RSS FeedCloud computing tips for lawyers
Cloud computing is one of the best technologies we’ve had in the last decade. It gives us mobility, versatility, security, and powerful ways to manipulate our data. It’s also cheap. Because it’s rooted in the Internet, some express legitimate concerns with cloud computing, mostly centred around data security and privacy. Lawyers may be particularly cautious to deploy clients’ data in the cloud because of lawyers’ unique responsibilities and duties. But a careful look at cloud computing shows that it’s safe for both the general public and lawyers. Its benefits greatly outweigh its costs and some of its features are so compelling, time-saving and economical that every lawyer should be considering cloud computing.
Cloud computing means keeping and processing your data online. For example, in Gmail, you read and write email in your browser’s window, but Google’s servers take care of storing, sending and receiving messages for you. Google Docs lets you do the same thing but with word processing. Ufile.ca handles your tax returns. Amazon S3 gives you unlimited file storage in Amazon data centres. All social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Flickr, etc. are also examples of cloud computing. Whenever you delegate data storage and processing to a third party that grants you online access, you do cloud computing. “Cloud” means that the specific physical server on which the provider keeps and processes your data is obscure to you. All you care about is the Internet address of the provider and your own access credentials. Into the “cloud” goes some input, and out of the “cloud” comes some output. That’s how it works.
Benefits of cloud computing are enormous. I can think of ten: 1) you can access your data anywhere with an Internet connection; 2) you don’t have to troubleshoot or upgrade any software other than the access application, which is usually your browser; 3) instead of paying large sums for desktop software and its upgrades, you get a free or low-subscription-fee cloud service; 4) you subcontract data storage to professionals; 5) the cloud can give you a regular, frequent, and professional backup solution; 6) cloud services can come with search and data crunching capabilities that are unparalleled simply because of the massive cloud computing infrastructure; 7) cloud backup services can automatically keep previous versions of your data in a way that is unmatched again because of inadequacy of your home or office infrastructure; 8) the cloud can protect your data from undesired jurisdictions or it can keep the data in specific jurisdictions; 9) the cloud makes it easy to share any part of your data with chosen parties and to control their access; 10) the cloud lets you tap into social networks of billions of people.
But some have legitimate concerns with the cloud. And lawyers are among those voices as members of the legal profession have unique responsibilities and duties. There are two main attributes of cloud computing that cause people to worry. First, you appear to lose control over your data’s physical location. And second, you expose your data to the Internet apparently swarming with hackers (“cracker” may be a better word), spies, thieves, and viruses. All alleged issues of privacy, security, and reliability stem from these two things. Often, critics assume that keeping data and applications on home or office computers is a safe alternative. This assumption is probably the biggest fallacy in the cloud computing debate. Let’s review some solutions to issues associated with cloud computing. Read more
Reputation Management Law is the Next Big Thing
Tony Wilson, of Boughton in Vancouver, wrote in this week’s issue of Lawyer’s Weekly,
Reputation matters… But it’s not just companies and trade-mark owners who have reputations to protect. We all do, and these days, much of our personal reputation is on the web for all the world to see.
Like many professionals, physicians in Canada operate by word-of-mouth referrals, largely based on the personal experiences of patients or other referring physicians. RateMDs has become an increasingly popular site for patients to share experiences about their physician.
It’s become enough of a concern to physicians that Sam Solomon provides some advice to MDs in this month’s edition of Parkhurst Exchange:
- Ask for the review to be taken down
- The Medical Justice approach of providing patients a contract allowing them to only post reviews on sites that confirm poster identity
- Sue
- Encourage patients to post positive reviews
- Use the criticism as an opportunity to improve practice
It’s unclear whether option 2) would hold up in court, and 1) is rarely effective, either due to confidentiality issues, site administrative policies, or simple refusal.
RateMDs was founded by the same people who made RateMyProfessors.com, RateMyTeachers.com, and the Ratingz.net network of rating sites that includes LawyerRatingz.com. It seems quite a few of my law professors are up there. A quick survey reveals that many Canadian attorneys have been rated, and most not favourably.
Assuming that the only people to ever review professionals are clients who have utilized their services is far too presumptuous. Competitors, business rivals, people with personal vendettas, and even opposing parties in lawsuits can pose as a client in an attempt to portray the person in a negative light.
