Legal Village

A quick mention and thank you to Legal Week who are picking up some of my selected blog posts to feature in their Legal Village, an online community of blawgers sharing their random, and sometimes even serious, points of view for the entertainment of lawyers on coffee breaks across the nation.

Image copyright of brewbooks on Flickr, and which features Legal Grind Coffee in Santa Monica.

I am Still Here

I am still here.

It's just that there are only 24 hours in a day, and while that's enough hours (just) most of the year to work, run a family and engage in social media experiments, in the run-up to Christmas with the prospect of 4 families around 1 table and a demanding 5 (nearly 6) year old to satisfy on the present-front as well as the usual year-end activities and projects on the work-front, well, I am only human (and a specialist plant of course) and things slip.

Fear not, the in-house lawyer remains committed to (a) being an in-house lawyer  (b) social media and (c) fusing the two together in pursuance of this blog.

A Merry Little Christmas post will be with you before the Big Day itself, and normal blogging service will be resumed once the festivities and stress are over.

A Halloween Hoot

Welcome to the 31 October 2010 edition of ukblawgroundup, and the fourth in the series of round-ups initiated by Michael Scutt to promote blogging lawyers in the UK.

The theme of this edition is, spookily enough, what with the date and everything, Halloween; the origins of which date back to the Celtic festival of Samhain which celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half", where the border between this world and the other becomes thin enough to let the spirits pass through, and when we wear costumes and masks to ward off evil.

But I live in the countryside, and what this time of year means to our family is the harvest from the local farmers. And at Halloween, of course, we take great delight in carving up some of that harvest. I was most proud of my local farm in Little Budworth, Cheshire, which this October has just harvested over 3,000 pumpkins:

Image copyright of The Hollies Farm Shop

Halloween festivities are embraced with much more vigour on the other side of the Atlantic, and when Michael started this UK blawg review at the beginning of 2010 he observed that lawyers in the UK hadn’t embraced social media nearly as much as their American counterparts either.  And what a difference (not even) a year makes, because I’m now writing this edition against the backdrop of Legal Week’s recent analysis of the UK blogging scene. It’s article, The Geek Shall Inherit, introduced the audience of the mainstream legal press to the lawyers who operate in the online world, looking back at history of the UK legal blogging scene and presenting both some established bloggers and recent entrants. 

As insightful as the article was, and that one piece of journalism probably succeeded in bringing forward the legal digital mind-set by approximately 5 years, what it was unable to do was mention every credible UK blawgger, and there are few. Some additional players are mentioned in the commentary against the article, so do take a read of both the article and the commentary if you’re looking to increase the number of blawggers on your watch list or your RSS stream.  What the omissions do tell me though is that blawg round-ups such as this one are extremely important to spread the word and to promote the profiles of all of the great blawggers in the field, because by giving each other a pat on the back from time to time, we can help this community grow.

The Law Actually Blog knows a thing or two about patting its fellow blawggers on the back.  Penned by The (mysterious) Michael (whom we only know as an LLM and LLB student working in-house for a telco company)  this quarter it successfully ran its annual "Blawggies", the awards for, well you guessed it, blawgs.  As well as the  Blawggies Results, you can get to know the blawgeratti by reading the regular  “A Law Actually Interview with…” series of posts.  Take a look at the most recent, Law Actually Interview with Charon QC  for the type of thing which you can expect.  You'll also become very familiar very quickly with tech law developments and generalist legal observations too such as Council Goes Bonkers over Conkers, a scenario observed with the observational dis-belief that a fellow in-houser can truly appreciate.  Speaking of which, have you had the good fortune to stumble upon Legal Bizzle? An anonymous in-houser The Biz, who in his own words has been "saving your ass since 1999",  just tells it like it is.  Check out 5 Words I Hate to Hear, and  What does Success Look Like? to see why.

Another round-up we saw this quarter was the FT’s Annual Survey of Innovative Lawyers, but I was disappointed that it didn't feature lawyers who are taking strides into social media as part of their practice strategy, however, to rectify the position, we also saw the 360 Awards, at which Paul Hajek received the award for most effective social networker. Paul is a regular on the UK legal blogging and Twitter scene, and the Clutton Clox Blog succeeds where a lot of law firm blogs fail: it's kept bang up to date and presents a well-rounded perspective of what the firm is about, its work and its people.

