Law Times

Law Times • January 14, 2013 Page 5 NEWS Law blogs proliferate Clawbies awards see tenfold increase in online activity BY YAMRI TADDESE Law Times F rom legal technology tipsters to fertility law practitioners, the best of those who share their thoughts online received a nod from the 2012 Clawbies awards for legal blogging. Stem Legal Web Enterprises Inc. says it's seeing a proliferation of practitioners in the blogosphere, which makes selecting winners a more difficult task than in the past. When they started a few years ago, the Clawbies had 43 Canadian law blogs to assess. "This year, that number has increased nearly tenfold: there are now more than 400 Canadian law blogs to be found on the Internet," Stem Legal said in a press release. David Doorey of Doorey's Workplace Law Blog received the Fodden Award for Best Canadian Law Blog, while Wise Law Blog won for best legal news and A Bon Droit, All About Information, and The Trial Warrior shared the best practitioner blog honour. Doorey, an Osgoode Hall Law School professor, says he created the blog as a teaching tool in 2008 and didn't expect it to become a source of information for the legal profession as a whole. "I saw it as a way to engage students in the legal materials I was teaching in class by linking them to real world events," he says. "Blogs are great for this because I can create legal scenarios from news stories and challenge students to develop the arguments that they'd make if they were the advocates." Doorey notes he's now getting about "If I ever have a legal 200,000 hits per year "on a question now — and I'm law blog that has no naked not talking about writing a celebrities or Hollywood factum or something that gossip." needs to be very detailed — The Clawbies have honinstead of having to open oured him for best law proup your Westlaw and start fessor blog in the past, but doing legal research from Doorey says "the Fodden scratch, I'm using Google Award for best overall law and someone's probably blog in Canada came as a big blogged on it," she notes. surprise because the qualFor all bloggers, keepity of law blogs in Canada is now so very high. It's really 'I think some people still kind of ing up with posts is time an honour to have been sin- like to look at lawyers as very for- consuming. "It's a lot of work, but I gled out for this distinction." mal, and blogging helps to, I guess, Blogs are a great way for humanize us a bit,' says Sara Cohen. consider it to be part of my responsibility to students lawyers to open up to each other and the general public, says Sara and the legal community as an academic Cohen of Fertility Law Canada. She was to distribute information and engage in the one of the winners in the best new blogs important debates," says Doorey. "The blog is an effective way to reach an category. Stem Legal described Cohen's blog as audience beyond my fellow academics." Law Society of Upper Canada Treasurer "one of the most fascinating new law blogs in Canada, addressing legal and policy is- Thomas Conway also received an honoursues around reproductive rights and assist- able mention from the Clawbies for his blog, The Treasurer's Blog. ed reproductive technologies." "It's laudable in no small part because it On Fertility Law Canada, Cohen weaves policy and ethical questions into the highly marks the first time the leader of a Canapersonal choice of using assisted fertility dian lawyers' governing body has entered technologies. The blog allows her to con- the 'blawgosphere' and engaged on issues nect to people who use these technologies of substance," Stem Legal said, encouraging other law society leaders to follow and advocate on their behalf, Cohen says. "I think some people still kind of like Conway's example. But a Canadian award recipients' list to look at lawyers as very formal, and blogging helps to, I guess, humanize us a would have been incomplete without a bit," she says. "Especially with what I do, gesture to friends in the south. Ron Friedmann, who writes on Stratewhat I do is very personal." Legal blogs are also a great way of do- gic Legal Technology, won in the "friend of the north" category. He blogs about ing quick research, Cohen says. legal technology and how firms can do legal business more efficiently. The Virginia lawyer and technology guru was surprised when he found out about the recognition on Twitter. "I like to think I bring a distinctive voice and a distinct way of looking at legal technology but I'd say legal business management writ large," he says. Publishing via blogs is in line with his minimalist, efficient way of doing business instead of waiting for traditional media to cover a topic, Friedmann says. But the winning blogs themselves have become a source for mainstream media at times. "The [Doorey Workplace Law] blog has itself sometimes becomes news, something I certainly didn't expect," says Doorey. "It's cited in media stories and it's even appeared several times as an authority in peer-reviewed law journals. I've received calls from politicians and lawyers who want to discuss comments published on the blog." The Clawbies were created to encourage more lawyers to communicate in a fun and exciting way, according to Stem Legal. "To say that that effort has been a success is to understate the matter," the company notes, adding that what used to be a "one-man show" of deciding winners now takes a team of social media-savvy folks spanning the country and overseas. "We believe unequivocally that this allround improvement is a matter of every blogger raising his or her game in a response to the high quality of content offered elsewhere across Canada and we are proud to have played some part in that." LT A OF CANADIAN LEGAL NEWS DAILY BLOG WWW.CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/LEGALFEEDS C POWERED BY CANADIAN LAWYER & LAW TIMES LegalFeeds-1/2-LT-Apr23-12 2.indd 1 www.lawtimesnews.com 12-04-24 12:17 PM

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