General Practice Section

Thursday, March 25, 2010
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. (registration at 5:30 p.m.)

LaTourelle Resort and Spa
1150 Danby Road, Ithaca, NY

The program is FREE to all attorneys, but pre-registration is required. Dinner is included.

This program has been approved for 2.0 MCLE credits in Ethics for all attorneys, including both newly admitted and experienced attorneys.

Co-sponsored by
The Tompkins County and Broome County Bar Associations; Lawyers Helping Lawyers Committees of Broome, Tompkins, Cortland, Chemung and Tioga Counties; and the New York State Bar Association Lawyer Assistance Program. This program is funded through a grant from the New York State Lawyer Assistance Trust.

Program Description
Presenters will share their perspectives on practicing law in a manner that enhances and integrates mental, emotional and spiritual health and development of community.

Agenda
5:30 – 6:00 p.m. Registration
6:00 – 6:15 p.m. Introduction
Mariette Geldenhuys, Esq., Mariette Geldenhuys Attorney at Law
6:15 – 6:40 p.m. A Lawyer’s Family Story of Depression
Hon. Michael J. Miller (Ret.)
Hinda Miller
6:40 – 7:05 p.m. A Lawyer’s Story of Alcoholism
Lenore Le Fevre, Esq.
7:05 – 7:30 p.m. Lawyers Helping Lawyers (panel discussion)
Hon. John C. Rowley, Tompkins County Court Judge
Charles Oliver Wolff, Esq., Law Office of Charles Oliver Wolff
Richard M. Wallace, Esq., Guttman & Wallace
7:30 – 7:55 p.m.
Lawyers Assistance Program
Paul Curtin, Outreach Coordinator, 4th Department New York State Bar Association’s Lawyer Assistance Program

7:55 – 8:00 p.m. Questions and Answers
For registration or additional Information please contact Sindy Garey, Director of the Broome County Bar Association bcbaexdir@stny.rr.com.

*** The meeting location includes a Spa and is offering a 15% discount on Spa services for attendees and a special $99.00/night room rate as well. For information on Spa services and reservations, go to www.augustmoonspa.com.

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NOTE: Kindle newspapers, magazines, and blogs are not currently available for Kindle for PC.

MAC NOTE: There is a Beta edition for your Mac. When you click on the page and link, the automatic download of the PC version will begin; but the page recognizes your Mac and offers you the Mac Beta. Just discard the .exe file.

Download Kindle for PC Beta.

Cell phone radiation levels - CNET Reviews

If you're concerned about limiting your SAR exposure, you can take a few easy steps beyond purchasing a handset with a low SAR. You can text instead placing a voice call, use a wired headset or speakerphone whenever possible, and carry your phone at least one inch from your body. Some researchers also caution against using your phone in areas with poor coverage since phones emit more radiation when searching for a signal. Children, which have smaller and thinner skulls, should limit cell phone use, and all users, children and adults, should not sleep with an active phone next to their bedside or under their pillow.

Read the entire article and check your phone.

Legal Ease Blog: Dustin Cole at the Massachusetts Bar Association

Legal Ease Blog by Allison C. Shields has an ecellent summary of the key points made by Dustin Cole of Attorneys Masterclass on the business of practicing law at last week's mass Bar Annual Conference.

An excerpt: "Cole cautions that lawyers should stop focusing on the process. Lawyers need to focus on what they are really selling - and it isn't legal work. He emphasized that lawyers need to know not only what makes them different than their competitors, but what makes them better. He admonished lawyers not to focus on what everyone else is doing, because that breeds merely average lawyers. "

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK V. DUDLEY RAMSAY

(Supreme Ct., Kings Cty., Mar. 12, 2010) - Dudley Ramsay, a 25-year-old Brooklyn man was convicted by a New York City jury today on felony and misdemeanor charges of beating his five-month-old dachshund puppy 'Junior' to death.