The reviews kept on coming this quarter, and one which caught my eye was from Linda Cheung, CEO of Connectegrity.  In September, Linda reviewed the Top 100 Law Firm Websites in Pictures. No spoilers here, you'll have to check out her blog for the winner.  

Image copyright of Tyson Moore, via Flickr, depicting some spooky fence ghosts 

The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common at Halloween. This quarter has seen its fair share of legal horror stories and frightening tales too. Most of which, it has to be said, have emanated from the demise of Halliwells. So may I take this opportunity to present Peter Blair, Director of Mar-aon Consulting which specialises in Risk, Operations, Strategy & Communications in Law Firms, and his eminently sensible Pitch for Common Sense, dealing with issues ranging from Responsibilty and Leadership to Keeping Up to Date. Whatever your profession or specialism there is a multitude of "makes sense" opinion and information on Peter's blog.

More gremlins in the machine this quarter, but thankfully with much less consequence.  Brian Inkster summarises his encounters on the Inksters Solicitors blog in IT Problems at Trainee Summer School. Inksters are officially Cool Lawyers recognised for the example which they set in social media, and I'd agree, like the Clutton Clox blog, Inksters keeps a refreshing balance of posts about the firm's work and it's people.

The above image is of Vice President Dick Cheney's Labrador retrievers Jackson, left, and Dave, right, prepare for Halloween, as they sit for a photograph at the Vice President's Residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Jackson is dressed as Darth Vader, Dave is dressed as Superman. (Random legal copyright fact: This image is a work of an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.)

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages. ‘Guising’ as it became known, was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland in the 19^th Century, and became extremely popular in the US in the 20^th Century. Rather aptly, blogging also allows lawyers to take on a disguise where their  be-devilled alter-ego can roam free.

Guising with expertise is the UK’s very own Baby Barista who provides us with a fictional "worm's eye view of the English Bar" with unparalleled eloquence and wit which has been observed and applauded for some time, however hot on his heels is a the new and superb Magic Circle Minx providing readers with a fictional account of the life of a trainee solicitor at a London Magic Circle Law Firm, her blog is now a regular on my RSS list.  Another esteemed blawgger who makes no bones about his devil-may-care blogging style is the wonderful Charon QC who this quarter has had me hooked on his (fictional?)  Muttley Dastardly LLP series.

Taking on a guise, but not one so scary, is iPad Lawyer documenting his journey as a lawyer with THE piece of kit of the quarter. The iPad Lawyer explains step by step how to use the apps and software for a lawyer's best effect and productivity, and his excellent commentary in iPad workflow - some thoughts is a great example of his hands-on, explanatory approach.  The man behind the mask is Jon Bloor of Peninsulawyer fame who this quarter has also taken a look at Go Compare the Money SuperMeerKat (or why I don't buy Wigster) providing his views on the recent announcements by Wigster and others of the launch of price comparison sites for solicitors.

Image copyright of Shane Gorski, via Flickr "no one knows who lives here but there is proof of life at this property"

There is a tradition of decorating a haunted house at Halloween, filling it with eerie music, cobwebs, spiders, zombies, mummies, jack o' lanterns, devils, witches and of course the witch's cat.  One of my favourite cats is IPKat, aka Jeremy Phillips, home-grown but internationally recognised for his passion of all things IP.  Jeremy and his team provide regular consistent and credible work and I've personally read Jeremy's blog since I discovered it back in 2003, immediately capturing my attention for its valuable insight in my practice area. In September, I was impressed further by the excellent live-blogging series, Handbags at Dawn 1, 2, 3 and 4, reviewing an IP & Fashion conference - yes, live blawgging, as it happened, brilliant.  The team really do live, breathe and eat IP; see The Advertising Wars of Kelloggs Cornflakes for evidence of this assertion.

