I'm becoming increasingly fascinated with the effect of blogs and bloggers on the course and conduct of litigation. Consider the following, from a New York Times article today on the internet celebrity news site tmz.com:
"Even Hollywood criminal lawyers concede that dealing with TMZ has now become part of their legal strategy. Shawn Chapman Holley, who represents Nicole Richie, acknowledges that TMZ’s ability to get information has affected strategic decisions in Ms. Richie’s drunken-driving case.
“When we approach the bench, what we know and when TMZ will know it is a factor discussed with the judge,” said Ms. Holley. “Miss Richie’s case would be set for a particular day and to throw off TMZ.com, I would go in a day before. Unfortunately, TMZ.com figured out my strategy and were there when I arrived. So now I’m trying to figure out some other strategy.”
The full article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/business/media/25tmz.html?8dpc
To apply this kind of thinking to corporate disputes, just substitute the Wall Street Journal Law blog (or others) for TMZ. It's clear that the earlier and comprehensive posting of case-related material on the Internet is already having a huge impact on legal strategies, what lawyers say in court, and how in general, the legal system behaves (this is something I specualted on in 2003 in a column in USA Today on the RIAA lawsuits over the illegal downloading of music -- see http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-10-01-haggerty_x.htm).
Monday, June 25, 2007
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