Second Circuit Rejects Most Of Attorney Advertising Rules

"The speech that Defendants' content-based restrictions seeks to regulate—that which is irrelevant, unverifiable, and non-informational—is not inherently false, deceptive, or misleading. Defendants' own press release described its proposed rules as protecting consumers against 'potentially misleading ads,'" the panel wrote in Alexander v. Cahill, 07-3677-cv, 07-3900- cv.

The Second Circuit decision appears on page 17 of the print edition of today's Law Journal

The ruling primarily affirms the July 2007 decision by Northern District Judge Frederick J. Scullin.

Courtesy of NYLJ--Noeleen G. Walder--Read full NYLJ article/breaking news.

Attention Members of the Northern District Bar - On Thursday, April 29, 2010 the Federal Court Bar Association and the Office of the Federal Public Defender and the New York State Defenders Association will be hosting a CLE program entitled "Federal Criminal Law Update". The program will be held in Syracuse, new York at the Renaissance Syracuse Hotel. The program will run from 8:15 AM to 4:30 PM.

There is no fee for this program; but registration is required. To register for this program and to view the program agenda, please visit the Court website:

http://www.nynd.uscourts.gov/UpcomingEvents.htm

Laura Cucullu
Senior features editor,
CNET.com

I don't know about you, but I can't stand DVD trailers any more than I can stand commercials. Somehow, I always manage to find out about the movies I want to see without needing to sit through 10 or 12 different previews while I get to that movie I want to watch. That said, I obviously dislike disc manufacturers that won't let you skip the trailers. Thankfully, Tom Merritt just showed me this handy tip on how to skip all the intro fluff and go straight to the movie. Watch and learn how.

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Book listings contain links to free full text versions, as well as iPod and MP3 audiobook downloads.

An audio preview of each book is available before you start downloading it. In addition to a very detailed description about the book, links are also provided to the full text of the book and also related Wikipedia articles. Each book listing also contains user reviews and ratings. The website contains free audio books in over a dozen languages that can be downloaded with a single click.

Hat tip to MakeUseOf.com

**** This is the 1000th post on this NYSBA General Practice Blawg

The MacAttorney Newsletter is a FREE electronic newsletter sent out via e-mail for attorneys, law students, and legal professionals. It keeps them informed about the latest Macintosh news, events, products for law office use, and special promotions for attorneys.

At this writing there are over 8,000 law firms subscribed to The MacAttorney Newsletter!

To subscribe, send e-mail to: randy@macattorney.com
With the word: "Subscribe"
in the SUBJECT line of the message.

;Free Breaking News:</font> Paterson Charged With Ethics Violation Over World Series Tickets

The state Commission on Public Integrity said today that there is reasonable cause to believe that the governor had accepted five $425 tickets from the New York Yankees as a gift in violation of Public Officers Law Ё73(5)(a)(b).

Read the commission's Notice of Reasonble Cause.

Ruby Receptionists, a live virtual receptionist company today announced the launch of its Ruby for iPhone application on the Apple App Store. Included in the suite of tools is an instant “whereabouts” updater tool to instantly change where receptionists route calls and relay information to the receptionists to keep callers informed on when to expect a return call.

The app, which is free to current clients of Ruby’s virtual receptionist service, also lets customers see all of their calls and messages in one convenient spot, and the message detail screen features one tap to return calls. For more info contact:

Diana Stepleton
Ruby Receptionists
866-611-7829 office
dstepleton@callruby.com

You can do most of what you need to do with respect to PDF's on your
Macintosh for free!

Any application can export your document as a PDF on the Macintosh.
Just choose Print, and then click on the PDF button and choose Save As
PDF.

FormulatePro (free)
http://code.google.com/p/formulatepro/
Formulate will open your PDF forms and allow you to quickly and easily
fill in the blanks, without altering the original PDF. Formulate will
even allow you to fill in *locked* PDF forms, and save the filled-in
form as a template, or save the data you've previously used in a
form. Very easy to use.

PDF2RTFService (free)
http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/index.html
(scroll to bottom of page)
allows any program that can read RTF documents (including OS X's
included TextEdit) to open a PDF document as an editable RTF document
and save it in RTF format!
(Assuming that the PDF document isn't a graphic image of a text
document. PDF2RTFService does not do OCR.)

