BarTalk February 2002
Volume 14, Number 1

by Patricia Jordan

As the CBABC Manager of Interactive Media and Webmaster, I’d like to invite you to explore your online legal resource. With more than 2,000 documents placed online in 2001, I guarantee there is something for everyone at www.bccba.org.

CBABC Web Factoids

• Did you know that our Web site has had more than 72,000 visits since it “went live” just over a year ago?
• The most popular document online is the Access to Justice Denied Report which has been downloaded more than 1,800 times.
• Dial-A-Law scripts in the public Guest Lounge were accessed more than 6,500 times in 2001.

New documents in the Library

• The Ontario Advocates’ Society – Principles of Civility, look under Publications.
• Limited Liability Partnership Legislation for BC, CBABC Submissions/Proposals.

Did you know?

• The Internet was originally a private network used to facilitate communication between research computers at several universities.
• The Internet or “the Net” was conceived in 1969 by the US government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and was originally known as the ARPANET.
• The Internet’s first cybercourt is being created in the United States and is expected to be online in October 2002. This cybercourt at www.michigancybercourt.net, will provide technology companies with an online avenue for litigation.
• Although sites such as clickNsettle.com and icourt.com provide customers with specific services, including dispute resolution or document retrieval, Michigan’s cybercourt will be the first courtroom to operate on the Net.

Ask the Webmaster
The CBABC Web site is your personal web resource, and I invite you to explore the site and enjoy your online legal community. Do you have a question regarding the site? What would you like to see online? What do you find most relevant for your area of practice?

One question that I am frequently asked is “Why does the Web site use cookies?”

Commercial Web sites such as Amazon.com use cookies to identify users and prepare customized web pages. When accessing a Web site that uses cookies, you may be invited to provide information such as your name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and is sent to your computer where it is stored for later use. Upon your next visit to the Web site this information is accessed and used to present you with customized web pages. So, for example, instead of seeing a generic welcome page you might see a welcome page with your name on it or, as in Amazon.com, you may see a page with book titles that may be of interest to you.

The CBABC uses cookies on the Web site to provide pages that are tailored to you, for example listing your Section’s next meeting. Information gathered from the cookie may be used to generate statistics and aggregate reports for internal use. Note: these statistics and aggregate reports do not contain personal information. The CBABC may also use this information to process your orders from the CBABC’s online store. For more information on cookies see “Technology Services” under “Frequently Asked Questions” on our site.

Patricia Jordan is the Manager, Interactive Media/Webmaster. She welcomes your comments, questions, and suggestions. If you’re having difficulty finding a document online, need an answer, or want something added to the site, contact her at pjordan@bccba.org or call 604.646.7861.

This article was published in the February 2002 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2005, all rights reserved.