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On a lazy Sunday, I went downtown in Des Moines and, finding the bright sun cast a dark shadow, took some interesting photos of a fire escape on a warehouse in downtown Des Moines. Then I used Photoshop a bit to do some 'tweaking'. Fire Escape Series
Sure, we see them all the time but are they at all controlling? An interesting blog comment by Carol Shepherd, at Arborlaw makes a good point that they hardly bind the email sender or recipient. As she summarizes, "In most cases where email disclaimers and similar boilerplate language are being deployed, the language is presented to the other party after the fact. Even in a case where the parties do intend to form a contract, the common law and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) are clear that terms supplied after a contract has already been formed do not automatically become part of the contract." The full post is well worth reading to figure out how best to protect the confidential information you share with others.
As for my method, I don't have a disclosure. I have a provision in my fee agreement and in my initial client communication that explains: "Because of what I am pointing out in paragraph 1, I put in the subject line of all my email communications "CONFIDENTIAL - [the client's last name, in caps also]". This way, we can easily separate any communications between us in case a legitimate request is made for digital information. Of course, we do not need to communicate by email, but it is frequently the most efficient and effective. I leave the choice to do so up to you. " In my email program [primarily Eudora, still] I have stationary for each confidential relationship which I can select and use each time I have to send something. And the emails to and from the client are filtered into that client's email mailbox.
I have been looking into which of the many programs on my computer and elsewhere to use to organize myself for some upcoming trials. One of these is Circus Ponies's Notebook, which I own but [candidly] don't use much at all.
As I am looking into working with Notebook [or some other program], I came across a blog comment on the Mac Law Students Blog which, with pictures and a clear description, explains how the author uses Notebook to keep case notes and such. It's a good commentary and the replies below provide other resources.
An excellent resource in general for a discussion of Mac outliners is the website for About This Particular Macintosh [ATPM]. There are more options than one has time to test out.
Sorry I am not getting myself back to law commentary, but I did want to report on my use of the iPhone on two trips out of town. I went for a week to Chicago & Indiana for a legal convention [I became Chair of the Employment Rights Section of the American Association for Justice there] and then to shoot photos on the return trip in July and then in early August went to New York City to visit our daughter. On both trips I took my iPhone, of course, and my MacBookPro so I could do some work as well.
In both instances I found that I carried the iPhone with me and used it everywhere and left the MBP back in the room and used it only occasionally at night. With the exception of some 'dead' areas in the convention hotel [where the MBP wouldn't get wireless either] where neither wi-fi or Edge network worked, the iPhone did a great job of keeping me up to date and providing all I needed. If I couldn't get a signal, I just went upstairs and got the Edge network [or found free wi-fi to use] and did just fine. The Edge network is slow, but I usually do other things [multi-tasking] while waiting for my computer or whatever to finish what it's doing so I just let it download while I read a magazine or something. In New York I could find free wi-fi easier and did so.
If I was sitting somewhere and was fairly bored by what was going on, I could just turn on the iPhone and grab my mail via either Wi-Fi or Edge and read it, or just plan to read it later.
My main quandry, which I haven't taken the time to research and resolve, is that you download all this mail to your iPhone and I'd like to trash it now but am not sure how. With the .Mac email account it's easy, to either sync or overwrite; but I also have a Google GMail account for picking up mail via my iPhone and I'm not sure how to clean it off. Yet.
I wrote a Trip Report for SlowTravel.com, a wonderful site for people who really want to get into a people and culture and not rush around when travelling. The full, six page report and lseveral pictures are posted at the site. Go to Trip Report #1248 .
Now, an Australian magazine, DUO, has published an editted version of the report in its August 2007 magazine. A smaller pdf file of the article is at the SlowTrav website's Scrapbook. I'll upload an under 1mb version on my JourneyZing site.
Hope you find it enjoyable! At least to whet your appetite.
