One of the most significant developments of recent years has been the rise of online communities. These community sites – whether social networking like Facebook or LinkedIn, knowledge-sharing communities like Wikipedia or online gaming like Halo – allow individuals to organise and coordinate various activities online.
Some lawyers tend to dismiss new developments like Facebook as shallow and trivial – that is a mistake. The growth of online collaboration promises to be an important development for law because, in many ways, online communities reflect its traditional community model. A legal online community need not adopt the frivolous aspects of Facebook, but could be a place for connecting people, information, best practices and legal automation in ways that strengthen the profession and individual lawyers.
