Vol. 3 No. 16 | April 19, 2023

Courts

No published opinions this week.

No published opinions this week.

Dispositions Other than by Published Opinions

The Supreme Court of Oklahoma Court Calendar

The Supreme Court of Oklahoma is in session year round, unless otherwise noted. The Court regularly schedules conferences on Mondays and other days as needed.

Copy Of Annual Meeting Save The Date

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The Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) consists of 15 unpaid volunteer members. Of the 15 members, only six members are lawyers. Lawyer commissioners are elected by their fellow Oklahoma Bar Association members, each representing one of six congressional districts across the state, as they were in 1967 when the commission was established. They each serve a 6-year term. Elections are held each odd-numbered year for members from two districts.

In 2023, there will be elections for members in Districts 1 and 2. District 1 is composed of Creek and Tulsa counties. District 2 is composed of 17 counties in the eastern and northeastern parts of the state, as those congressional districts existed in 1967.

Nominating petitions must be received at the bar center by 5 p.m. May 19, 2023.

When submitting a nominating petition, candidates should include a biography of 100 words or fewer and a photo (preferably both digital). Email Mark Schneidewent for additional details and a sample bio format.

"To quote Thomas Jefferson, 'the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God' shall dictate that every lawyer will stop practicing law at some point. Clearly, it will be best if that event was occasioned by thoughtful planning and a smooth transition or a calculated termination of practice.

But most of us are frail humans, burdened by work, doubt and a studied avoidance of our mortal limits. The following factors and evasions all work in a suspicious conspiracy to block us from doing what our brilliant legal minds tell us is prudent, thoughtful and caring for those who are affected by our lives and careers."

"Every attorney in private practice has been faced with a file cabinet bulging with files related to long-finished matters and past clients. Perhaps more typical these days is an attorney who is faced with unorganized or cluttered electronic files on computers, hard drives or other external servers. Whether the file is paper or digital, an attorney has certain obligations to maintain and properly destroy a client’s file, even when the case is finished. What policies should an attorney have in place to ensure proper file retention and destruction?"

"ABA TECHSHOW was held March 1 in Chicago. After 2021 resulted in a virtual TECHSHOW and 2022 was a hybrid show, the consensus among attendees was that it was great to be 100% in person again.

For us, the ABA TECHSHOW began on Wednesday. We attended a day-long retreat with practice management advisors from across the U.S. and Canada. This year, there were at least 22 PMAs attending our retreat. We spent the day learning about new technologies available on the market. Julie demonstrated Descript, an all-in-one video editor. If you haven’t heard of this product, she wrote about it in the January/February issue of the ABA’s Law Practice magazine. Videos are a great way to connect with people, and this text-based editor for videos is a good way to create them."

Fastcase is your OBA-provided legal research benefit. It covers all federal and state court opinions, statutes, regulations, court rules and constitutions. Even subscribers to other legal research services may find Fastcase useful for jurisdictions not covered in their plan. The Fastcase 7 upgrade provided more powerful features and a simpler interface. But to access all of Fastcase’s powerful features, most lawyers will benefit from some additional Fastcase training.

OBA CLE has teamed up with Fastcase to produce free, on-demand training to help you get the most out of this valuable member benefit. "Legal Research Using Fastcase for Oklahoma Lawyers" will help you learn how to set up bookmarks to speed your searches, use search history and Fastcase’s Authority Check. You will also learn to determine whether to use natural language search or Boolean, interpret the interactive timeline in your results, share links with non-subscribers and explore the semantic tag cloud that allows you to see words and phrases that occur frequently with your current search.

"Mastering Advanced Legal Research Techniques in Fastcase" will teach you how to optimize client outcomes by improving the one skill that is imperative to all practice areas – efficient legal research. This presentation details how researchers can evade common research pitfalls and employ strategies to consistently retrieve strong results. Fastcase is used to demonstrate, but these core principles apply to all varieties of online legal research. Over the course of 50 minutes, attendees will learn how to save countless more by minimizing irrelevant results in their future research.

Click the links above or search "Fastcase" in the OBA WebCredenza catalog to access these free trainings today!

Featured CLE

By Jim Calloway, OBA Management Assistance Program Director

Avoiding free charging stations in airports, hotels and shopping centers is important for your digital security, according to a warning recently posted by the FBI. As the tweet noted, “Bad actors have figured out ways to use public USB ports to introduce malware and monitoring software onto devices.” While it is not common, a lawyer must guard against losing any client information on their phone (or loss of their credit card numbers). This precaution is simple to implement.

When you travel, travel with a cord for your phone and a plug for an electrical outlet. In addition, a charged portable battery can help avoid public charging stations. Android phones are more vulnerable. With an iPhone, you will receive a message asking if you trust this computer. Say no, then unplug and, if possible, report to someone they have a malware problem on that machine. If you thoughtlessly click yes, you may have opened the door for crooks and created a possibility of them breaking into your network when you get back to the office.

The Oklahoma Bar Journal is a publication of the Oklahoma Bar Association. All rights reserved. Copyright© 2023 Oklahoma Bar Association. Statements or opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff. Although advertising copy is reviewed, no endorsement of any product or service offered by any advertisement is intended or implied by publication. Advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their ads, and the OBA reserves the right to edit or reject any advertising copy for any reason. Legal articles carried in The Oklahoma Bar Journal are selected by the Board of Editors. Information about submissions can be found at www.okbar.org.