You can just use Apple's included Preview program to combine PDF's:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071114191806624
http://www.macworld.com/article/143023/2009/09/combine_pdf_snow_leopard.html

PDFMerge-X (free)
http://www.malcom-mac.com/files/pdfmergex/PDFMergeX_2.0.zip
combine, transform and reorder the pages in your pdf documents

PDFLab (free)
http://www.iconus.ch/fabien/products/pleng/pleng.html
lets you split and join PDF documents as well as insert images and
blank pages, encrypt or decrypt a document, add a watermark, or
interleave several documents.

CocoaBooklet (free)
http://www.iconus.ch/fabien/products/cbeng/cbeng.html
This program lets you create a booklet out of a PDF file for printing,
which is known as pages imposition.

PS2PDF and Friends (free)
http://homepage.mac.com/catichenor/EdvantageSoft/FileSharing4.html
This is a collection of drag-and-drop AppleScripts that convert among
different Adobe file types. The stars of the show are the PostScript
to PDF converters, which emulate different settings of Acrobat
Distiller. There are other useful file converters and optimizers as
well.

You'll need to download and install Ghostscript to use these
AppleScripts. The fastest and easiest way to do so is to download ESP
Ghostscript from the Gimp-Print website at: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3

___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Attorney at Law

Author of: The Macintosh Software Guide for the Law Office

Webmaster of: The Macintosh Law Office Software List
http://www.macattorney.com

Publisher of: The MacAttorney Newsletter

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Click on "Get Involved" for application forms to submit to Google.

If you're looking for an alternative to more traditional office suites, you may wish to look at this version of OpenOffice. Their interface is similar to that of other programs, and it contains a spreadsheet application, a word processor, and a presentation manager. OpenOffice also features blog publishing assistance and compatibility with other applications and file types. This version can be used with computers running Mac OS X 10.4 and newer or Windows 2000 or newer.

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu/

Law Firms Swindled Out of $500K in E-Mail Scam - News - ABA Journal

Two law firms in Honolulu were scammed out of $500,000 in an e-mail scheme that's apparently targeting the legal community.

During the past six weeks, six different law firms have been targeted, according to the FBI, which issued a warning today (PDF). Two of the six fell for the scheme and lost a total of $500,000.

***

Hat Tip to ABA Journal--click here to see related coverage.

APPELLATE TERM--SECOND DEPARTMENT

Criminal Procedure

Exclusion of Evidence Over Police Officer's Repeated Failures to Appear in Court Upheld

People v. Valentin [full text of decision]

Grogger|Crowdsource your Content

Grogger is enabling the next evolution of publishing through Grogs--"group blogs"--that enable publishers to crowdsource their content.

Maron v. Silver, 16; Larabee v. Governor, 7;
Chief Judge v. Governor, 18;

PIGOTT, J.—The constitutional arguments raised in these judicial compensation appeals are premised upon, among other things, alleged violations of the New York State Constitution's Compensation Clause and the Separation of Powers Doctrine. Because the Separation of Powers doctrine is aimed at preventing one branch of government from dominating or interfering with the functioning of another co-equal branch, we conclude that the independence of the judiciary is improperly jeopardized by the current judicial pay crisis and this constitutes a violation of the Separation of Powers Doctrine.

***

However, when "fashioning specific remedies for constitutional violations, we must avoid intrusion on the primary domain of another branch of government" (Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State of New York, 8 NY3d 14, 28 [2006]). Indeed, deference to the Legislature—which possess the constitutional authority to budget and appropriate—is necessary because it is "in a far better position than the Judiciary to determine funding needs throughout the state and priorities for the allocation of the State's resources" (id. at 29). The Judiciary may intervene in the state budget "only in the narrowest of instances" (Wein v. Carey, 41 NY2d 498, 505 [1977]), and we do not believe that it is necessary here to order specific injunctive relief. When this Court articulates the constitutional standards governing state action, we presume that the State will act accordingly.

***

Full Text of Decision