Jordan Furlong and Warren Smith named Omar Ha-Redeye as one of the top 12 social media influencers practicing law in Canada in the September 23, 2011 issue of The Lawyers Weekly.

The other influential lawyers included:

John Boscariol, McCarthy Tétrault LLP, Toronto. Twitter: @tradelawyer

David Canton, Harrison Pensa LLP, London Ont. Twitter: @davidcanton

Caroline Clapham, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Vancouver. Twitter: @carolineclapham

Michael Fitzgibbon, Watershed LLP, Oakville, Ont. Twitter: @managementlaw

David Fraser, McInnes Cooper LLP, Halifax. Twitter: @privacylawyer

Nicole Garton-Jones, Heritage Law Group, Vancouver. Twitter: @ngartonjones

Rob Hyndman, Hyndman Law, Toronto. Twitter: @rhh

Erik Magraken, MacIssac & Co., Victoria. Twitter: @erikmagraken

Stuart Rudner, Miller Thomson, Toronto. Twitter: @CanadianHRLaw

Barry Sookman, McCarthy Tétrault, Toronto. Twitter: @bsookman

Garry Wise, Wise Law Group, Toronto. Twitter: @wiselaw

Furlong and Smith also provided a list of a dozen non-practicing legal professionals who led the pack in social media influence:

David Bilinksy, Law Society of B.C., Vancouver. Twitter: @David_Bilinsky

Colin Cameron, Profits for Partners Management Consulting, Vancouver. Twitter: @colincameron

Samantha Collier, MBM Intellectual Property Law, Vancouver. Twitter: @samtaracollier

Connie Crosby, Crosby Group Consulting, Oakville, Ont. Twitter: @crosbygroup

David Eby, B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Vancouver. Twitter: @Dave_Eby

Simon Fodden, Slaw.ca, Toronto. Twitter: @fodden

Michael Geist, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, Ottawa. Twitter: @mgeist

Dominic Jaar, KPMG, Montreal. Twitter: @dominicjaar

Steve Matthews, Stem Legal Web Enterprises, Vancouver. Twitter: @stevematthews

Shaunna Mireau, Field LLP, Edmonton. Twitter: @smireau

Dan Pinnington, LawPRO, Toronto. Twitter: @danpinnington

David Whelan, Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto.Twitter: @davidpwhelan

Canada’s Top Social Media Influencers

Omar Ha-Redeye won the 2010 Blawg Review of the Year for his contribution in Blawg Review 278.

Blawg Review is an international blog carnival, featuring blog posts from the legal community.  The Blawg Review of the Year is selected by the readership through submissions to the editor.

See the announcement on Law is Cool.

Here’s the complete list of Blawg Reviews for 2010:

• #245 CharonQC
• #246 The Client Revolution
• #247 A Public Defender
• #248 Scots Law Student
• #249 Slaw.ca
• #250 The Trial Warrior Blog
• #251 Canadian Trademark
• #252 Law Firm Web Strategy
• #253 South Florida Lawyers
• #254 Sui Generis
• #255 Law Shucks
• #256 Cyberlaw Central
• #257 Lance Godard
• #258 Statements of Interest
• #259 Legal Blog Watch
• #260 Genomics Law Report
• #261 IPKat
• #262 Public Intellectual
• #263 She Negotiates
• #264 A Clatter of the Law
• #265 The Trademark Blog
• #266 Freedom to Differ
• #267 Spam Notes
• #268 HealthBlawg
• #269 IPTAblog.org
• #270 Preaching to Perverted
• #271 Lowering the Bar
• #272 Lawyerist
• #273 ninetyfiveyears
• #274 LoTempio Law Blog
• #275 Trust Matters
• #276 Securing Innovation
• #277 Chicago IP Litigation
• #278 Law is Cool
• #279 Not Guilty
• #280 Likelihood of Confusion
• #281 An Associate’s Mind
• #282 Defending People
• #283 Ed @ Blawg Review
• #284 Mark Bennett’s Blog
• #285 Freedom to Differ
• #286 Piercie Shafton
• #287 An Associate’s Mind
• #288 The Defense Rests
• #289 Patent Baristas
• #290 Pink Tape
• #291 Dave! Gulbransen

The case was an appeal of the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Fraser v. Ontario, which is currently pending judgment at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The moot was judged by Paul Broad, Barry Brown, Aida Gattfield, Bob Atkinson, and Margaret Szilassy.

