Senate Democrats Unwilling To Fight Widely-Opposed GOP Nominee To Legal Services Corporation. Lawyers for conservative evangelical groups have never been bolder, and their ideological brethren dominate the U.S. Supreme Court. Where are the lawyers and social workers who fight the War on Poverty? Why won’t Congress free the Legal Services Corporation from the onerous regulations that stop them from helping economically disadantaged communities?
March 8, 2010
March 1, 2010
Open Source Law Office | LSNTAP
Open Source Law Office | LSNTAP. Okay! Here is the updated announcement about our open source law office on the Legal Services National Technology Assistance Project. These are folks committed to using free code to make the economy and the justice system more fair. I’m paraphrasing their mission I expect, but I’ve done so in the spirit of charity!
February 27, 2010
Using Drupal
More than one low-budget or no-budget Montana organization has a website built with Drupal. The Drupal content management system is free and used for well known sites like The White House, the New York Observer, Amnesty International and The Onion.
But the learning curve is steep, and Montana cities do not always have a network of Drupal-literate coders available to assist with administration and updating of sites.
If this situation sounds familiar, get Using Drupal.
This uncommonly well written book may immediately remedy the familiar Montana problem of the “missing webmaster” by unlocking the community-based power of a Drupal website. The book includes lucid descriptions of key website administration concepts combined with practical step-by-step remedies for typical organizational goals.
And if you live in Montana but despise books of this nature, remember that Drupal coder communities are growing daily. In Montana, the Western Montana Drupal Group is another good place to seek affordable help.
February 20, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor – Have Keyboard, Will Travel – NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Contributor – Have Keyboard, Will Travel – NYTimes.com. Applies to lawyers too?
In Tiny Courts of N.Y., Abuses of Law and Power – New York Times
In Tiny Courts of N.Y., Abuses of Law and Power – New York Times. These judges can apparently imprison defendants for up to two years!
October 10, 2009
Attorney Judy Wang remembered for tireless advocacy, dedication
By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian
A compassionate mentor. A fierce advocate. A tireless community champion who dedicated her life to making our corner of the world safer, healthier and stronger.
Those are just some of the accolades used Sunday to describe Judy Wang, 57, a prosecutor in the Missoula city attorney’s office who died unexpectedly over the weekend when a driver who smelled of alcohol crashed into her car and caused it to roll on Interstate 90 near Anaconda.
Wang, said those who knew her well, viewed justice with a capital J, and she applied that perspective in her daily work as a tenacious attorney who helped create legislation to strengthen the laws that protect victims of domestic violence.
“Her death is such a shock to all of us,” said Cindy Weese, executive director of the YWCA. “She was our expert and our greatest advocate for policy around victims and domestic violence.
“Not only was she a mentor to me, but she had an incredible impact on everyone working in this field statewide – she was a teacher to us all.”
Wang’s sudden death leaves an immeasurable void on many levels.
…
May 17, 2009
Ubuntu Geek Found Fix For Atheros Wifi Problem
My work box is a Lenovo Thinkpad T42p I bought from Emperor Linux in 2006 — maybe earlier than that. I don’t remember. There’s a receipt somewhere. It ran on Ubuntu Linux (Breezy Badger? Dapper Drake?) which I’ve dutifully upgraded. Its running on 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) now.
When the Thinkpad arrived, it had a special “empkernel” which made all the hardware run. When I upgraded, the empkernel was left behind. Ubuntu mostly kept the hardware running fine though.
Some exceptions . . . . This month, when I upgraded to Jaunty, the Atheros wireless card stopped talking to the OS. Horrors! I need that card. On the other hand, I had a new excuse to play with the bash shell. I dug out an old ethernet cable to get back on the net and began googling for solutions. Not much luck at first. . . .
Then I found Ubuntu Geek. Problems over. The wireless card problem?
Fixed here: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/new-madwifi-now-supports-ar2425-in-madwifi-trunk-branch.html
But wait! My wpa encryption support still isn’t fixed! No. Ubuntu Geek had that covered too . . .
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/enable-wpa-wireless-access-point-in-ubuntu.html
So. If you’re sort of a newbie like me to Ubuntu and spend waaayyy too much time googling around and not finding stuff, and you like using the command line, then my suggestion is to start with Ubuntu Geek next time.
