On this day in 2017, Harris County was still reeling from the devastation caused by the worst flooding event in U.S. history. A year later, Hurricane Harvey's toll is still being felt throughout our community. That is why the Harris County Law Library remains committed to connecting those impacted with relevant information about resources and services to help with recovery. Visit our Harvey Recovery Resources page or visit our downtown Houston location to find information on legal helplines, referral services, and clinics that can help with the legal aspects of the recovery process.
Special Event: Expanded "MS Word for Legal Work" Hands-on Legal Tech Training
Join us as we offer our flagship hands-on training - MS Word for Legal Work - for an expanded audience on Thursday, Aug. 30, at 2pm. Learn the skills you need to draft documents more efficiently on the world's leading word processing software. Texas attorneys can earn 1.0 hour of CLE credit. Register today!
Ethics of Storing and Sharing Information in the Cloud
Fluffy clouds over happy trees.
In yesterday's Tech Tuesday blog post, we looked at news stories about the consequences of not knowing how to use basic technology. Keeping pace with current events, we draw your attention to another example from Paul Manafort's woe. While out on bail and awaiting trial on his federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges, Mr. Manafort was further indicted for obstructing justice and conspiring to do so by influencing the testimony of potential witnesses. He was caught using the encrypted messaging app WhatsApp in order to secretly communicate with people he expected to testify in his case. Unintentionally documenting his deception, he accidentally automatically backed up those WhatsApp communications to his iCloud account, providing an access point for authorities to obtain the messages. The end-to-end encryption capabilities of WhatsApp were rendered pointless when he uploaded an unencrypted copy of the transcript to the cloud.
"The Cloud" refers to shared storage and system resources made commercially available through the magic of the Internet. Essentially, rather than using your own space and materials to store information, either electronically or in physical files, you can store your information using someone else's space and materials. But unlike the old days when your file boxes might be hauled off in a truck to a warehouse where you could request to have them pulled on demand and driven back to your office, information stored in the cloud is available immediately, 24/7, as long you have Internet access and your login credentials.
This has obvious appeal for lawyers, especially attorneys in small practices, who in the past were forced to dedicate a substantial portion of office space to document retention. Still, the ethical implications of simply passing client materials off to the control of a third part gives pause. As state bar associations weigh in, cloud computing is an increasingly legitimate way to retain attorney work product, but lawyers must know how to vet cloud services and otherwise hold up their end of the bargain.
A great way to learn more, and to earn free Texas Ethics CLE credit from the comfort of your own home, is to watch "The Ethics of Cloud Computing" as part of the Harris County Law Library Legal Tech Institute "Learn on Demand" series. Check it out today!
Torn from the Headlines -- Tech Flubs in the News
In recent months, stories about the use -- or misuse -- of technology have been filling social media news feeds. Some of these flubs, committed by those unfamiliar with basic technology, have caused great embarrassment; public ridicule by news media, Twitter trolls, and Facebook users has not been the worst outcome, however, as the examples here will show. These cautionary tales about the importance of developing basic tech competency reinforce the growing imperative for lawyers to stay current in tech.
Paul Manafort’s Trail of Converted Documents
In an attempt to misrepresent the profits and losses of his company, President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, allegedly emailed falsified financial documents to his assistant, Rick Gates, thereby creating an incriminating paper trail that resulted in Mr. Manafort's indictment on February 22, 2018. Details of his document-doctoring efforts and his motivation for manipulating his company’s earnings have been covered extensively in any number of news publications, but the important takeaway for those of us in the real world is this: knowing the benefits and risks of using technology is a must. Mr. Manafort's lack of sophistication in using basic tech undoubtedly contributed to his legal trouble because he himself unwittingly preserved the digital evidence of his alleged crimes. Specific proof that he and Mr. Gates falsified financial documents is noted in the indictment as follows:
“Manafort emailed Gates a .pdf version of the real 2016 DMI P&L, which showed a loss of more than $600,000. Gates converted that .pdf into a “Word” document so that it could be edited, which Gates sent back to Manafort. Manafort altered that “Word” document by adding more than $3.5 million in income. He then sent this falsified P&L to Gates and asked that the “Word” document be converted back to a .pdf, which Gates did and returned to Manafort. Manafort then sent the falsified 2016 DMI P&L .pdf to Lender D.”