Other animals featuring in this blawg round-up, but not seen so much at Halloween, include:

CyberPanda, aka Asma Vranaki, who is a Doctor of Philosophy of Law at Oxford University. Asma's blog posts and tweets are brimming over with information and considered opinion tackling issues such as Facebook: the Privacy Backlash and Pan-European Copyright Laws all helpfully summed up in a Cyber-Law News Daily; 

and

Technollama, aka Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer at the Edinburgh School of Law.  This month I enjoyed reading his discussion on cyber-regulation in the well-penned post Is it time to take Anonymous Seriously? Readers of Andres' blog are always guaranteed an enlightening read.

Staying true to her identity, and founder of another technology blog, is Shireen Smith at Azrights Solicitors.  Shireen's posts are bang on the money for her target audience and I always benefit from a legal brain refresher when reading her posts.  She has a knack of making her specialism a subject which everyone should take an interest in:  Facebook Places, Privacy and Implied Consent and Rejecting Anonymity, Making Authors Accountable are both good reads whatever your specialist practice area.

Stepping away from technology blogs, and back full-circle to the founder of the UK blawg round-up now. Michael Scutt's passion for blogging is evident as he wears two blawgging hats, one for Jobsworth, Employment Law Explained, and the other for There May Be Trouble Ahead, Legal Services De-regulation.  Jobsworth is an essential blawgging read for anyone in practice remotely affected by employment law (and, lets face it, who isn't?).  His analysis of the Equality Act in The Equality Act: Here at Last ? Worth the Wait? (and the earlier posts referred to therein) really get to the nub of the issues underlying why and how the legislation has come about to provide a much fuller and contextual picture, but he also does the practical stuff too, see Why Employers Shouldn't Ask Pre-Employment Health Questions: Equality Act 2010 #2 for the answers to the "ok but what does it mean I actually have to do" questions.  In There May be Trouble Ahead, Michael has himself well-positioned as a thought-leader amongst the profession challenging views of what de-regulation will mean for it.  His September post, More on Branding, questions how much a law firm is prepared to invest in a franchised brand. 

I couldn't let the opportunity of this blawg round-up go by without mentioning Mark Gould, with a background as an academic and lecturer in Competition Law, Mark is currently Head of Knowledge Management at a leading law-firm.  His blog, Enlightened Tradition explores a rational approach to organisational learning and knowledge management. He draws inspiration from many sources and his blog posts pay homage to his academic background being clearly well-researched; a shining example is his recent post  Corporate Professional Spectrum: Law Firms, KM and the Future.

And last but not least, Jennie Law, a law librarian in Edinburgh. I've had Jennie's feed on my RSS stream for a while now, and her light-hearted "say what you see" approach is perfectly summed up in How to Make a Librarian Happy.

Image copyright of Anon, via Flickr

And now, the witching hour really is upon me, I have work to do! Happy Halloween readers!

The Next Big Thing: Is the social media tide turning?

Today's Legal Week has focussed on the use of social media tools by the legal profession.  It ran two pieces today:

New ideas in Law: The geek shall inherit... a wonderfully well researched piece of journalism by Alex Aldridge summarising the history of the legal blogging scene at home and abroad and introducing the new, rising talent in the UK blawgosphere. I was thrilled and honoured for this very blog to be included in the article, quote:

"Then there's In-House Lawyer, a more serious, non-fictional, yet still distinctly irreverent insider account of life as an in-house lawyer, authored by Melanie Hatton, a former Mayer Brown lawyer who is now head of legal and company secretary at Latitude Digital Marketing. In it, Hatton reflects candidly on issues facing in-house counsel, with recent posts including a piece drawing attention to the friction between in-house legal departments and sales teams in companies and an admission that she always leaves anything litigious to a Friday, the day of the week when "opposing counsel seem much more inclined to strike a deal with less antagonism".

Irreverent and candid. Heck, I hadn't realised! But I can roll with that.  Alex's article is a suberb blawg round-up, culminating in his blawger roll of honour list.  It makes my job of hosting this quarter's ukblawg round-up next week quite a challenge!


Tweet Disposition: the tech-savvy lawyers making social media work for them is written by Sofia Lind and introduces a selection of in-house and private practice tweeting lawyers.  I was over the moon to be mentioned in this article along with other tweeting companions I know, and some which I didn't but I no doubt soon will.  Sofia's article also takes a look at blogging and Linked-in and interestingly identifies what the Top 10 law firms are doing (or not doing) about social media, confirming what I suspected, i.e. that its the individuals, independents and smaller firms in the UK which are getting to grips with social media a lot more quickly and effectively than the larger firms.
These two articles have brought the UK's legal social media scene to the fore, their angle very much that social media is here to be embraced and not policed, and I predict we'll now see the tide changing with more of our profession surfing the social media waves. 

