On the Record

After telling us what was hot at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and giving us a peek at the future of smart TVs, Frank Gorman and Julie Harada of Gorman & Williams now present their Top 10 gadgets from the expo. Our thanks to Gorman, Harada and Mike Yang for providing us with these dispatches.

The Consumer Electronics Show 2012 launched 20,000 new products.  Selecting the top 10 gadgets out of so many products, even discounting the hype, is a very subjective process.  Our 2012 list contains a wide variety of products, although we gave an edge to several that might have a law practice application.

Lytro Light Field Camera This is a simple, auto-mode camera that captures the light field. It allows you to take a picture and focus after the fact using its touch screen. Pictures can also be viewed in 3D. Winner of the Last Gadget Standing competition at CES.

AirStash Wireless Flash Drive and Media Streamer by Maxell This USB drive has wireless capability that allows storing and transfer of documents and photos and streaming of video to an iPhone, iPad or Kindle Fire. A Wi-Fi environment is not needed, and emails are not necessary for file transfers. It also has a built-in rechargeable battery and still plugs into a USB port on a computer.

IdeaPad YOGA by Lenovo A multi-mode, 13.3-inch notebook with a 360-degree flip-and-fold design that allows four separate usage positions — notebook, tablet, stand and tent. It combines the tablet’s ease of use with the functionality of an ultrabook, the latest generation of the laptop. The cool dual-hinge design is patented.

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Maryland attorneys who oppose a proposed requirement that they take continuing legal education courses might find kinship with Louisiana judges.

A proposed resolution in the Louisiana legislature would urge the state Supreme Court to develop a mandatory CLE course on family law for all of the state’s judges. The proposal states that nearly every legislator has received ”numerous phone calls, e-mails, and letters from constituents complaining about judicial application of laws on child custody and child support.”

Louisiana House Concurrrent Resolution No. 79 adds that “great confusion” continues to exist in the state judiciary fully 17 years after the state’s most recent change in child-custody laws and following recent alterations to the state’s child-support guidelines.

“[N]o other area of the law touches … citizens, including the children of our constituents, more intimately, directly, and often painfully, than the law of custody and child support,” the resolution notes. The legislature “desires that all members of the judiciary, not just the family and juvenile court judges, be apprised of the current status of all Louisiana laws, particularly those affecting the children of our state.”

The resolution, which the Louisiana House approved this month, awaits action by the state Senate.

Maryland judges are required to take 10 hours of CLE  courses annually. The state’s top court, the Court of Appeals, has not set a date for voting on a controversial proposal to require that Maryland attorneys also take 10 hours of CLE per year.

Is mandatory CLE for Maryland attorneys a good idea?

From our Generation J.D. blog: Mandatory CLE in Maryland?

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Frank Gorman of Gorman & Williams is in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. It’s Gorman’s first time at CES since 2007, although he attended for most of the Aughts.

The Baltimore lawyer says he goes “to see and keep up with technology,” which helps in his intellectual property practice. He is also an enthusiastic advocate of courtroom technology.

Gorman has graciously offered to write a few dispatches from Vegas. Today is an overview of CES; Monday he’ll have a look at some of the cool gadgets that are the hallmark of the event.

Gadgets aside, the big-picture story at CES 2011 is the increasing competition among the major players in the industry as they use existing technologies to create new products and services.

CES 2011 is big and sprawling, as in previous years. There are more than 2,700 exhibitors with booths in the Las Vegas Convention Center touting an incredible variety of consumer electronic products and services. There is a full array of conferences, presentations, and keynote speakers. There are thousands of registered attendees. Lots of deals will be made. In short, the excitement in Las Vegas this week is the event itself.

CES this year, however, is not a showcase for breakthrough technologies that permit consumers to do things they could not do before. In previous years, the excitement came from dramatic changes: broadband replaces dial-up; streaming digital content from its source eliminates the need for CDs and DVDs; Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) ends the monopoly of keyboarding and permits consumers to communicate over the Internet by voice; wireless frees consumers from cords.

Instead, CES 2011 is the arena for the competing products that have resulted from high-level market competition in the industry. Software giants Google, Microsoft, Apple are each innovating and maneuvering to gain dominance in markets previously dominated by the others.

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In researching the NFL’s pension plan for today’s Maryland Lawyer cover story, one thing made no sense: If the Retirement Board consists of representatives from the league and the players’ union, why wouldn’t the union people always side with the players against management?

The theory Cy Smith subscribes to is that the NFLPA’s demographics make it different from other unions. The NFLPA represents only active players, who are typically in their 20s and 30s.

“The NFLPA focuses on interests of current players because they are the bargaining units and they don’t think long-term the way most people in their 20s don’t think long-term,” he says. “If you’re a current player, your focus is going to be on salary.”

