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Even people without televisions, like me, finally found out about the man versus machine competition on Jeopardy, with IBM’s Watson. From this article in the Boston Globe, I had the mistaken notion that Watson already has voice recognition, but reading the PC World report on IBM Watson Wins Jeopardy, I understand now that Watson actually operates on text. They hope to introduce voice recognition in the future. What was apparently the big breakthrough was that the computer can not only understand complex natural language questions, but calculates the likelihood of any of 3 possible answers being correct. If any of the answers rises above the 45% threshold, Watson chooses that, or the highest of the answers rising above that level. Watson also has a complex algorithm for calculating how to place its Jeopardy bets. The natural language was the biggest challenge, and it goes beyond the natural language search capabilities we see in Westlaw and Lexis search engines today. The developers say they were inspired by the television series Star Trek and the computers on the star ships where crew members had only to ask a question and receive an answer or get a clarifying question in return before getting an answer. (See Wikipedia article, and IBM links Pressroom and Watson pages).

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Looking for new opportunities in the paralegal world? On The Paralegal Voice, co-host Vicki Voisin welcomes Karen G. McGee, ACP, President of NALA and Christine E. Porter, ACP, Chair of NALAs Continuing Education Council, to talk about opportunities through NALA and how you can revitalize your career with continuing education. They discuss Advanced Certification and all of the options available in specific practice areas, as well as NALAs new “blended learning” approach and how to use these tools for career growth.

I will read (or listen) to anything by Paul Duguid. I stumbled on an excellent review essay by him the the Times (of London) Review of Books. Titled, “Do You Love Books? Jacques Bonnet does, (he can’t stop buying them) — but what’s the future for the book business,” the essay reviews three books. Duguid reviews Merchants of Culture by John B. Thompson, (I love the cover! It’s a Tower of Babel made of books); Publishing as a Vocation: studies of an old occupation in a technological era by Irving Horowitz; and The Phantoms on the Bookshelves, by Jacques Bonnet (another interesting cover, with empty shelf space intriguingly “filled” with phantom books).

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Just days after the devastation of September 11, 2001, the federal government created the Victim Compensation Fund, a fund designed to help grieving families get through the tragedy. From this tragedy a documentary titled, Out of the Ashes: 9/11 was born. On Lawyer2Lawyer, attorney and co-host Bob Ambrogi welcomes executive producer, writer and co-director of this documentary, Marilyn J. Berger from the Seattle University School of Law and Debra Brown Steinberg, partner with the firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, to get an in-depth look at the making of the incredibly compelling documentary. This documentary examines the legal, moral, and ethical ramifications of the Victim Compensation Fund and its impact on the civil justice system.

Tip of the OOTJ hat to Suffolk 2-L law student and our student newspaper, Dicta for alerting me to Fantasy SCOTUS. Apparently, I am way behind the pack on this, which was formed in 2009, but it looks like a delight. Especially for those who really, really follow the Supremes anyway, this should be their thing! Pass it along to the con law scholars on your faculty (and students) and start cheering for them to win! The motto is “Play as the 10th Justice.”

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Well, tip of the OOTJ hat to CRIV Chair Rob Myers at Case Western Reserve School of Law (CRIV, for those who might not know, stands for the American Association of Law Libraries’(AALL’s) Committee on Relation with Information Vendors). He sent this following note, with more details, to a number of librarian listservs: Read the rest of this entry »

Is it time to set some standards when it comes to quality searching in e-discovery? On Digital Detectives, co-hosts Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc. and John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises welcome Jason R. Baron, the Director of Litigation for the National Archives and Records Administration, to talk about e-discovery searches and whether it is time to set some standards to ensure quality searches. Jason talks about how best to search for electronic evidence in civil litigation, how searching has changed since the early days and also how the courts are handling thorny questions involving searches. He also shares information on the upcoming DESI IV workshop.

One of the most visible examples of the recent economic crisis, was the U.S. government’s investment in American International Group (AIG). On Ringler Radio, host Larry Cohen welcomes Mary Jane Fortin, president and chief executive officer of American General Life, to discuss how AIG is going about repaying the government. Mary Jane talks about AIGs strategy and the progress being made and takes a look at American General’s financial strength, structured settlements as a financial part of the portfolio of American General and how the company is performing since the crisis.

Social media is gaining importance and influence in litigation, and poses numerous legal and technological challenges with regard to discovery. On The ESI Report, host Kelly Kubacki, Staff Attorney in the Legal Technologies division at Kroll Ontrack welcomes Attorney James Daley, Partner at Daley & Fey and Rhea Frederick, a Client Relationship Manager for Kroll Ontrack, to discuss social media in litigation, including its rising use and discoverability, and explore best practices for preservation, collection and production. In the Bits & Bytes Legal Analysis segment, Laura Tushaus, Kroll Ontrack Legal Correspondent, focuses on the facts surrounding National Day Laborer Organizing Network v. United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, which addresses the production of metadata under the Freedom of Information Act.

Andy Kessler writes in today’s Wall Street Journal that lawyers are “sponges,” members of a profession that “earned their jobs by passing a test meant to limit supply,” i.e., the bar exam. Other “sponges” are “cosmetologists, real estate brokers, [and] doctors,” all of whom “need government certification. All this does is legally bar others from doing the same job, so existing workers can charge more and sponge off the rest of us.” Ouch. Kessler’s analysis appears in his article, “Is Your Job an Endangered Species?”, and if he’s correct, today’s anemic job market for lawyers is not an aberration, but the wave of the future.

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