Cartoon courtesy of Geek & Poke 

SAD Story

Yesterday on Twitter I was amused to read this exchange:

The discussion was with reference to the latest blog post by Magic Circle Minx.

It conjured up imagery of tribes of albino trainees working underground digging for gold.  Personally, I'd opt to take a day or two holiday rather than rely on my standard-issue SAD lamp, but needs must in the magic circle it seems.

It also reminded me that when I was a trainee, all I was issued with for working late was the code to set the alarm and free access to the kitchen goodie drawer.

Dotted and Spotted

I just discovered that my previous "join the dots" blog post has been spotted by Law.com's  Legal Blog Watch!  Their take on my earlier post is called: Pursuing Unrelated Interests Can Help Lawyers Connect the Dots in their Legal Careers too.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Branded Part 3: Roll up for the Round up!

2010 marks the beginning of the The UK Blawg Round Up, the UK Lawyers’ Blog of Blawgs. Its mission: to highlight the UK legal blogging scene and the players in it.

UK blogging lawyers are playing catch-up to our counterparts in the US, where the mighty Blawg Review is published weekly.  At present, the UK Blawg Round Up is published quarterly, and there have been 3 editions to date:

• Its Not Blawg Review

• New Beginnings

• Midsummer Madness

I’m thrilled to announce that the 4th edition of the UK Blawg Roundup will be hosted by me. Due out 31 October, the theme will be, unsurprisingly, a Halloween Hoot!

If you’re a lawyer on the UK blogging scene, please submit your blog post for me to review via the Blog Carnival by 17 October.  I'm looking forward to reading all submissions and finding out more about you all.

The UK legal blogging (or blawging) is in its infancy and there really is no better time for home-grown legal bloggers to make their mark and establish a personal brand. So jump on board and get involved!.

Law Donut

I mentioned in Branded Part 2: Donuts and Carnivals, that I was pleased to be a contributor to the Law Donut blog.

My first post for that blog, Avoid April Showers, was a timely reminder for employers to regularly review their employment policies and contracts.  My most recent post for that blog, Licensed to thrill?, is another reminder for employers, but this time with reference to the different licences which are required in a workplace which plays music, television or radio whether for the benefit of its staff or customers.

There are more regular contributors to the Law Donut than me, and they successfully make the Law Donut an excellent source of know-how and discussion on the nitty-gritty of what law and regulation actually means for employers and small businesses.

Winner: Follow up on my Shameless Plug Post

It never rains, but it pours; two blog posts in one night after the drought that was May.

So, following up on my Shameless Plug & Follow Up post where I asked you all to click on the link to my blog post for Latitude in the hope that if it was the post with the most hits on the Latitude blog for that month then I would win the prize for the monthly blogging competition......drum roll.......well thank you all very much indeed,  I won!  Even better, an earlier blog post which I'd penned for Latitude and which I'd cunningly linked to in the first (I don't work for a digital marketing agency for nothing) came second.  I won again!

I have donated my winnings from the competition to Save the Children.

I'm a Specialist Plant

I recently realised that I've not blogged a blog post throughout the whole of May.  However, I do have a perfectly good scientific explanation for this.

I'm a specialist plant.

At least, my "preferred roles" are that of a specialist (law) and a plant (a creative ideas person).  More particularly, my "least preferred role" is that of a completer-finisher (..er...there's no easy way to say this, basically I prefer other people to sort out the detail, and I'll get on with the bigger picture).  This is unusual for a lawyer, most of us are archetypal completer-finishers (interested in painstaking detail).  Not me apparently.

In other words, I had an idea about how I could develop my specialism of law....this blog, and then during May (presumably while I had other ideas brewing) I must have assumed that someone else in Team Melanie would get on with the detail of the blog for me.  No such luck!

