Law Times

PAGE 6 COMMENT July 27/August 3, 2009 • lAw times Law Times Group Publisher ....... Karen Lorimer Editorial Director ....... Gail J. Cohen Editor ........... Gretchen Drummie Associate Editor ......... Robert Todd Staff Writer ............. Glenn Kauth Copy Editor ......... Heather Gardiner CaseLaw Editor ...... Jennifer Wright Art Director .......... Alicia Adamson Production Co-ordinator .. Catherine Giles Electronic Production Specialist ............. Derek Welford Advertising Sales .... Kimberlee Pascoe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kathy Liotta Sales Co-ordinator ......... Sandy Shutt ©Law Times Inc. 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written permission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Law Times Inc. disclaims any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the contents of this publication and disclaims all liability in respect of the results of any action taken or not taken in reliance upon information in this publication. Editorial Obiter there is still much to be done in terms of policing this untamed creature. Issues sur- rounding libel, privacy, and accuracy have long been addressed in print but clearly have a way to go with respect to content sprouting on the world's computers. And then, there's what has happened to ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews. Andrews was violated pure and simple . . . and that actually might be putting it mildly. W While alone in her hotel room, she was secretly spied upon by a creepy peeping Tom who drilled holes into the wall, and trained his camcorder's hun- gry lens on her as she went about her private business — naked. It should give one shivers to contemplate. hile there's pretty much uni- versal agreement that the In- ternet is a wonderful thing, Then, this piece of garbage posted his vile video prize on the Internet. The blurry, five minutes show the poor wom- an standing before a mirror (though I won't watch it for confirmation). Andrews' lawyer, Marshall Grossman, confirmed, "While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent. She was the victim of a crime and is taking action to protect herself and help ensure that others are not similarly violated in the future." Good for her: find this loser and make sure he's dealt with criminally. In fact, her lawyer said she's seeking crim- inal charges and will file civil lawsuits against the perpetrator. "Erin has been grievously wronged here," said ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz. "Our people and resources Throw a net on it are in full support of her as she deals with this abhorrent act." But Andrews is just the current poster girl for what could happen to any one of us. It is possible these days to go to a beach, be surreptitiously videotaped and violà, it's on the Internet before you know it. The fact that one is topless on a beach set aside for that type of sunbathing is one thing; being exposed to the world as such is quite another. Or, while doing anything that could be misconstrued out of con- text being filmed without our knowledge, posted for say employers to peruse, and unlike with social networking sites when the damage is self-inflicted, appear com- pletely out of the blue like an assault. There is still a Wild West mentality on the web. To wit blog rumorsandrants.com wrote: "While they are completely creepy in every way . . . she looks incredible. She looks better than any of us could have ever hoped." Gee, that's like saying it was a good thing for the gunslinger to throw Miss Kitty over his shoulder. But would that be said about Miss Andrews if this peeping Tom had been caught red-handed, crouched and leering through the hole and stuff like videos and the Internet were not involved? Nope. For some bizarre reason, when it's on the 'net there's a lowering of barriers. This action is a criminal offence pure and simple and just because it hap- pened on the Internet should not be taken lightly and available for strangers to ogle at the end of the fingertips. There is a huge opportunity out there for lawyers to get involved in clipping a leash on this beast on a variety of levels. — Gretchen Drummie D o lawyers still read Black- stone's famous Commen- taries? Not much. Blackstone: the man behind the tome That's In fact, you might say they never did. That's not where his influence depended on, judg- ing by a new biography of William Blackstone. Its author, Wilfrid Prest, is one of the great historians of English law and English law- yers, despite spending his aca- demic career in Australia, on the other side of the world from his subject and his sources. He has built this biography on in- tricate research and stays close to the man, not the book. He admires Blackstone, but doesn't disguise what a curious figure the author of Commentaries on the Laws of England was. Blackstone (1723-1770) was a lawyer who hardly practised. A law professor when