Legal Tech - West Coast - Coming to Los Angeles May 17-18, 2011

Legal Tech Show (West) at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles. May 17-18, 2011.

Hutchings has participated in this show for many years and will be there this year in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Bar Association. We look forward to seeing you there.

Prepare for Depositions With the iPad Deponent App

Law Technology News

Ted Brooks is a trial presentation consultant, author, and speaker, with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. E-mail: tbrooks@litigationtech.com. Blog: Court Technology and Trial Presentation blog.

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The Deponent App, developed by Majority Opinion, is an iPad app designed to help legal professionals draft questions to prepare for a deposition. You can select from over 150 questions organized by category, such as Admonitions or Expert Qualifications, arrange their order of presentation, and customize the text for your witnesses. Each question can also be linked to an exhibit. You can modify the included questions and categories as well as create your own.

Earth Day 2011

Marking its 41st anniversary on Friday, April 22, 2011, Earth Day will be celebrated by millions around the world. I know my community has quite a few activities planned on Saturday and Sunday, April 22-23 to increase awareness about recycling and energy efficiency. Living in a coastal town, we also have creek and beach clean-ups.

Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this first Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day.

OMG! LOL: Internet Slang Added to Oxford English Dictionary

By Daniel Ionescu, PCWorld Mar 26, 2011 5:59 AM

Time-saving online abbreviations like LOL, OMG, and IMHO are now part of the official English language. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) announced the addition of several acronyms to its dictionary, adding some interesting trivia behind the origins of these Internet-associated expressions.

OED explained that although “initialisms” like OMG (Oh My God), LOL (Laughing Out Loud) and IMHO (In My Humble/Honest Opinion) are strongly associated with the language of electronic communications, their origins are surprisingly predating the Internet era.

For example, OED found a quotation for OMG in a personal letter from 1917, and FYI (For Your Information) originated in the language of memoranda in 1941. Also, apparently the LOL expression had a previous life, starting in 1960, denoting an elderly woman (Little Old Lady).

OED notes that some expressions like OMG and LOL are used outside electronic communication contexts as well, including print and spoken use, in the form of more than a simple abbreviation:

“The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an ‘insider’ au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology.”

If you’re not familiar with the online slang, you can always check out this Internet slang dictionary and translator. Just enter the text slang you want to translate and you’re done. TTYL