Well, at least  this is the explanation according to an analysis of my typical behaviours in a Belbin Team Role Profile.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Belbin, he was a Dr who, (not Dr Who, but a Dr who) with a team of researchers in the 1970's, set about observing and recording team behaviours, with a view to finding out why some teams worked effectively and some didn't (assuming a controlled set of resources).  The research identified 9 Team-Role behaviours, and through an incredibly simple set of psychometric questions identifies an individual's preferred, manageable and least-preferred team toles. To have a preference for or against a role is not wrong per se, and the theory does suggest "allowable weaknesses" for each role (for example the conscientious completer-finisher might be reluctant to delegate), but on the flip side, it also suggests weaknesses which if allowed to get out of hand would not be beneficial for the overall team good.

Like DISC (see my earlier post Disc World) Belbin theory is another tool which allows you to understand your own behaviour and those of others in your team.  It also helps team managers to not just build a team made up of a perfectly balanced set of 9 Team Role types, but identify where the potential gaps of behaviour in their team lie and to plan around that accordingly.

I was introduced to Belbin Team Role Theory by the very friendly and helpful Urquhart Partnership, or for more information you can go direct to http://www.belbin.com/.

Shameless Plug & Follow-up

A shameless plug for the blog post which I wrote for Latitude earlier this week, Google off the hook, but is anyone else left on it? following the judgement from the ECJ on the 3 Google Adwords cases referred to it from the French courts.  Please click on the link, because if I'm the employee with the most clicks on  the Latitude blog this month I could win the monthly blogging competition :-)

Plug over.

Now for the follow-up:

Obviously this isn't the result which trademark proprietors were hoping for, and since writing that post I've seen a number of reports in the blogosphere suggesting that enforcement costs for protecting brands online will rocket (see in particular this post from World Trademark Review).  We'll just have to wait and see if the price per click of branded keywords does increase, but I think to say that the costs of enforcement will rocket is perhaps a knee-jerk reaction because:

(a)  What this judgement does is further clarify what type of activity does and doesn't constitute trademark infringement, and clarity can only be a good thing for all parties concerned, and so there should be, per se, less infringement.  When we have the ruling in M&S v Interflora, we'll have even more clarity.

(b) Doubtless there will be some advertisers who take advantge of the ruling, but likewise there will be those who don't.  For instance, in terms of online advertising, some sectors are more sensitive to searches against generic keywords rather than branded keywords (eg "car insurance").  Indeed, individual advertisers also take their own ethical stance in whether or not they use competitor's trademarked terms as keywords in their own advertising campaigns.

(c) What trademark owners should consider are the other ways in which they can boost their online presence, such as through improved content (price per click is not the only factor which affects the placement of a sponsored ad) and organic search results.

Lots of analysis and views to digest still, I particularly enjoyed reading Eric Goldman's analysis of the ruling Google gets favourable ECJ opinion, but will it prove a hollow victory? and IPKat's summary of comments on the 3 cases.

Branded: Part 2 Donuts & Carnivals

In my earlier blog post Branded I set out on my quest to turn my in-house lawyer brand into a household name (or maybe that should be business hold name?) renowned the world over. The quest continues. I’m now pleased to be a contributor to the Law Donut Blog which offers free legal information and resources to people running smaller businesses. I’ve promised to work on my first series of contributions, musings and thoughts; although, said contributions, musings and thoughts might be more quickly inspired by the delivery of some Krispy Kremes to my desk....a-hem....moving on....

I was also interested to learn this week about Blog Carnival, a collection of blogging communities working together in shameless self-promotion. I’m all for that, and rather conveniently the UK Blawg Round Up community are currently in the process of organising their Easter edition hosted on this occasion by Peninsulawyer with the theme of "new beginnings". Another blog opportunity for me to muse upon and I encourage other UK law bloggers to contribute to the carnival also.

Speaking of readers of this blog, I thought it would be useful to know if there were actually any. So in a burst of ‘techiness and inspired by my digital marketing type colleagues at Latitude I incorporated Google Analytics into the HTML code of my blog (I needed a drink after this technical endeavour) to monitor hits and conversions, and much to my relief discovered that there are indeed readers of this blog. Phew.

Now, it seems that all I need to do to reach the highest echelons of legal blog brand fame is to get myself a dinky little animal avatar like those of the wonderful Technollama and IPKat.

