Presentation included questions and answers, as well as interactive exercises using the brands and companies of participants, but this content has been removed to respect the privacy of the companies involved and their representatives.

Legal cases discussed include:

• Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 1130
• R. v. Cuttell, 2009 ONCJ 471
• York University v. Bell Canada Enterprises, 2009 CanLII 46447 (ON S.C.)
• Cohen v. Google, Inc., Index No. 100012/09 (N.Y. Cty. Aug. 17, 2009).
• Foda et al v. RateMDs, Inc., California Northern District Court

Omar Ha-Redeye, a University of Western Ontario law student, shares Smith’s point of view. “It’s all incredibly inefficient, especially in light of the technology we have today,” he says, adding that lawyers will need to better their productivity using such measures. “If they don’t, their competitors will,” he says.

…“The majority of graduating lawyers are now female, and the majority of practising lawyers are not,” Ha-Redeye notes. “Legal practise is not conducive to having a family, picking up kids, dropping off kids and those types of responsibilities, which are not necessarily gender-specific but tend to be, given our history.”

…Ha-Redeye believes that collaboration systems might strengthen groupthink in organizations as hierarchical as law firms.

“They’re different from anonymous tools like Wikipedia,” he says. “People may be highly deferential to those higher in a hierarchy than they are.”

Reviews on Slaw and Law is Cool.

Draft, edit docs in real time

Mitch Kowalski of the Legal Post picked up on an article about a New Jersey decision that excluded a Wikipedia entry as evidence.

Wikipedia not reliable, says court in earth shattering decision

It’s bad enough that there are judges who don’t know the law on issues brought before them, but this story from Law.com describes a judge with the research mentality of a 6 year-old. In New Jersey, a judge – sadly unaware that Wikipedia entries can be changed by anyone at any time -  ruled that the plaintiff could rely upon a Wikipedia entry “to help trace ownership of a credit-card debt” for the purpose of estabilishing a right to sue.

No surprisingly, the decision was overturned on appeal.

Omar Ha-Redeye also comments on the case, but takes a more liberal view on the use of Wikipedia in court. Contrary to Omar, my view is that until Wikipedia entries are vetted, approved and made unchangeable by recognized experts in those areas, it can never been seen as anything more than a novel source for off-the-cuff information that may help point you in the direction of further research. To put it more bluntly, relying on a Wikipedia entry is like relying upon an essay by an unnamed author that you found in the park. Or, citing a conversation with your Aunt Mildred as a reliable source for the history of streetcars in Singapore.

For the past several years, Dr. Quinn’s research has focused on various mechanisms of transitional justice, including Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, Peace Negotiations and War Crimes Tribunals. In particular, Dr. Quinn has had extensive involvement in the Northern Ugandan peace and reconstruction process.

Omar heard Dr. Quinn speak in the summar of 2007 at a conference, Cross-Purposes? International Law and Political Settlements conference.  He posted his notes from the conference, which were subsequently referenced by someone else in Wikipedia under the Rwandan Genocide.

Omar Ha-Redeye was interviewed by CBC television, who attended the event.  He described his formal education in online communication through Centennial College, and some of his reasons for founding Law is Cool and joining Slaw.  He told viewers how they could easily create their own blogs for free on sites like Blogger, Live Journal, and Word Press.

He also defined some basic online technology terms like blog, Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Flickr.  The footage will be used on The National and Susan Ormiston Online in the Blog Buzz segment to help the general public understand these ideas and sites as they come up during the election.