From blogs to tweets to a predictions market, the Copenhagen climate change summit starting today is bringing the creative side out of law firms as they embrace 21st century technologies to keep their clients and stakeholders informed of their activities.
Norton Rose Group, which is merging with Deacons Australia 1 January, has set up a twitter account and Australian partner Elisa de Wit, along with Norton’s seven other climate change lawyers observing the event, will be updating the firm’s ‘followers’ regularly on the progress of the talks. However, for those that do not need the information as fast as the legal team can tweet (or who like to read fully-formed sentences), the observers are also posting on a blog created especially for the event.
Allens Arthur Robinson has also created a climate change blog in response to the summit and Melbourne-based lawyer Fergus Green will be contributing to it during the event which ends 14 December. Allens has used a video of Green on their website to explain his role at the event to clients.
Baker & McKenzie has taken a novel approach, sponsoring the Copenhagen Prediction Market (COPPM). The project is being run in association with The Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets and is an attempt by Bakers to inform its clients of the likely outcome of the conference before the outcome is known by the participants themselves.
“Baker & McKenzie is supporting the COPPM because we think that not only is this an interesting and novel concept for monitoring negotiations of considerable global importance, but also because it provides an indication to our clients of the thoughts of those closest to the outcome of the negotiations," said Paul Curnow, who will be attending Copenhagen.
During the Conference the COPPM will trace and display the beliefs and expectations of thousands of participants and provide an insight into where negotiations may go. If the COPPM is successful in forecasting the outcomes of the Copenhagen Climate Conference, it may prove to be a useful tool to predict outcomes of other negotiations in the future, Curnow said.
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