A Florida lawyer has created a website that promises to make the process of litigation easier for people.

The website is called WhoCanISue.com and is expected to go live in September 2008.

WhoCanISue.com hopes to help people determine whether or not they have a legitimate legal case as well as help them find a lawyer from a list of legal professionals who will advertise on the site.

Lawyers will pay a yearly fee of $1,000 to advertise on the website. WhoCanISue.com will review the attorneys to verify that they are in good standing with their state bar associations.

WhoCanISue.com is not the first legal advice site to hit the internet. Similar websites include SueEasy.com and LegalMatch.com. However, the creators of WhoCanISue.com claim their site ( which is free to use ) is different from similar sites since it will provide real-time access to lawyers.

Once people finish answering a set of general questions about their possible suit, they will be given advice about whether they have a case worth filing; if they appear to have a legitimate lawsuit, they will be put in contact with an interested lawyer on the spot.

Websites like WhoCanISue.com have their critics, even inside the legal community itself. Miami trial lawyer Richard Sharpstein said, “I think this is nothing more than a referral service. It encourages, if not creates lawsuits. Our country’s courts are clogged with unnecessary and frivolous lawsuits which delay, if not obstruct, the access to courts of people that really need to get there, that have serious legal grievances.”

However, Curtis Wolfe, the creator of WhoCanISue.com, disagrees – noting that his site could just as easily help people see that they don’t have a legitimate legal case.

Source: Time.com

LexisNexis, a data provider for the legal professions, has announced a partnership with professional social network LinkedIn.com. The arrangement will allow LexisNexis’ Martindale-Hubbell legal network to offer social networking for attorneys. In Addition, links to Martindale-Hubbell legal news and information will be added to the LinkedIn social network.

A recent survey by Leader Networks showed the benefits of having LinkedIn.com profiles accessible on martindale.com. The survey found that attorneys are increasingly looking for online networks that meet their law-related business needs.

The survey found:

1. Even though 54 percent of lawyers say they belong to a social network, less than 10 percent say social networks benefit them in their practice of law.

2. 54 percent of corporate lawyers and 41 percent of private practice lawyers say that linking to other lawyers or growing their legal social network as the most important use for an online professional.

3. Over 40 percent of all attorneys surveyed reported being interested in joining a professional social networking site for legal professionals.

Source: MarketWatch.com

Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicaon was convicted yesterday of federal racketeering and other charges for digging up dirt for his wealthy celebrity clients to use in legal suits, divorce cases and contract disputes.

Pellicano had been accused of eavesdropping on celebrities like Sylvester Stallone and running targeted names of other stars through law enforcement databases to help clients in legal cases.

Pellicano was found guilty of 76 of the 77 counts against him.

The jury found Pellicano guilty of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, wiretapping, wire fraud, identity theft, conspiracy to intercept or use wire communications as well as the manufacture or possession of a wiretapping device.

Pellicano was acquitted on a charge of unauthorized computer access.

Fourteen people altogether were charged in relation to the Pellicano case and seven, including film director John McTiernan and former Hollywood Records president Robert Pfeifer, pled guilty to charges of perjury and conspiracy.

However, the biggest Hollywood names that had links to Pellicano, like entertainment attorney Bert Fields, Paramount studio head Brad Grey and agent Michael Ovitz, insisted they didn’t know about his methods and were never charged in the case.

During the case, Pellicano acted as his own attorney and called only one witness and rarely raised objections to the prosecution.

Source: MyWay.com

Daniel Solove is a George Washington University Law Professor, who specializes in information privacy law, and the author of “The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor & Privacy on the Internet”.

In this interesting 30 minute interview with C-SPAN, Daniel Solove discusses a range of legal issues relating to the conflicts between freedom and privacy in the “wild, wild west” world of web 2.0, blogs, social networks and wired mass communication.

Throughout the interview Solove relates a number of fascinating anecdotes that highlight the problems with current internet and privacy laws, involving social networks, blogs, online access to public records, personal information providers, cyber cops, wired mobs, electronic lynchings, personal privacy.

Solove deals with these topics in an interesting, informed manner and without the alarmism that typically goes with discussions on freedom and privacy issues.

If you are interested in internet law, web 2.0 topics, privacy issues or public records access, this is one of the best YouTube videos you can view. Take 30 minutes out of your wired schedule to watch it below.

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You can visit the Blawg.com at www.blawg.com.

Believe it or not, some German politicians are seeking to criminalize virtual violence in video games with laws aimed at punishing game creators and players.

From arstechnica.com –

Players and creators of video games could face imprisonment for acts of virtual violence under draft legislation being drawn up by two of Germany’s state governments.

Politicians in Bavaria and Lower Saxony have proposed a new offence that will punish “cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters” inside games. Early drafts suggest that infringers should face fines or up to 12 months’ jail for promoting or enacting in-game violence.

The scheme comes in response to a shooting last month in the town of Emsdetten on the Dutch border, where Sebastian Bosse, an 18-year-old games fan, stormed into his former school and wounded 37 people before killing himself.

Source: German gamers face jail for acts of virtual violence

CNET is reporting that the US Senate passed a bill last Friday that criminalizes pretexting.

From the article –

The Senate passed legislation Friday night that would make it a federal crime to obtain a person’s telephone records without permission, an act known as pretexting.

The measure, which was approved by unanimous consent last night and is similar to a bill passed earlier in the House, imposes a fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to 10 years for duping telephone companies into divulging the calling records of private individuals. The penalties can go up under special circumstances, like cases involving domestic abuse.

The support for the legislation comes in the aftermath of the spying scandal at Hewlett-Packard. The company, eager to ferret out purported leaks to journalists from within its board, used private detective firms to retrieve phone records of directors, managers and journalists.

Companies convicted under the Senate legislation face fines of up to $500,000.

The legislation includes penalties and a prison sentence of up to 10 years for individuals who sell or buy phone records knowing the lists were obtained through deceptive means. Passage, which came just days before the conclusion of the Republican-led Congress, is a victory for privacy advocates and regular phone users concerned about the confidentiality of their records.

Source: Senate passes bill to criminalize pretexting

The Register is reporting that bugging offices in the UK is not a crime.

Bugging offices in the UK is not a criminal offence, according to surveillance and legal experts speaking to OUT-LAW radio. While recording a phone conversation is a criminal offence, someone could place a recording device in an office legally, they said.

In an investigation into corporate surveillance techniques, the weekly technology law podcast OUT-LAW discovered that no offence is committed by placing a bug in a workplace to secretly record conversations.

Source: Bugging offices is not a crime (in UK)

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The Daily Bulletin is reporting that the US Government is keeping Mexican officials informed about Minutman border patrol locations.

From the article —

While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen — and telling the Mexican government where they are.

According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants — and if and when violence is used against border crossers.

You can read the entire aticle @ U.S. tipping Mexico to Minuteman patrols.