Legal Research

Next Time Cite Slaw in Your Factum

By Omar Ha-Redeye

Kevin O’Keefe recently discussed Digital Darwinism as it related to legal researchers, publishers and advertisers.  The economic downturn, coupled with technological advances, has resulted in the demise of many major industries that have been the backbone of corporate America.

But O’Keefe also suggests another slightly troubling proposition,

Blogs will be widely cited in briefs and court decisions.

What better way to provide compelling arguments and establish binding precedent than sourcing articles with a milisecond publishing turnaround time?

There is obviously a broad variety of quality and depth in the legal blogosphere.

The credibility and authority of both the author and the site the material is found should obviously be taken into consideration.  Some sort of filtering or review mechanism should also be in place to signal to counsel or the bench as to which sites are more reliable than others.

As Simon Fodden noted a few months ago, Slaw is now indexed on LexisWeb as a “trusted site.”  Here’s to hoping we are the first law blog in Canada to be cited as an authority in a legal judgment.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 28, 2008 (boomark / email).