Canadian Lawyer 4Students

Tweeting — and other social media — is no longer just for birds. eet #tw time to s BY HEATHER GARDINER ocial media is everywhere. Companies are creating their own Facebook pages to inform customers about products and promotions; journalists are using applications like Twitter to keep readers up to date on breaking news; professionals around the world are connecting with one another on LinkedIn; sports fans are debating with each other on online forums; people are writing blogs to express their thoughts and opinions on a wide range of topics — the list is endless. And it's all accessible on your smartphone now, too. So it's no surprise even a traditional industry like law is starting to embrace social media. With law students typically of a generation weaned on electronics, they're catching on rather quickly. But they might face some barriers in law school when it comes to integrating social media into their legal education. Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor and wellknown blogger, says he's seeing a lot more students using social media. "The overwhelming majority of the students that I've encountered in my classes are on Facebook, a good number of them now are on Twitter and Instagram, and all the many other services that are out there," he says. Students are using Facebook to plan events at their law schools; they're joining the Twittersphere to offer their thoughts and opinions on legal issues; they're creating LinkedIn profiles to network with other law students, faculty, and lawyers; and some have even created their own blogs. Geist worries law schools could miss the boat if they don't start incorporating social media into the teaching environment. "If we're not using those tools, in some ways we may be missing an effective mechanism for communicating with those students," he says. "We ought to see some real experimentation using technology more generally, and part of that is social media." Ottawa lawyer Jordan Furlong, who blogs on the current and future state of the profession at Law21, says, "There's a lot of good things social media can do in terms of training good thinkers, good writers, and good debaters." However, he has little faith law schools are going to come around to the idea any time soon. "I could see it used as a communication tool, as a way to produce content, and as a way to sharpen your debating skills, but I think these are all things, frankly, that the vast, vast majority of law school professors are not aware of, have no interest in, and are not going to adopt." However, some professors have jumped on the social media bandwagon. University of Calgary law professor Kathleen Mahoney had never even used Twitter before she signed up last year to be a judge for the world's first-ever Twitter moot, hosted by British Columbia's West Coast Environmental Law. Although it was a bit of a learning curve, Mahoney told 4Students after the moot it was a great experience and she even planned to use Twitter as a teaching tool. "[Y]ou could start a little discussion on Twitter . . . with students about issues in class, [etc.] and have a group discussion. That was a very interesting revelation for me; how this could be adapted to other teaching opportunities with students," she said. C A N A D I A N Law yer 4 students Spring 2013 7

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