I recently accepted an invitation to join a LinkedIn Group. No big deal, like many of Slaw readers I am a member of a handful of relevant discussion groups in LinkedIn. I follow LinkedIn Groups that could generally be described as communities of practice. My groups have titles like Canadian Association of Law Libraries, Knowledge Management for Legal Professionals, Law Firm Research Managers, Law Firm Knowledge Management (a subgroup of Legal IT Netowrk), and so on.

I remember the term "communities of practice" best from an Ark Conference that I attended years ago called Best Practices & Management Strategies for . . . [more]

A new video about the Certified Specialist designation for lawyers was released last week by the Law Society of Upper Canada. This is the seventh video in the series aimed at the public.

From the January 22, 2013 press release:

In the new video, the seventh of the series, Certified Specialists highlight how the public can benefit from hiring a lawyer who is recognized by the Law Society for their specialization in an area of practice.

Offered by the Law Society for several years, the Certified Specialist Program recognizes lawyers who have met high established standards of experience and knowledge

. . . [more]

I straddle a number of very different work environments every day all of which give me a very different perspective on many things. Some readers find this refreshing, others find it annoying or threatening.

As a writer hanging out with many different types of writers, discussions often crop up about getting paid for services rendered. Of concern to many writers is that more and more writers are willing to write for free, which drives down the value of writing – which in turn, drives down the already low living standard for most writers.

Harlan Ellison, well-known for his rants on . . . [more]

The Ottawa Citizen reported last week that a lawyer who posted confidential information about his own client online was caught in a police sting operation. The Ottawa criminal defence lawyer posted a PDF of disclosure that he received from the Crown in a criminal case against his client. The PDF contained blacked-out information and the lawyer used the web to seek someone to help him read the blacked out portions of the disclosure document. A man in Australia saw the post and contacted the Ottawa police who then caught the Ottawa lawyer in a sting operation. Read the Citizen article for full details. . . . [more]

From January 31 to February 1, 2013 the Hotel MacDonald in Edmonton will be filled with lawyers and judges attending the Alberta Law Conference. This annual continuing legal education offering is always an excellent learning and networking opportunity. The theme of the 2013 Conference is "Working with Judges and the Courts". The conference will explore the ways that judges and counsel interact and will also explore techniques for improving such interactions.

I have the honour of hosting the Social Media/Privacy panel at the conference. Naturally, the panel is weighted with some familiar names. Doug Jasinski and Dan Michaluk will . . . [more]

Today the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) once again considered the issue of what to do with articling in Ontario.

Once again, the matter was webcast so that all could see the debate.

Once again, viewers were shocked by what they saw.

Once again, Benchers came across as clubby and out-of-touch.

Time and again, they stood up and made verbose, rambling arguments based on nothing more than anecdotes, personal experience and emotional pleas.

Given that most are litigators, it’s astounding that so many do not understand how to make brief, pithy remarks; they’ve clearly been trained (perhaps during articling) . . . [more]

Next week Benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada will (hopefully) decide on the future of articling in the province of Ontario. So, rightly or wrongly, one piece of the legal training puzzle in Ontario will be determined.

The elephant in the room however is the law schools.

Many will say that law schools are there simply to serve the purpose of providing a legal education that students are free to use in whatever fashion they choose; ensuring students become lawyers is not the role of law schools.

This is naïve. And it would only be the most hard-hearted . . . [more]

I attended the annual IT.CAN conference Monday and Tuesday in Montreal. I find the IT.CAN conferences are consistently high quality, and the best continuing legal education option for lawyers practicing in the tech space. Topics at this conference included things such as content convergence and the regulatory framework, legal issues surrounding cloud computing, social media, digital commerce and clean tech, advanced software licensing, an annual update on IP issues, privacy and anti-spam updates, health care IT, outsourcing trends, public sector IT issues, and cyber libel. 

While attendance was strong, and included (as always) many well-known IT practitioners, there is always room . . . [more]

The Articling Task Force reported this morning.

The Executive Summary reads: . . . [more]

The Sixteenth Annual Canadian Information Technology Law Association (“IT.CAN”) Conference will be held in Montreal on October 29-30.

IT.CAN has 350 members from across the country who are concerned with IT law. The annual conference is the organization's major event to help attendees stay current in this rapidly developing area of law.

The full conference brochure including registration details is available on the IT.CAN website. If you have any questions about the program, get in touch with Lisa Ptack, IT.CAN Executive Director at lisa.ptack@rogers.com. . . . [more]

It's halfway through the first week of the new academic term and time for me to revisit my summer projects list. Regretfully, I report I was less successful in checking off completed projects than was Shaunna Mireau in checking off her substantial writing project.

As it turns out, I check off as complete my "standard mundane tasks" and "institutional projects"—so, hooray, me!

On the flipside, the institutional projects consumed most of my available summer hours. By way of either prescience or a well-planned rationalization, though, I had prefaced my project list with this:

Summer rarely seems to offer the

. . . [more]

The Canadian Bar Association (CBA) is the voice of the legal profession in Canada. It promotes the independence of the judiciary and legal profession, seeks to improve the law and administration of justice, and promotes equality.

But none of that is possible if lawyers aren't members of the CBA, because membership is voluntary. Approximately two-thirds of all lawyers in Canada are CBA members, and the 37,000 members include lawyers, judges, notaries, law teachers, and law students.

Changing times mean changing demands from the membership, and at the past annual meeting earlier this month in Vancouver, council approved a resolution that . . . [more]