Recently in Communications Category

Yesterday, we covered three suggested “pragmatic” gifts — the sort that will help advance your dear law graduate’s professional life. A laptop could help with cover letters and hopefully, paid legal work. Tablets are great for bar review apps (and bar review breaks!). Smartphones help her answer emails and take calls from potential employers.

They are all good gift ideas, but sometimes, fun trumps function. After all, your grad has been working hard for years to get her degree, and now little Jane will be taking a bar review course and searching desperately for an entry-level legal position. Maybe now is the time for something a little less pragmatic.

You have a will. And a living will. A plan for your property, your kids, your pets, and a power of attorney.

But what will become of your email when you’re gone?

Thanks to a new Google feature called Inactive Account Manager, you can start planning for your digital afterlife.

During our interview with Ron Collins of Amicus Attorney, we got into an interesting discussion about Google’s data policies and how they implicate A lawyer’s duty of confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege. Many people are concerned that Google’s sharing of information and scanning of email for advertising purposes constitutes a breach of confidentiality, a waiver of attorney-client privilege, or both.

It’s an interesting question.

Twitter has a bit of a P.R. conundrum on its hands this week after the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Indiana law banning sex offenders from social networks.

The problem: Should the micro-blogging platform amend its terms of service (TOS) to keep known sex offenders away?

As if there wasn't enough government surveillance of citizens, now some cities are installing microphones on public buses.

Using funds from the Department of Homeland Security, cities including San Francisco and Baltimore are updating bus surveillance systems with audio-recording capabilities. That means passengers' conversations can be surreptitiously taped and saved for later use.

Bus companies are in favor of the move, but civil liberties groups beg to differ. They're worried about how all this surveillance could be used against us.

When was the last time you picked up a pen and a pad of paper? Attorneys these days are armed with any number of high-tech tools. Laptops, iPads, and smartphones are all useful gadgets for any lawyer's tool belt. Why write things down, when you can just type notes onto your smartphone?

Well, maybe because there are some benefits to handwriting documents, as Fast Company has pointed out. Some benefits are even applicable to hardworking attorneys.

Here are just a few:

Former CIA Director David Petraeus and his biographer Paula Broadwell reportedly used a draft email trick well-known to teenagers and terrorists in an attempt to conceal their intimate relationship.

The two would compose draft email messages using a shared Gmail account, reports The Washington Post. Instead of actually sending email to each other, both Petraeus and Broadwell left unsent messages in a draft folder or in an electronic dropbox. The other person could then log into the same account and read the emails there, without creating an actual email trail.

While this may seem new to many, this draft email trick has been used for years by anyone trying to hide illicit relationships and communications, according to the Post.

It's a good idea to take a vacation during the holidays. But before you check out for some much-needed time off, you need to set up your out-of-office email reply.

As an attorney, forgetting to set up an out-of-office reply can be a dangerous move. Even if you're only missing one day for the holidays, if an emergency comes up, clients need to know what to expect.

Setting up a quick out-of-office reply is a good start, but taking some extra time to be thoughtful about it is even more beneficial. Here are our Top 5 tips:

The Law Library of Congress has debuted a new Congress website -- Congress.gov -- that will provide free public access to legislative information.

The new site is slated to replace the THOMAS system, which was the official database for legislative information since 1995, reports iPhone J.D.

Congress.gov is expected to be major step up from the previous system as it allows users to search across all content in the system at once. In addition, the website will be compatible with virtually any mobile device. So if what was lacking on your morning commute was the ability to read bills and laws on your iPhone or iPad, Congress.gov is the website for you.

California is the newest state to allow self-driving cars to drive on public streets for the purpose of testing.

State residents will now have to watch out both for reckless drivers and reckless cars without drivers. But the cars won't be completely rider-less. The law only allows for self-driving cars when a human passenger is along for the ride.

California isn't the first state to allow self-driving cars but the measure is far from common. Proponents claim the cars will promote safety.