What Slaw Hath Wrought

A week later a field report from Project Rothstein.

Firstly, I’m delighted that the Slaw community really came together. Indeed Simon F and Simon C (who are old friends and colleagues) had the pleasure of consuming a bottle of Montepulciano with Connie Crosby Whom neither of us had ever met actually, yet we felt as if we’d collaborated for ever. Thanks to Connie and Simon for their introduction to writely.com, a Linux based collaborative word processing programme. It permitted us to work together on the same document, sometimes at the same time.

In addition, Mark Lewis compiled case law, Ted Tjaden surveyed law reviews, papers and articles, and Steve Matthews and Nick Pengelley contributed ideas. To all a heartfelt vote of thanks.

Now the good news, the blogosphere liked the work:
Praise from ColbyCosh:

Bookmarkable
Could this be the popular general-interest Canadian legal weblog I’ve been calling for these past two or three years? Slaw.ca bills itself as “a co-operative weblog about Canadian legal research and the impact of technology on it.” It scarcely sounds like the quasi-populist sort of exercise I’ve been seeking–namely, the kind of thing that invites participation from the legally aware lay public. But it’s easy to see how the site could “accidentally” grow in the desired direction, and its remarkable Marshall Rothstein Pages represent a tremendous step in the right direction. Message to Slaw.ca: this sort of thing is excellent and should be done more often.

Thanks for the compliment.

Some nice comments from Stanley Rule, Sabrina I. Pacifici Ohio State University and a self-indulgent lawyer south of the border . We made it onto the Jurist page.

A reference in the Canadian Bar Association’s Press Release shows that we reached the attention of the Bar. I gather their site (like our’s) was well visited last week as well.

And finally, we got picked up by the mainstream media. Simon Chester appeared on the Calgary Talk Radio Channel 770 CHQR on Monday night, on a show called The World Tonight with host Rob Breakenridge. The topic was the Justice Rothstein show on Parliament Hill, and the work that the Slaw.ca collective had done over the weekend on the Rothstein nomination.

Not to sound too self-congratulatory, but we did learn a lot, and all in all this shows that there was a good response to the work. I think we demonstrated that the medium of blogging can certainly respond more nimbly than traditional media to a story like Justice Rothstein’s.