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Bloggers Impacting the World of Litigation
DaveKleiman writes "Will bloggers change the world of Supreme Court litigation by inspecting published opinions? Rachel C. Lee has an interesting take on the question in the Stanford Law Review, Ex Parte Blogging: the Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy In the Internet Era (PDF). She begins the review with: 'Lawyers have been arguing their cases before the Supreme Court for over two centuries, while the phenomenon of legal blogs is perhaps a decade old. Yet legal blogs cannot be dismissed as merely a sideshow novelty — they are already capable of having a substantial impact on Supreme Court litigation.' The review hits on many key points both for and against the use of blogging, but ultimately concludes that members of the Court and their staff will have to refrain from reading any blog post relating to a pending case, no matter who it is written by. It's even possible we'll get carefully drafted rules preventing blogging by attorneys." It's going to be tough to make any such prohibition work. After all, Groklaw's PJ is not an attorney.
I haven't read all of the 39 pages of this report but from what I gather, I don't see why this should be any different than scientific blogging (or, in pre-internet terms, armchair science).
... like bird behavior. And it's a significant contribution to that field. Maybe he realizes what he's discovered and maybe he doesn't know the intricacies of bird behavior so he blogs about it.
Example: I read Bryan William Jones' blog. It sometimes has scientific topics although rarely anything new. Let's say Dr. Jones makes some important discovery in a field he is not an expert in
Is this a peer reviewed published piece of research? No. Is it important to the field? It might be. Should he get credit? Yes. Should bird behaviorists be required to read every blog on the internet looking for a breakthrough? No. Could it go unnoticed? Yes. Will this happen often? Highly unlikely. Will Dr. Jones rare footage of the endangered African Upside-down tufted titmouse's in flight mating dance be a hit to the general public who like little birdies? Probably.
I see lawyering in a similar light. You expect the laywers and judges involved in a case to be completely on top of everything and knowledgable about everything (try to suppress laughter, please). But of course someone like Groklaw's PJ could bust out a piece of work putting more of the puzzle together than any of the inept dinosaurs running the show. Similar questions and answers may follow this scenario as in the case of the blogging scientist. Most importantly, that this position may be popular with the public but it's not a part of the case unless someone involved takes note and makes it so and puts it into the spotlight (or Bird Behavioral Journal in the former example).
That said, there is one serious flaw in this analogy. Science is usually correct or wrong. And usually easily decided (upon reflection, perhaps I should have used something more hotly contested like quantum theory instead of a bird dance). Law, as we all know here, is not only many shades of gray but also something that many people on the internet get emotional about (which is a good thing) and think they are experts in (which is a bad thing). I have not read the legal minutiae of my state or even country. I know the popular things and I extrapolate on them--almost always erroneously.
In short, I would opine that it would be a violation of free speech to outlaw it and dangerous if not stupid to make it legally important. There is a reason for the BAR exam. If you have not passed that, you probably just want to be a citizen on a soapbox instead of a legal target.
Blogging is by and large a disposable medium that can be morphed into important things by the appropriate people. It is satisfying to express one's ideas like I am doing right now. Leave it that way.
My work here is dung.
Even the most prideful members of /. go about saying "IANAL" almost out of sheer reflex any more. I'm tired of hearing it.
Lawyers have really managed to convince the population at large that they their art is magic... when in fact they ultimately do something directly analogous to what I did in high school speech: do some research and present an opinion in a persuasive manner.
Persuasiveness is much more important than having good evidence in both cases. Hardly something that makes one into a socially unquestionable demigod.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The idea that "judges must not read blogs" is absurdly extreme. We don't forbid judges from reading newspapers; why are bloggers suddenly called out for special mistreatment? It's true that we don't let juries look at stuff because they're not familiar with the details of what is or is not permissible evidence, but judges do have such training.
In fact, the article opens with Kennedy v. Louisiana, where blogging was a tremendous help. In this case, the Supreme Court's ruling was based on wrong information, and the bloggers pointed this mistake out. Kudos to the authors for being brave enough to point to this as an example. In any case, it shows that bloggers can have a very positive effect on court outcomes, by calling attention to critical mistakes in the court's information.
I want to see people more involved in political discourse. If they know that their discussions can't possibly have any effect, then they're less likely to have such discourse. Heck, I think that's why we have such low voter turnout... too many people think "my vote can't make any difference".
I do agree that there's a risk of hearing more of one side than another, but the direct presentations to judges along with research that the judges themselves do should help counter that. The other extremes seem worse than the problem they're trying to cure.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In the course of their tenure, they have to carefully shield themselves from the opinion currents (socially, they will remain mostly in their family circles, and avoid big social venues), as they their job requires them to strictly adhere to the Constitution and the jurisprudence (where relevant). As a matter of course, they will avoid reading newspapers articles relating to "their" cases, and blogs naturally fall in this category.
Whatever discussions we had about his work have been kept generic and mundane, and with the utmost care not to reveal the inner legal workings of the cases; in short, nothing more than what is available to court observers.