I have a tendency to want to keep my gravy out of my peas — control issues, I know. This makes me work to keep my social media in silos as much as possible, fearing, I suppose, the further loss of privacy if Facebook gossips to Twitter about me and vice versa. The devil — or the deity, if you prefer — is in the intersections, the linkages, the relationships.

This desire for some crafted anonymity or at least a tad of privacy is a forlorn hope, I realize, if I'm online and tweeting, blogging, "plus"-ing and the like, whether or not the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. And it seems that folks younger than me, which is to say most folks by far, are blithely uncaring about privacy when it comes to social media: the more the merrier and let it all connect.

In that spirit, IFTTT ("if this, then that") has launched an intriguing set of functionalities that allow you to explicitly establish linkages among your online activities to suit your particular needs. These linkages are, in effect, simple programs established on the coding model "if this, then that." So, for example, I can tell IFTTT that if I star an item in Google Reader, then send a note of that item to my Evernote account; or, if my Facebook profile picture changes, then change my Twitter photo to the new one also.

The units that you get to control are your social media accounts, which IFTTT calls "channels," and there are some 40 of them (Twitter, Facebook, email, LinkedIn, your telephone, etc. etc.). Channels are connected via "recipes," IFTTT's term for the condition and action parts of the program. There's no list of which actions are available or permissible, so far as I can tell, though there's a long list of "recipes" cooked up by others that will give you a pretty fair idea of what's possible. As you build your own recipe, the site offers you the various options available. When you've done, you've created a "task" that will execute itself.

I've only begun to explore what might be useful to me or, indeed, to those in the legal professions. But off the top of my head, it seems that you might want to keep a record of your tweets (which Twitter won't do for you); in which case a task that archives your tweets to another app so that you've got a good record of what you've said and when you said it might make sense. (As might the ability to trigger your phone to ring when you send a text message — if you find yourself in a lot of meetings.)

Take a look at see what you can come up with. Let us know by way of a comment if you cook up a recipe that might be of interest to others. Peas can taste good with gravy on them.

Fair use (s. 107) is an intentionally drafted ambiguous provision in the U.S. Copyright Act for the purpose of defending users of copyright works from a variety of otherwise infringing acts. Although often compared to the Canadian fair dealing, the two defenses are quite different. Two interesting documents on the analysis of fair use and its interpretation were recently released.

General Counsel from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released a memorandum on 19 January 2012 on: USPTO Position on Fair Use of Copies of NPL Made in Patent Examination. The memorandum looks at three issues: Whether it is fair use of the USPTO to make copies of copyrighted non-patent literature (NPL) and provide such copies to an applicant in the course of patent examination? Whether it is fair use for the USPTO to provide certified copies of entire file histories, including copyright NPL to members of the public, for a free? Whether it is fair use for an applicant to make a copy of a piece of copyrighted NPL and submit it to the USPTO?

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries was published on 25 January 2012 by the Association of Research Libraries and the Center for Social Media. This document addresses various questions such as how to make libraries' special collection available online; what can be digitized for student use; and, reproducing materials for faculty, staff and other users.

Those who apply fair dealing or fair use or are generally interested in these topics will find the discussions and analysis interesting in both of these documents, though at the end of the day, the application of either of these defenses very much depends upon the circumstances in each particular situation.

The Supreme Court of Canada announced today that judgment in the National Securities Regulator Reference will be delivered at 9:45 a.m. EDT on Thursday, December 22, 2011. That's In the Matter of Section 53 of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C. 1985, C. S-26 and in the Matter of a Reference by the Governor General in Council concerning the proposed Canadian Securities Act, as set out in Order in Council P.C. 2010-667, dated May 26, 2010 (33718)

We'll link to it and commentary when it comes down.

Perhaps the word "Judgment" implies that it will be the decision of the Court, as a whole. No individual judgments, like Chief Justice Dickson's in National City Leasing to cause uncertainty.

