Stay Informed About New Legislation

Via the Law Library of Congress, if you would like to stay informed about what legislation has passed Congress and is awaiting the president's signature, you can do so by subscribing to RSS feeds or via email alerts. The following are some topics for which RSS feed or email alerts are available:

• THOMAS: Bills Presented to the President (RSS or email)
• THOMAS: Daily Digest (RSS or email)
• THOMAS: House Floor Today (RSS or email)
• THOMAS: Senate Floor Today (RSS or email)

Click here to view the complete list of all RSS feeds available and all topics for which alerts can be sent via email.

E-mail Is Not Protected By 4th Amendment

Via Legal Blog Watch, Robert Ambrogi writes in a post titled E-mail Is Not Protected By 4th Amendment, Judge Says that the 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures does not include email. U.S. District Judge Michale W. Mosman, in his ruling, writes that email is outside one's home and further notes:

When a person uses the Internet, however, the user’s actions are no longer in his or her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting in private space at all. The user is generally accessing the Internet with a network account and computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast or NetZero. All materials stored online, whether they are e-mails or remotely stored documents, are physically stored on servers owned by an ISP. When we send an e-mail or instant message from the comfort of our own homes to a friend across town the message travels from our computer to computers owned by a third party, the ISP, before being delivered to the intended recipient. Thus, "private" information is actually being held by third-party private companies.

Take a look at the full article and the following comments, definitely thought-provoking!

Tips To Write An Email

Email is one of the common ways to communicate with others; we write to our friends, family, colleagues, professors, supervisors, acquaintances, neighbors, teammates, classmates, roommates, employers, employees, or even people we don't know at all. Here are some tips to draft an email that someone else will actually read. You can read the full stories including all the tips at the links bellow.

Some tips:

• Delete Redundancies
• Use numbers and specifics instead of adverbs and adjectives
• Add missing context
• Focus on the strongest argument
• Delete off-topic material
• Kill your favorites
• Delete anything written in the heat of emotion
• Shorten
• Toss useless words
• Last things first
• Don't BCC
• Format
• Paragraphs
• Subject line is important - "Re: re: re:" - no good!
• Be sensitive to language and culture
• Set the right tone
• Never try to resolve a dispute over an email
• Always allow room to be corrected

To read the full lists, via the (new) legal writer, Harvard Business Publishing, and slaw.ca, click on the following links that lead you to the full posts.
How To Revise Email
How To Revise Email So That People Will Read It
How To Revise Email (Revised)
Email Survival Tips For The Busy Professional

E-mail Scam That Targetted Lawyers

Via Legal Blog Watch, lawyers be aware - don't fall for scams of being hired by companies that don't exist or scams involving checks that are counterfeited. Read the full story. First post titled The Great Lawyer E-mail Scam was posted by Legal Blog Watch back in September 2008. A follow up story E-mail Scam Still Snaring Lawyers was just posted now in January 2009.

If you think lawyers are too savvy to fall prey to an e-mail scam, think again. One lawyer who fell victim to it estimates that the scam has bilked lawyers out of more than $1 million. That lawyer is now being sued by Wachovia Bank for the $190,000 he wired from his escrow account to a Korean bank on behalf of what he believed was a company in Taiwan.

Now, another lawyer has fallen prey to the scam. Houston lawyer Richard T. Howell Jr. tells Texas Lawyer that his firm was bilked out of $182,500 by a client who contacted and hired him through e-mail. Howell was contacted by e-mail by what he believed to be a Japanese company, Techno Design Industry, seeking to collect some $3.6 million in accounts from U.S. customers. The company signed a retainer agreement by which he would receive a third of any amounts he collected. Before he could file lawsuits against any of the customers, Techno notified him that one customer wanted to make a partial payment. He received what appeared to be an official Citibank check from the supposed customer in the amount of $367,500. After confirming through Citibank that it had paid the check, he disbursed $182,500 to Techno. Needless to say, the check was counterfeit.

Things You Should Never Put in an Email....

Things You Should Never Put in an Email is a title to a blog entry on the ABA Journal Blog. Don't forget, e-mails don't disappear and before you click the 'send' button, think again to make sure the content is what you want it to be. Take a minute and check out the useful tips of what not to put in an e-mail. Law is Cool blog also caught up to this post, here.

Court Ruling in Favor to Recover White House Emails

The U.S. District Judge ruled that the National Security Archive can move to force the White House to recover millions of Bush administration e-mails lost or destroyed between 2003 and 2005. The effort is to recover the lost electronic correspondence before the January presidential transition.

... the Court ruled that the Federal Records Act permits a private plaintiff to bring suit to require the head of the EOP or the Archivist of the United States to notify Congress or ask the Attorney General to initiate action to recover destroyed or missing e-mail records...

A chronology of the litigation is available here.