A few weeks ago, I decided to complete an informal survey of blogs which my timeline regularly reads. This was never intended to be a competition, and the findings below are supposed to celebrate your responses. They are not in any particular order, reflecting the ‘popularity’ of bloggers. Forty people responded, and it was interesting to see how you responded. Our blogroll of the BPP Legal Awareness Society on the Legal Aware blog is meant to be a celebration of all blogs, as we appreciate all the effort that’s put in by all legal bloggers here in the UK, many of whom never get any recognition.
Communication recently has become very important in the legal world because of campaigning. For example, in the discussions over #LASPO, @nearlylegal has encouraged involvement over housing amendments in the Bill before parliament. Blogging is a brilliant way for all members of our legal community to get their point across, from law students, to Professors/Readers, and even to QCs. For example, the UK Human Rights Blog is written by members of 1 Crown Office Row barristers’ chambers. David Hart QC recently considered why we need an international environmental court in a blogpost which centred around the ‘Erika Disaster’. The article considers the thorny issue plaguing much of the legal blogging community – what jurisdiction takes charge of dealing with the matter? Hart opines that, “The problem, as often with international environmental issues, particularly criminal ones, is the jurisdiction for the offence charged – can, in this instance, the French prosecute this crime, even though someone can also do do so somewhere else?”
Communication can be used by different parties to get their point across, often in heated contexts. In the well-respected blog, recently celebrated in the longlist for the Orwell Award 2012 [blog category], “Beneath the Wig” considered in a thought-provoking blogpost latterly ‘the standard police defence'; @_millymoo observes that, “The police service has to start to recognise that while we are grateful for the protection they offer, that protection does not mean we are not allowed to question when they act beyond the bounds of what they are charged to do.” Public attitudes were considered in a different context on the “Coppola Comment” blog, where the theme was how the author (@Frances_Coppola) had increasingly discovered ‘two groups of people': “I’ve been aware for some time that there seem to be two distinct groups of people in the world of politics and economics, who see the world in fundamentally different ways and don’t really understand each other. It’s as if one group are landlings, only secure when they have hard land under their feet and terrified of drowning in deep water, and the other group are sea creatures, happy floating in an unstructured, boundary-less medium but parched and shrivelled on dry land.”
There’s no doubt that the mechanisms of communication, certainly in the legal world, could be improved? For example, well-known @legalbizzle recently contributed an intriguing explanation of “the language of contract negotiations”: “Sometimes everybody knows what you mean. The phrase “With respect…” is universally understood to mean its precise opposite, and “I’m not being funny, but…” invariably means “I am about to say something racist”. But law has its own secret language, opaque even to its practitioners on occasion. It’s not just the Latin and the tortured circumlocutions; even the most innocent phrases have hidden meanings.”
A frustration of people simply not communicating with one another is often a theme of UK blogs. Indeed, sometimes blogposts converge on the notion that valuable lessons can be learnt from comparative analysis of jurisdictions. For example, @carlgardner recently examined the application of the ‘written constitution’ to the UK socio-political-legal culture: Carl provides that, “So this case should serve as a warning to us from across the Atlantic. In particular, it’s a warning to those of us in Britain who count ourselves as on the social democratic side of politics and who believe the state can actively do good. Some people argue for a written constitution here, or for elements of a written constitution, such as a British version of the First Amendment. But any such move would inevitably give conservative forces greater power to block, by litigation, socially progressive legislation. Anyone who counts themselves liberal should pause to think how relatively easy it has been for Parliament to bring in civil partnerships, and will be for it to bring in gay marriage, as compared with the agonies the issue causes in America.”
An irreverent ‘@LegalCheek‘ blogpost has had its own look at the importance of communication in an excellent series of posts recently focussed on marketing. They recently brought news of a tie-up between Ashurst and Australian law firm Blake Dawson. Branding and marketing has become an expensive pre-occupation of some in the legal world wishing to communicate more effectively: “Colleagues of Maxwell then reveal how much they’re looking forward to a wonderful future that will in no way see them go from being a major Australian firm to a distant neo-colonial outpost of a London firm. Needless to say, the footage doesn’t recall in any way the hostage video genre, instead producing an overall effect that is both extremely natural and genuine – as you can see for yourself below.”
Intra-organisational communications within corporate cultures have recently grown in recognition. For example, @kilroyt considered the possible value in HR specialists and lawyers talking to each other: “Maybe this idea of lawyers going into HR makes sense for employment law specialists. But for others? I led HR for 2 months last year and I can tell you good intentions and common sense aren’t enough. If I ask you whether Learning & Development should be grouped with Organisation & Staffing, what’s the answer? Everything is specialised nowadays. Don’t make the mistake of thinking “I’m a smart lawyer. How hard can it be?” I devoted a lot of those 2 months to hiring an excellent, professional HR leader to replace me.”
Of course, the problem may not be as bad as all that, and law firms don’t need to spend millions to trying to ‘communicate better’. @MagicCircleMinx came up with her own hit-list recently of how the ‘trainee experience’ could be improved at an instant virtually: “At the request of some bods in human resources, I’ve been asked to come up with some thoughts on how and in what way I would improve the trainee solicitor experience. This is what I’ve got so far…
1. George Clooney as a supervisor.
2. Freedom to choose the clients I work for and my hours.
3. Free designer shoes, nutritious meals delivered to my flat and a cleaner.
4. A duvet day once a month. No questions asked.
5. And a secretary who is happy to do “trainee work.”
*deletes the above* *goes back to the drawing board* *stares at a blank page*”
