Mark Rosch of Internet for Lawyers: LexBlog Interviews
Mark Rosch is the Vice President of Internet for Lawyers, a company that aims to teach lawyers how to search the Internet more effectively. Mark presented two sessions at TechShow, including Find Info Like a Pro, Volume I and Google Tools for Lawyers.
Kelliann Blazek: What is your interest in TechShow?
Mark Rosch: I’ve been coming to TechShow since 2003. I come to TechShow as an author of books for the Law Practice Management Section primarily. In June, we expect the Section to publish “Google for Lawyers,” which is essentially an extended version of the presentation we did at TechShow today. It looks at all of those tools, search tips, etc. for using Google more effectively to coax out the information that Google has found on the internet that’s going to be useful to the attorney as a searcher. Most people, particularly practicing lawyers, they don’t have time to click that button—the “more,” the “even more”—to see what these things do. I like to say I waste 10-12 hours a day on the Internet so they don’t have to.
KB: Do you find yourself learning new things at TechShow?
MR: I learn things at sessions all the time. Sometimes I learn things at sessions I’m presenting, which is a good thing. I think one of the things that people need to remember is no one knows everything. Very often in this kind of crowd at TechShow, there will be someone who knows more than you do on a particular topic. These are very smart people. And there’s no embarrassment in that. There were one or two questions that we got from the audience today that were very specific questions. I’ve never heard the questions before or anything like that in the dozens of presentations we do.
KB: What advice would you give lawyers to more effectively use the Internet?
MR: First, if they’re using Google or any major search engine, look at the advanced search page because you’re going to get the option to create more sophisticated searches.
Second, as great as Google is, as much as we’ve talked about it and written about it, it’s not the be all and end all to research. It’s not even the be all and end all to search engines. Every search engine finds different information. Be familiar with more than one. My top three: Google, Bing, Yahoo.
Third, when you’re on the internet and looking at websites, search engines in particular, don’t be afraid to click a button that you don’t know what it does or what it means, because you can’t break the internet. People have tried and clicking a link on a site is probably not going to do it. If you’re looking at a reputable site, feel free to click around.
