The Power of Blogging!

Oxford Dictionary defines "blog" as "a personal website or web page on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis." This definition was of course retrieved from the Internet: the information portal where blogs reside. Although the concept of a world wide web has been with us since the 1960s, the first web journal, written by an American college student, did not surface until 1994. The moniker "blog" was not used until five years later, in 1999, when the name "weblog," coined by Jorn Barger in writing his "personal newsmagazine" Robot Wisdom, was shortened by programmer Peter Merholz. Since then, the concept of blogging has taken off and there are now over 152 million active blogs read by millions of people.

There are, of course, blogs about everything (peanut butter) and everyone (Dr. Dee), including blogs about every topic such as law. There is no record of the first law blog but there are law blogs touching on every area. In Canada alone, there are over 400 law blogs written by practitioners and academics alike. Stem Legal hosts The Canadian Law Blogs list and even awards annual Canadian Law Blogs Awards or CLawBies, in a number of categories, to those blogs which have distinguished themselves as worthy of special recognition. This year the recipients were many and varied, a testament to the dramatic increase in interest in the internet generally and blogging in particular.

I am proud to announce that this law blog - Ideablawg - was recognized as a runner-up in the Best Law School/Law Professor category. The winner in this category is another Alberta blog, Ablawg, maintained by the University of Calgary Faculty of Law, which just happens to be my LL. M. alma mater. I encourage you to read this winning website and indeed all the other recipient blogs as well. As Sir Francis Bacon acknowledged in 1597 well before the technological revolution of the web, yet still apt today, "knowledge is power." Thus, in this way, to use the Internet as a tool for inquiry and the gathering of knowledge is empowering and can provide everyone with the opportunity to be meaningfully engaged in the global community - and all with a click of a button!

Update on Sunday, January 6, 2013 at 2:51PM by Lisa A. Silver

Correction: As pointed out by Jorn Barger, he coined the term "weblog" in 1997 but the phrase was shortened by Merholz in 1999.

Is the Supreme Court of Canada "Kicking It Old School"?

When I practiced as appellate counsel in the Court of Appeal for Ontario, I came to know the differing approaches of the Justices of Appeal very well. Just prior to the hearing date, I would call the Registrar's office seeking the one piece of information which could make or break a favourable hearing: the panel list. Would there be a Justice on the panel familiar with and sympathetic to criminal law issues? Or would the panel be stacked with Justices more concerned with commercial liens and the division of property?

In truth, the best panel was not filled with Justices learned in the law but those hardened by the trial courts: those Justices who had spent the prime of their career sitting in the lower level courts presiding over murders, robberies, and drug conspiracies. Judges like Justice John Brooke, Justice Allan Goodman, and Justice Horace Krever were the best draw in a criminal appeal as they exercised their judgment and common sense in a manner made for a criminal appeal. True they were no stranger to case law, indeed, they made case law. But their legal acumen was enhanced by their uncanny ability to seize upon the heart of an issue and render a fair and equitable decision. For this panel, the law was known, and the advocate's challenge was to adroitly respond to the comments made by these wily and nimble judges, who could see the play of a trial in their mind's eye, like an intricate chess game, and thus appreciate the dynamics of the case before them.

In contrast, the Supreme Court of Canada seemed to be more lofty, requiring a sublime understanding of the case law. Only Chief Justice Lamer, as he then was, (and yes, I just dated myself) offered a refreshing glimpse of one who was, like Leo Bloom in Ulysses, a journeyman accustomed to the realities of the trial courts. 

This nostalgic foray was brought about by the recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, some of which I have written about in prior postings here, here, and here, culminating in the last effort when the SCC released the jury vetting trilogy. The trilogy decision seemed effortless, straight forward, almost easy and uneventful. On the second reading, it dawned on me why this was so: the decision was based on a common sense and practical approach to criminal law. The decision was pure trial judge.

Essentially, the decision approves of background criminal record checks of jurors, where legislation permits, as long as the information is subsequently shared with the defence. By extension, should the police or the Crown come across other pertinent information relating to the potential juror through other investigative techniques, then that too can be used in choosing a jury, but again with the concomitant obligation to disclose the material.

However, this disclosure is not limitless in its aspect. Often experience and intuition are invaluable tools, producing invaluable information. Such irreplaceable information gleaned through years of practice, need not be shared and cannot be reproduced to form part of a disclosure package. How true. Common sense cannot be packaged and this decision, together with the other recent SCC decisions I blogged about show that common sense can make precedents. As an aside, these decisions were all written by Justice Moldaver, a recent SCC appointment from Ontario, who not only sat as a Trial judge but was also a defence lawyer. It seems as though the SCC is truly kicking it old school!