For those who missed them the hearing webcasts are here and here

Words have meaning. The context, tone, and interplay give rise to nuances that is the basis for statutory and case law interpretation. But sometimes the iteration of words have meaning too. The frequency and repetitiveness of certain words can at times given insight into a culture or society.

At Jurix: The 24th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems in Vienna, Austria earlier this week, Daniel Martin Katz, Michael J. Bommarito II, Julie Seaman, Adam Candeub & Eugene Agichtei proposed the idea of Legal N-Grams in conjunction with a beta pre-release of Legal Language Explorer, a new web interface that graphs every decision of the United States Supreme Court between 1791 and 2005.

They explain the concept of n-grams in their paper,

While well known to linguistics scholars for some time, the concept of n-grams has recently been popularized by the release of the Google N-gram explorer. A byproduct of the Google Books Library Project, the n-gram explorer allows end users to use language as a prism to explore institutional and cultural transformation processes.

Simon Fodden raised the issue of n-grams here on Slaw back in 2009.

The authors envision legal researchers looking at the origin of a phrase and its subsequent usage by providing quick aggregate insights of temporal importance. Social and political scientists will also be able to look at terminology within broader legal philosophies, doctrines and paradigms,

Judges who create dominant common law rules often use words in new and novel ways. Distinctive language and verbal formulae are the raw materials by which judges help establish their reputation as intellectual thought leaders…

This is especially true in common law systems where the strength and importance of a legal rule often correlates with its pervasiveness in opinions and its persistence through time.

The Legal Language Explorer might be useful for a variety of different applications. Consider, for example, the following query that I inputed:

Of course the term "black" can arise in a wide variety of different contexts that have absolutely nothing to do with racism, which is what could be described as "noise," there is a small increase where Jim Crowe laws were enacted, followed by a more substantial increase in the interwar era which precedes a very sharp increase during the Civil Rights era up to the modern day. Although the term "African-American" doesn't substantially plot at all, the more contentious term "Negro" can be noticeably observed even after it fell into disuse in academic and socially acceptable discourse.

Here's the plot of some of the legal n-grams related to doctrines of statutory interpretation:

Although it appears as if "legislative intent" has always been discussed at SCOTUS, it has been featured far more prominently in recent years, especially from the 70's to the mid-90's. Though the term "original intent" also mirrors the trend of the term "legislative intent," the term "originalism" only pops up once, in Missouri v. Jenkins (1995). Even in this case it's not used to explicitly refer to the doctrine of originalism aside from citing a law review article using the term in its title, which again demonstrates the limitations of using this software to make general assumptions. Although the concepts can be found over the years in case law, an explicit reference may suggest a greater acceptance or familiarity with the concept. Similarly, the search for "living constitution" only provides three results, two of which are also references to titles of law review articles during the 60's and 70's. It's only in Rummel v. Estelle (1980) that the court expressly uses "living constitution" to refer to a dynamic application of constitutional interpretation,

It is also true that this Court has not heretofore invalidated a mandatory life sentence under the Eighth Amendment. Yet our precedents establish that the duty to review the disproportionality of sentences extends to noncapital cases. Supra, at 289-293. The reach of the Eighth Amendment cannot be restricted only to those claims previously adjudicated under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause. "Time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes. Therefore a principle to be vital must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth. This is particularly true of constitutions. They are not ephemeral enactments, designed to meet passing occasions. They are, to use the words of Chief Justice Marshall, `designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.'" Weems v. United States, 217 U.S., at 373 .

We are construing a living Constitution. The sentence imposed upon the petitioner would be viewed as grossly unjust by virtually every layman and lawyer…

[emphasis added]

The authors intend to expand the database to include Court of Appeal and other court decisions, and has tools to modify graph format and export data. You can read more about the tool on the blog post here.

The English media came back this weekend to re-examine the health of Thomson-Reuters and reached wildly different conclusions. The BBC talks of Thomson moving to establish hegemony over business data, whereas the Guardian focuses on the weaknesses of post-merger integration and the long-term challenge that Bloomberg presents.

