Ignorance of the Law Excuses No One

Law guides the behavior of citizens in a civilized society.  For the appropriate behavior, every citizen is expected to be familiar with the guidelines.  Not knowing them is not an excuse.

An informed citizenry makes a stable society!

In the late 1990s, I was proud to have introduced the eBook technology in the Philippines.  Obtaining the license to manufacture and exclusively distribute in the Philippines the device called eBookMan – we correspondingly incorporated into it a set of eBooks that immediately gained popularity.

An electronic organizer, a music/MP3 player, a voice recorder, and also an audio book player, it was better known as an eBook reader because of the eBooks that came with it.  Among the first eBooks were an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, the Holy Bible/Koran, and the 10 greatest novels of all time. The first Apps included the equivalent of the Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access).

To capture a very important market, our partner, Franklin Electronic Publishing obtained the rights to distribute the electronic version of the PDR (Physician Desk Reference), which contained the FDA-approved prescription drugs for a list of diseases based on pre-determined symptoms as diagnosed by licensed doctors.  We also put the PDRs into the eBookMan devices for a fee. This was probably the beginning of “mHEALTH” in the Philippines.

Being a licensed lawyer in the Philippines, I was quite happy to arrange the conversion of the Philippine laws and the Supreme Court decisions since 1901 into the eBook format.  Creating an electronic law library within the eBookMan, we dubbed it as “Law on the Go”.  We used to tell owners of the device and the law library, “you can now take the law into your own hands.”

Together with all the other eBooks, it was popularized as “library in your pocket, knowledge at your fingertips”.

Franklin’s eBook technology was later on bought by Amazon.com and thus – KINDLE was born.  All the eBook libraries created by us could be read by KINDLE and years later so could all the eBook readers.

While my interest in consumer electronic technologies became greater and wider, the latest innovations and inventions in the fields of Health/Medicine and Law always fascinated me.  This is why I attended the mHealth Summit last month, and the CES’ Digital Health Summit this month.

This is also why I am also attending the LegalTech NY 2014 next week (February 4-6, 2014).  I am interested in finding out how “Technology and Trends are transforming the Legal World.”

I also seek to know how the Legal Professionals are adopting the new technologies or if they are gladly embracing them. It would be interesting to find out if mobile technology has indeed changed the “parameters of the workplace (or work/life balance).”

The new technologies and innovations would be on display, demoed, and discussed at the exhibits.  I will most likely spend more of my time there. 

But there are sessions that are getting my attention because of my experience in the field: 

Both sessions deal with the role of the latest technology in the practice of Law.  The first focuses on the most efficient way of sourcing, accessing, storing, and retrieving information to achieve better delivery of service to clients.  Satisfied clients bring in more referrals and revenues for the firm.

The second deals with “how e-billing impacts resources, revenue, and cash flow, and what can be done to stay ahead of the curve and improve internal processes.”

In this conference of law professionals, I would be gladly wearing my LegalRadar!