Results from the 2009 Canadian Law Blog Awards (CLawBies) are in, and Law is Cool and Slaw are both winners:

1) Best Canadian Law Blog (or Blogger) Award: Slaw – As most readers will already know, Slaw is not only a huge presence on the Canadian law blog scene, but it’s also a testament to the innovative and creative vision of Simon Fodden. It’s often hard to see how Slaw could get better, but it did in 2009. Want proof? See this year’s guest blogging initiatives, which included major law firms, provincial ombudsmen from across Canada, plus five Justices from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Add a DK Blawggies recognition, and we have a winner!  Runner ups: Canadian Privacy Law Blog, Wise Law Blog

…

3) Legal Culture Award – Law is Cool – Two of the fastest rising stars in Canadian legal blogging just happen to be law students. Lawrence Gridin and Omar Ha-Redeye lead an impressive group of contributors at Law is Cool, and are seeding the queue with more law student bloggers for the future. Bravo! Culture doesn’t happen without a little sweat equity.  Runner ups: Precedent, Dynamic Lawyers Parody Videos

A special thanks to those who gave a special mention to me (although I freely lend my authority to the other sites I’m affiliated with instead):

Antonin Pribetic – My Nominees for the 2009 Canadian Law Blog Awards (the “CLawBies”)

Omar Ha-Redeye Blog: http://www.omarha-redeye.com/): Omar Ha-Redeye is a J.D. candidate at the University of Western Law School and a leading light in the Canadian blawging community.  His publications include scientific journals, trade magazines, and contributions to university textbooks. Ha-Redeye has served as a Senior Administrator for a tsunami relief team that operated in rural Aceh, Indonesia and consulted NGO’s and businesses on crisis communications. He has taken the lead in the field of reputation management law. A frequent contributor to Slaw.ca and Law Is Cool, I admire Omar’s dedication to law, justice and human rights.

Donna Seale – My Picks for the 2009 CLawBies

3. My last pick is Slaw.  Slaw is a co-operative weblog covering pretty much anything that has a connection to Canadian law and it does that in spades.  Since I started following this blog a few years ago it has grown leaps and bounds and now has so many contributors I’ve lost count.  In fact, it has grown so much that I sometimes find it hard to keep up with the blog’s multitude of posts, but I always find something in my feedreader from Slaw that is of interest and use to me.  I do have to admit, though, that because of the sheer volume of content coming from Slaw I have taken to scouting out posts from particular Slaw contributers — David Bilinsky, Dan Michaluk, Steve Matthews, Jordan Furlong, Omar Ha-Redeye always top my list because they produce content I find personally relevant.

Connie Crosby - My nominations for the Clawbies

Like almost everyone else who have blogged their picks, I can’t help but mention others who are well deserving and should be included in any “top Canadian law blogs list” – Library Boy by Michel-Adrien Sheppard, Law is Cool by an ever-growing slate of law students, created by the inimitable Omar Ha-Redeye,  Thoughtful Legal Management by David Bilinsky, Canadian Privacy Law Blog by David Fraser, Michael Geist’s blog which has a reach far, far outside the legal community in Canada,  and Halo Secretarial blog by Laurie Mapp who is a legal virtual assistant (or legal VA) and helps me stay on track in my day to day work. And so many others!

Blawger of the Year – Omar Ha-Redeye

Read more from Simmon Fodden.

My nominations for the 2009 CLawBies Awards.

Despite being conflicted I have to start with Jordan Furlong, especially for posts like this:

Firms focus relentlessly on the students with the highest grades… even though these students can be one-dimensional performers with an affinity for the academic environment and no competing pressures outside the classroom. Contrast that with an older student, perhaps with a couple of kids and a part-time job, with or without a partner at home, who took an unorthodox route to law school and perhaps struggles to compete with the younger students — but who is still bright, hard-working, experienced and capable of being a standout lawyer. The firms never even look at graduates like that, and an opportunity is missed on both sides.

