In this month’s Legal Current podcast, we cover:

•Legal news: Was Jewish Center shooting a hate crime?
•Legal trends & insights: The controversy over the National Security Agency’s surveillance program
•News from Thomson Reuters: Peer Monitor releases Mid-Size Law Firm Report
•On the legal blogs: Male strippers caused emotional distress to nursing home resident

If you have a suggestion for a future interview or episode theme, leave a comment on this blog post or send an email to contact@legalcurrent.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @legalcurrent.

SCOTUS takes up ACA contraception mandate in the Hobby Lobby case, a very costly Facebook post, Thomson Reuters launches Solutions -- practice-specific suites of solutions, and assault with a "beary" deadly weapon.

Most law firm websites are indeed designed to fail. That’s a bold statement, and the theme of a new white paper from FindLaw.  

The white paper discusses how many law firms’ websites may be generating less business impact than they could. Why? Because they don’t focus enough on conversion – the process of getting visitors to contact the firm.

Successful Web conversion starts with understanding the psychology of the legal consumer. This new FindLaw white paper takes an in-depth look logic, emotion and today’s legal consumer. 

The maker of 5 Hour Energy is under investigation by attorneys general in Oregon and other states because of reports of consumer health problems.  But the real battle may be over the popular energy shots’ proprietary formula, which the company refusing to turn over to investigators.

Eric Hagen with McDermott Will & Emery discusses the inherent conflict that often exist between discovery requests and trade secrets. 

Transactional law often involves pulling together information from a wide variety of sources, including the SEC and public and private deal data.  A new resource, Business Law Center on WestlawNext, provides access from one easy-to-use source to several key information sources, including up-to-date SEC and global filings and disclosures, EDGAR precedent agreements, Thomson Reuters proprietary deal abstracts covering public and private M&A, corporate finance and capital markets transactions, as well as SEC administrative material and the most comprehensive collection of SEC staff comment letters in the industry. 

Marc Butler discusses how Business Law Center on WestlawNext can help transactional attorneys 

In the February 2014 edition of the Legal Current podcast, we cover:

• Legal news: Is Facebook a marriage killer?
• Legal trends & insights: Judge Thomas Jacobs on the nature of cyberbullying and what parents can do to protect their kids. 
• News from Thomson Reuters: Jason Thomas keynote at LegalTech New York last month and the Digital Economy Task Force report coming soon.
• On the legal blogs: Judge bans man from the internet after creepy Craigslist prank.

You can listen to the episode now by clicking the play button on the built-in player below. We’re also on iTunes – just enter “Legal Current” in the search box.

If you have a suggestion for a future interview or episode theme, leave a comment on this blog post or send an email to contact@legalcurrent.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @legalcurrent.

A new report from Georgetown University Law Center and Peer Monitor warns that unless law firms re-examine their traditional business models and embrace change in how legal services are delivered, they will not be able to successfully adjust to the significant outside forces that are reordering the industry. The “2014 Report on the State of the Legal Market” highlights recent trends in the legal market, as well as factors that will likely impact the market in 2014 and beyond.

James W. Jones, senior fellow at the Georgetown Law Center for the Study of the Legal Profession is lead author of the report, which can be downloaded at: https://peermonitor.thomsonreuters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2014_PM_GT_Report5.pdf

In the January 2014 edition of the Legal Current podcast, we cover:

• Legal news: Is emoji death threat a criminal defense? One law professor says that it just may be.
• Legal trends & insights: Are privacy class action suits the next big practice areas?
• News from Thomson Reuters: Jim Jones, a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center, comments on the new report from Peer Monitor and the Georgetown University Law Center.
• On the legal blogs: A 7-foot statute of Satan is being proposed for the Oklahoma State Capitol.

You can listen to the episode now by clicking the play button on the built-in player below. We’re also on iTunes – just enter “Legal Current” in the search box.

If you have a suggestion for a future interview or episode theme, leave a comment on this blog post or send an email to contact@legalcurrent.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @legalcurrent.

iPhone and Android lovers are rejoicing the increasing adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies that permit them to use their own smartphones on corporate networks.  But Fabio Marino with McDermott Will & Emery says BYOD policies can create tremendous headaches for companies in dealing with legal holds and trying to prevent theft of intellectual property.

NSA data, law firm challenges for 2014, a West Key Author helps a wrongly convicted person and the Gaming Judge -- in the December 2013 edition of the Legal Current podcast.