It’s time for the 2010 CLawBie Awards, sponsored by Stem Legal, Dye & Durham, Clio, and Lexblog.

Before getting into my nominations it’s worth repeating that if you share a blog with me, you can be found in a video with me somewhere, or if I’ve nominated you before, I’m automatically excluding you.  Most of you already have nominations by other bloggers and will be in the running.

Instead, I’m going to focus on some of the newer sites to the Canadian blogosphere to help welcome them to the existing community, and hopefully provide some suggestions as to how to make their sites even better.

Prelude

I was recently reading Mark Herrmann‘s series on Above the Law, where he asks,

Is blogging a useful business development tool?

Almost everyone I’ve ever encountered in the public relations industry years before law seem to think it has worked for them.  And public relations professionals are miles ahead of lawyers when it comes to business development.

Although Hermann points to several benefits he gained from blogging over the years, including influencing the law, a book deal, and raising his profile, he didn’t directly gain any clients from the blog.  Personally I expect that he wouldn’t, but all the other opportunities stemming from blogging help form more of the complete package as to why someone selects a lawyer as their counsel.

Even though I’ve been blogging about legal subjects for about three and a half years now, just before I started law school, I didn’t set out with business development as my primary goal.  It’s been fun, a great way to exchange ideas and get to know more senior members of the bar.

As my own call to the bar approaches, and demands of my time from employers compete with nearly every other activity in my life, some prioritization and perhaps greater focus is likely in order.  I’ll still continue to write about a wide variety of legal subjects in areas that I do not practice out of my own interest.  But I’m also actively looking for content more closely related to my practice, which is what the following nominations will reflect.

The Nominations

1)  The Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure blog by Jeremy Millard and Tiffany Soucy of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLC.  The new Rules are intended to promote settlement and streamline the litigation process in Ontario, but there are a still many questions that remained unanswered.

For example, does anyone know how subrule 20.05(2)(k) works? If so, please contact me and let me know, because even these seasoned litigators don’t have a clue.  The FMC blog summarizes case decisions relating to the interpretation of the new Rules, and it’s one of my regular stops as I’m frequently tasked with figuring them out.

One of the greatest limitations is that it’s limited to case law, so we don’t have insight or guidance from secondary sources or interviews that could potentially sort out some of these issues for us.I’m also not a fan of their subscription service, which is limited to email.  I get enough emails as it is, thank you very much.  I was able to find the RSS feed and add it to my reader because I know where to look for it, but they should feature this more prominently on the site.

It’s still a great resource for those practicing litigation, and it’s also promising to see larger law firms dedicating resources to projects like this.

2) Herrmann conclusion in the post referenced above is as follows,

Whether blogging makes sense as a business development tool depends on your particular situation. Firms specializing in personal bankruptcy buy advertising space on billboards and time on television. Maybe a good personal bankruptcy blog would be a business magnet. So, too, for plaintiffs’ personal injury work, which seems analogous from a business development perspective. Eric Turkewitz, for example, writes a solid blog in the personal injury field; maybe he can tell us if it’s landed him any business.

After appearing for trial scheduling at the Superior Court of Justice from Hamilton to Oshawa and several courts in between I can conclude pretty definitively that the best area of law to gain civil trial experience is in personal injury.  These files simply dominate the civil docket in any court in the province that I visit.  No surprise then that I’m finding this as my primary area of practice, especially given my health care background.  As this area of law is also ripe for business development through blogs, we should theoretically see much more personal injury sites.

The legal blogosphere is still emerging in Canada, so it’s still relatively easy to make an impression in a niche area for the dedicated practitioner.  Erik Magraken of the MacIsaac Group launched the BC Injury Law and ICBC Claims Blog in 2008, and was a recipient of the 2009 CLawBie for Best Practitioner Blog.  Still, I feel his site is worthy of a nomination this year from me because he has really shown what can be done on blogs for this area of law.