March 22, 2009
Half A Dozen Linux Lawyer Problems Solved
1. Description. OpenOffice files unreadable from shell.
Solution. odt2txt unreadable_file | less
2. Description. File on remote server unreadable from local host.
Solution. mkdir /mnt/stuff
sudo sshfs user@userserver.no-ip.info:/home/user/Desktop/matters /mnt/stuff
cd /mnt/stuff
ls -l
fusermount -u /mnt/stuff
3. Description. eGroupWare calendar and contacts unreadable from local host.
Solution. ssh -L 4444:192.168.0.65:80 user@userserver.no-ip.info
firefox
http://localhost:4444
4. Description. Unable to read or write file.
Solution. sudo chmod 0777 unreadable_file
5. Description. Missing an executable.
Solution. sudo apt-get install missing_executable
6. Description. Need to reboot from shell.
Solution. sudo shutdown -r now.
January 3, 2009
Linux is the new Typing 101
My long, intrepid journey to convert my law office from proprietary to free and open source software (FOSS) included some surprises. The largest surprise was that the trip required linux code literacy no less than traveling an ocean would require navigation skills. Learning FOSS is nothing like licensing “out-of-the-box” software.
When I started practicing law, it was still relatively common for older lawyers to use dictation to create documents. These lawyers often did not know how to type let alone know how to use a word processor.
My grandmother was a lawyer who knew how to type, but her peers often mistook her for someone who was merely there to do the typing. She nevertheless recalled the skill as an advantage in the days of manual typewriters and carbon copies.
My mother forced me to take an introduction to typing class when I was in high school. I learned to use word processors when the first ones arrived so the transition was easy. Today I am able to do my own word processing. An assistant generally slows me down when I’m drafting and editing a legal document. As I’ve migrated to FOSS, my need for an assistant has continued to decrease.
That said, I’ve also realized I’m missing an entire set of skills that later generations of lawyers will likely take for granted. I interact with computers, software and networks like a consumer. Those skills aren’t enough. I need developer skills. All lawyers do. Like lawyers today know how to type. Lawyers tomorrow will need to know how to code.
In order to unlock the power of the computer and of networks, lawyers need to understand what the computer essentially is and what it can do. Its critical to have some notion of the computer as a logic machine and to understand its power to manipulate and organize datatypes. Apart from a deeper understanding of what it means to write and compile code, database literacy is probably the most obvious missing skill I can identify.
At a more general level, its a stunning irony that lawyers use logic as a professional tool but often lack any concept of how to use free code to unlock the logic engine inside every PC.
So its trite to conclude a project with the discovery that the journey is less complete at its end than it was at the beginning. But that’s where I find myself today.
True. There is no proprietary code left which is needed to run my law practice. The code in my office will already do more than the proprietary code I used in the past.
But I’ve exhausted a ridiculous amount of time and money to get where I am. And I’ve barely scratched the surface of what can be done. The limit I encountered is not the code. Its my own skill level.
November 4, 2008
FCC Opens Radio Spectrum
5-0 FCC VOTE FREES “WHITE SPACES” TO PROMOTE LOW-COST, HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACCESS
Reported by Matt Richtel for The New York Times.
Over the objections of television broadcasters and other groups, federal regulators set aside a disputed slice of radio spectrum for public use on Tuesday, hoping it would lead to low-cost, high-speed Internet access and new wireless devices.
The Federal Communications Commission voted 5 to 0 to approve the new use for the unlicensed frequencies, known as white spaces.A coalition of powerful groups, including broadcasters, Broadway theater producers and sports franchises, hoped to derail or delay the decision. They have argued that their own transmissions — whether from television signals or from wireless microphones used in live music performances — could face interference from new devices that use the white spaces.
But F.C.C. commissioners said in a public meeting on Tuesday that they were confident that enough testing had been done to assure them that interference was not a major risk. “It’s fair to say few other engineering analyses at the F.C.C. have been as lengthy and open,” said Michael J. Copps, a commissioner.
Echoing the views of other commissioners, he added that the measure could lead to development of a new generation of devices that use the spectrum to provide Internet access. Commissioners said such access could be more reliable than Wi-Fi, which also uses unlicensed frequencies but does not reach as far.
August 2, 2008
ACLU Defends Immigrant Workers Against DOJ Tactics
Workers Threatened by DOJ
Reported by Jurist

July 19, 2008
New Location . . . Same Scales
New Location For Missoula Attorney Monte Jewell

Here are directions to the office.