Are you an in-house lawyer developing your brand? Let me know how you’re doing it (or how I could do it better!) by leaving your comments below.

Branded

brand
• noun 1 a type of product manufactured by a company under a particular name. 2 a brand name. 3 an identifying mark burned on livestock with a heated iron. 4 a piece of burning or smouldering wood.
• verb 1 mark with a branding iron. 2 mark out as having a particular shameful quality. 3 give a brand name to.

I’ve recently been inspired by an article from Kevin O’Keefe on Real Lawyers have Blogs on the importance to lawyers of creating their own personal brand. Although aimed at law grads and associates his Define your Personal Brand As A Lawyer post rang true to me also; as sole in-house counsel to a business which previously had no lawyer working in it, a large part of my time is making sure my colleagues understand the broader commercial value which a lawyer can bring to the business and that we’re not just here to fire-fight any disputes, check contracts or create red-tape and obstacles!

As I work in the digital marketing industry, I found Mitch Joel, in his 6 Pixels of Separation blog shared some great insight in his Top 10 Dos And Don'ts Of Social Medial For Current And Prospective Employees. It conjures up the picture of a personal brand being a 3-dimensional presence and that social media is the perfect tool to achieve that. I enjoy using social media tools to connect with the people I work with and my friends, and so Mitch’s blog was further inspiration to me to step-up a gear in relation to my own personal branding. I already Twitter as @in_house_lawyer (more followers than my personal Twitter account worryingly), so that seemed a good platform from which to take my own personal brand to the next level. It’s also a demonstration to the business I work for of the all-important value-add of an in-house counsel.

So, here it is, the next stage in my personal branding campaign, my In-house Lawyer blog. I tried to blog once before but the fear of being insufficiently profound, high-brow or intellectual or perhaps not the first person to spot a legal development stopped me from saying anything at all! However, now that I have a personal brand to develop, the purpose of my blog has completely changed as its now my vehicle for establishing my In-house lawyer brand.

Bloggers Beware

I was in two minds as to whether I should author this blog under a pseudonym or reveal my true identity. As I’m looking to increase my profile in the digital law world and not planning to stir the pot of outrage and controversy, it made sense to opt to be me, but for others the blogosphere is the venue to let loose their alter-ego and to critique the world in which they routinely operate.

Enter "Night Jack", an under-cover blogger sharing his experiences of front-line policing, criticising policing strategies and politicians, using real-life and traceable examples of police investigations and prosecutions. This successful blog attracted almost 500,000 readers at its peak and lead to a prize for political writing for its anonymous author. Ironically Night Jack had not covered his own tracks well enough and a Times journalist worked out the blogger’s true identity by his own process of deduction and detective work mainly using information available on the internet. Night Jack sought an injunction to prevent the Times from revealing this information and his actual identity.

Unfortunately the rein of Detective Constable Richard Horton’s alter-ego, Night Jack, was to be cut-short. In a landmark ruling, the Court took the view that "blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity" lacking the quality of confidence needed to gain legal protection.

In arriving at its decision the Court asked if DC Horton had a reasonable expectation of privacy? And, if he did, would any public interest argument override that right? In the analysis of the first question, it was found that claimants who relied successfully upon this recently developed cause of action, had a pre-existing relationship of confidence, or the information in question was of a strictly personal nature concerning, for example, sexual relationships, mental or physical health, financial affairs, or the claimant's family or domestic arrangements. There was no successful case analogous to that of DC Horton where there was such a significant public interest element to the information in question. The analysis of the second question was therefore academic.

As with the majority of cases this one turns on the facts, and a different blogger with a different subject-matter at a different time will no doubt yield the chance of a different judgement. But for now, bloggers beware, if your alter-ego crosses the line from personal to political/public interest commentary, writing under a pseudonym is no guarantee of your anonymity.

DC Horton received a written warning for breaching his contract of employment. With such a readily-accessible and tempting array of social media tools now available, many of which can be used to both social and business effect, employers are advised of the value in having a clear policy identifying the extent to and manner in which business information should be broadcast across them.

The link to the full script of the Night Jack case can be found here: http://alpha.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2009/1358.html