Al Podboy, Director of Library Services at Baker Hostetler, has some useful and provocative thoughts on Law.com about law librarians and their relationship to vendors: . . . [more]

Interesting answers to the question posed to Ask MetaFilter today.

Of course, it begs the question of whether in fact “so many lawyers” actually do use WordPerfect. Do you or folks at your firm? If so, why? . . . [more]

Doubtless our friends at The Court will be on this but Binnie J (writing for a court of seven) handed down today in Canada (Privacy Commissioner) v. Blood Tribe Department of Health a decision which confirms the importance of legal professional privilege, and confirmed that the Privacy Commissioner, while an Officer of Parliament, lacks the authority of a judge to make determinations of privilege. . . . [more]

BBC is reporting the imminent demise of the computer mouse as a peripheral input device. The prediction is made by Gartner’s Stephen Prentice.

As one commentator called it: “Idiots Want to Replace Computer Mouse with Expensive New Gadgets …” . . . [more]

Because a lot of what we do in law (pretty much everything?) has a connection to crime, potential or actual, I thought readers of Slaw might be interested to note that according to The Daily, in 2007 Canada’s national crime rate for police reported crimes declined for the third year in a row. Not only are crimes against property down, but there were fewer serious violent offences as well. Ontario continues to have the lowest rate of reported crime, and Toronto has the second lowest rate of all 27 municipalities studied.

I hope that the current government and the . . . [more]

Here’s a website that was long overdue: Stephen Fine has started a Canadian site that features alternative law jobs — jobs other than in the straight practice of law within a firm. From the ‘about’ page of Alternative Law Job:

Created by lawyers, for lawyers, our job posting board caters exclusively to lawyers seeking the following career opportunities:

• In-house, government and non-profit counsel positions;
• Law related careers;
• Non-legal careers;
• Opportunities to join start-ups and small businesses.

Stephen’s clearly aiming to get into the U.S. market as well, though at the moment all of the postings are for Canadian positions. . . . [more]

You might notice that posts from earlier this week look a little odd. That’s because our host lost the data this morning and we had to restore the entries. Our restoration service appends comments to the end of the restored entry and includes as well the RSS footer indicating the source of the material etc.

Please let us know if something is still missing.

We apologize for the glitch. . . . [more]

 My best friend Nera is so happy about this news!

The Globe and Mail had an article this week about animal law classes being the cool new area of study at Canadian law schools. About six Canadian universities currently offer animal law classes, and the University of Toronto and Queen’s University will join this group when they start offering the classes this fall. The article reviews common topics that are covered in these classes (veterinary malpractice, custody, animal rights and personhood) as well as mentions some Canadian cases from the past that have focused on animal law.

 For more information . . . [more]

Here are links to a couple of American posts, which set out good practical advice about whether your next case is the one that would be right to deploy technology in the courtroom and dazzle the judge ((Being American pieces they’re focused on convincing the jury)).

Larry Cohan’s Using Technology at Trial, or Not, and Gregory P. Joseph’s A Simplified Approach to Computer Generated Evidence and Animations . . . [more]

Following up on a post earlier by Connie, and with a BIG hat tip to David Fraser, it seems Google & Viacom have agreed to anonymize the IP data being turned over from the server logs, and that Viacom has agreed not to attempt to decipher.

Link: Stipulation filed with the Courts

And since I’m totally cribbing off David’s post anyway, here’s the extract he pulled:

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED, by and between the undersigned counsel of record:

1. Substituted Values: When producing data from the Logging Database pursuant to the Order, Defendants shall substitute values

Rejoice! The U.S. courts finally put a spammer away. Adam Vitale, burned in a sting, was sentenced to 30 months in jail. He had twenty-two prior convictions, according to the Reuters news story; he is also said to have apologized and that he has “learned his lesson.”

Now on to the thousands of others… . . . [more]

Last year in May Steve Matthews mooted the idea of a virtual law firm and sparked interesting comments, a couple from folks who were in such practices. Now big hitter Craig Johnson has teamed up with some others to make a big splash with their Virtual Law Partners, based in San Francisco. From the bouncy (but effective) website, it seems that they’re aiming at individuals, families and perhaps small businesses.

Law.com has a piece on the startup, which will fill you in on the fees, the predictions, etc. — but not on who else is doing the virtual . . . [more]