Context-specific data from the internet to supplement information in matter management systems

Joe Bookman, the founder of PinHawk, offers an intriguing prediction in Law Tech. News, Feb. 2008, at 30. Bookman foresees that over the next year or so law-department matter-management systems will start to integrate with internet monitoring software. For example, when an in-house lawyer clicks on a matter, the monitoring software will automatically bring up any recent online references to that matter. Or, when the lawyer clicks on the name of a law firm retained by the law department, the monitoring software will display comments about the firm from the blogosphere or other online sources (See my post of on social networks.).

Such professional mashups (See my post of Nov. 24, 2007: artiblogs.), combining law-department information and supplementary information online, has no end of applications.