Kris Kobach’s Metadata Oversight
Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, has built his reputation on ferreting out fraud at the polls and toughening voter ID laws. The enhanced voter ID laws that Kobach promotes as the solution to voter fraud deny new Kansans the right to vote unless they can produce citizenship documents. The ACLU, describing the ID requirement as arbitrary and discriminatory, brought an action against the law that Kobach is now fighting in court. In the resulting trial, Kobach filed in federal court a document in which he forgot to delete his office’s editorial note (saying that a particular argument was “PROBABLY NOT WORTH ARGUING”) and failed to provide a citation for a separate argument. (See p. 62 of the document here.) A revised version of the document was subsequently submitted but not before several news outlets picked up the story of his blunder. The key takeaway here? Be sure to review your work carefully before filing it in court. If you need to inspect your document before sharing it with another party, use the Microsoft Word Document Inspector, which allows you to strip your documents of any hidden metadata.
Broward County’s Redaction Error
Following the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida on February 14, 2018, the Broward public school system commissioned a report to investigate the therapeutic services provided by the school district for the shooter, Nikolas Cruz. Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer ordered that the report be released to the public. To protect the shooter’s privacy rights, nearly two-thirds of the content was to be redacted. However, the district failed to use a proper redaction method, allowing a more savvy user to cut and paste the text into another document. The “redacted” text was made visible, revealing a detailed account of the actions taken by the school district to provide services for Nikolas Cruz. Specific information about what emerged from the report is available here. Using proper redaction software such as Adobe Pro or Nitro or any number of other redaction programs is a more effective and reliable way to ensure that the sensitive data contained in your documents is protected.
These are just a few examples of how technology errors can have serious repercussions. Visit the blog again tomorrow for an additional tech flub, again committed by Paul Manafort, that illustrates the importance of protecting the confidential data you store and share on the cloud.
Latest & Greatest – How to Build and Manage a Family Law Practice
By Mark A. Chinn
Published by the American Bar Association, Section of Family Law, Law Practice Division
KF 300 .C455 2018
Author Mark Chinn, an attorney specializing in family law since 1988, notes in his book, How to Build and Manage a Family Law Practice, that family law is “one of the most unique and challenging specialties in law” because practitioners are required to know more than just the law; they must be litigators, accountants, and psychologists. He doesn’t say this to dissuade lawyers from taking on this specialty but rather to remind them how special and how personal this area of law is. Drawing on his own experience in starting a family law practice, Chinn encourages lawyers who are seeking to specialize in family law to set aside any fears and make the jump. To help those who are willing to take that leap, Chinn offers some practical advice about establishing a family law practice. He guides the reader through the initial tasks of starting out: dealing with the tangible items, i.e. location choice, furniture, equipment; establishing procedures for day-to-day and regular operations and customer service; marketing; and making decisions regarding staffing. He then moves onto the practicalities of maintaining and managing a law practice: fees and billing and managing cases, time, and finances.
When it comes to client relations, Chinn, however, takes a different tack. He discusses how to deal with clients from initial intake through trial preparation and addresses how to interact with them, stressing throughout that in many family law cases, the level of emotion involved increases, thereby making client interactions a bit more challenging and perhaps requiring a bit more counseling on the part of the lawyer. He also devotes a chapter to service and suggests ways for lawyers to become more service-oriented rather than results-oriented. Lastly, Chinn reminds lawyers that to be able to do one’s best, one must be healthy in mind, body, and spirit.
If you are considering a family law practice or even your own legal practice, consult How to Build and Manage a Family Law Practice first for some solid advice.