It can and has happened. Solomon points to the case of Dr. Mohamed Foda of Leduc, Alberta, who forced RateMDs to provide information about a negative poster through the California Northern District Court in Foda et al v. RateMDs, Inc. On April 28, 2008, the Edmunton Sun covered the story,
An Edmonton urologist has launched a $12-million defamation lawsuit against two unidentified people for allegedly posting bogus poor ratings about him on the California Internet site RateMDs.com. In a March 31 statement of claim, Dr. Mohamed Foda alleges the postings were not made by actual patients of his, but by someone who has a “malicious” motive to harm his medical business, and states he will seek to identify the unknown defendants by searching for their computer identifying information. Foda claims the defamatory comments have caused irreparable harm to his reputation and medical practice and caused him emotional distress and anxiety.
The posts in question stated:
“This doctor prescribed me an antibiotic that causes birth defects after I clearly told him I was 4 months pregnant!! Apparently he made a ‘mistake.’” — Posted on RateMDs.com on October 1, 2007
“I found Dr Foda to ignore problems until drastic measures were required. Had to call numerous times to get an appointment. Felt that Dr Foda did not do required follow up in a timely manner. Did not inform patients of what he did in the OR [such as] remove tumours. Would have died if not for another [doctor].” — Posted on RateMDs.com on May 26, 2007
Administrator of RateMDs, John Swapceinski, says that the site gets letters from lawyers once a month. Not surprisingly, they do not comply with the requests. The site does serve an important public function for consumers of healthcare. But Swapceinski also said that Dr. Foda’s suit is the first time a lawyer has actually followed through and sued the site, and he indicated he would cooperate with a subpoena to release the information if one was provided.
In light of the Cohen v. Google and York University v. Bell Canada Enterprises cases I’ve covered previously, it’s probably no great surprise that the court did reveal the identity of the poster.
What is also unique about this case is that the person identified as the RateMDs poster was involved in different lawsuit on the other side of Dr. Foda in Foda v. Capital Health Region, [2007] A.J. No. 22; 2007 ABQB 19, where he was making a claim for breach of contract, conspiracy, harassment, defamation, and direct interference with economic relations.
The Court of Appeal ([2007] A.J. No. 668;2007 ABCA 207) upheld a motion to add a party to his statement of claim, but the defamation claim agains this party was struck for lack of evidence using the test in Botiuk v. Toronto Free Press Publications Ltd.,
62 …it is sufficient to observe that a publication which tends to lower a person in the estimation of right‑thinking members of society, or to expose a person to hatred, contempt or ridicule, is defamatory and will attract liability. See Cherneskey v. Armadale Publishers Ltd., [1979] 1 S.C.R. 1067, at p. 1079. What is defamatory may be determined from the ordinary meaning of the published words themselves or from the surrounding circumstances. In The Law of Defamation in Canada (2nd ed. 1994), R. E. Brown stated the following at p. 1‑15:
[A publication] may be defamatory in its plain and ordinary meaning or by virtue of extrinsic facts or circumstances, known to the listener or reader, which give it a defamatory meaning by way of innuendo different from that in which it ordinarily would be understood. In determining its meaning, the court may take into consideration all the circumstances of the case, including any reasonable implications the words may bear, the context in which the words are used, the audience to whom they were published and the manner in which they were presented.
But if the party Dr. Foda was seeking to add in the Alberta case – a Donna Canart, Surgical Clinic Coordinator at Leduc Community Hospital – is the same person identified in the California proceedings, this evidence may now be available. Canart allegedly filed a report against Dr. Foda according to the Capital Health Corporate Workplace Respect Policy, raising issues in the Alberta case of malicious prosecution. However, similar defamation claims in Alberta were made against co-defendant Linda Scott. The California case has only had two hearings to date, and Dr. Foda only spoke in general terms to Sam Solmon, so it is difficult to ascertain which specific party was behind the RateMDs posting.
Even when a claim is substantiated, it is possible for either party to turn malicious. The Foda case highlights that litigants in lawsuits can and will attempt to affect the reputation of the opposing party online, something I’ve predicted repeatedly. All types of litigation will invariably cross over into this specialized area of law.
Some of these rating sites allow the professors to respond to their students, even with video. Or, as they put it,
Your professors have been reading your comments on RateMyProfessors.com. Now it’s their turn…
I don’t see other professions going the same way, given the nature of client solicitation. So where do people turn for help?
