But what about opening up justice online? The new issue of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers features my article summing up the ‘Open Justice in the Digital Era’ project at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism, and the forthcoming ‘Justice Wide Open’ working papers. Appropriately, as of this month, access to the journal is free online [print subscription details here].

I argue that our project raises important questions to be teased out and properly considered by legal authorities and government, in consultation with the public, researchers and the media. In that sense, our project is a call for debate as well as action.

Read the article in full here.

The panel featured David Allen Green (Jack of Kent / New Statesman), Carl Gardner (Head of Legal) and Adam Wagner (UK Human Rights Blog), and was chaired by Catrin Griffiths, editor of The Lawyer.

It was interesting for me, as a relative newcomer on the ‘legal blog’ scene – and as someone with a journalism, rather than legal, background (I currently float somewhere in between).

While I may have arrived late to the legal blog, or heaven forbid, ‘blawg’ party, it turns out that many lawyers are only really discovering the fun of social media now (they’re rather more cautious than journalists – there’s a bit more at stake, I suspect).

Fortunately there wasn’t too much of the sycophantic ‘thanks for the follow!’ type stuff, and it was good to hear David Allen Green dismiss corporate social media ‘strategies’.

We did touch on legal blogging’s future, advertising, marketing etc. but it wasn’t too painful. Important points were raised by the audience. Hugh Tomlinson QC from Matrix talked about the demise of the newspaper legal correspondent; Siobhain Butterworth provided useful insight into the Guardian’s comment moderation process; and I also enjoyed the discussion around anonymity – and the risk of blogging as a student after a training contract.

It was only the start of the conversation, however. There are very serious issues to consider, as lawyers increasingly take to social media and online activity. Ethics and regulation, for example…

The value of legal blogging, in my view, is that it plugs a gap between the ‘locked up’ legal data behind enormous paywalled businesses and the ordinary people outside the profession.

Blogs enable us to find simple explanations and examples of case law that would previously be secreted internally.

Locked up legal data is one of my bugbears and something I’d like addressed. Why is so much stuff inaccessible until you get expensive subscriptions?

Everyone waxes lyrical about Bailii (it’s very useful, I agree) but that’s partly because there’s a dearth of other open, useable databases for UK law.

I hope that some of the legal bloggers will join in the conversation about how to free more of our courts data. I’m hoping to talk to the Ministry of Justice about this soon.

Thoughts and suggestions welcomed, either by email (jt.townend@gmail.com) or below. Thank you. And thank you One Crown Office Row for the event!