May It Please The Court: Weblog of legal news and observations, including a quote of the day and daily updates

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Here’s a primer on how to use MIPTC:

Where You Can Read (and hear) “All About It.” MIPTC is available on your friendly neighborhood computer, be it a Mac or PC. You can also get it on your PDA. Yep, MIPTC is PDA-friendly and available on the very small screen. We’re also audio-ready – you can hear us on your headphones, speakers, iPod or Pocket PC.

Registered Trademark and Creative Commons. You may have also noticed that MIPTC is trademarked – both our name and the Judge, so no copying without permission. The rest is governed by a Creative Commons license. Copy the text and audio at will, just give MIPTC credit.

Quote of the Day and Posts. Each post is linked with the Quote of the Day, so if you want to see the quote that I picked to go with the particular post you’re reading, then click the Permalink symbol (piece of paper with folded corner) under each post. The Permalink pops up a new window with the Quote that went with the original post. Each Quote has a relationship (at least in my mind) with the post.

Posts. Most of the time I post about cases and news articles that fall within my practice areas – business litigation, including environmental, contract disputes, intellectual property (patent, copyright and trademark litigation), tax and international trade. Sometimes, though, items just catch my eye, and you’re going to see it in the blog, warts and all. If you have some suggestions, send me an email. The links in my posts open new windows in Windows. That way, you can find your way back to where you started easily. If you don’t like new windows popping open, sorry; it was a choice I made when we set up the blog, and it seems to have worked well so far.

Podcast. Audio recordings of each Quote of the Day and Post narrated by J. Craig Williams. You can either click on this link to listen to the recording, or by accessing MIPTC’s Podcast feed, you can download them to your iPod or Pocket PC and take them on the road with you. You’re no longer tied to your computer terminal.

Comments. Go right ahead. Early and often as far as I’m concerned. Comments that have no relationship to the post will be deleted. Comments that are judged inappropriate will likely be deleted. I sometimes will comment on your comment if you raise a point that should be addressed. Sometimes I comment on one of my posts as a follow-up if I don’t want to draft an entire new post.

Here’s a couple of tips on using the Comment feature. If you want to put a link in your Comment, click on the picture of the world. Then in the first dialog box, put in the text you want highlighted as a hyperlink. Click OK, then in the second dialog box, put in the link (using the entire http:// … address), click OK again, and you’re done. The B, I and U symbols to the left are the same ones you use in your word processor to bold, italicize and underline text. The emoticon button is there to allow you to copy the typographical symbols into your comment to make the appropriate emoticon appear when you upload your comment. There is no length limitation on your comment, and I ask that you identify yourself in the boxes provided.

Email. When you click on the link J. Craig Williams, it will start up your email program, and the address will read jcraigwms at wlf-law.com. Remove the “[space] at [space]” between jcraigwms and wlf-law.com and replace it an @ symbol, and you’re in business. Let me know what you think. I try to respond to each email.

Corrections. Yep. I make ‘em. Do you know about all of them? Nope. Not if they’re just spelling or grammatical. If they’re substantive corrections, I’ll mostly admit to it and make the correction. Sometimes the correction is in the post, sometimes in the Comment. No rhyme or reason, just the correction.

Left nav bar.

At the top: We start out on the upper left-hand corner with the WLF | The Williams Law Firm, PC logo. Simple yet sophisticated, with a delightful flair and wonderful finish. No, it’s not a wine review, it’s a law firm.

Masthead. Our judge was drawn by Chase Exon, the cartoonist who writes/draws Conservative Crust. Our judge is modeled after a character actor who appeared as Judge Graves in the BBC television series, Rumpole of the Bailey. I’ve never, ever seen a judge like that in real life.

Photo. Now back to the left column again. That's the author, J. Craig Williams. You can read all About him and MIPTC.

Home. Takes you to our law firm, WLF | The Williams Law Firm, PC. Please come visit. Better yet, retain us.

May It Please The Court, typically abbreviated MIPTC. Below MIPTC, there’s a Chronological Index and a Title Index that allows you to access blog posts chronologically or by title.

The E-mail List Sign-up means that if you fill out and submit the form, you’ll receive occasional (not regular) emails that give you links to MIPTC and sometimes our companion blog posts.

External links takes you to a fairly extensive set of links to different areas of law-related material. If you note a broken link, please let me know. If you have suggestions for a link, likewise. Oh yes, the first page, titled “Of Interest” gives you some idea about some of my idiosyncrasies.

Our RSS feed allows you to download MIPTC’s feeds by using a Really Simple Syndication news aggregator.

Then we’ve got links to our other blogs, Sharks In The Water, by Attorney Greg Granger and A Criminal Waste Of Space, by Justice William W. Bedsworth.

Search this Site. Self-explanatory. Google in miniature.

Bookstore. The book. The Man Who Wrote It. Leonard Rivkin, who built a nationwide law firm from a storefont office. Gotta love him, but he didn’t start it all, actually. Lawyers have been saying “May It Please The Court” since the dawn of lawyering. It’s the term that lawyers use before addressing the court to gain the court’s attention first and ask permission to speak. Still, Mr. Rivkin’s book is inspiring. A good read.

MIPTC Store. As the Judge orders, go visit our store at CafePress. Trinkets with the Judge logo. Proceeds go to my favorite charity, Bighorn Institute. Feel free to spend lots of money. They make great presents for lawyers.

Latest Blogs. Headlines from the four most recent posts. More, if you want ‘em.

Calendar. Click on the little symbol, and the post (and Quote of the Day for that post) pops up.

Links of Interest. My blogroll. What I read.

The weblawgs ring (MIPTC is number 158), Review this Site (Go ahead, have at it), Popdex citations (who cited to MIPTC when) and MIPTC’s Blogstreet profile (review and who cites to MIPTC).

MIPTC’s Podcast feed will allow you to take MIPTC audio podcasts on your iPod or Pocket PC. To learn more, visit the Podcast directory.

At the bottom, the orange XML and the orange XML with the pill are for news aggregators. The first for generic aggregators, the latter for Amphetadesk. Yahoo! users, of course, can click on the symbol to add MITPC to their My Yahoo! page.

Bottom of the Page Navigation. The links at the bottom take you in to various pages on our law firm’s website, WLF | The Williams Lindberg Firm, PC. Please feel welcome to visit.

Click here to learn more about MIPTC and J. Craig Williams.