Wilson concludes,
Just like there was no such thing as Internet law before the Internet or franchise law before there were franchises, a new and growing niche area is “reputation management law.” It straddles libel, slander and defamation law, freedom of speech, privacy law, copyright and trade-mark law, employment law and the rules governing Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media. And like environmental law 25 years ago, it has nowhere to go but up…
Either way, it’s clear that online reputation management is the next big thing that everyone will have to deal with.
Everyone reading this is now searching their name on LawyerRatingz.com, or other sites like CanLaw. They’re probably wondering what they would do if they were deliberately maligned, and trying to figure out who is the best”reputation management lawyer” they know, if any.
And that’s assuming that you waited until the end of the article to do so.
Policing Twitter
The New York Times reports that an American man has been arrested and charged with “hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime.” Pennsylvania State Police are referring specifically to Elliot Madison’s use of Twitter, the social-networking site that went from being something of an online inexplicability (messages can be no longer than 40 characters long, spaces included) to front-page news in June when the site became vital to organising anti-election protests in Iran. A largely American body of Twitterers then responded by using their own Twitter accounts to express solidarity with the Iranian protesters, many of whom were being arrested by Iranian police. In fact, the U.S. State Department went so far as to ask Twitter “to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election” (Reuters). Twitter co-founder Evan Williams eventually did comply, but he said the State Department’s request wasn’t why. He explained, “We did it because we thought it was the best thing for supporting the information flow there at a crucial time, and that’s kind of what we’re about – supporting the open exchange of information” (BBC).
Meanwhile, according to the NY Times, “On Thursday, F.B.I. agents descended on a house in Jackson Heights, Queens, and spent 16 hours searching it. The most likely reason for the raid: a man who lived there had helped coordinate communications among protesters at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.”
The article continues:
American protesters first made widespread use of mass text messages in New York, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, when hundreds of people used a system called TXTmob to share information. Messages, sent as events unfolded, allowed demonstrators and others to react quickly to word of arrests, police mobilizations and roving rallies. Mass texting has since become a valued tool among protesters, particularly at large-scale demonstrations.
And police and government officials appear to be increasingly aware of such methods of communication. In 2008, for instance, the New York City Law Department issued a subpoena seeking information from the graduate student who created the code for TXTmob. Still, Mr. Madison, who was released on bail shortly after his arrest, may be among the first to be charged criminally while sending information electronically to protesters about the police. [...]
Since the raid, no other charges have been filed against Mr. Madison. On Friday, Mr. Stolar [Madison’s lawyer] argued in Federal District Court in Brooklyn that the warrant was vague and overly broad. Judge Dora L. Irizarry ordered the authorities to stop examining the seized materials until Oct. 16, pending further orders. [...]
On Sunday night Mr. Madison said that the search of his home was an effort to “stifle dissent,” and added that several groups in Pittsburgh, including the summit organizers, had used Twitter accounts to describe events related to the meetings.
“They arrested me for doing the same thing everybody else was doing, which was perfectly legal,” he said. “It was crucial for people to have the information we were sending.”
This whole story begs several obvious questions. What exactly makes using Twitter to protest a G20 summit different from using Twitter to protest Iranian elections, such that US state entities will attempt to shut down the one and protect the next? How would this be different if Madison had used some other medium — or is what makes Twitter so dangerous, from the perspective of law enforcers, its ability to reach mass audiences immediately? If so, can legal action taken against Twitter users be applied against all forms of mass communications – most notably, cell phones? Is the current legal system even technologically-informed enough to be able to comprehend, let alone deal with, the tenacious mutability of the Internet specifically and community technologies generally? On exactly what rights can the social network users rely, or must these things always be decided on a case-by-case basis, at the whims of governing political discourses? Just who is responsible for the alleged crime in question – the creator of a given Twitter account, the viewers/readers/followers of that account, the creators of Twitter?
Blawg Review #228
If you’re just starting law school, law blawgs can be your best friend. In addition to this site, here are 99 other blog posts that you should read to help prepare for your adventure. It won’t help you though if you’re a judge about to be tested.
Most law students want to be in the top 10-15% of their class, and there are career opportunities that depend on that. Ken DeLeon of Top-law-schools.com provides some tips for success in law school, including a handy flowchart on how to prepare for your law school exams. But keep in mind that the end of the billable hour might result in some changes to your legal education, and law students have different learning styles than the rest of the population.
Still applying to law school? An undergraduate degree in physics or math might be your best option to get a solid LSAT score. Remember that these days a law career is considered a risky option, and there are lawyers in Jersey actually working for free. Where else is success defined by more work (even for less pay), and not more recreational or family time? Larry Ribstein still thinks law school is the cool choice. But is it really worth it?
