Social Media Law

• Tweet
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Email

I am delighted to announce that ScotsLawBlog has been named as one of LexisNexis’ Top 25 International & Foreign Law Blogs of 2011.

For those other keen bloggers or for those considering blogging for the first time, it may be surprising to learn that ScotsLawBlog has only recently marked its 1 year anniversary. Such is the power of social media.

The next stage

What is the next stage for ScotsLawBlog and WardblawG? Now in their second year, the aim is to publish even more legal content (I am, for instance, in the middle of writing a post about the recent significant delict case of Anthony Phee v Gordon & another) in addition to material that helps bloggers and other legal professionals to share more information. While I have a full-time role as a search and social media marketing manager at Moore Legal Technology, helping law firms across the UK to generate business online, I continue to tutor private law at Glasgow University and commercial law at Strathclyde University.

As an aside, on Tuesday this week I attended the opening of Strathclyde University’s Centre for Internet Law and Policy. It was interesting to speak to one of the IP/IT partners at the law firm where I qualified as a solicitor. After several discussions, he said “All the best with the new career”. I had never really thought about what I do as a new career – rather an evolution of career – but I suppose that is a good way of looking at it. For any law students sceptical of the advice “there are many things you can do with a law degree”, I would suggest they broaden their horizons.

Other excellent blogs on Scots Law

There are some other great blogs on Scots Law that merit mentions also. Absolvitor by Iain Nisbet, for instance, was also named as a Top 25 International & Foreign Law Blog of 2011. One blog which has been very impressive recently is Scots Law Thoughts by Paul McConville. Other Scottish blawgs listed by Iain Nisbet at the beginning of the year  are also to be followed.

Forwarding thinking Scottish lawyers, Brian Inkster and the Inksters team also write an excellent series of blogs on Scots Law - a great example of how a law firm can and should write legal content to keep clients and potential clients up-to-date with relevant legal updates. Brian is, of course, also the author of The Time Blawg which provides updates on the past, present and future of legal practice, not only in Scotland but around the world.

Moore Legal Technology additionally assists law firms with blogging within their own websites with the aim both of sharing relevant legal information & news and of generating business for the firms. Austin Lafferty’s blog, for instance, is an example of a prominent Scottish legal blog. Some other Moore Legal Technology clients run successful blogs and it is hoped that continued growth of these into 2012 helps to share even more expert legal content.

There are many, many more Scottish law firms that write blogs and it is hoped that moving into 2012, their investment in social media will allow their online presence to expand to the point where they can increase their international presence.

Starting out with blogging?

I have written recently about useful tips for blogging and, indeed, I run a guest blogging site at http://www.youblawg.com/. For anyone looking to start a law blog, integrate a blog within their website or improve their blogging, please do get in touch.

Best wishes,

Gavin Ward,

Founder of ScotsLawBlog.

• Tweet
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Email

Cairn Energy has obtained an interdict against Greenpeace preventing them posting to Twitter or Facebook photos regarding their occupation of Cairn’s Edinburgh headquarters.

In their press release, Greenpeace notes that

In its latest move to cover up the truth about its Arctic drilling, Cairn Energy has obtained an extraordinary, wide-ranging legal interdict (injunction) against Greenpeace UK, gagging us from posting Tweets and Facebook updates containing photos of yesterday’s occupation of their Edinburgh headquarters.

The interdict also demands that we remove our Tweets and Facebook updates carrying pictures of protesters dressed as polar bears – and that we retract photographs issued to national newspapers.

Specifically, the court order prohibits “disseminating, printing, uploading, sharing, copying or otherwise publishing any images, photographs, pictures or other material (or copies thereof) taken or recorded by Greenpeace activists present within 50 Lothian Road, Edinburgh on or around 18 July 2011.”

Greenpeace are being prudent to delete the photographs to avoid breaching the interdict. They note:-

We are deleting the photos but, as you might expect, we’re going to keep campaigning to protect the Arctic from reckless corporations who see the melting of the polar ice as a business opportunity.

Comment

The grant of this interdict preventing social media posts comes after the first such order being granted in the High Court in England in May.

Interestingly, the superinjunction fiasco from earlier this year appeared to see no interdicts being granted by the Scottish courts, probably because the lawyers who obtained the superinjunctions in England believed that no action in the Scottish courts was necessary to restrain publication there. As it happened, The Herald went ahead and published that which could not have been published in England about Ryan Giggs. Now that the Scottish courts have granted such an order, it is wondered if interdicts and injunctions preventing publication on social media sites will become even more common.

It is submitted that the answer is: probably not. Unsurprisingly the granting of the interdict and its revelation has backfired on the energy company in this case with hundreds of retweets of the images and news being sent across the world. Further, the images which have been taken and were sent out initially are now ‘cached’ in search engines for all to see. Take, for instance, a Google Images search for Greenpeace Polar Bears Edinburgh. But this time it is not the Courts that need to keep up with technology; it’s the oil company itself. The Scottish Court did exactly what Cairn’s lawyers asked it to do: to grant the interdict. The commercial implications on the other hand are the responsibility of Cairn. This time, it would seem, they got it wrong.