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ASSOCIATES BY IAN HARVEY Winnipeg's Bowman fights to restore clients' reputations online W innipeg lawyer Brian Bowman didn't set out to be the sheriff of cyberspace, but he's cleaning it up, one repu- tation at a time. The 36-year-old associate at Pitblado LLP is finding more of his billable time taken up tackling clients' complaints about what's being said about them or their companies on the web. "It just sort of evolved that way," says Bowman. "I don't know of any other lawyers doing this in Canada — in the U.S., yes, but not in Canada yet." Since being called to the Manitoba bar in 2000, Bowman's main practice has been in privacy law, and, since it crosses over into internet and computer technology, more clients started coming to see him seeking advice about how to have objection- able material removed from the web. He quickly discovered the issues dragged him into other areas of law: defamation, copy- right, trademark, licensing, and intellectual property. "About half my clients are businesses who are concerned cyberspace THE SHERIFF OF about their brand or product being attacked online — in some cases, for example, there could be some sensitive documenta- tion posted online which might be proprietary," says Bowman, adding the nature of the internet creates an environment of anonymity which leads some to write and post materials they would not in the real world. While the courts have clearly established cer- tain laws, such as libel, apply to the internet, the area is emerging and there isn't a lot of case law at hand. He's in the process of working with an articling student at Pitblado to assemble reference cases from Canada and other jurisdictions. Bowman is getting calls from across Canada and says his forte is not litigation but a more subtle approach. "The last thing you want to do is right off the bat is slap them with a statement of claim," says Bowman. "And besides, I'm not a liti- gator — I mean I can, but that's not really what I do. So it be- comes a bit of a chess game." His first line of defence — or attack — is to advise the client on the areas of law which may be of assistance. He then searches out who is the registered owner of the web site in question and gets contact information. "Usually I have the client call them- selves," he says, noting the approach is more subtle than a law- yer's letter or threat of lawsuit. Steve Matthews, of Stem Legal Services in Vancouver, a legal-services outsource company, says online reputations — and protecting them — is a fast-growing issue and agrees 16 JULY 2008 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com