn some CLE credits and connect with and learn from colleagues. FindLaw will be hitting the road nationwide in August, attending three prominent conventions and tradeshows from the ocean to the mountains.

Throughout the year,FindLaw attends the most mportant legal conventions nationwide to interact with legal professionals. It is a great way for us to meet face-to-face with our current and potential customers. That's why FindLaw will attend three big legal tradeshows this month:

• Texas State Bar Annual Family Law Course
• Colorado Trial Lawyers Annual Convention
• South Carolina Association for Justice Annual Convention

Attending legal conventions is one of the many ways that FindLaw connects with the legal community in local, regional and national venues. All three of August conventions will provide the opportunity to network with clients and prospective clients.