The doyenne of the DC law library community, Jean O'Grady has a fascinating piece suggesting that Thomson may well acquire Wolters-Kluwer

Her analysis is:

Factors Favoring Such a Merger

1. Thomson Reuters Leadership Changes.Exane BNP suggests that TR appears to be "in restructuring

and crisis mode" since they failed to achieve top line growth through some new products including Westlaw Next.. The new CEO Jim Smith with his track record in legal, tax and scientific professional publishing may be better positioned to create new value from asset consolidation than top line growth.

2. Wolters Kluwer May be Ready to be Acquired. Former WK executives suggest that a merger has always been viewed as a good exit strategy if top line growth could not be achieved. CEO and Chairperson Nancy McKinstry has been in the Netherlands for 8 years and has not delivered expected revenue growth.

3. TR's new IT  Platform Designed for Mergers. Since both companies generate over 80% of their revenue from electronic software and services, TR has the infrastructure to allow both companies to consolidate and reduce their IT costs. Apparently TR's new IT platform was specifically designed to be able to integrate content from acquired companies. I have also heard this comment  from insiders at TR. (I whole heartedly agree that at least in the US, WK's technical infrastructure as demonstrated by their "new " Intelliconnect platform would benefit from an IT overhaul). Both companies have been trying to go global and have expanded their sale forces in some new and similar markets. The proposed merger would allow them to reduce duplicative effort in expanding their global footprint.

4. TR's Balance sheet is Ready. TR's balance sheet has absorbed the Reuters acquisition and the company  now has the financial capacity to launch such an acquisition over the next 12 months.

But remember that Bloomberg bought BNA for $990 million in August. Meanwhile Techbytes reminds us that Thomson and Bloomberg's fates are inextricably linked.

It concludes:

Perhaps it’s time for Thomson Reuters to take their cue from Bloomberg and migrate from the costly dedicated terminal to a web platform in order to meet the changing needs of its customers. The legal market underwent tremendous changes in platforms between the 1980s and the 1990s, as user demands, technological advances, economic changes and ultimately the practice of law changed. Legal terminals morphed from huge dedicated stand -alone machines, to small customized boxes dubbed “ubiqs”, to multi-purpose personal computers. Lexis and Westlaw survived the loss of monthly revenue from equipment and created other revenue streams. Executive turnovers, reduced demand for some of its products, and mergers and changes in divisions have all befallen Thomson Reuters. Maybe this is the time to re-engineer the way its products and services are packaged, delivered, and priced to the financial market. Tune in for the next installment.

The Daily Beast describes (in apocalyptic terms) Bloomberg's Plan for World Domination. The Law Librarian Blog suggest that Bloomberg's hunger for content makes Reed Elsevier's Lexis product the likely target for a Bloomberg acquisition.

Anyone think that antitrust might constrain concentration in these sectors of the information industry?

Reading some posts and tweets (p&t's?) on standards for legislation and opinion metadata lately, I was surprised to bump into a side-issue, "side" at least in this context, on whether the US Bluebook can have copyright in its citation styles. Apparently some development of legal style at Zotero has been hindered because of objections from Bluebook. See this contribution to a discussion on the Zotero forum on September 18, 2011:

Hi, I'm the author of the "Bluebook 19th ed." style. The style itself is incomplete, which is the cause of the "bb-periodical-subsequent" string that you're seeing in the output.

I was at the point of putting in further work on the project when, in connection with negotiations over access to Bluebook Online (or so I thought), the Bluebook editors expressed the view that a full implementation of the style, even if based on a paper-printed copy of their manual, might be a breach of their rights. Needless to say this came as a complete surprise, but legal risk being what it is, I've suspended work on the style for the present.

To prevent frustration (such as you have just experienced) I will soon be asking that the style be removed entirely from the CSL repository. Meanwhile, you will either have to cope with an earlier version of the style, or do your Bluebook citations by hand.

