Legal blogging and legal tweeting

Won't be long. But for legal comment follow: @AdamWagner1 @JoshuaRozenberg @carlgardner @Familoo @copyrightgirl @Lyndon_Harris @DBanksy
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) January 29, 2014

@NickCohen4 I know! @DavidAllenGreen is just for posts to my own stuff. @Preiskel is simply my law firm's account.
— Jack of Kent (@JackofKent) February 2, 2014

In the first tweet David Allen Green gives his pick of the best legal thinkers online. In the second tweet he explains his multifarious Twitter and online presence.

The Irish Times - The sky's the limit for Irish legal eagles on Twitter

The Irish Times ran an interesting article by Fiona Gartland in the Monday 11 November 2013 edition of the paper under the title The sky's the limit for legal eagles on Twitter here. Fiona featured the experiences of three legal tweeters. Here's what they said:

Fiona de Londras (@fdelond) is a professor of law at Durham University and is a founder member of group blog humanrights.ie. She said:

"And it’s a way I can still contribute to debates in Ireland as well as in the UK, even though I am now institutionally located in the UK. I can engage with a Minister, or a TD or a Senator so easily through twitter and connect them into my research in a way that was previously almost impossible for academics to do,” she says. But she adds “you have to be quite good in figuring out how to boil a message down”."

Limerick solicitor Rossa McMahon writes on clatterofthelaw.wordpress.com said:

"I used to work in Dublin in a big firm where I had a lot of colleagues and now I’m in a much smaller situation and I find it quite a good way of keeping in touch with other people. Sometimes you know someone through it and then privately bounce ideas off them or see what they think about particular things."

Rossa McMahon commented on the business development potential of social media, saying: "From a marketing point of view, I couldn’t necessarily say that I gain anything specific, although I have gotten bits and pieces of work out of it."

Law professor at Trinity College Dublin Eoin O’Dell (@cearta) has written about law, education and policy on cearta.ie since 2006. He said:

"I consider that it is a very important part of my academic work to make my research and arguments available and to engage in discussion and debate online is just another means of disseminating research and engaging in discussion."

Eoin O'Dell explained that his blog posts tend to be “considered discussions” of 500 or 600 words in length. He also explained that his Twitter account is used to share interesting items with his 2,200 plus followers and to  respond to comments. He also said: "I think it’s a good thing and I think it is increasing the direction in which we are going."

Read the article from the Irish Times in full here. Read my blog post on Defero Law on the article here.

15m UK Twitter users

Twitter claims 15m active users in the UK, thats one quarter of UK Population. Via The Telegraph here.

Richard Susskind discusses Twitter and Facebook

At 23 minutes of the video above and here, legal technology specialist Richard Susskind discusses the usefulness and merit of social media as it relates to law practice. Susskind then said at the end of the discussion that in 5 years time, social media will become mainstream and ubiquitous.

"In 5 years time we'll have embraced [social media]... I'll just take you back to 1995 when people were sceptical about email..."

He also made an interesting point about how junior lawyers use social media:

"To be fair most junior lawyers don't use [social media] for business purposes..."

  

Twitter is "inherently dangerous" says David Aaronivitch

The broadcaster and journalist David Aaronivitch (@DAaronovitch) has waded into the McAlpine/Bercow affair and has added his two cents to the debate. He's thrown up some interesting points and insights. Writing in the Times (full article here) the title and header where hard hitting, going like this:

Northern Ireland Law Society Talks Social Media

Compared to the Law Society in England and Wales and the one in Scotland, Northern Ireland's solicitor regulatory body has been pretty quiet on the matter and question of social media.

However it hasn't gone without mention and it appears that the Law Society in Northern Ireland is at least open to the idea of solicitors and law firms in Northern Ireland using and getting to grips with social media. How do I know this. Well because of an advertisement I found on Google that referred to a social media seminar for law firms to be hosted by the NI Law Society in June 2012.

The June 11 event was advertised here, and was hosted by the Law Society's Communication Officer, Paul O'Connor and Tim McKane of Belfast digital media agency, Novajo Talk.

From Zero to 140: the Law's Fastest Interview with Pat Ellis

This is the law's fastest cross-examination where the respondent has to posit an answer using between zero and 140 characters.

Today's first ever interviewee is Pat Ellis who tweets from @Sparty_Legal. Here it goes:

Brian John Spencer: What are you up to right now?

Pat Ellis: Monday morning in law school: lots of reading, writing, and coffee. It is also very cold here in MI today... so I'm trying to stay warm.