Then there’s always stories like this one which make the choices in a legal career really easy to make,

Nearly half of aboriginal and visible minority lawyers are associates, compared with one-third of white lawyers. And the minority groups are more likely to work as in-house lawyers, in government, in business or as sole practitioners.

As for pay, minority lawyers earned $40,000 less on average than did white lawyers… “This suggests the systemic exclusion of aboriginal and members of visible minorities from the most lucrative jobs.”

Instead, we make our own opportunities like getting involved in social media, becoming what Lawrence Gridin jokes as, “the most famous law student in Canada.”  The upside of my approach is that I get people like Dan Michaluk calling me “a fascinating guy.”

That’s not the reason why I’m nominating his site, All About Information, as one of my three, but it sure doesn’t hurt.  Instead, it stems out of my increasing interest in Internet and privacy law, despite never taking a single related course at law school, and my focus during articles in litigation.

Which leads me to my second nomination, also mentioned by Dan: Antonin Pribetic of The Trial Warrior.  Blogging really is my legal education outside of the classroom, and veterans like Pribetic are a gold mine of information.  You can get a better idea of his legal philosophy from a paper that explains the origin of the name of his blog.

Given the issues raised above, I would have to pick Donna Seale‘s Human Rights in the Workplace as my final pick.  In fact, Donna caught the above story about discrimination in her last episode of Twitter Talk.  Maybe we’ll get change in the Canadian workplace down the road.  Maybe we’ll even get change in the Canadian legal workplace too, eventually.  I’ll keep ClawBie’ing away along until it does.

I’m obviously conflicted out from Slaw, Law is Cool, and even Wise Law Blog, given the collaborative projects I’ve worked on with Garry.

Law is Cool Nominated in the Canadian Blog Awards

Law is Cool has once again been nominated in the Canadian Blog Awards. This year, we have been nominated in five categories including Best Blog Overall, Best Blog Post, Best Group Blog, Best Podcast, and Best Professional Life Blog. The preliminary round of voting concludes on December 12th, and the final round of voting takes place from December 13th to 19th. If you enjoy the podcast, please take a moment to vote for Law is Cool.

Finalists included Cassandra Tarrataca and Ryan Venables, Adam Somogyi and Mike Lickver, Kathryn Shani and Brittany Taylor and Ronald Fichter and Katie Sokol.

Omar Ha-Redeye played a client in the competition, which he won in 2007.

The Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) held their 2009 annual conference at UofT.

After a welcome by Jason Leung, the FACL President and Conference Co-Chair, Professor Anita Anand of UofT Law provided some opening remarks.

A judiciary panel chaired by Justice Maryka Omatsu, and consisted of The Honourable Justice Russell Juriansz of Court of Appeal of Ontario; the Honourable Justice Shaun Nakatsuru of the Ontario Court of Justice; and the Honourable Justice Manjusha Pawagi of the Ontario Court of Justice.  They addressed the subject of, “Is Justice (Colour) Blind?”  They addressed issues raised previously on Law is Cool, such as by Bertha Wilson’s paper Will Women Judges Really Make a Difference?, and the study by Yahya and Stribopoulos, Does a Judge’s Party of Appointment or Gender Matter to Case Outcomes? An Empirical

The Keynote Address was delivered by the Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, on residential schools.  A summary of the talk is found on Law is Cool and Slaw.

Honourable Frank Iacobucci, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

The afternoon consisted of a series of workshops on legal updates, which included Visha Sukdeo, Roslyn Tsao, Kathy Laird, Professor Poonam Puri, Carolyn Chambers, Teresa Cheung, Ron Choudhury, Jason Leung, and Dee Rajpal.

A subsequent workshop focussed on Bay Street Initiatives on Diversity, chaired by Fred Gerra , featured
Tariq Remtulla of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, May Cheng of Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP, Kate Broer of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, André Bacchus of Heenan Blaikie LLP, and Kevin O’Brien of Stikeman Elliott
LLP.

A concurrent panel, chaired by Deanna Santos, looked at the experiences of sole practitioners Jacqueline An, Ramon Andal, Peggy Chooi and Amer Mushtaq.