author archive



Virtual Chase Online Legal Research Site Now on Justia

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

August 19th, 2010

The Virtual Chase, an online website for U.S. legal research founded by law librarian Genie Tyburski, is now powered by Justia. Virtual Chase was launched in 1996 by Tyburski, a… [more]

Ottawa Citizen Feature on Drug Treatment Courts

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

June 23rd, 2010

The Ottawa Citizen recently ran a series on the capital’s crack cocaine problem. An article that ran on Saturday, June 19, 2010 as part of the series examined the city’s… [more]

The Quebec Bar Association has revamped its website. The Association conducted a survey of the general population and opted for clearer language and for a simplified presentation of information, both… [more]

Lawyers’ Ethical Responsibilities Relating to Metadata

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

June 2nd, 2010

We are all undergoing training at my place of work on the newest versions of word processing and e-mail programs. At a session today, talk got around to the the… [more]

US Federal Judiciary Gets Its Own YouTube Channel

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

May 20th, 2010

The U.S. Federal Judiciary launched a radical redesign of its website recently. As part of the redesign, it even created its own YouTube channel. Other law-themed YouTube channels I have… [more]

Canadian Forum on Court Technology – September 22-23, 2010

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

May 13th, 2010

Earlier this week, I was at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in Windsor, where I had the opportunity to hear Pierre-Paul Lemyre from LexUM. He… [more]

The Chesapeake Project Legal Information Archive has just published its 3rd annual study of link rot (see link in the top right of the home page under “Additional Resources”). Link… [more]

CAIJ Makes Canadian Legal Periodical Index Available Online

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

April 29th, 2010

Many of you already know the Index to Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL), LegalTrac, or the Index to Legal Periodicals on Quicklaw. Here is another online source of Canadian legal journals.… [more]

Google Releases Data on Government Requests for Private User Data

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

April 21st, 2010

Interesting coincidence? Not sure who is the real threat to privacy. Yesterday, privacy regulators from 10 countries (Canada, Israel, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand and the… [more]

Materials on Self-Represented Litigants

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

April 7th, 2010

Materials from a January 2010 conference held by the Self‐Represented Litigation Network of the U.S.-based National Center for State Courts were recently posted on the Webjunction website. The conference took… [more]

The Officer of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has released a consultation paper on cloud computing. Cloud computing “describes any system where information and/or applications are stored online, allowing access… [more]

Nova Scotia Crowns Demand Better Security in Courthouses

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

March 24th, 2010

According to an article in today’s Canadian Occupational Safety, Crown attorneys in Nova Scotia want the provincial government to investigate security at the Halifax and Dartmouth courthouses. They complain of… [more]

Law Librarians Can Prove Their Value Through Training

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

March 10th, 2010

The January/February 2010 Law Librarians newsletter put out by legal publisher Westlaw has published an article entitled Law Firm Economics and the Librarian—Bring Value Through Training. The lessons can apply… [more]

Two Supreme Court stories from me this week: 1) The Supreme Court of Canada has released a special edition of its Bulletin of Proceedings that provides a statistical overview of… [more]

Comprehensive Database of Organizational Social Media Policies

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

February 17th, 2010

Mike Kujawski recently posted an item to the Public Sector Marketing 2.0 LinkedIn Group about an online database containing links to the social media policies of dozens of organizations around… [more]

U.S. Federal Courts Tell Jurors Twitter, Facebook and Texting Verboten

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

February 9th, 2010

Wired Magazine is reporting that the Judicial Conference of the United States, the body that develops policy for federal courts in that country, has proposed new model jury instructions that… [more]

2009 Track Record of Supreme Court of Canada Justices

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

January 27th, 2010

The most recent issue of The Lawyers Weekly provides a snapshot of the quantative output of the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada in 2009: “Looking at the opinions… [more]

United Nations Information on Haiti

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

January 20th, 2010

The United Nations’s Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York has developed a new page with links to information on Haiti. It includes reports, statistics and other resources about the country.… [more]

Should Judges Join Facebook?

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

January 13th, 2010

This is a follow-up to the Dec. 16, 2009 post Facebook and the Bench. Earlier this week in the Montreal Gazette, there was an article about whether Canadian judges should… [more]

Canadian Authors Launch Petititon Against Google Book Settlement

by Michel-Adrien Sheppard

January 6th, 2010

A group of Canadian authors has launched an online petition to protest the proposed settlement intended to put an end to a class action copyright lawsuit by U.S.-based author and… [more]

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