The ABA Techshow 2011 opened Monday with a half dozen presentations on a half dozen tracks, ranging from a solo and small law firm theme to a track for large firms and corporate counsel and another for lawyers interested in social networking and marketing.

It’s that time of year again…winter becomes spring, buds begin to pop out on trees, birds start mating, and legal technology people and lawyers head to Chicago for ABA Techshow. 2011 marks the 25th anniversary of this seminal legal tech event, which starts on Monday of next week. Personally, this will be my fourth one. It’s informative. It’s fun. You make great and lasting relationships.

The 25th Anniversary edition of ABA TECHSHOW has officially kicked-off. There are a lot of things in store on day one, including a welcome from TECHSHOW Chair, Paul Unger, a lunch time keynote by Larry Lessig of Harvard, and the Silver Jubilee Celebration Monday night.

This is the 25th year of the ABA Techshow.  I went to my first show in the early 1990s and it was where I first learned about how lawyers were using technology.  It was also where I found out that the American Bar Association had a Legal Technology Resource Center, the director of which I became about 10 years later! Last night was the first IgniteLaw event I had attended.  It leads off this year’s Techshow, which starts today.  The event was hosted by LexThink and InsideLegal.”

Yesterday, Larry Lessig gave the keynote at the American Bar Association’s Techshow 2011, available on YouTube. Im watching it right now and will post additional thoughts when I’m done…Update:  Much of Lessig’s presentation covers the same material he presented before WIPO last November.  However, the last part of his speech talks a little bit about why Lessig thinks that IP policy in America is so wrong.  In brief, Lessig argues that special interest content providers have essentially ‘bought’ Congress’ support of draconian enforcement.

Lawrence Lessig may fancy himself a mixologist, at least so far as You Tube mashups, Washington politics and regulating all things technology are concerned. In his latest remix of ‘Code is Law,’ the Harvard law professor took a fresh look at the four modalities — law, norms, market and architecture — in the era of revolution by Twitter and of revelation by Wikileaks. And along the way during the keynote address ABA Techshow 2011, he dusted off congressional testimony by bandleader and composer John Philip Sousa, who lamented in 1906 that the ‘talking machine,’ as phonographs were once called, would squelch creativity.

As I mentioned Monday, I had the opportunity to attend ABATechshow, one of the premier technology and the law conferences around. E-Discovery (or “Electronic Discovery”) continues to be a hot topic at such conferences.Here’s why employers need to know about the developments in e-discovery: Among all the speakers, it was universally agreed that ‘searches’ — or the concept that you can take electronic data and run different types of inquiries into what is contained there — will only grow over the next decade.

This week I am attending the ABA TechShow in Chicago.  Today I attended several excellent panel discussions and spent time surveying the latest in legal technology. As I walked through the vendor hall I was struck again by the sheer number of electronic discovery technology tools available.  I remembered back to the first major legal technology conference I attended – Legal Tech New York.  I remember being overwhelmed by the endless vendor booths and technology options to address every conceivable electronic discovery need – real and imagined.

Tomorrow is the last day of ABA TechSHOW in Chicago.  I have spent days immersed in seminars and speaking with vendors about the latest and greatest tools, techniques, best practices, and risks related to the use of technology in law firms.

I’m reporting to you live from Chicago at the 25th Annual American Bar Association TechShow, where an amazing group of passionate lawyers from around the country have gathered to talk and teach about the future of law practice. While many of the programs deal with technology, the underlying theme seems to be that change is coming to our industry, and we should probably figure this stuff out before it’s too late.

As many immigrants have learned, the court process is very slow. Between files being lost, background checks being delayed, overcrowded dockets, and overloaded judges, it is no wonder those seeking asylum or to become citizens often feel so hopeless. The good news is that changes are being made, and slowly but surely things seem to be on track to better futures for many. With the push of lawyers like Judy London and Laura Wytsma of Los Angeles, as well as other members of the American Bar Association, Congress is starting to make changes to a very flawed system. …So far 38 judges have been added, as well as 90 additional court workers…However, though it is a step in the right direction, 38 is far from the 100 judges the American Bar Association called for in a study commissioned last year

Bank loan officers, phone company engineers, exotic dancers, delivery truck drivers, exterminators, janitors and drug store assistant managers are among tens of thousands of U.S. workers who filed class action lawsuits against their employers last year.  They are part of a flood of wage and hour cases that reached record levels in 2010. Nearly 6,800 private-sector lawsuits were filed nationwide. … The Obama administration responded by saying it would increase enforcement of wage and hour laws. It hired about 200 additional field investigators to tighten oversight. Even so, the Department of Labor has more cases than it can handle. In December, it launched a program with the American Bar Association to help aggrieved workers find private-sector lawyers.