On the other hand you could elect to skip your classes, get intoxicated regularly, sleep with all the members of the opposite sex, gain a reputation as being a total douche bag, and then score a book and movie deal.
Introducing Tucker Max – asshole extraordinaire – a graduate of Duke Law that claims assholes finish first.
An inspiring personality, certainly, and an approach that John Infante of Fearfully Optimistic would definitely disagree with. It does make you wonder how many Dukes are faking the Daisy to hazard “celebrity bias.” The Bitter Lawyer has an exclusive interview with Tucker that is, at the very least, amusing.
Then again, “skipping classes, playing basketball, doing cocaine and getting drunk” might help you become President of the United States – but eventually someone might start asking for your law school transcripts. None of this is likely to come up during the President’s special advice to students tomorrow (Sept. 8). An open and transparent government, perhaps, but not that open. Reality check: the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker may not be in law school.
Hey, “Some people snort cocaine, others snort religion,” and the latter is not necessarily better. The Exit at My Legal Fiction suggests wearing lipstick as a law school study aid, for some very compelling reasons. If you’re a missionary in Kenya, please don’t vow to go to law school out of religious convictions, unless you’re going to a low-ranking religious-affiliated law school. Happy Belated Todd, but I won’t be paying $25,000 for dinner any time soon.
Still, your biggest youthful indiscretion might be going to law school itself (and graduating at the bottom of your class hardly precludes success). If your indiscretions precede law school and include a criminal record, there are some disclosure issues you should consider. Using stolen Social Security Numbers to steal student loans for partying, with Tucker, Todd, or otherwise, probably isn’t a great idea. Assistant Deans at law schools? Not a good idea either.
Robert J. Ambrogi also tells us about Branigan Robertson of Chapman University School of Law, who won $10,000 for this video in the My Inspiration video contest:
These law students are doing better than a lot of lawyers these days. When life gives you lemons (or a recession), you should just make lemonade. Dan Markel is asking, what kind of juice are you making?
On the other hand, if you’re looking to avoid personalities like Tucker Max at all costs, you might be interested in Above the Law’s Douchiest Law School Contest.
No surprise that Harvard and Duke are currently heading the pack as finalists. Also check out Paul Caron’s review of U.S. News Law School Rankings for Judicial Clerkships, which includes data from Brian Leiter’s rankings. If douchiness turns you off of Yale and clerkships are really important to you, the University of North Dakota might be a good alternative. However, great credentials don’t always make more satisfied lawyers, because these guys tend to be plagued by that green-eyed monster.
Charon QC’s musings might be useful in determining if a “douchy law school” is worse than a “McDonalds of law schools,” while Dan Slater of the NYTimes suggests just locking the doors to all law schools because there are too few hiring positions. Still having a hard time picking a law school? The iPhone app Law School 100 is free until midnight tonight (Sept. 7). Study aids are becoming more interactive, with West’s new Interactive Case Series now linking to directly to law review articles cited in the case series.
Keep in mind that law school is different than undergrad, and you should probably clean up those social networks you’re on. After all, you wouldn’t want your mom witnessing you pulling a Tucker Max, and some employers might require you to submit your social media for a background check. Social media is also being increasingly being used in the courtroom, and no, the judge doesn’t really want to be your “friend.” Don’t get rid of that social media entirely though, because “People don’t find lawyers in the phone book… They find them through TV ads or friends or by searching the Internet, including blogs and social networking tools.”
Apparently what clients really want from their lawyer is to “feel the love,” so if someone comes to your office complaining they hurt their “tushy bone,” try not to laugh too hard. Be forewarned though – that volenti non fit injuria doctrine you learn in Torts class also applies to contracting Herpes Simplex I from wrestling, also known as Herpes Gladiatorium.
That’s probably not what Lauren in Law School had in mind when she suggested gladiator games as an alternative to On Campus Interviews (OCIs). You can get a list of the guys in your university with herpes from the new Campus Gossip site just to be on the safe side.
Although the number of followers you have on Twitter is no sign of of expertise or influence, it might land you a job (or lose it) with a firm or get you published, even if Perz Hilton decides to sue you for defamation. No “love” (or wrestling) for him, sorry. Some people do take Twitter seriously, perhaps too seriously.