there were no law professors. And an orphan boy from a London shop who became a knight, a judge, and a wealthy coun- try gentleman, mostly on the strength of that one book. Blackstone might have become a poet, an architect, or even a university administrator. He dabbled successfully in them all. As a scholarship boy at Oxford, he managed the fi- nances of his college and put the university press on its feet as an academic publishing house. Neither achievement made him very popular among his colleagues — academic poli- tics were vicious even then. Blackstone got himself called to the bar, but he wasn't good in court or at getting and keeping clients. It was the law as an object of study that re- ally interested Blackstone. So he went back to Oxford and more or less invented the role of the law professor. In the 18th century and long after, the English idea of the common law was that it had grown up strong without ever having any basic rules or principles. The common law was celebrated as a vast accre- tion of statutes and precedents and procedures that defied all systems. English lawyers agreed you could only learn it History By Christopher Moore by doing it — by articling. That being the case, there was no curriculum to base a law school on. And no law professors. So Blackstone be- gan offering unofficial lectures in law. He did quite nicely charging fees for them. Blackstone's feat of genius was in managing to make a system out of the unsystemat- ic common law. Look, he said, in effect, law isn't that compli- cated, I can give you the gist of it. The lectures in which he did that became the basis of the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Blackstone and his book became famous because they did a really good job of explaining the gist of the English common law. It was not lawyers who needed this elaborate Common www.lawtimesnews.com Law for Dummies version of the law. Lawyers still learned on the job, working through all kinds of complexities not covered in Blackstone's Commentaries. The Englishmen who re- ally appreciated the Com- mentaries were non-lawyers: the property owners, justices of the peace, politicians, "men of business." They got just enough law, simply explained, out of Blackstone to suffice for their needs, and they made Blackstone synonymous with the law of the land. Blackstone even prospered in the American colonies and states despite his conservative views and reverence for mon- archy. Frontier Americans who did not have lawyers to give them the fundamentals of common law got them from Blackstone's book instead. Even in the 1830s, Abra- ham Lincoln was thinking he would be a blacksmith — until someone gave him the Commentaries. He read them, said, "I can do this," and went Law Times Inc. 240 Edward Street, Aurora, ON • L4G 3S9 Tel: 905-841-6481 • Fax: 905-727-0017 www.lawtimesnews.com President: Stuart J. Morrison Publications Mail Agreement Number 40762529 • ISSN 0847-5083 Law Times is published 40 times a year by Law Times Inc. 240 Edward St., Aurora, Ont. L4G 3S9 • 905-841-6481. lawtimes@clbmedia.ca CIRCULATIONS & SUBSCRIPTIONS $141.75 per year in Canada (GST incl., GST Reg. #R121351134) and US$266.25 for foreign addresses. Single copies are $3.55 Circulation inquiries, postal returns and address changes should include a copy of the mailing label(s) and should be sent to Law Times Inc. 240 Edward St., Aurora, Ont. L4G 3S9. Return postage guaranteed. Contact Kristen Schulz-Lacey at: kschulz-lacey@clbmedia.ca or Tel: 905-713-4355 • Toll free: 1-888-743-3551 or Fax: 905-841-4357. ADVERTISING Advertising inquiries and materials should be directed to Sales, Law Times, 240 Edward St., Aurora, Ont. L4G 3S9 or call Karen Lorimer at 905-713-4339 klorimer@clb- media.ca, Kimberlee Pascoe at 905-713-4342 kpascoe@clbmedia.ca, or Kathy Liotta at 905- 713- 4340 kliotta@clbmedia.ca or Sandy Shutt at 905-713-4337 sshutt@clbmedia.ca Law Times is printed on newsprint containing 25-30 per cent post-consumer recycled materials. Please recycle this newspaper. on to the tougher stuff. Blackstone, meanwhile, seemed for a while at risk of falling into the awkward situ- ation law schools have some- times faced. What he taught wasn't practical for working lawyers, but might be seen as too practical to get respect as true scholarship. In the end he overcame that. Even lawyers came to agree that no one knew the whole legal territory better than Blackstone did. Like Bora Laskin and a few other law professors since, he suc- cessfully parlayed that reputa- tion into a judgeship and the knighthood that went with it. Wilfrid Prest's William Blackstone: Law and Letters in the Eighteenth Century was published by Oxford University Press in 2008. LT Christopher Moore's most recent book is McCarthy Tétrault: Building Canada's Premier Law Firm, published by Douglas & McIntyre. His web site is www. christophermoore.ca.

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