Le 14 décembre 2006, à la toute fin de la session parlementaire, le projet de loi 48 réformant la Loi sur la protection du consommateur du Québec, a été adopté (pdf) intégrant des nouveautés pour les contrats de consommation en ligne. Malgré la hâte de la fin de session parlementaire, le texte adopté, publié il y a quelques jours, début janvier, présente quelques changements par rapport au projet de loi initial.

Outre le fait que cet amendement va dans la bonne direction, j’aimerai mentionner la clairvoyance des rédacteurs qui ont tenu compte du mémoire de l’Union des consommateurs (pdf) qui, . . . [more]

I’m compiling a list of Supreme Court decisions and one of the data I’m collecting for each is the neutral citation. I’ve just noticed something that should have been obvious to me from the first: when using alpha-numeric sorting, neutral citations don’t sort properly by the ordinal number (i.e. the number that is located where the page number would be in a traditional citation.). This is because the ordinal numbers don’t all have three places. Thus 2006 SCC 3 (the citation for Young v. Bella) winds up along with the pages numbered 30 etc. because the computer can’t supply . . . [more]

JUSTICE SERVED has just announced its winners in the 2006 competition for court websites. While two out of the top three are Commonwealth courts, no Canadian court was mentionedIn fairness, the Alberta courts site came seventh in 2001..

2006 Top 10 Court Website Awards
THE SUPREME COURT SINGAPORE
The Singapore Ministry of Law and Subordinate Courts were past winners, but this is the first appearance of their Supreme Court, which consists of the Court of Appeal and the High Court.
More important, this website deserves highest honor for the number and sophistication of online court services. It has online . . . [more]

How many North American law firms would sponsor poetry readings in their offices, and have them attended by goodly numbers of practising lawyers.

I can’t think of any – but the City firms are developing quite a reputation for doing just that.

At Linklaters the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion introduced an evening devoted to Keith Douglas,

As one journalist (somewhat breathlessly) put it:

‘Suddenly poetry is running wild across City law firms as lawyers recognise that their stock in trade is also the raw material of sublime art. Next up then is [Poet in the City’s] super evening on . . . [more]

LISNews is looking for nominations for the top 10 library blogs – the ones you read every day. Here’s the post: http://lisnews.org/articles/07/01/08/1519200.shtml . . . [more]

Dayton, Ohio January 8, 2007 – LexisNexis has launched a new web site, designed to showcase its Total Practice Solutions for the full spectrum of law firms. The site offers attorneys targeted solutions for law practices in the areas of client development, research, practice management, and litigation services.

The new Web site, which serves the U.S. legal market, reflects the company’s growth from a research provider to now offering a full range of products and services that help law firms succeed in all areas of their practice, an approach called Total Practice Solutions.

Which is consistent with what Eagan is . . . [more]

There’s an interesting essay in today’s NY Times, “How to Speak a Book“The free NYTimes link maker doesn’t work with this URL because it’s to a special section, I think, so you may need to have registered with the Times., by Richard Powers. It’s essentially a paean to dictation as the means of writing a book. Powers, once a serious computer geek and now a novelist of some renown, dictates his novels to his tablet PC. (He doesn’t say what software he uses but my bet is that it’s Dragon.)

I find the piece interesting but . . . [more]

On Monday Simon Fodden pointed out some of the legislation coming into force as of January 1st. For those of you working with Ontario legislation, thought I would mention some major statutes have been proclaimed into force, and subsequent regulations published. The good people who bring us e-Laws, usually on the top of their game having things updated within a day or two, are working hard to get all changes incorporated into the service, but they are behind right now. If you are working with the conslidated statutes on e-Laws, check the notes at the top of the . . . [more]

The question often comes up whether we are losing our ability to think in a complex, in-depth manner with the gradual shift to electronic sources. As we try to balance paper and electronic formats for legal research tools, it is something we do need to consider. This seems to be an underlying idea in some of the comments that have come up from Michael Line’s post about the legal research training tools being developed in B.C. earlier this week.

Since Simon Fodden is professing his love for information, I will state the equally obvious and tell you that: I . . . [more]

After last year’s unusual acquisition of Brad Hildebrandt’s firm by Thomson, comes news that Baker Robbins, one of the best regarded legal technology consulting firms is being acquired. Good for David Baker and Brad Robbins.

Now how West capitalizes on the acquisition is an interesting challenge:

The Thomson Corporation Acquires Baker Robbins

The Thomson Corporation
1/5/2007 11:27:38 AM

Strengthens position in law firm IT, operations consulting

EAGAN, Minn. 01/05/2007, The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC) today announced the acquisition of Baker Robbins & Company, the leading provider of technology and information management consulting to law firms and law departments.

I love information. This is a silly thing to say, I know, and a silly thing to have an affection for, perhaps. After all, “information” is so general as to be useless. But don’t despise the useless, because some useless things are quite worthwhile, such as art, for example — which leads me to this week’s fillip.

information aesthetics is a website that posts finds from around the web that present information graphically. There’s a world of wonder here for the infomaniac or the visual communicator. Take, for example, his entry on creative calendar design, where he draws together . . . [more]

This from Sharon Wang, Reference Librarian, Osgoode Hall Law School:

There are two electronic publications on the web on Chinese law, for those who are interested in Chinese legal research or who practice internationally.

China Law Reporter, a monthly newsletter published by the ABA China Committee. It has recent legal development, summaries of newly enacted laws and regulations, a list of recently published articles and books on Chinese law and even some job opportunities in this field.

China Law and Governance Review, created by Su Lin Han, a native of Beijing who practiced law in New York for