Eric Goldman’s interview with David Lat highlights the importance of students networking during a crisis. Dennis Jansen also thinks that networking with your peers might be useful, but consists of more than “beaming your peers with business cards or mass-adding people on Facebook and LinkedIn.” As popular as WordPress may be for blogs, it just might not be for your law firm, and you even might be held liable for content on your site to a tune of $32.4 million.
The Law Society or State Bar is probably not going to like it if you steal other people’s Twitter content and pass it off as your own, like Melina Beninghoff did . Stealing content doesn’t take brilliance, and it barely takes effort. What is clever is coming up with this CraigsList listing from Los Angeles. But is stolen content any worse than fake content?
Today is also Labour (sic) Day in Canada and the U.S. That’s the Canadian spelling, because Labour Day did originate in Canada in 1872 with the Trade Unions Act, which legalized unions. The United States followed in 1882 with informal observance in New York City, and by 1894 it was observed by 23 states through legislation. Still, it was the American President Lincoln, not a Canadian, who said in December 1881,
It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor…
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not existed.
Although most Canadian law schools start the day after Labour Day, many Americans start a week or two earlier. According to Blawg Review 122 it seems that in Dublin they start as late as October, but it might just be that everyone (students and profs) are recovering from prolonged hang-overs.
Labour relations are highly relevant for this edition of Blawg Review, since law professors at the University of California are considering a walk-out despite having the “best public education in the world.” Perhaps they could use this list of 24 alternative mediation dispute resolution sites to read.
Maybe they should just settle this all over a beer. Then again, those Canadian brewers are at it again with their trade-mark litigation! Next time someone tells you “I Am Canadian,” you might want to do your due diligence.
The big thing up here in Canada right now is Copyright Consultation Reform. Although over-reaching legislation is great for the lawyers, it does little for end-users of copyright material. If you’re one of those folks with a keen attention for cyberspace cases, this new blog following the 10 most important U.S. cases will probably be of interest.
But the big thing about Canada in the U.S. right now seems to be our healthcare system, which we’re rather partial to, despite what they mights say (Ignore those pesky suits). Send us your gladiators with herpes, and your perdurable impetus. All that talk over at Volokh about a “lottery system” can only be described as nonsense.
(At 1:53 Glenn Beck repeats lottery libel, and at 3:21 yells at a caller to get off his phone, “you little pinhead,” for not listening to the “facts.” The remix is even funnier.)
Although she acknowledges that healthcare reform is needed, Althouse has 10 things she hates about it. Change is always hard due to “status quo bias.” Madeleine Begun Kane has a limerick she wrote just for the spats over healthcare in the U.S. (watch your pinkies!):
“Majority rule is just great,”
Said Gregg in the drilling debate.
“You’ve got 51 votes,
Then you win.” Check his quotes.
Yet 51 Dem votes don’t rate.
Seeking medical treatment is probably the first thing you should do after a car accident, irrespective of whether it occurs in Canada or the U.S. Passen Law provides 9 other things you should do, including, of course, getting an experienced personal injury lawyer.
Another thing we have in Canada absent in the U.S. is a prohibition against the death penalty. Perhaps the fact that 45% of wrongful convictions in capital cases are based on jailhouse snitches has something to do with it. Mark Bennett of Defending People points out the interesting observation that a Texan executioner appears to be committing murder by that state’s law,
…would you participate in a death penalty trial, knowing that, for the rest of your life, with the turn of a tide of public opinion you could be prosecuted for making what you believed to be the right decision? You may be betting your life.
Do you think that employment contract with the State would protect you? Don’t count on it, as Jeffery I. Gordon mentions that most contracts are too brittle to withstand scrutiny, even if those FirstDrafter clauses look like they can do the job.
On the other hand, if your employment contract follows an affirmative action plan that is not remedial and narrowly tailored for past discrimination, it may constitute unlawful discrimination. We’re still not sure if a stripper constitutes an employee or an independent contractor in Employment Law class.
More guys in that class would probably express their anticipation for seeing Jessica Alba as the stripper-law student Nancy Callahan in the upcoming Sin City 2 if they weren’t concerned about objectifying women.
Don’t lose any sleep over it, unless you’ve sexually assaulted employees and are settling for $1.72 million. Be careful though – the risk of contracting gladiator herpes (and sins) rises exponentially when wrestling with strippers. You could also get robbed or raped.
Personally, I would be okay with any affirmative action that sought to get everyone but Tucker Max and any potential douches into my law school. Nancy Callahan might get a pass, as long as she doesn’t hook up with Tucker while she’s there.
Special thanks to David Shulman for editing on this piece.
