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The Canadian Bar Association’s National Magazine recently published their inaugural survey of Canada’s best law firm websites in a feature article in their December 2009 issue and I am proud to report that Skunkworks client Bull, Housser & Tupper LLP took home two awards – one for the best law firm website in British Columbia and a second for the best student recruitment website nationally.

In making their determination, the magazine asked a panel of nine legal technology professionals, including web designers and consultants, for their views and rankings, including Skunkworks’ own Client Services Director Marni Macleod, LL.B. (Fans of due process can rest assured however that Marni was duly excluded from pitching or voting for our own work). You can read more of Marni’s thoughts about what makes a good legal website on our agency blog and download a pdf of the full National article here.

Turning to the blogosphere, on New Year’s Eve Stem Legal’s Steve Matthews also announced this year’s winners in the 2009 Clawbie Awards, where two more Skunkworks’ clients fared well. David Bilinsky’s Thoughtful Legal Management blog and the Courthouse Libraries BC’s new blog The Stream were winner and runner-up respectively in their categories.

In reviewing all of the winning entries in both the Clawbies and the National article, I am heartened by how far legal marketing on the web has come in this country over the past decade. The depth of content, the overall level of design, the adoption of current technology and the resulting competitive differentiation that the leading firms display as we enter 2010 makes me excited for what’s to come in the year(s) ahead. My congratulations to all of the firms and lawyers recognized in these recent awards.

Steve Matthews of Stem Legal has just announced that nominations are open for the 2009 Clawbies Awards (for best Canadian law blogs).

Here are my three picks:

1. SLAW Slaw is a perennial award-winner of myriad blog awards. While that might make it a boring pick, it doesn’t change the fact that it continues to deliver the goods month in, month out with a wide list of contributors that collectively provide insight into recent developments and current trends in Canadian legal practice, technology and scholarship that make it the online equivalent of the local watering hole for Canadian law geeks. Essential stuff.

2. Thoughtful Law David Bilinsky’s Thoughtful Law blog is another multiple award winner that covers a broad territory – from change management to technology trends to personal renewal – with aplomb. The difference is that it’s all being powered by a single person instead of the large ensemble cast that contributes to Slaw. (Disclaimer: Dave is both a friend and a Skunkworks client. Don’t hold that against him – the blog stands on its own merits).

3. ICBC Law Blog I frequently use Victoria lawyer Erik Magraken as a poster boy for how younger lawyers and smaller firms can successfully use online content marketing to showcase their expertise, establish themselves as thought leaders, and disrupt the old hierarchies that historically made age and firm size key criteria for winning work. A plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer based out of Victoria, Erik’s blog (and facebook page and twitter profile, and JD Supra documents etc. etc.) succeed(s) because he provides useful, factual information to his readers about his area of practice without resorting to salesmanship. In the process, he also demonstrates his passion for and knowledge of the subject, and gives himself terrific top-of-mind presence to a large online audience. The result is an informative and effective practitioner’s blog that builds business and no doubt makes him a better lawyer for the very act of writing it.

So there you have it – three blogs that make my personal list for some of the best CanCon of the 2009 blogosphere. Check them out if you haven’t already, and be sure to make your own Clawbies picks via email, twitter or blog post as described here.

P.S. A final word – Jordan Furlong’s Law 21 and Steve Matthews’ Stem Law Firm Web Strategy Blog are also both gold medal winners in my view, but have selflessly removed themselves from Clawbies contention due to the small technical complication that they are the ones dishing out the awards. I hope it doesn’t spoil my ballot, but consider this a ceremonial vote for them anyhow.

At last month’s 2009 Pacific Legal Technology Conference I co-presented a session on smartphones for lawyers with Peter (”Pete”) Roberts, Practice Management Advisor for the Washington State Bar Association.

One of the areas of discussion that generated quite a bit of interest was around the availability and utility of full-sized external keyboards for smartphones. I had such a setup WAAY back when for a very early-edition Palm Pilot and found it made the device significantly more useful. Fast forward a decade and despite the almost infinite number of iPhone accessories on the market, I have been unable to locate this seemingly obvious add-on.

However, during my research I did come across one apparent option for Blackberry owners that is both an external keyboard and larger monitor/display screen. One of the session attendees also alerted us to and personally vouched for another external keyboard that she has been using with her blackberry with great success.

In the non-legal technology press and blogs there seems to be some disdain for external smartphone keyboards as being poor value for dollar with the cost of netbooks constantly hitting new lows but that misses the point for most lawyers in my view. Between home and office computers and a smartphone, most attorneys are more than sufficiently equipped with computing power and the addition of another standalone device would complicate, rather than simplify the technology picture. However, maximizing the value and utility of your smartphone just makes good sense. So, without further ado, here’s the two external keyboards I’ve surfaced so far.

Option 1: Celio RedFly External Keyboard + Display

The RedFly by Celio looks very intriguing – essentially giving your blackberry a NetBook-like footprint with a near-full sized keyboard and a much larger monitor. The caveats are that support for blackberries has just been added within the last month, and for Canadians, I don’t see a buy-in-Canada option anywhere on the site yet, although they do note one distributor for the Canadian market.

Option2: The Freedom Universal Keyboard2

Unlike the RedFly, the Freedom Universal 2 is a one-trick pony: it is an external keyboard full-stop. However, it is already a second-generation device which means it’s more battle-tested than the RedFly at this stage, and I have one strong recommendation from a lawyer I know with hands-on experience with the device so that might be the more conservative option at this stage. As with the RedFly though, it’s not clear that the device has been fully deployed in the Canadian market yet (their website doesn’t list a Canadian contact, but does reference a Canadian distributor) so regardless of which option you choose, it might involve a pickup the next time you visit our friends south of the border.

If any readers have hands-on experiences to share about either of these two options, or other choices I might have missed, I’d love to hear from you.

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