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Still wish you were on vacation? Most of your co-workers out for week? Here’s some “work” you can do to pass the time:

• The strange (and sad) story of Ravens rookie Sergio Kindle takes another wrong turn.
• Morris L. Cohen, one of the nation’s leading law librarians, dies at 83. (HT: Above the Law)
• The title says it all: “Male nurse who was a former stripper failed to make out claims that he was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment.”
• OK, “Matlock” fans, stand up for your show’s egregiously-low ranking. (HT: Volokh Conspiracy)
• It’s still better than a lump of coal, right?

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We’ve written about the tough legal job market for law school students, and the dean at UB Law recently told us he anticipates the number of law schools in the country will shrink in the years to come.

This apparently has not deterred administrators at the University of Delaware, which will study the possibility of opening a law school in Newark in the fall of 2015. The law school would be the second one in the state (after Widener) but the only public one.

Above the Law is skeptical of UD’s venture:

You see, the rationale for this new law school is that it’ll make the University of Delaware look good to have a law school. It has nothing to do with legal education or professional services. Sure, some will say that because of Delaware’s unique role in corporate governance, a state law school makes sense. But that’s not why they’re doing it. The corporate law stuff will be an add-on tagline some marketer weaves in as the school fights for funding and public recognition. It’s not going to be a core value of the new school. From the very start, the president is telling you what the core values will be: taking the University of Delaware to “the next rank” of American higher education — a “rank” that will decided by U.S. News, no doubt.

Any Delaware alums out there want to chime in? Also, do you think this new law school have any impact on Maryland’s two law schools?

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Still upset about last night’s game? Just getting to work now because of last night’s game? Here are some links to take your mind off it.

• A former Baltimore County public defender starts a law firm in Annapolis focusing on “low bono” clients.
• Are we ripe for growth in the small-town lawyer arena? An Above the Law contributor says, “Possibly.”
• Turns out a stability ball in Sacramento might not have been all that stable.
• A primer on the “Repeal Amendment” you might be hearing more about once Congress becomes Tea Party-flavored next month. (The story has generated a spirited back-and-forth on The Volokh Conspiracy.)
• Say what you want about Eliot Spitzer, but “professional exerciser” Ron Miller gives the former New York governor high marks as a lawyer.

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A month and a half ago I wrote about the addition of a young but high-profile lawyer to the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s office, Leo J. Wise.

When U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein told me Wise, who policed Congressional ethics for the past couple of years, would prosecute white-collar crime as an AUSA, the bribery case against state Sen. Ulysses Currie (D-Prince George’s) and a pair of Shoppers Food executives immediately came to mind.

Well, Wise entered his appearance in Maryland’s federal court for the first time this week, and, sure enough, one of the two (sets of) cases on his personal docket is the Currie-Shoppers prosecution.

Presumably, no one will disassemble the U.S. Attorney’s office (as certain members of Congress reportedly have suggested re: the OCE) before trial in the case next summer…

Of course, Rosenstein’s office’s other major political corruption prosecution (and ongoing investigation) also involves Prince George’s County, and there was attorney news in that cluster of cases, too, this week.

In case you’ve been asleep for the past month, County Executive Jack B. Johnson and his wife, Leslie, were arrested Nov. 12 after the FBI overheard the couple scrambling to hide nearly $80,000 in cash and a check for $100,000 in, um, various places.

Prominent defense attorney William R. “Billy” Martin, who has defended people like Michael Vick and the mayor of Atlanta, seemed an appropriate person to represent Jack Johnson, but few had heard of Leslie Johnson’s counsel, Owings Mills attorney Roland N. Patterson Jr.

Apparently the county councilwoman-elect decided she needed a little more heft to protect her from federal prosecutors because this week a big-firm attorney, whose office is in the Watergate building no less, entered her appearance on behalf of Mrs. Johnson. Perhaps not coincidentally, Shawn M. Wright is a partner at Martin’s old firm, Blank Rome LLP.

So, dear readers, do you think these these personnel moves will significantly impact the evolution and outcome of these cases or were these politicos’ looking at jail time regardless of any clever attorney’s maneuvering?

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The reverberations from Jack Johnson’s witness- and evidence-tampering charges continued to be felt this week, both in Maryland and in the ranking of the top 5 most-read law stories at The Daily Record’s website. And in some good news, congrats to the 1,088 who passed the bar exam!

1. Tapes will complicate P.G. County exec. Johnsons’ defense

The defense attorneys representing Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson have their work cut out for them, say defense attorneys observing the case.

2. Md. board recommends 1,088 for admission to Bar

Their admittance is subject to approval of their character and fitness qualifications.

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Just when it appeared a full-scale review of Maryland’s constitution had been approved by voters, it hadn’t.

And just when it appeared a Baltimore interior designer had won a seat on Baltimore’s Orphans’ Court, it turned out she hadn’t.

And, finally, just when it seemed Alison Asti was running on a slate with another candidate for Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge, it turned out she wasn’t.

It was that kind of week for Maryland legal news, as evidenced by The Daily Record’s top five most-read staff-written stories.

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