That’s it for this week’s edition! Remember: Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.
An absolute beginner’s guide to free online marketing for lawyers
Don’t you cringe when you hear marketing and lawyers in the same sentence? Didn’t you go to law school instead of an MBA program so you never had to deal with marketing or sales of some sort? That may be true, but I am afraid you’re stuck with marketing as long as you have or need clients. The good news is the Internet and social media can take both the stigma and the pain out of the process. It works, and it is often absolutely free. You just need to know some basics.
Let’s assume you’re not Edward Greenspan or Abraham Lincoln. You’re interested in reaching out to three groups: clients, potential clients and colleagues. You know how to use the Internets, and you don’t mind some publicity. Before you go any further, remember: choose strong passwords and use some password management software. That should keep you reasonably safe from identity theft. Finally, have an open mind and grow a thick skin. Some people on the Internet have a foul mouth. Beyond these simple warnings lie huge online marketing opportunities.
The power of free online marketing is in social media. Here is how it works. Social media is a way to publish messages for a circle of followers. If some of these followers have their own followers, you all form a network. When your message reaches your circle, one or more of its members can pass it on. It’s exactly how rumours spread in small towns. But social networks are bigger and faster thanks to instant and massive online communications. Some celebrities have online circles consisting of hundreds of thousands of people. Imagine the PR possibilities. And the media is social because online audiences themselves do a lot of heavy lifting in spreading the message.
That’s exactly how sites like Twitter work. You get your own page. You can post short messages on it. If you get someone to care about it, they can subscribe to your updates. You can subscribe to other people’s updates. Each subscriber can scroll through a page consisting of updates posted by his or her circle. If a message is interesting enough, it can propagate through the network reaching awfully many people. All for free. You just need to get the community to care. Facebook and LinkedIn are similar, but they used to focus on building online people networks. Now they imitate Twitter by encouraging members to post updates. Social media works because millions of people are on these sites typing away or reading every minute of every day—millions connected into a network.
Every message on the Internet that matters works like this today. Forums, blogs, good old websites, you name it. Unless the message gets into social media, it’s probably lost. I am not talking about paid advertising of course. That’s an exception, but you probably already know that money can buy you eyeballs. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, social media can help you.
Take blogs, for example. A blog (click for an example) is just a webpage where you post articles on a regular basis. It usually looks like a sequence of postings sorted in chronological order. Often authors allow readers to post comments or questions under each posting. Twitter postings are similar to blog posts, but there are two important differences. First, your posts on Twitter must be 140 characters or less. There is usually no length limits on blogs. Second, Twitter organizes readers into a cohesive community making it easy to pass on posts (tweets) through the network. The length limit also simplifies spreading a message through the community. Shorter messages on average probably have higher chances of being read than long blog posts. Remember, the key to social media is the speed and the reach of your message.
Forums are one of the oldest methods of online discussion and content distribution. A forum (click for an example) is a webpage with a list of topics. Each topic is a link to another webpage with a list of posts on this topic. Each post is also a link leading to a page that contains responses to the post. That’s how people talked online fifteen years ago. That’s how many of us still talk today. Unless the forum is members-only, anyone can choose to check the postings. But you have to scroll through all of them to see if anything interests you. Then you can choose to respond. If you are interested in several forums, you have to check all of them regularly. There is no circle trusted to post only what interests you. You have to sift through the content yourself. But some forums are so popular that this is not an issue.
(to be continued)
Canadian Lawyer Magazine Mentions Law is Cool
The June issue of Canadian Lawyer magazine mentions this site in connection with an article on how lawyers can use online platforms for client development.
Even law students are using the Twitter-blog combination to get their names out there and position themselves in the field. Omar Ha-Redeye, a second-year student at the University of Western Ontario law school, has garnered a lot of attention through his blog as well as through the web sites Law is Cool and Slaw, too, which he says is already benefiting him as he develops a reputation well before he graduates. “I have lots of informal mentorships with lots of lawyers practising in the field.”
Omar Ha-Redeye’s review of the piece can be found on Slaw.
The article also interviewed Erik Magraken of MacIsaac & Co, Deborah Glendinning of Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Rick Powers of the Rotman School of Management, Simone Hughes at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Michael Rabinovici of AR Communications Inc, Dan Michaluk and Susan Carnevale of Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP, Michael Rynowecer of BTI Consulting Group Inc., and David Diamond of Diamond & Diamond Lawyers.
