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

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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.

Melissa Kluger of Precedent Magazine stopped by the University of Western Ontario to say hi to a few of the Law is Cool team:

Law is Cool contributors (From Left): John Magyar, Joel Welch, Meagan Williams, Omar Ha-Redeye, Lawrence Gridin, Logan Rathbone (Front): Precedent Magazine’s Melissa Kluger

Liberal Party leader and Leader of the Official Opposition, Michael Ignatieff, spoke at the 2009 UWO Law Alumni Dinner.

This year marked the law school’s 50th anniversary.

The Western Law Alumni of Distinction Award was presented to Doug Ferguson, Director of the Clinical Legal Services (CLS) at Western and outgoing President of the Liberal Party.

The event was sponsored by Lerners LLP.

Omar Ha-Redeye, Doug Ferguson, and Lawrence Gridin at the 2009 UWO Law Alumni Dinner.

Omar Ha-Redeye participated in the Cherniak Cup Trial Advocacy competition at UWO. The competition is Western’s only trial advocacy competition.

A hypothetical fact situation is presented to the participants, who pair off in teams. Witnesses are examined and cross-examined, and each participant provides either an opening or closing statement. The competition is judged by practicing lawyers or real judges.

Omar Ha-Redeye teamed up with Lawrence Gridin, who was one of the finalists last year, and as a result represented Western in the 2008 OTLA Cup in Ottawa, sponsored by Doucet McBride LLP and Cooligan Ryan LLP.

The fact scenario this year involved in a plaintiff that went bungee jumping with his corporate peers.  He violated a number of the safety rules, including participation with a precluded medical condition (hypertension) and failing to extend the arms during the jump.  He also drank some alcohol prior to the jump, which was contraindicated by his allergy medications, and signed a waiver.

The bungee operator however had a history of violating the safety code.  In this specific instance, an automated machine indicated that the time between jumps had been reduced by the operator.  The time is what allowed the cord to retract to its original length, providing adequate elasticity.  The plaintiff in this case fell through the water to the rocks below, suffering a serious neck injury.

Omar did the examination-in-chief and closing statements for the event.

Omar Ha-Redeye participated in the finals for the Lerners LLP Cup at the University of Western Ontario.

He was awarded the Mr. Justice CD Stewart Trophy for Appellate Advocacy.  The award is given to the team with the highest score during any of the preliminary rounds.  Omar shared shared the trophy with his partner Lawrence Gridin, who also writes on Law is Cool.

The winner of the Lerners LLP Cup this year was Christopher Crighton.

Lawrence Gridin, Leitch J, Kileen J (ret), O'Reilly J, Omar Ha-Redeye

Coverage of the event can be found on the UWO Law website.  A special thanks goes to Prof. Mysty Clapton and Lerners LLP for hosting the event.

On Sept. 24, 2008, Omar Ha-Redeye participated in the Lerners LLP Cup.  The competition mimics an appellate court, where the issues of law are under dispute, rather than the facts of the case.

The competition discussed a theoretical review of the recent Supreme Court Case R. v. A.M., (2008) SCC 19, over the constitutionality of sniffer dogs in schools.  Omar had coincidentally met with Justice Binnie, who ruled with the majority in this case, and briefly spoke to him about the decision the previous week.

The University of Western Ontario describes the competition,

The Faculty runs an internal appellate advocacy competition called the Lerners LLP Cup. This voluntary competition gives upper-year students the opportunity to argue a hypothetical case before an appellate court. Judges, practicing lawyers and third-year students generously volunteer their time to act as judges for the competition. The top students advance to the final rounds to compete for the Lerners LLP Cup. Doing well in this competition is the gateway to qualifying to represent Western Law in one of several external advocacy competitions.

Omar was selected as one of 8 finalists from 66 competitors from among all upper year students at the school.  His partner in the competition, Lawrence Gridin of Law is Cool, was also selected as a finalist.

He will proceed to the final competitions next week,  which is actually judged by members of the bench from the Court of Appeal.  Although junior lawyers rarely speak at the Court of Appeal, these competitions (called moots) are a good indicator of comfort for the purpose of speaking to motions, a common task for many barristers.

Omar will also be eligible to represent UWO at one of the external moots during the January Term, 2009, which include:

Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, sponsored by McCarthy Tétrault LLP
Laskin Memorial Moot Court Competition (Administrative and Constitutional Law)
Wilson Moot (Constitutional Law on minority Issues)
Niagara International Moot Court Competition, sponsored by Lerners LLP
Gale Cup Appellate Moot Competition (Criminal Law and Charter issues)
Canadian Corporate/Securities Law Moot Court Competition

Lawrence Gridin and Omar Ha-Redeye (Photo courtesy of Melissa Kluger)

Precedent Magazine hosted a student reception for UWO law students.  Melissa Kluger, publisher and editor of the magazine, hosted the event.

The Precedent event was joined by the Mature Students Club, who host bimonthly events of their own called Puisine (“Puny”) Dennings.

Omar Ha-Redeye is the President of the Mature Students Club at UWO.  He did an interview with Melissa last year when Precedent first launched its magazine.

The event was sponsored by Cassels Brock.

THIS Magazine mentioned an article by Lawrence Gridin on the election debate on Law is Cool,

The Green Party has hired Toronto-based lawyer Peter Rosenthal and will deploy him against the networks, but as the Law is Cool blog points out today, political parties haven’t found the courts sympathetic in the past when they tried to sue their way into the studio. Both the National Party of Canada and the Natural Law Party tried and failed on that count. The Greens have more credibility than those two fringe parties, but the courts are very leery of mandating what private media should and should not cover, and it seems the party will make little progress on that front.

This Magazine covered Lawrence Gridin‘s post on Law is Cool regarding the election debates on their site.

This Magazine is is one of Canada’s longest-publishing alternative journals, in circulation for over 40 years.

Alternative media is increasingly citing blogs and websites as sources, and slowly mainstream media are doing the same.

Several contributors from Law is Cool have been interviewed by larger media outlets based on their work and contribution to the site.

Jim Johnston, Green Party candidate for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, also picked up on this post on the Green Party website.