HUMAN LAW MEDIATION

Libel and privacy book on hand to solve issues facing digital economy

One of the crucial legal issues emerging within the digital era is that of online defamation and libel law. This is due to the ease with which any individual can publish material online.

I have previously posted about the need for all businesees to use the web but we have to be aware of the potential dangers as well. The worldwide reach of print media, broadcasting, and the Internet has made ignorance about the laws of far-away jurisdictions a here-and-now liability. Publishers, journalists, and authors(including bloggers) can be sued successfully for breaching legal standards thousands of miles away.

A book which seeks to address these issues is International Libel and Privacy Handbook  which is edited by Charles Glasser. 

As the publishers describe the book, it is a nation-by-nation summary of libel and privacy law, written in straightforward language accessible to journalists and editors. It is presented in an easy-to-use format designed for rapid analysis of media law as it applies to globally accessible publications, Internet sites, broadcasting, and wire services.

Contributions by legal experts in Europe, Asia, and the Americas explain the risks publishers should know about prior to publication, what steps editors and publishers should take to avoid legal conflicts, and what defences are available should they be confronted with a claim.

It can be purchased at the Bloomberg Press Bookstore or at Amazon.co.uk

Podcast - Should we be searching for a new business model?

In this podcast, I consider some points raised by Keith Woolcock in his latest article for the Telegraph.

The World Is Flat - Ed Miracle and defendants settle case

I can now inform you that the lawsuit over the cover of the book "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman has been settled.      

The United States case was commenced by the painter, Ed Miracle against Jonathan Galassi, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Thomas L. Friedman, Amazon.com and a number of other parties.   

According to Rose von Perbandt, agent for Mr. Miracle, the litigation has been amicably resolved and the terms of the resolution are confidential.   Eagle eyed readers of this blog will know that I have been acting on behalf of Mr. Miracle within the United Kingdom.

Provision was also made within the settlement which resolved any potential litigation within the United Kingdom so my work is completed.

I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Miracle  and Rose von Perbandt for instructing me and I am very pleased that they can now focus exclusively on developing and promoting Mr. Miracle's art work.                                                                                                                                                                                            

Recommended article - Roy Greenslade on the way the internet revolution is changing the newspaper industry

The Telegraph columnist Roy Greenslade has written a very interesting article on how the internet revolution is changing the  newspaper industry and how the industry should respond.

I am a firm believer that law firms should be dancing on the same place as newspapers and offering podcasts, video and any other form of multi media platform which will enable them to reach out to their clients. 

Effectively we are all media players now.

Recommended blog - Opinionistas

One of the law blogs which has caused quite a great deal of interest within the United States is the Manhattan based blog known as Opinionistas.

Opinionistas is written by Melissa Lafsky who is  a 27-year-old attorney living in downtown Manhattan.

She began her blog initially anonymously in March of 2005 discussing her various experiences as a law firm paralegal, summer associate and junior attorney and by December of 2005 it had been profiled in the New York Times, the New York Post, the Harvard Law Record, the ABA Journal, Newsday and various other media outlets.

At the end of the last year, she resigned from her job "in order to avoid scandal and prevent any potential embarrassment to my coworkers" and her true identity has been revealed.

She has now left her law firm, found a book agent and started a novel based on her blog.

Her writing is excellent and she has an ability to focus on issues in an uncompromising yet profoundly intelligent way.

Legal obligations on ADR to tighten from 6th April

Tony Allen, director of Centre of Effective Dispute Resolution, writes in the current edition of Law Society Gazette about the Civil Procedure Rules 41st amendment and how they have introduced a standardised approach to alternative dispute resolution(ADR) for all the protocols and the protocols practice direction(PPD) as from 6th April 2006. 

In particular as Mr Allen points out for the first time in the CPR, it is specifically said that "the courts take the view that litigation should be a last resort."

To view the relevant Practice Directions amendment, please go to page 11 of this download.

US law firms attitude to women under consideration - Are the issues deeper and is the UK better?

For my non United States readers, a story which has been dominating the blogosphere this week has stemmed from a New York Times article regarding the dearth of women at the top of the legal profession.

According to the United States, National Association for Law Placement, a trade group that provides career counselling to lawyers and law students, only about 17 percent of the partners at major law firms nationwide were women in 2005.

My favourite post on this has come from the Manhattan blogger, Opinionistas who comments in robust but devastatingly accurate language about why working in a law firm is not really what it is cracked out to be.

With my United Kingdom hat on, I can only say that the human resource issues addressed by Opinionistas and other bloggers  are highly relevant to United Kingdom law firms. 

Podcast - Is your team failing?

In this podcast, I explore the management consultant's Partick Lencioni's work, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Podcast- More on blogging seminar

In this podcast, I give some more background on the forthcoming seminar which my firm is running on blogging.

Recommended article - Rupert Murdoch's warning to all organisations

Last week Rupert Murdoch delivered a speech to the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers about the supreme challenges facing the newspaper industry from the online revolution.

In fact the speech has supreme relevance to all organisations and individuals. An edited version appears here in the Independent.

Some memorable excerpts include: 

• "...we probably haven't heard the name of what will be the world's largest company in 2020. Indeed, that company may not even exist yet.."
• "Societies or companies that expect a glorious past to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall. That applies as much to my own, the media industry, as to every other business on the planet."
• "From the wheel to the web, from the printing press to fibre optic cable, it has always been technology that has driven history. Those in the driving seat have always been those who fully understood and used that technology. Today one of our great challenges is to understand and seize the opportunities presented by the web. It is a creative, destructive, technology that is still in its infancy, yet breaking and remaking everything it its path."

For what it is worth, I entirely agree with Mr. Murdoch's analysis about how far reaching the internet revolution is.

What I think is interesting is that the continued de-fragmentation of the media does create an opportunity for lawyers to start putting forward content which can be accessed in a media friendly way. Effectively lawyers can start behaving like online newspapers and TV channels. I will be exploring this issue in my forthcoming seminar on Blogging on 12th April.