Law and Ethics for Bloggers - Legal & Ethical Blogging Considerations
Law and Ethics for Bloggers - Legal & Ethical Blogging Considerations
DEA agent shoots himself in the foot, sues DEA
No kidding. A DEA agent shoots himself in the foot during a gun safety demonstration, immediately after informing the crowd that he was the only one in the room professional enough to handle a gun, then sues the DEA when the video makes the rounds on the internet.
Hat tip to overlawyered.com.
Instapundit: What people in Hell have on their iPods
From Instapundit: WHAT PEOPLE IN HELL have on their iPods.
I laughed out loud.
TiVo’s General Counsel Matthew Zinn
Law.com has an interesting feature on TiVo’s General Counsel Matthew Zinn. According to Zinn, his greatest accomplishment is that TiVo has not yet “been sued out of existence.” I know the feeling.
Saturday Night Live’s skit on Medicare Part D
Saturday Night Live on Medicare Part D.
Get on the drug train!
Hat tip to Garlo Ward, P.C.
Long Term Care Risk Management Report
Long Term Care Risk Management Report is a new blog about, well, risk management issues in the long term care industry.
His first post concerns the recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation indicating that nursing homes rank below the pharmaceutical industry in public perception.
Artificial Intelligence in the Legal System?
The Boston Globe has an interesting piece on the potential application of Artificial Intelligence to the legal profession. Drake Bennett writes that:
[c]omputer judges, of course, aren’t going to be ascending to the bench in the foreseeable future. ‘’Nobody thinks that’s a good idea,” says Carole D. Hafner, a Northeastern University computer scientist and pioneer in using artificial intelligence to study the law. Judging, and most especially Supreme Court judging, is a complex and subtle mix of imagination, acuity, and political calculation. Still, at a time when doctors are starting to use software to aid in their diagnoses and when hedge funds are using computer models to make multibillion-dollar investment decisions, there is growing interest–even in an American legal establishment usually resistant to change–in finding ways to incorporate artificial intelligence into the law.
Okay, let’s just assume that the legal profession isn’t already full of artificial intelligence. Come on, go with me on this.
And we can agree that “court judging” is a complex and subtle mix of something — insert your own joke here — but “imagination, acuity, and political calculation?” I’m a former law clerk, and I’ve analyzed more than a few opinions. I’ve seen opinions that run the gamut of clarity, from perfectly pithy and precise (the ones ghost-written by me, of course!), to over-winded, tangential ramblings that serve only to raise more questions than they answer. And I’m not sure that imagination or political calculation really have much, if any, place in a court opinion.
The law is complicated and multi-farious, though, and I’m not sure that AI is well-suited for it. Still, the idea has a peculiar appeal, at least to the statutorily-based practitioners like tax attorneys (who, by the way, are a wild bunch). Just give these guys a set of facts, and they’ll start at the 101 statute and read their way through the dense material like it’s computer code, triggering a certain consequence here, referring to a definition there, and returning a result. See? I told you they were wild.
But for those other lawyers, those master manipulators of abstractions, the idea is almost laughable. Code may be able to mimic statutory analysis, but can it juggle the wind?
Anyway, the article refers to a couple of early products on the market, which, at the least, sound like fun:
The computer scientists John Zeleznikow of the University of Melbourne and Andrew Stranieri of the University of Ballarat, for example, have developed two pieces of legal software currently in use in their native Australia. One, SplitUp, calculates with impressive accuracy the likely results of divorce proceedings–its effect has been to encourage settlements, thus preventing unnecessary litigation. Another, GetAid, is used by an Australian government agency to appraise applicants for legal aid–a complicated calculation based on employment history, household income, the likelihood that the case will be won, and myriad other factors.
You can find Split-Up, which has apparently hired some marketing folks whose first task was to rename the product Family Law Software, here. Check out the picture on the front page. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Okay, look at the lawyer (you can tell he’s a lawyer by the tell-tale Wall of Gold-Embossed Solemn-Looking Tomes just behind him). He looks like he’s about to dive across the polished cherrywood desk to keep the clients (you can tell they’re clients because they have their hands on their wallets) (it’s hidden from view!) from clawing each other’s eyes out. Can a computer do that?
I wasn’t able to find a link to GetAid, but while looking, I did find this piece from The Economist. It’s opening lines are much more fun than any link to a software program would have been anyway:
GIVEN the choice, who would you rather trust to safeguard your future: a bloodsucking lawyer or a cold, calculating computer? Granted, it’s not much of a choice, since neither lawyers nor computers are renowned for their compassion.
Hey!
Beaverdale Estates
My 90-something Grandma is moving, leaving the only home I ever knew her to have in the quaint little town of Richland, Iowa, not far from where the ice cream cops hand out citations for good behavior, and setting out for an elder community in Des Moines.
Naturally, everyone’s a bit uneasy about the transition, and because I’m a lawyer in the long term care industry, I’ve been asked to check out the place and its people.
I could be the facility’s worst nightmare, but that’s not me. So let’s just have a look around, shall we?
The community is called Beaverdale Estates. It’s not an assisted living facility, but a retirement community. (The continuum of long term care goes from skilled nursing facilities (SNFs, pronouned “sniffs”), which is what we do, to nursing facilities, to assisted living facilities (ALFs), to apartment and retirement communities targeted toward serving seniors and home health services.) I’ve heard that the only sector more heavily regulated than SNFs is nuclear energy, and from my experience, I don’t doubt it. You can find out just about anything you want to about SNFs and NFs, as they are subject to annual and other surveys, and the results of those surveys are public information.
ALFs are not nearly (not yet) so regulated, so it’s more difficult to find information on them. And it’s even more difficult to find critical information on retirement communities.
I was able to find out, however, that Beaverdale Estates is owned and managed by Holiday Retirement Corp., which is apparently the largest retirement housing company in the world. Here’s some puffery from their website. Their site also offers some specifics on Beaverdale Estates, and the place looks nice.
But biggest doesn’t always translate into best, right? So let’s dig a little deeper.
Holiday meets Better Business Bureau membership requirements and has a satisfactory record of having resolved customer complaints. Search for yourself here. Type “Holiday Retirement Corporation” into the search box.
A free Hoover’s factsheet is here, and it includes options for more information for a fee.
A search in the Westlaw allcases database revealed only a couple of workers’ comp cases, some complicated bankruptcy case in Connecticut involving a claim by a Holiday affiliate against a bankrupt debtor, and a slip and fall case filed against Holiday in Louisiana, which Holiday won on summary judgment.
So, based on what little information is out there, it looks good. Go visit, have a meal, talk to the folks. Assuming those things check out, it appears that Granny will be in good hands.
And she deserves the best.
Patent on a Stick
Just discovered IPWatchdog.com, which has been compiling a list of obscure patents for at least a couple of years. My favorite is the animal toy. Click the link — IPWatchdog’s commentary is hilarious.
