I think I’m going to front load with professional stuff and then move towards non-professional interests towards the end of each post so that people can stop reading if they want. This is definitely not going to be a daily thing, you guys. Or always this long. Just…FYI.

Small Firm Legal Tech Survey

Above the Law has a new survey out covering what tech small/solos use. I will never ever ever say that tech is a panacea for all issues in legal, but the fact that a great majority of ethics complaints are about lawyers not communicating with their clients and this report shows that roughly half don’t use a practice management or client management tool, and well….

OH MY GOD I just scrolled down though the report and only 53% use a calendaring tool? You guys. How are you remembering to do anything? Oy.

Pirate Box

A few years ago, by which I mean almost a decade because whew time flies, I read a blog post from an artist about creating a file server with a Raspberry Pi. My colleague (at the time) Elmer Masters and I knocked around the idea for duplicating that but using it to distribute Free Law resources at courthouses. Jason Griffey came up with a similar thing (although I’m not sure if he got the idea from same place) to create his Library Box project.

Anyway, the project is called Pirate Box (which I’m sure will make lawyers/courthouse IT/etc feel super comfortable) and I’m wondering if it could be used to distribute something more interactive to help Self Represented litigants.

Community.Lawyer Appreciation

I spent 10 hours yesterday working on a project using Community.Lawyer. It’s basically a tool to make web apps that lawyers or others can use to deliver legal services. If you’ve never used a tool like this as a user, it’s basically like going through a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, but you’re trying to not get evicted or are fighting a parking ticket.

It’s pretty easy to use and they have a great help community. It seems like every time I work on it I find another useful help feature. In this case, it’s a library of apps to remix and use. I needed this code yesterday and it’s so much easier to copy existing code than make up your own.

People ask me if I can code and the answer is not really but I’m good at cutting/pasting from Stack Overflow and related resources.

Stickers to Stick it to The Man

Facial recognition software is super problematic. Like, not just because of 4th amendment issues and state power, but more personal safety issues from weirdos on the Internet. So I was very interested to see this open source hack to defeat the software. The answer? Stickers.

CALIcon 20

I submitted my proposal. Go me! Voting starts March 6. I’m not saying “vote for me” I’m saying check back then and see what other cool things have been proposed. It’s not too late to submit one yourself!

Free Stuff

The Smithsonian FINALY after years of people like Carl Malamud lobbying them for it, finally released materials from their collection openly. Finally. Go forth and make your stuff look visually appealling.

(Source)

Coronavirus

Are you worried about Coronavirus? I sort of am. 1) I have an autoimmune disease that makes getting sick less than ideal. 2) My dad is getting old and I worry about his disease response. 3) I have always had a fascination with disease and historical plagues. I flirted with the idea of becoming a epidemiologist after reading The Hot Zone (It turned out that one of the scientists profiled in that book allegedly was the Anthrax mailer after 9/11, sooo..) 4) The best preventative against infectious disease is accurate information and our info ecosystem is a mess right now.

Zeynep Tufecki has a good thread/article on prepping.

Counterpoint

I don’t believe this, btw. This is just an example of what’s out there. I’ve always enjoyed conspiracy theories both because they’re an interesting insight into what’s on a culture’s mind but also I sort of believe some of them. It’s gotten really weird in the past few years, though. And sometimes you’re happily reading a forum or listening to a podcast and all of sudden someone busts out “…and that’s why The Jews faked the Holocaust!” and you’re like “Wait, what? WHAT?!”

Lent

It’s the first Friday of Lent. Facebook is terrible but one good thing it did was bring the relationship status “it’s complicated” to the world’s lexicon. Anyway, me and the Catholic Church? It’s complicated.

I do like participating in Lenten activities. I think it’s good to do a little sacrifice every now and then. I lived in a small apartment in Boston for a year - okay, it’s because I had a fellowship at Harvard - and I basically could only take what I could haul in my car. I learned that I could do without a lot.

The best part of Lent are the Fish Fries. I grew up in the Cincinnati area and it has a great fish fry culture. (McDonalds Filet-o-Fish was first made there to compete.) Cod on rye, slathered in Frisch’s tartar sauce and if you talk to the wiley old guy hanging out by the kitchen, you can get a beer.

Now I live in Northwest Indiana and like many Great Lakes communities, they do lake perch up here. Blegh. However, and what was a pleasant surprise, they also do pierogi and potato pancakes.

More Catholic Stuff

I’ve been enjoying the show Derry Girls on Netflix. It’s shows what it was like to be a teenager in the 1990s with the backdrop of The Troubles. The first season is more light and you start to see more IRA/Orange conflict in the second (but it’s still a comedy - not too heavy.) Highly recommend.

Also, I burned through all the John Mulany specials (his mom is a law professor at Northwestern!) and this bit…it me.

Fight Pancreatic Cancer

My mom was killed by pancreatic cancer three years ago. I knew it was a bad disease because when I was an Americorps*VISTA, I had a volunteer that got it and I read up on it. So I knew it was practically a death sentence when my mom was diagnosed, but I was still not prepared for her to die six weeks after diagnosis.

PanCAN is the major pancreatic cancer charity. They currently have a letter form available for people put their name/address in and it writes a letter to congress critter about getting more funding.

The end

Be well.