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Friday, September 25, 2009
Law - Lawyers blogging critically about judges; students mocking teachers online
Those are the topics of two new Findlaw articles:
"Should Lawyers Be Allowed to Blog Critically About Judges?" by Julie Hilden, is available here. The conclusion:
Attorney bloggers who cross the line when it comes to wording should face backlash, but from their more decorous colleagues and fellow bloggers -- not from a quasi-governmental entity such as the bar, and not with the blessing of a governmental entity like a state supreme court."Schools Suits Against Students Who Mock Them Online" by Laura Hodes, is available here. It begins:Conway's blog entry [ILB - check here for background] itself makes the case against regulating attorneys' tone or wording. His "Evil, Unfair Witch" comment is an excellent example of speech that goes far over the line in its wording. Yet his point about speedy-trial rights – a point that, if listened to, could lead to changes in statutes or in judges' rules or practices – exemplifies the kind of worthwhile speech that could be chilled if bar rules leave attorneys unclear as to what they can and cannot say, and if attorneys decide, as a result, to stay silent.
The rapid rise in popularity of sites like Facebook and Twitter has made it easy for students to bypass the traditional means of communicating and commiserating with a wide audience of other students: the school newspaper. The faculty newspaper adviser could control the content of each issue of the newspaper before its publication. But now, there has been a rise in "electronic harassmentor suck sites," through which students directly create web sites to mock a school or its teachers – without any gatekeeper present to exercise editorial control.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 25, 2009 06:21 PM
Posted to General Law Related