Indiana Paralegal Association, Inc.

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What is it and what can it do for me?

By:  Courtney David Mills, IPA Technology Director

RSS feeds have saved my life.  I know it sounds dramatic, but it is almost true.  If they did not save my life, then they certainly saved my sanity.  While there is certainly a technologically precise manner in which to discuss RSS feeds, such a discussion is not the purpose of this article.  The purpose is to discuss RSS feeds in general terms and discuss how this technology can benefit those of us in the legal field.  I should probably begin by discussing what RSS stands for.

RSS stands for (among other things) Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary.  In its most basic form, it is simply a way to feed updates and/or headlines from websites to users both quickly and efficiently.  In order to utilize this time saving technology, a person simply needs to download a free RSS Reader (a.k.a. RSS Aggregator) from the internet (most readers are similar in function and only differ with regard to their visual interface).  Once the RSS Reader is loaded onto your computer, you are ready to start locating RSS Feeds from your favorite websites.  RSS feeds are easily identifiable by their symbols , or .  Once you locate the RSS or XML button, subscribing to the RSS feed is usually as easy as “dragging-and-dropping” the button to your RSS Reader.

RSS Feeds are quickly becoming a tool for legal professionals to stay up-to-date on changes in the legal profession in a time efficient manner.  In the modern world, we are constantly bombarded with data and information from 24-hour news cycles to literally millions of informational websites available on the world wide web.  With such unbelievably large amounts of information, the trick has become to find technologies that enable us to filter the helpful and relevant information from the bogus and irrelevant information.  The best thing about RSS feeds is that you control what websites and information you need to see and can avoid wading through the irrelevant information.  Even with good legal websites, it is not uncommon to wade through a hand full of irrelevant webpages or articles before accessing a relevant source.  RSS Technology enables legal professionals to quickly view daily or weekly headlines and updates from legal resources including legal websites (i.e., www.law.com), legal blogs (I smell my next article coming along), and law journals.  Since depending upon the website, updates can be hourly, weekly or monthly.  Instead of constantly going to websites to check for updates, you allow the updates to come to you. 

Indiana Paralegals Association, Inc. is pleased to offer an RSS Feed of its website (www.indianaparalegals.org).  Subscribing to IPA’s RSS Feed will enable subscribers to quickly review updates to IPA’s websites including immediate notification of updated job bank listings, meeting notices and upcoming IPA activities.