4 Cheap Options to Monitor Networks for Evidence
November 26, 2009
Computer forensics don't have to solely focus on recovering and searching for evidence on storage devices. Although programs like Encase and FTK 3.0 are excellent tools to help find documents, photographs and other files for your investigation, they cut short on collecting network traffic your suspect sends and receives... More (Computerworld)
Wednesday’s Three Burning Legal Questions
November 25, 2009
Here are today’s three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blawgosphere. 1) Question: How am I supposed to confine my brilliant, lengthy legal argument to the court’s page limits? Maybe I should just ignore the “double-spaced” line requirement and pack in twice as much brilliance? What is the court going to do about it anyway, sanction me? Answer: Next time, yes. (The Crime Scene: “Blackwater lawyers reprimanded … for not double-spacing”) 2) Question: Miley Cyrus once appeared in a photograph with friends where they “slanted their eyes.” As such, $4 billion is now owed to all Asian and Pacific Islanders living in Los Angeles County, right? Answer: Nope. (THR, Esq.: Miley Cyrus $4 Billion Lawsuit Dismissed) 3) Question: I’m at home minding my own business and listening to my emergency radio scanner. I just heard that the police are searching for a man wearing khaki pants and a San Francisco 49ers sweatshirt. Hmm, I have khaki pants and a San Francisco 49ers sweatshirt in my closet… Would there be any problem if I put on these clothes, get the police’s attention, and then lead six police officers, a helicopter and a police dog on an hour-long…
Willis Willis Just Wants His Lottery Winnings
November 25, 2009
A man named Willis Willis is not happy, and not for the name-related reason you might think. Willis, who is unemployed, has been playing the same set of lottery numbers at the Lucky Food Store in Grand Prairie, Texas for about 10 years. On May 29, Willis’ ship came in, or at least it should have, when he bought the winning “Mega Millions” ticket that had a $1 million jackpot. The Associated Press reports that Willis asked Pankaj Joshi, the clerk at the Lucky Food Store, to check his tickets that day, but Joshi falsely told him that his ticket was worth only $2. Joshi immediately cashed in the ticket himself, collected about $750,000, and disappeared — possibly back to his native Nepal, authorities believe. Joshi, now considered a fugitive, was was indicted in September on a second-degree felony charge, and law enforcement officials were able to recover $365,000 of the $750,000 from his U.S. bank accounts. The question now, as you may have guessed, is what, if anything, WIllis Willis is entitled to recover in this mess. His lawyers believe that Willis is the rightful winner, and they want the Texas Lottery Board to pay him the full $1…
Enterprise Bank Chooses Mimosa’s NearPoint
November 25, 2009
Massachusetts' Enterprise Bank (www.ebtc.com) www.mimosasystems.com). NearPoint captures e-mail, files, Microsoft SharePoint content, instant messages, and other data. It can be used to support legal search workflow, employee supervision, mailbox/message recovery, and disaster recovery, Mimosa explains.
Paul Rosseau, the bank's vice president of technology services, said CA and EMC were considered, but ultimately Mimosa won the deal because of ability to support e-mail archiving. The bank, which as 16 branch offices, recently migrated from Novell GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange. NearPoint for Exchange was installed in the bank's virtualized infrastructure, and the bank plans to add SharePoint archiving support in the near future, he said. It is being used to provide content archiving, e-discovery (including individual-item level legal holds), and user searches, among other functions.
The self-search function helps individuals recover e-mail, contacts, or calendar items, without IT intervention. The new system also helps the bank's legal and human resources staff conduct e-discovery tasks without assistance.
Rosseau also cited the system's ability to "not put any overhead on our Exchange server." The architecture does not require "journaling" or any agents, on either the Exchange Server or user desktops, says Mimosa, to avoid any impact on the bank's Exchange Server performance.
E-discovery features include individual item-level legal holds, conversation and proximity analysis, and intuitive search.
The IT department can set poliicies to scan file shares and capture files. Captured files are indexed and archived; then NearPoint FSA de-duplicates across multiple file shares, as well as across messages and attachments.
