ABA Section of Business Law
Business Law Today
March/April 1999
The Section’s experts speak
Law firms have a way to go to get up to speed on the Net
By Ray DeLong
DeLong is editor of Business Law Today.
Once you got through the occasional whiff of the huckster, real information was at hand at a Section-sponsored meeting about the Internet at the ABA Annual Meeting last August.
For the record, the program was titled, "Counseling clients moving into the Web." It was put together by the Section’s Committee on Cyberspace Law, the International Law and Practice Section as well as the Science and Technology Section — all of the ABA.
The overall goal of the three-hour session was how business lawyers could answer client questions about doing business on the Web. Jeff Ritter of Columbus, Ohio, co-chair of the Section’s Cyberspace Committee, introduced the panel as the "leading pioneers of electronic commerce."
The topics included such areas as:
- What to do if your company isn’t on the Web yet.
- How to build whatever a company needs.
- Selling goods on the Net.
- Making business with consumers.
- How a corporate counsel (or outside lawyer) can keep up with the law.
The general picture painted was that law firms still have a long way to go to get up to speed on the Net. On the other hand, the first Net-related firms that have grabbed the public’s attention are way out in front. No big surprises on either front.
About those lawyers: Vince Polley, deputy general counsel of Schlumberger Limited in Houston, said, "In general, law firms have not been experimenting very much. Collaboration within those organizations is only as good as the least technically skilled person using it." Kind of a frightful thought, eh?
The more technically advanced spokesmen at the program included Sandy Tannenbaum of AT&T in Basking Ridge, N.J., George Vradenburg of America Online in Dulles, Va., Roger Cochetti of IBM in Washington and Dan Scheinman of Sisco Corp. in San Jose, Calif.
Scheinman talked somewhat insistently about the new millennium for the world of commerce: "Internet commerce is here to stay. It is going to change everything we do."
Picking up on that theme, Layden said, "This is a medium that’s going to transform the world; it will go into everyone’s home."
But there were a few cautions. Cochetti: "The Web has a thin regulatory framework." Scheinman: "What about the matter of taxation on the Net? I don’t know, but we have to solve that."
The panel had a ream of half-promotional, half-educational material available at the meeting. A few nuggets:
- When using e-mail, avoid "heat-of-the-moment" messages. Sleep on that reply.
- Include the original message when replying; it’s a lot easier for the recipient to see what you’re talking about.
- Don’t indiscriminantly forward messages to others. It’s best to ask the sender first.
- AOL has an eight-point "privacy commitment." It includes "We will keep you informed, clearly and prominently, about what we do with your personal information . . ." Hmmm. Is that supposed to assure customers?
- But AOL goes on to give out 10 tips to protect your own privacy when online, including never giving your password to anyone online. And don’t download files unless you know what they are and who sent them to you.
Stay tuned. There just may be a bit more on this general subject in the future
