Blawgs, transparency, and public confidence in the judiciary

"What Has Your Blawg Done For You, Your Clients, Your Profession Lately?". In her current thoughts on the value of a lawyer publishing a web log, Denise Howell is right again. One point strikes close to home for me:

There's a parallel when it comes to the legal process. Everyone, inside and outside of the business world, has concern and confusion about how their behavior might fare under the scrutiny of courts and regulators. The more transparency the legal field provides, the more those potentially in need of legal services can come to see the profession and its professionals as Allies, not enemies. [link omitted]

One facet of providing open access to the courts includes providing this transparency. Weblog publishing software and the rise of blawgs has demonstrated that making the arcana of practice and procedure more widely available is possible (and now unstoppable) with minimal effort. From my own experience, I can cite the tangible benefit of better public access to court knowledge as a result of publishing official court weblogs over the past eighteen months. Though it's hard to measure, I would posit that this increased transparency translates into increased public confidence in the judiciary.

  1:42:49 PM      

Complete Australian High Court Decisions Online for Free

"[T]he High Court of Australia database on AustLII is now among the few complete free access online national courts databases of any country, back to the first decision of the Court." [Australasion Legal Information Institute] [links added]. The database includes decisions since 1903.

  12:34:57 PM