“Law enforcement officials will ‘use all the tools we have, whether it be criminal enforcement or immigration laws to break the back’ of businesses that exploit undocumented immigrants, said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at a news conference.”

If this turns out to be more than mere posturing, certain businesses will have to rethink their “blind eye” policies and procedures.  For the rest, this just emphasizes the need to make careful and defensible documentation of employee records.

They discuss the latest legal topics with other law bloggers, such as the Supreme Court nominations, displaced Gulf Coast lawyers post-Katrina, and Internet free speech and privacy law. On their most recent show, they talked about why more lawyers aren’t doing pro bono work. You can listen online or download the MP3s.

11. Remember, to be a good lawyer you must first be a good man.

Your sole ambition should be to be a good husband, a good father, a good neighbor, a good citizen, and a good lawyer. If you achieve this, you will have achieved all the success there is. The pressure of life. In the space age, it is very easy for a young man to get the idea that he must be a dynamic individual, he must break all records, he must set the world on fire. If he gets this idea, he starts life with a handicap. The papers are full of such cases at this time.

12. Remember, don’t ever put your interest in the fee ahead of your interest in the case.

Your future depends more on the manner in which you handle the case than on the amount of the fee you collect.

13. Remember, the primary purpose of the legal profession is to find, recognize, interpret, and preserve the truth.

The quicker you can learn the truth about any situation, the better off you will be. After you learn it, don’t join issue against it.

At the end of the letter, Boyd says that the law is the “greatest profession there is.”  I don’t know about that — I’d rather be a professional athlete — but its got its moments.

As the number of blog-only search engines increases, law bloggers will have even more opportunity to promote their blogs. For example, Kevin O’Keefe at LexBlog reports that his client’s blog, Delaware Litigation Blog, appears in the first ten search results under Delaware litigation.

 A search for business disputes law yields a post link from Weblogs Work about this blog. Under a search for business dispute law without the “s”, yours truly appears under “Related Blogs” at the top. Not bad. Legal Blog CEO has helpful search engine tips.

An increasingly common add-on to coverage in recent years has been "contingent" business-interruption coverage (or contingent business-income coverage). These policies are limited in what types of event trigger coverage; typically, only those hazards that are insured against with respect to the insured’s own assets qualify as covered events when they befall the insured’s supplier or the insured’s customer.

Blogger Marc Mayerson outlines a few steps businesses should take now if they want to take advantage of this type of coverage in the future.

Technorati Tags: business+insurance, business+interruption, katrina, recovery2

I was able to get to my apt at the Anchorage Sat 09/03/05," said one message posted yesterday. "Came in thru Eden Isles off Hwy 11 — the beautiful white anchor at entrance is covered in about 7 ft of debris and there is only a one-lane path to enter/exit until over the little bridge."

Also featured is fellow law blogger Ernest Svenson, also known as Ernie the Attorney, who is from New Orleans and evacuated to Houston, Texas and later to Baton Rouge. Svenson began posting notes via a friend out of town, to whom he would text messages from the city. Information-sharing during a natural disaster is only the tip of the iceberg of what blogs can and are doing. No longer just a place to rant about politics or tell readers what you ate for breakfast, blogs are dynamic marketing tools, news portals and interactive message boards. They’ve been a blessing to people looking for missing loved ones. Bloggers are posting photos and e-mails from readers, trying to reunite families and friends. Since the disaster began, new and existing blogs are helping refugees and other survivors find places to live, work, and regroup after losing everything in the hurricane, an unexpected but valuable function.

Technorati Tags: blogs, law blogs, katrina, ernietheattorney