How did we ever manage without the Civil Litigation Brief?

Gordon Exall is a barrister at Zenith Chambers in Leeds. Two years ago today he began a blog about his specialist fields of civil procedure, costs, limitation, sanctions and evidence, and launched into Twitter, as @CivilLitTweet, to promote the blog.

Gordon’s blog has become an essential part of any litigating lawyer’s reading, not least because it is always bang up to date. If there was a judgment relevant to his topics yesterday, than the chances are that it is already on Civil Litigation Brief, with extracts, links and comment.

Recent posts have included Relief from sanctions refused following inadequate eDisclosure which covers the latest round in the long running (and very significant) case of Smailes v McNally (I will write about it in due course) and, for amusement as well as anything else, Evidence, costs and the credibility of witnesses: a Canadian view.

Gordon has gathered more than 3,500 Twitter followers. Many of his tweets link to his own posts or to other significant sources; he engages in discussion about them and other things related to law and procedure; much of his Twitter feed is cheerful chatter of the kind which lightens the day and keeps followers interested; he is generous to others with retweets and favorites, as well as things like this::

Unconsciously perhaps, Gordon Exall provides a model for the best use of social media. You don’t get big Twitter audiences by just pushing out the occasional links to worthy materials. Anyone thinking of self-publishing legal content and building an audience should look here for a model.

Here’s to the next two years, Gordon.

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