Lawyers and Web 2.0: what are the implications?

Today I started work on my paper for the ALLA Evolution Conference. The topic is Professionals and Web 2.0, and will to some extent be a presentation of the results from our Professionals and Web 2.0 whitepaper. But I also want to dig into the implications of Web 2.0 for legal research, current awareness, publishing, and libraries.

For example, the Canadian law blog Slaw won the 2009 Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing, presented by the Canadian Association of Law Libraries. It is considered to be a legitimate source of "high quality materials for use in understanding and researching the law." Yes, a Web 2.0 resource has just been lauded as a high-quality publisher in the league of Insight Press, CanLII, and Canada Law Book (just a few of the previous winners). But how do you go about evaluating web 2.0 sources and differentiating them from each other? What differentiates Slaw from Wikipedia? Yes I know this is somewhat obvious but what specific factors make you trust it more?

I would love to hear your thoughts about how you use web 2.0 sources and the implications this has for:

• legal and general research, including evaluating sources
  
• news and current awareness
• the legal publishing industry
• law libraries and KM

I'll be incorporating any insights proferred into my paper. You can tweet me or post longer observations as comments on this blog - I'll be posting on these topics over the next month or so as I put the paper together.

Who are you and why should I buy from you?

Just found this fantastic presentation from the Business Marketing Associations' "Unlearn" conference. A fantastic illustration of how markets and technologies change but the fundamentals of the business relationship don't.



I found a link to it on one of my favourite blogs, WebInkNow. I also noted that the author of WebInkNow, David Meerman Scott, is coming to Sydney and Melbourne in September. Here's the tag for his course: "Instead of explaining what Social Media is, David specialises in showing Marketing and PR experts exactly how to use it."

Now if only I could justify another training course LOL!

Oh well, there seems to be a blog specifically for the Australian masterclasses with Australian examples, so I'll have to get stuck into reading that instead.