How do you follow? Who do you follow? When do you follow? For some help on these questions, check out buckpost at Twitterati and the entry on How to Follow 101. This how-to advice depends on how you view your own twitter use and primarily is based on number of follows/followers. Are you a “pragmatist” interested in avoiding becoming overwhelmed, a “happy go lucky” tweeter looking to spice up your life with some new conversation, or a “party-animal” looking for volume contacts to support a digital lifestyle or business? The article has some quick help for determining your intended use and suggestions for framing that use effectively.

I have received a lot of questions lately about whether Twitter really is a valuable tool for lawyers and how to get into the Twitter swing. I have posted before about the “why” and Darren Rouse at TwiTips has this guest blog entry from Aira Bongco addressing the “how.” Chock full of common sense suggestions, this list is applicable to the casual, personal twitter-er, as well as the professional twitter-er looking to gain business contacts. Check out the jump above and overcome those initial “why the heck should I be doing this” and “what the heck am I doing” thoughts.

My Treo 750 must be sensing an impending change and has been acting up considerably. I still have questions about which phone should serve as its replacement, given my attachment to ATT. There is the iPhone 3g and the Blackberry Bold. But there is also the Treo Pro, the current top-o-the-line Win-Mo offering from Palm.

Reviewers are liking this phone with good reason. Treonauts reports on PC Magazine’s article comparing unlocked phones and giving good marks to this beauty. Futurelawyer, a confirmed Palm fan, shares the excitement. Taken from the Treonauts summary:

Palm’s newest enterprise-centric Windows Mobile handset packs loads of functionality into a fairly compact design. The Pro can sync with up to eight e-mail accounts and comes loaded with a full copy of Microsoft Mobile Office. Add that to support for Wi-Fi, HSDPA 3.6, and GPS with turn-by-turn directions, and its appeal becomes clear. It does tend to be sluggish at times, though, and it has the same cramped keyboard as its Centro siblings.

I have no problem with the keyboard, which gives plenty of tactile feedback, although I concede I have moderate sized, dexterous fingers from years of guitar playing.

The upside for unlocked phones is that you are not limited to a particular carrier. The down side is the increased, non-subsidized price you pay for this freedom. The Treo Pro lists for $549, but you can score one for $449 through the Treonauts store.

If you are willing to pay the price for freedom, this model is a nice option for the mobile lawyer.

Wayne Schiess, a specialist in legal writing, maintains a blog at Legalwriting.net and has this quote from fellow legal writer Joseph Kimble:

Although lawyers write for a living, most legal writing is bad and has been for centuries; most lawyers recognized this failing from what they read, but still fancy themselves to be rather good writers, thank you; likewise, most lawyers strongly prefer other writers’ prose to be plainer, simpler, shorter, clearer, but they also strongly resist changing their own style (that’s the great disconnect); every possible rationalization for traditional legal style has been discredited; and the costs of our bad writing and funny talk—the time and money wasted and the public disrespect—are incalculable.

[Legal writing is] a stew of all the worst faults of formal and official prose, seasoned with the peculiar expressions and mannerisms that lawyers perpetuate.

Kimble, Joseph, Lifting the Fog of Legalese: Essays on Plain Language xi (Carolina Academic Press 2006).

Our dialogue is filled with harsh criticism targeted at poor legal writing. Let’s turn our attention to finding a cure.