MERRY-GO-ROUND

Christopher Corey checks in from O'Melveny & Myers, letting us know today is his last day as the firm's director of practice support. "This certainly is a case of one door closing, and many others opening," he reports cheerfully, confirming that he got a pink slip. "A rich path of options have appeared, and I've not yet decided which to pursue."

First, he's going to take off the summer. "My first vacation without a BlackBerry, and without having to check in daily, in more than 10 years," says Corey (right),  who sings praises of the firm, which "has been helpful and generous." He says he understands why his post was eliminated when he steps back and looks at the "full picture." We send Corey our best wishes for the next chapter of his career.

Better news: After Fios shuttered its professional services and consulting group earlier this year, Cynthia Bateman moved to KPMG, where she is now "Director Advisory, Forensic Technology" based in Atlanta. Congrats!

And other good news: George Rudoy has been asked to oversee Shearman & Sterling's "Global Conflicts & Compliance, Knowledge Management" operations, as well as the Project Management Office. He doesn't yet know if this will result in a change in title (he's currently director, global practice technology & information services), but it does mean that John Kapp (recently added as an author to our EDD Update blog) has been promoted to manager of practice technology support. Congrats also!

TRIALDIRECTOR 6: RAVE REVIEW

Ted Brooks, a San Francisco-based trial technology consultant and frequent contributor to LTN, reviews TrialDirector 6, inData's upgrade to its litigation presentation software, on his Court and Trial Technology blog.

"If you’ve never before used trial presentation software in your practice, now is the time to consider it. If you’ve used previous versions of TrialDirector or other trial presentation software, now is the time to consider springing for the upgrade," says Brooks. Among the improvements, he says, is "the return of the Grid View. The Document Manager tab now brings back the fully functional, editable, and sortable database view," that was offered in past versions.

The Transcript Manager has been revamped, and now users can input the page and line designations to the start and end of clips, or select the desired text. "A clip wizard helps users assemble [clips], or you can use the segment editor," notes Brooks.

MORE PINK SLIPS

A jam-packed trip to California last week.

First, to the ALM conference in San Francisco, for  "Social Media: Risks & Rewards," which was awesome and nuanced. As expected, American Express' Mark Bisard got a lot of buzz during his discussion of the @AskAmex Twitter team. Check #LSMC to get a sense of the discussions. Expect to hear from Bisard on an upcoming Law Technology Now podcast!

In Palo Alto, I had a chance to catch up with IntApp's new prez, Dan Tacone, as well as CEO John Hall and mktg veep, Dan Bressler. We had a fascinating discussion at a terrific relatively-new restaurant,Resposado.

I also met with Law Technology News board members James McKenna, senior manager of infrastructure at Morrison Foerster, and Matthew Kessner, CTO of Fenwick & West, who both helped me understand how Bay Area firms are addressing technology as we all climb out of (hopefully) this nasty recession.

McKenna introduced me to MoFo's new CIO, Neeraj Rajpal, and we talked briefly about how establishing repeatable processes will be increasingly important. Kessner was joined by SharePoint guru Mark Gerow, oft-featured on LTN's pages and website, and Kevin Moore, IT director, and we pondered the changes that are confronting the legal IT community, including what appears to be a trend towards cutting back on IT staff.

As if on cue, I got home to find a message in my inbox from an East Coast IT leader, who said a rumor was circulating that at least three senior IT folks have recently lost their jobs. One, DLA Piper's Mary Pat Poteet, already is confirmed. Said senior partner Browning Marean via BlackBerry: "True. Sad day for me. Reorganization."

More details soon, as I reach folks for confirmations. Pop me an e-mail if you've heard any news: commonscold@alm.com.

JUSTICE STEVENS DISCUSSION

I turn the mic over to my colleague Sean Doherty, technology editor of Law.com:

Justice Stevens Announces Retirement: Normally, that's not a news topic that would make the Law Technology News Daily Alert. But in the spirit of Web 2.0 and internet journalism, The National Law Journal has mounted a blog on the topic, Speaking of Stevens: A Forum on the Justice, His Legacy, and the Future of the Court.

NLJ has invited more than a dozen high court experts to weigh in with their thoughts of Justice John Paul Stevens and his legacy, as well as the future of the Supreme Court. Join M. Edward Whelan III, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center; Sonja West, professor at the ;University of Georgia School of Law; Lucas "Scot" Powe Jr., professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law; Andrew Pincus, partner at Mayer Brown; Carter Phillips, managing partner in the D.C. office of Sidley Austin; and more.

SOCIAL NETWORKING POLICIES

I am working on an article about social networking policies for organizations. Feel free to answers as few or as many of these questions as you like, and email your responses to me -- commonscold@alm.com

Please be sure to provide your name, title, company/firm and city.

1. Does your organization have a written social media policy?

2. Do your policies vary based on job responsibilities? (i.e., is the policy "tiered" in any way, if so, how?)

3. What do you think are the 5 most important provisions to be covered in a social media policy?

4. What do you think is the biggest potential "reward" for your organization to use social media?

5. What do you think is the biggest risk?

6. How does your organization use social media?

7. Does your organization use Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? Martindale Hubbell Connected? MySpace? Blogs? Other? (what)

8. Firms: Do you provide any of your clients with social media policies, etc.?

9. Companies: Have you asked your lawyers for help in drafting social media policies.

10. Are there restrictions on who can create social media posts?

11. What do you want to know about social media policies.

12. What haven't I asked you that is relevant?

THE REIGN OF SOX

A carefully crafted document management system can help your firm not only meet its business goals, but also comply with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

In our April Law Technology News cover story, Kenneth Jones, COO of Sedgwick's Xerdict Group, provides a basic framework to implement a system that will help your firm accurately track claims, assess associated risk factors, and project resolution costs. This requires transaction-level and entity-level controls, says Jones.

iJUMP 4 iPAD

Not the least bit surprisingly, Saturday's release of the new Apple iPad is creating a buzz in the legal community. (Apple reports that it sold 300,000 units on day 1).

ALM CEO Bill Pollak already has a 3G version on order (I'm going to wait until the prices go down a bit, besides, I never buy version 1.0 of any product -- just call me paranoid).
 

Pollak notes that the blawgosphere is already "aTwitter" -- check out Tablet Legal by Josh Barrett, a Portland, Ore., business attorney.

LTN's news editor, Dan Howley, found ilawpad, a blog by Cincinnati attorney Jim Schimanski that discusses how lawyers can use Apple's latest must-have device.
  

The Legal iPad, a blog by Nicole Black, is collecting a list of lawyers using iPads, along with a list of relevant Twitter posts. BTW: Black and Carolyn Elefant (former co-author of Law.com's Legal Blog Watch) have co-authored an American Bar Association book, Social Media for Lawyers: The New Frontier, which will be available soon.

SWEET SOLUTION

The Widget Co. has announced the debut of its revolutionary, robust, mission-critical, massively scalable, three-tiered intuitive solution, the Widget 542SX version 6.235. It is available in five form factors and six colors (Atlantic Ocean Foam, Beijing Smog, Day-Old-Bread, Cream Cheese Frosting, Hybrid Exhaust, and Florida Gator Orange).

   It provides users with enterprise-level, unstructured, holistic end-to-end functionalities and includes backup telemetry. Users will be able to advance their initiatives and align their projects with their organization's legal spend. The product can de-dup and vacuum metadata, in a distributed fashion and reconstitute large volumes of data.

  The Widget 542SX v6.235 supports Linux, Windows 95, and OS 7. Options include a retractable 5 megapixal webcam and a 200 TB lipstick case-sized hard drive.