Flip Off the Police, Get $10,000
November 25, 2009
On April 10, 2006, David Hackbart was attempting to parallel park his car on a street in Pittsburgh when a car pulled up behind him, blocking his path. Hackbart responded by giving the driver behind him “the middle finger,” and promptly heard another voice outside his car tell him, “Don’t flip him off.” Hackbart, of course, then gave the finger to the interloper who was instructing him what not to do, a person who he would soon learn was Sgt. Brian Elledge of the Pittsburgh Police Department, who was seated in his patrol car at the time. After being flipped off, Sgt. Elledge turned on his patrol lights and conducted a vehicle stop of Hackbart’s car, shouting, “You don’t flip me off!” Sgt. Elledge issued Hackbart a citation charging him with violating Pennsylvania’s disorderly conduct statute based on Hackbart’s giving the middle finger to Sgt. Elledge and the other driver. Hackbart challenged the citation but at his preliminary hearing, a district justice found him guilty of violating the disorderly conduct statute and imposed a fine and court costs totaling $119.75. Hackbart appealed the decision and on Oct. 17, 2006, the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office finally decided to withdraw the…
MS unleashes legal attack dogs to lick up COFEE spill
November 25, 2009
Microsoft unleashed its legal attack dogs to remove its leaked forensics tool from a respected security site, it has emerged. Cryptome.org was issued with a take-down notice shortly after Microsoft's point-and-click "computer forensics for cops" tool leaked onto the web earlier this month... More (The Register)
Enterprise Bank Selects Mimosa NearPoint
November 24, 2009
Enterprise Bank has selected Mimosa NearPoint to archive its e-mails and files, the two companies report. Full release here.
Two Inside Looks at Rothstein’s Firm, Lifestyle
November 24, 2009
What was it like to work at the Fort Lauderdale firm of Scott Rothstein, the lawyer who now stands accused of running a Ponzi scheme that may have swindled more than $1 billion? Two sources offer inside looks at life inside the now-defunct Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler. For Andrew Perez, it was somewhat mesmerizing, at least at first. He was just 18 years old when he arrived at RRA as an intern, he writes at the blog The New Argument. Imagine this as your first day on your new job: My first day of work at Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler was a unique experience. Scott Rothstein, now-accused Ponzi schemer extraordinaire, carted me around town in his Bentley Continental, stopping first at a local elementary school, where we met with Governor Charlie Crist, after he gave a short press conference. Next, we ate lunch at Capital Grille, where Scott dined daily and had his own table. Afterwards, Scott reserved a bike at Eddie Trotta’s Thunder Cycles. Three years ago, Scott was on top of the world and wanted everyone to know it, including me, an eighteen-year-old intern. Life was not all rides in Bentleys and meetings with governors thereafter, Perez writes. “From that…
In-House Report: Flat Fees Up, Travel Down
November 24, 2009
News flash: Corporate law departments are tightening their belts. That may strike you as a bulletin on par with “Dog Bites Man.” But it is useful every so often to get some hard-and-fast data to confirm what we all suspect — and even to shed some light on what is happening out there in the real world of law department spending. In this case, the news comes from the Hildebrandt consulting firm, which just released its 2009 law department survey. The survey paints of picture of spending internally and on outside counsel. For the latter, the survey shows what many have suspected — more companies are asking their outside lawyers to ditch the billable hour in favor of flat-fee pricing. More than half the 231 companies surveyed said they have implemented or will implement non-hourly fee arrangements. Another 27 percent said they are considering them. As Amy Miller at Corporate Counsel magazine writes, even the survey’s editor is not surprised by this. “Everyone wants to do it,” Lauren Chung, director of Hildebrandts’ law department consulting practice, tells Miller. “But the question is: to what extent? Will they make up 5 percent of legal spending or 100 percent? It will be…
Online Law Grad Denied Admission in Georgia
November 24, 2009
As two of the original 13 colonies that rose up against British rule in the United States, Georgia and Massachusetts share common legal roots. But in addressing the current-day question of bar admission for graduates of online law schools, they have come down on opposite sides. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Georgia issued a ruling that a 2009 graduate of the online law school Northwestern California University School of Law is not eligible for bar admission in that state. A year ago — almost to the day — the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reached the opposite result, deciding that a graduate of the wholly online Concord Law School would be allowed to take the Massachusetts bar examination. In both cases, the applicants sought waiver of the requirement that they be graduates of an ABA-accredited law school. In the earlier Massachusetts case, the SJC emphasized that its decision in favor of applicant Ross E. Mitchell was confined to the unique circumstances of his case. Mitchell had already been admitted to practice both in California and before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, had a stellar academic record and was valedictorian of his class, had scored well on the California bar…