Social Media in Canadian Politics, and Defamation and Copyright (Episode 19)
Omar Ha-Redeye gave a talk on the use of social media in politics, focusing on the Canadian scene, at the Miles S. Nadal Management Centre in the Ernst & Young Tower of the Toronto Dominion Centre.
Issues of copyright, including the use of YouTube, are discussed, as well as social media alternatives to defamation actions.
Ontario Ombudsman
The office of Ontario Ombudsman is on Twitter and Facebook. The Ombudsman is a pretty unique independent oversight officer accountable directly to the provincial legislature. He investigates people’s complaints under the authority granted by the Ombudsman Act.
Add or follow the Ombudsman. It’s cool to see government trying to get on the social media bandwagon.
Real Media Don’t Die, We Multiply
If you’ve been alive and on the Internet in the past year you would have read the obituaries – print newspapers are dead. Or dying, so they claim.
Some are even claiming the recession with determine the outcome of print, who are expected to see a major decline in 2009. Even law reviews are seeing the transition to exclusive virtual publication. And print legal researchers may be an endangered species.
One of the best April Fool’s gags this year was The Guardian‘s story on how they had moved to Twitter – exclusively.
But others claim that traditional media is not dying, it’s simply changing. Parker Mason, a PR friend of mine in TO said,
Did the invention of the printing press kill off the spoken word? No. It just meant that hand-lettered books were no longer necessary, and it gave more people access to literature and information.
Did the invention of radio kill off the written word? Again, no.
Did television indeed kill the radio star? No, but it might have forced some radio stars to adapt to become more television-friendly. And it also created a whole knew breed of radio stars.
Did the internet kill television? Again, no. If you’re like me, you might not use an actual television set but you probably still enjoy watching television shows on your computer or portable device.
Print media is likely to be around regardless. What papers will do is probably enhance their online presence, and many Canadian papers are already seeing an explosion of comments and interactivity on their sites. Dany Horovitz of Law is Cool also writes for the National Post’s Executive Blog, an exclusively digital publication.
Legal media is probably not much different, despite our affinity in this industry for paper. With over 4,500 hits a day on this site (and growing), we’re competing directly with legal print media for numbers. But not necessarily readership, because ours is global; or even for content, given our unique format and different focus on students specifically.
Smart newspapers will make this transition seamlessly. Smarter ones will partner with existing online media outlets.
The University of Western Ontario’s law school paper, Nexus, did post here for some time through their former editor-in-chief, Alex Dimson. The paper has gone through some changes and is now named Amicus Curiae, and we’re pleased to announce that the new paper will posting selective articles on Law is Cool as well.
Check out Ahmed Farahat’s excellent interview with Justice Binnie. Kamila Pizon of Amicus Curiae will also be posting shortly on the transition from LL.B. to J.D.
The synergies between print and virtual media are natural but often overlooked. We benefit from well-researched, carefully edited pieces, and they have an opportunity to speak to a larger audience.
Trained journalists also benefit from going online, and bring their writing skills with them.
For example, we’ve just taken on Digal Haio, a 2L at Osgoode. I first met Digal years ago during outreach activities in politics, where she was working for the Somali Press, an important voice for a vibrant and dynamic community with unique challenges of marginalization, discrimination, and racism. We’ve always had a strong mandate on this site for social justice and empowerment, and her contributions will definitely be valued.
At one time I also worked as a reporter in a print-based newspaper as a side job.
But the conversation goes the other way as well. I recently did an interview with Charles Adler on his nationally-syndicated radio show. The topic of conversation? My blog post on Animal Spirits, something everyone is worrying about in the midst of the G20 and economic troubles. I did another interview yesterday with Luigi Bennetton for Lawyers Weekly on web collaboration and wikis.
The Internet is an excellent place journalists to find topics of interest among the public, and find resources and experts for their pieces.
Law firms and lawyers have never underestimated the need for media presence, for client development or even basic advocacy. At some point they’ll have to start including online media, because that’s where most of the content will be. The University of Western Ontario law school recently started posting videos and downloadable audio files for our distinguished speakers, a move that will likely increase their profile generally in the legal community.
The growth of online media does not necessarily mean the demise of print. It just harkens change, one of the inevitabilities in life. Those embracing this change will not only flourish, but will find their media experiences enriched as a result.
Please note most of us are entering our exam period, and regular postings will be on hold.
A Google Search For “Mistrial” Yields Too Many Results
As the prevalence of internet-capable smartphones increases, so too does the rate of mistrials.
