The Quebec Minister of Education, Jean-Marc Fournier, announced today that he is creating a consultative committee on diversity in the province’s schools whose primary task will be to come up with “a clear and accessible definition of what is a reasonable accommodation” between the needs of children from cultural and religious minorities and the values of the officially secular public education system.

Over the past decade, there have been numerous controversies in Quebec society over how much space should be afforded religious symbols in public institutions, whether it be the right of practicing Muslim girls to wear the hijab headscarf . . . [more]

First it started a buzz and got popular; next it was shut down; then it reappeared; now it’s… transmogrified: Writely, which Google bought, is no more, but has become part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets (a name that has got to go — GDS, maybe… or GoDo…).

I’ve taken a first look but only that. I was prompted to move my Writely documents over. And then I went to upload a document to the new system; that worked fine, but I was reminded I could email docs in — to an adress that had “writely” in it, a clear . . . [more]

J’ai été frappé de lire à quelques jours d’interval les articles publiés de l’autre côté de la frontière chez les américains et de ce côté-ci, au Québec, relatifs à l’utilisation de la visionconférence dans le cadre d’auditions. Je vous invite à consulter l’article intitulé It’s Prime Time for Videoconferencing in Court paru aujourd’hui sur Law.com et à le comparer à celui paru dans le journal du Barreau (page 13) intitulé La visioconférence… avec modération. Vous noterez que les questions et problèmes existants avec ce medium sont partagés et n’ont pas de frontière!

Comme ces articles traitent principalement de l’usage . . . [more]

Interesting posting this morning from a young law student at Dal, who’s entering second year, just wrapping up an MLIS programme. Unusual background since she will be – once she graduates – one of the few Métis lawyer/librarians.

She comments:

There’s such a culture difference between law school and library school. In my experience, law students tend to be far more uptight, and drink more, while librarians are relaxed and less self-important. (I’ve heard the same thing from friends in other joint MLIS programs as well). The skills from being a librarian have been ridiculously useful for law school–searching, locating,

A posting on this week’s Legal Blog Watch highlighted the announcement from Harvard Law School on the reform of its first year curriculum. The revisions, which are the most significant change to first year courses in over 100 years, mean that hours will cut from the core courses – contracts, torts, civil procedure, criminal law and property.

The new courses – “Legislation and Regulation”, “International/comparative courses” and “Problems and Theories” – certainly represent important areas of study for law students. The fact that legal research and writing are not mentioned specifically does not mean that these topics are not included . . . [more]

There was a brief posting on law.com today (Oct 10/06) on the integration of LawBase (matter management software) with Google Maps. The fact that this integration is called a “mashup” is what originally caught my attention. However, when I decided to do a little “research”, my focus changed. Mashups are apparently “hot technology” – I was therefore surprised that I couldn’t find any discussion of this functionality on the LawBase website. I then resorted to a google search to see what was available and of course found a web page with a “news release” on this development. Unfortunately, as far . . . [more]

[cross posted on the VLLB]

I’m very proud to announce that two of my Vancouver colleagues have jumped on the law library blogging circuit. Similar to Anh Huynh and Kay Samuels who have been helping out on Connie Crosby’s blog, two of our more ambitious VALL members, Emma Wood & Rob Golbeck, have started their own blogs!

Check out Emma’s Ballad in Plain E and Rob’s LibTech Life. For those reading along at home, make sure you grab a copy of Emma’s feed, and Rob’s feed. Both sites will be a part of my blog . . . [more]

A source one doesn’t see cited much these days is Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionarywhich is a wonderful source of ‘alternative’ definitions for a host of words and phrases. Bierce define’s “lawyer” for instance as “one skilled in circumvention of the law”. My favourite entry though is for “fairy” which includes the following note: “In the time of Henry III, of England, a law was made which prescribed the death penalty for “Kyllynge, wowndynge, or mamynge” a fairy, and it was universally respected.” From time to time I have looked for this law, although, alas I have concluded that . . . [more]

I’ve just come across a site that I’m pretty sure we haven’t talked about on Slaw before. It’s Global Courts, and it organizes links to the decisions of supreme courts (and some courts of appeal) around the world. It’s a project of a Norwegian judge, and also features brief discussions of electronic filing and electronic courtrooms.

There’s a good deal of overlap with WordLII and CommonLII — I haven’t checked exactly how much — but even so, it might be a handy shortcut to top court decisions, and in at least some cases has links that the Information Institutes . . . [more]

Take a look at this recent post from 3L Epiphany wondering why no-one in the blogosphere has bothered to assemble a commentary on Hudson v. MichiganInterestingly Slaw had noticed the case..

Suppose there were a blog devoted exclusively to the case of Hudson v. Michigan (the “Blog”). This blog would become the online authority about the case and its ramifications. Every time a lower court relies on or distinguishes Hudson, the Blog could name and analyze the new decision (and link to it if it’s online). Lawyers and law professors could analyze Hudson and its

Ten days ago, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama came to the Buffalo Law School to speak about Law, Buddhism, and Social Change.

This was the first time that the Dalai Lama has ever visited a law school and indeed the first time he has addressed legal themes. A video of his remarks is availableHis Holiness’ remarks start around 28 minutes into the video.

Buffalo has pioneered scholarship into how Buddhist thought intersects with and informs the law. Professor Rebecca French is teaching in Buffalo this term, the first course on Buddhist law that has ever been taught in . . . [more]

A recent article on Lorraine Neidecker’s correspondence with Louis Zukofsky sent me back to The Objectivist Anthology, and one of the most curious uses ever made of the West Reporter SeriesFor younger members of Slaw and those reliant on most Canadian law libraries these were a vast set of legal cases from the United States that provided the wall coverings for many a lawyer’s office and led to the extraordinary legal publishing empire of the West Publishing Company..

The poet Charles Reznikoff spent part of his career as a contributor to the Corpus Juris and became fascinated with . . . [more]