A leap into the unknown

Posted on 11 May, 2011 by Bridie Sheldon

We push the youngest member of our team Bridie Sheldon into writing a blog… about blogging.

Imagine you have just thrown yourself off a bridge. You are plummeting ever nearer and nearer to the ground and then, in a split second, the free falling feeling turns into a stomach churning rebound up into the stratosphere, or so it feels. This is because you have a piece of stretchy cord tightly strapped around your ankles.

Yes, I’m talking about bungee jumping. For some, including myself, the idea sounds exhilarating. The feeling of free falling is undeniably unbeatable, giving you the chance to let go of everything… and fly.

Why would anyone not? Well I have to admit, I remember standing at the top of the ragged gorge and, as I looked down, I began to think of the risks involved. What happens if they didn’t calculate my weight correctly or what if the bungee snaps…? I could end up with a serious headache.

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Blog Supreme

Posted on 1 October, 2009 by Charles Holloway

I have to thank Jon Robins of the newspaper City A.M. for the reference in his article on 30thSeptember entitled ‘Pop Art and poetry in the Supreme Court‘ for alerting me to the existence of a newish blog about the Supreme Court which opens its doors for business today, 1st October.

The blog (www.ukscblog.com) edited by Hugh Tomlinson QC and colleagues from Matrix Chambers and Olswang has set out since May 2009 to comment on the new court and its workings. As is well known, the new court replaces the Law Lords who, according to the blog’s strap line, have sat within Parliament for over 600 years since 1399.

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See you anon – in court

Posted on 19 August, 2009 by Charles Holloway

Blogs may not be as anonymous as some contributors have assumed or would like.

As a relative newcomer to the art of blogging, I woke up today to a salutary reminder that bloggers are not above or beyond the law when it comes to ‘ordinary’ standards of defamation and libel. According to an aticle in the Times ‘Vogue model Liskula Cohen wins right to unmask offensive blogger‘ an anonymous blogger in the US has posted less than flattering comments about a Vogue model called Liskula Cohen, to which Ms Cohen took grave exception. She applied to the court for an order that Google, the blog host in this case, disclose to her the identity of the blogger so that she could sue him/her for damages for defamation.

She won!

Judge Joan Madden, a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice ruled that Google should hand over the evidence of identity to her and rejected the blogger’s argument that blogs “serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting, and should not be treated as factual assertions”.

As it happens, contributors to the Smart e-Discovery blog are not anonymous, though it does remind us that moderating comments before they are published is a sensible precaution!