A couple of highlights during the past year for our Section included the Lawyers in the Media: Sound‐ bytes and Pitfalls, panel presentation moderated by your Chair with presentations from Jonathan Kroft, Robert Tapper, Geoff Kirbyson (Free Press and Lawyers Weekly), William McDowell (Lenczners Toronto) and media consultant John Douglas. The panel discussion followed by the questions and answers session sparked a lot of interest and provoked some interesting responses. The other keynote event for our section after years of consultations with the Courts’ Media Liaison Committee was the launching of the pilot project by the three levels of court resulting in camera access to court proceedings. The Section was obviously delighted with this recent initiative, which has thus far demonstrated no downside despite predictions from naysayers, and your Section looks forward to increasing access to information for the public through the media.
Plans are already underway for the upcoming year with the annual
Respectfully submitted, Robert Sokalski, Chair National Media Lawyers Conference slated for mid‐November in Montreal.