This month we are celebrating the third anniversary of the launch of ABlawg. In response to our call for new subscribers, we have tripled the number of people receiving notice by email and RSS feed of new ABlawg posts. Readers may have noticed that we have started to include shorter posts on things like leave to appeal decisions and appeal hearings in addition to our longer comments on developments in Alberta case law, legislation and policy. On Friday, we will be launching a new feature on ABlawg called “New Rules of Court Interpreted”. This feature will briefly highlight judicial interpretations of the new Alberta Rules of Court, Alta. Reg. 124/2010. We are always open to new ideas from our readers, so please let us know if you have suggestions for other features on ABlawg. Thanks for reading.

We began blogging three years ago in November 2007, and we need you to help us get the word out. We know that ABlawg has a broad readership within the legal profession, academia, the NGO sector, and the general public but we want more! Our goal is to double our number of subscribers by our official third anniversary in February 2011 (when ABlawg went “live”).

If you are already a subscriber, you will have automatically received notice of this post, but we have a challenge for you: tell five of your colleagues or friends about ABlawg and encourage them to become subscribers.

If you are reading this post and are not a subscriber, why not sign up? We’ve made it even easier to do so, either by email or by RSS feed. Just click on the links on the top right hand side of our homepage, or on our new “Subscribe” page. Subscribers receive notice of new blogs within 24 hours of posting on ABlawg. What could be better? Instant CLE! And those of you who are members of the legal profession, how about listing ABlawg as part of your continuing legal education declarations that you provide to the Law Society?

We also encourage our readers to submit responses to our posts by using the “Post a comment” function after each post. If you agree with our commentary, or especially if you have a different point of view, we want to hear from you!

As a bare bones operation, we offer no prizes, fame or glory for those of you who take on our challenge. But we do thank you for your readership and for your support.

February 26, 2010 is the second anniversary of ABlawg. To mark this occasion, we are interested in hearing from our readers about the impact and usefulness of ABlawg.Here are some of the questions on which we would appreciate receiving feedback:

• Are you a subscriber to ABlawg?
• How often do you read ABLawg?
• Have you used ABlawg posts in your work? How?
• Are you aware of ABlawg posts that have been cited by a court, in a legal argument, in an academic article or in another blog post? Please provide details.
• Has ABlawg assisted you in understanding the law in a particular area?
• Have you posted a comment to an ABlawg post? Why or why not?
• How does ABlawg compare with other blogs that you may subscribe to?
• What can we do to improve ABlawg?

Continue reading →

Ask three ABlawggers for their favourite Canadian law blogs, and you end up with more than three different answers. It appears our bloggers cannot confine themselves to a single favourite, and so we have restricted ourselves here to academic / law professor blogs.Jonnette Watson Hamilton, ABlawg’s most prolific blogger, writes: “Osgoode Hall’s The Court — which was 2007’s “most important new Canadian law blog” — continues to provide timely, thoughtful and in-depth analysis of Supreme Court of Canada decisions. One of the reasons for the outstanding nature of the contribution this blog makes to legal scholarship is the number of law students, practicing lawyers and law professors from all across Canada who are among its contributors. Regardless of the area of law, The Court has someone who can comment on new cases with expertise. The Court states that it “aims to become the premier online location for information about Canada’s highest court” and I think it has achieved this aim.”

Jennifer Koshan, Coordinator of ABlawg, agrees with this assessment, and adds that: “The Court provides valuable context for Supreme Court cases and other national legal developments that enriches my teaching of constitutional law.” Koshan’s favourite thread on The Court this year dealt with the role of Chief Justice McLachlin in Henry Morgentaler’s Order of Canada award. These posts (and the resulting commentary) provided rich fodder for the topic of judicial independence in constitutional law.

It is no surprise that Greg Hagen, our faculty’s IP specialist and technical advisor for ABlawg, chooses the following law blogs as his tie for favourite: “I visit Michael Geist’s blog almost every day. Geist’s blog is a current and comprehensive source on internet and copyright news. His brief commentaries usefully put the news into a broader perspective. His site contains links to other tech law blogs and often links to primary materials which are useful for research purposes. Howard Knopf’s Excess Copyright blog contains perceptive, passionate and often humorous commentary on selected Canadian and international copyright news. Although Knopf practices copyright law, he keeps in touch with academic writings and posts his own academic contributions.”

Last but not least, Koshan nominates the University of Alberta Faculty of Law’s blog for the following reasons: “I love U of A bloggers’ irreverence and wide ranging subject matter – where else can you find movie reviews, obituaries, live blogs, and case and political commentary all in the same week? I also admire the number and range of comments posted in response to U of A bloggers’ posts, which show a high level of reader engagement. In fact, I often read the U of A blog to find comments on ABlawg posts. It works like this – one of us will write a post on ABlawg, Russ Brown will comment on it on the U of A’s blog, and then readers respond to his post, indirectly commenting on ours. Russ and Moin Yahya also provided helpful advice when we were setting up ABlawg in 2008. Calgary / Edmonton rivalry may be alive and well in hockey, but not in the blawgosphere.”