According to The New York Times,
The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.
Last week a juror in a large federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing online research on the case. The judge then discovered that eight other jurors had been Googling as well, which forced a mistrial and laid eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defence lawyers to waste.
In the same week, an Arkansas court was asked to overturn $12.6 million (USD) judgment, claiming that a juror used Twitter to send updates during the civil trial.
And defence lawyers in the federal corruption trial of a former Pennsylvania state senator demanded that the judge declare a mistrial because a juror had Tweeted that a “big announcement” (the verdict) was coming on Monday.
In the United States and Canada, jurors are not supposed to seek information relevant to the case outside of the courtroom. They must reach their verdict based only on the admissible evidence.
The principle behind this rule is that information presented in the courtroom must pass through a number of filters before reaching the “triers of fact.” These filters are the adversarial system, the law of evidence, and the discretion of a judge. They are intended to enhance the veracity, relevancy, and legality of information presented to jurors.
For instance, the adversarial system creates the opportunity for information presented to jurors to be responded to and challenged by both parties. The reliability of a witness’ testimony can be challenged in the crucible of cross-examination.
But neither party has the opportunity to challenge information gleaned from a juror’s Blackerry, which may be prejudicial and/or just plain false.
Now, using their cellphones, jurors can read the accused’s blog, or examine an intersection using Google Maps, thereby violating the legal system’s rules of evidence. They can also trumpet the contents of the jury’s secret deliberations to the public by Tweeting, blogging, and texting.
According to Douglas L. Keene, president of the American Society of Trial Consultants, “It’s really impossible to control it.”
Mr. Keene said jurors might think they were pursuing justice and the truth by conducting additional research and detective work:
There are people who feel they can’t serve justice if they don’t find the answers to certain questions.
But according to Professor Wellborn, co-author of a handbook on evidence law,
The beauty of the adversarial system [is lost] when the jurors go out on their own.
According to the New York Times,
In the Arkansas case, Stoam Holdings, the company trying to overturn the $12.6 million judgment, said a juror, Johnathan Powell, had sent Twitter messages during the trial. Mr. Powell’s messages included “oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they’ll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter” and “So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”
See relevant Canadian law by clicking “Read more.”
Sysomos Has Your Info, and Has Some Interesting Results
Yesterday, Nicole Baute of the Toronto Star covered a new social networking analysis company, Sysomos. The Canadian company gathers data from Twitter, Facebook, and 30 million blogs. Yes, 30 million.
It’s a new start-up by a UofT prof and one of his grad students, and they received financial support from the province to get things going.
They claim to go beyond brand monitoring by identifying what people are saying, who these people are, and what their tone is.
One recent practical application is mentions of Stephen Harper when parliament was prorogued. They also say it could be used for crisis communications, such as the recent Maple Leaf scare.
Privacy concerns are also raised by one marketing professor,
I’m no lawyer, but my general sense here is that there’ll be some noise in the system (from privacy advocates) about this. I think it’s user beware, and if you choose to blog, you’re putting stuff out into the public sphere.
I’m no lawyer either, but I would agree that if the information they are collecting is made publicly available by the user and only analyzed in the aggregate, there is little room to complain.
As for ads that watch you through a hidden video camera and use facial-recognition software, that’s a totally different issue.
Cross-posted from Slaw
The President’s a Twit. Sorry, Tweet.
Well it seems as if Barack Obama might be the first black Twitter president of the United States. The Twitter blog indicates he will be the first to have an official account.
They also indicate an enormous spike in Twitter usage during the election.
Canadian politicians seem slightly ahead of the game in this respect, with our own Prime Minister having an account. But his number of followers, around 2,000 at present, pales in comparison to that of Obama with over 120,000.
Sure, we can cite population differences between Canada and the U.S., or talk about the impact of American politics in the world versus Canada.
What makes this really interesting is that Barack Obama is the Twitter user that has the most followers, period, and by a healthy margin. That’s more than Digg founder Kevin Rose, technology reporter Leo Leporte, or even CNN.
This has prompted some Twitter users to wonder whether he will also be the first president to send presidential announcements via email. If any other politician were to try this it would quickly be resisted as spam or propaganda. But Obama might just be able to get away with it, and if so, the nature of civic communications may be transformed forever.
It seems hackers have caught on to this as well, with the Washington Post reporting that Obama e-mails are being used to carry Trojans.
Other American political offices and politicians can also be found on Twitter.
Cross posted from Slaw