The statutory regime in B.C. is completely different in Ontario, and I cannot even pretend familiarity with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.  But I do rely on B.C. case law all the time, and my first stop in interpreting these cases in the past year has been Erik’s site.

One thing I’ve been pleased with as the site has evolved is the increase use of graphics and videos, which really adds to the flavour.  The Odiogo text-to-speech feature is especially considerate of a readership that could be visually-impaired, something I might incorporate myself down the road.

I’m not sure if Erik is scanning some of these pictures, but some of the graphics are pretty low resolution, or at least difficult to read. Although high resolution is certainly not needed for websites, when an image contains text it should ideally be crisp and readable, or at least have the option of increase the image size for greater scrutiny, especially when trying to read these images on a mobile phone (I do this a lot these days).

My one suggestion for Erik’s site would be to use screenshots instead of scanning text books, or find a way to make the images more crisp.

3) My final nomination is the Ontario Insurance Law Blog by John Norton and Tara Pollitt of McCall Dawson Osterberg Handler LLP.  (By way of disclosure, I did work with Tara at Legate & Associates while I was in law school).

This site, which is also focused on case law, comes up consistently when I’m doing research in the area as well.  I don’t receive the Ontario Reports until I’m called to the bar, so having these short updates on hand is incredibly useful.

It’s hosted on Blogspot, which is common enough for those starting out with blogging, although certainly not my preference.  But it’s also embedded on the firm’s website, which I find rather redundant.  Host it on Blogspot, or host it on the firm site itself, preferably the latter.  But don’t do both, it just doesn’t look good.

Postlude

There are many other blogs that I could mention, but I’m going to try to stick to the CLawBies rules and limit it to three nominations.

Here’s a list of other bloggers who have made nominations this year:

I am pleased to see Law is Cool has been nominated again this year, and with my name in conjunction, but the reality is that it always has been a team effort and my role on the site has diminished significantly since joining Slaw.  Although mentioning your own site(s) is generally a faux pas for CLawBie nominations, in this case I’m really just clarifying my role to share the accolades with others who are much more deserving.

Given my review of sites above and related commentary, I’ll have to write more on these subjects in the coming years.  More importantly, my greatest hope is that blogging continues to be an activity engaged in primarily for the fun of it and the adventure of unexplored opportunities, rather than for some elusive business development goals.  Let’s hope others in Canada see it the same way too.

Omar Ha-Redeye published an article in the October 2010 issue of the OBA Sole, Small Firm and General Practice newsletter, Volume 7, No. 1, entitled Social Media and Law Student Recruitment.

In it he discusses Donna Seale‘s new book, Using Social Networking Sites in the Hiring Process – A Guide for Canadian Employers, and videos by Torys LLP and Andrew Black:

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

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.

Donna Seale, a human rights lawyer that was recently interviewed on Law is Cool, just republished the show notes from the episode.

Donna was a finalist in the 2007 Canadian Law Blog Awards (CLawBies).  Law is Cool won the 2007 CLawBie for Legal Culture.

Here’s what she said:

Recently, along with human rights lawyer Pearl Eliadis, I had the opportunity to be interviewed via podcast by Omar Ha-Redeye over at the Law Is Cool Blog and Podcast regarding recent media criticism of Human Rights Commissions across Canada.  Here’s a full reproduction of the blog post referencing the interview (I don’t usually do this but since they did such a good job setting things out, why reinvent the wheel?)…

If you’re interested in listening to the actual podcast, head over to the Law is Cool post and scroll to the bottom.  You’ll see the podcast there for download.

The human rights and free speech controversy involving Mark Steyn and Maclean’s raised the issue of the role and importance of Human Rights Commissions in Canada.

Omar interviewed a human rights lawyer, Pearl Eliadis, who recently wrote an article in Montreal’s Maisonneuve magazine called “The Controversy Entrepreneurs”.

He also interviewed Donna Seale, former Co-Counsel for the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

Devin Johston provided an excellent summary of the episode, which can also be found on Law is Cool.