I'm very sorry about this situation, but it's not entirely within my control.

Frank Bennett

It would seem from a tweet yesterday that Bennett, an Associate Professor of Law at Nagoya University, Japan, is in fact going ahead. He says of the Bluebook people:

They growled at us, without clearly staking a copyright claim. On good advice from a friend, I'm ignoring them.

I don't think a style or a standard such as that developed by the Bluebook editors could be copyrightable, under Canadian law at least, though I'd welcome correction on this score. It strikes me as more akin to a process for which patents have been given. But in either case, it would be odd indeed, because the point of a standard is to be used, taught and otherwise promoted, no?

This is a little like the problem with taxonomies, in which copyright has in fact been claimed.

On Wednesday the Canadian Association of Law Libraries will be presenting a webinar with Michel Gamache, Director of Documentation Services, Heenan Blaikie in Montreal. Michel will be explaining how to get started with Yahoo Pipes for working with RSS feeds to customize information for practice groups. Even if you do not work in a law firm, this webinar will help you get started taking your use of RSS feeds to the next level. I myself dabble in the use of Pipes and am looking forward to learning more.

The webinar takes place this Wednesday, November 16, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET. Cost is $45.40 for members and $67.80 for non-members (tax included). For more information and to register, visit the CALL/ACBD website: http://www.callacbd.ca/en/content/webinars.

Here is the full description:

Yahoo Pipes: Slicing and Dicing RSS Feeds for Legal Practice Groups
SPEAKER: Michel Gamache

Yahoo! Pipes has been around since 2007, yet it doesn't seem to have caught the eye of many librarians. However, this is a valuable and simple tool that can be used in the context of web monitoring and information delivery.

This webinar will help you understand what Yahoo! Pipes is all about. You will learn how to create, aggregate, filter and customize feeds. You will also learn how to create widgets so that the contents you manipulate can be made available on intranets.

Michel Gamache has been Director of Documentation Services at Heenan Blaikie since 1999. Previously, he was Library Manager at another law firm in Montreal.

Michel holds a MLIS degree and a Certificate in Industrial Relations both from Université de Montréal, as well as a Bachelor degree in Business Management from Université du Québec à Montréal.

The staff at HeinOnline have a new, free HeinOnline iPad app to access their database.

Logging into the app is easy and users are invited to have their login and password information remembered.

Once logged in, one gets a table of contents of the various libraries in their database, depending on the scope of one's subscription (e.g., Law Library Journal, US Reports, English Reports, Legal Classics, and so on).

Browsing by law journal title and volume is easy to do. At that stage, there is an option of viewing the table of contents for the particular volume. The screenshot below shows the "view" of the first page of a recent article on HeinOnline from the Canadian Law Library Review written by SLAW's own Mark Lewis.

When viewing the articles in PDF, it is easy enough to expand the text or slide from page to page.

One can also search the full-text of the various libraries by keyword. The screenshot below shows the search example they use in their iTunes page, being:

<< title: "Right to Privacy" >>

This search, when run in the Law Library Journals library, returns articles with that phrase in the title of the article.

Prior to this app being available, I was accessing HeinOnline on my iPad using the Safari browser. The app is definitely easier and quicker.

No doubt many libraries in our community have already heard the news: SydneyPLUS has just purchased a big piece of the Inmagic pie. This includes Inmagic’s DB/Text Library Suite of products: DB/TextWorks, DB/Text WebPublisher Pro, and Inmagic Genie.

According to Kathy Bryce via Andornot's blog:

The move will strengthen both SydneyPLUS and the new Inmagic division by bringing together complementary technologies to meet the needs of special librarians, while allowing Inmagic, Inc. to focus on new markets.

Inmagic, Inc. (the company) will retain its Presto technology and its related products PrestoKnowledgeNet, Presto AssociatioNet, and Presto IdeaNet.

It sounds like the two companies will be working more closely together. According to yesterday's press release:

Inmagic’s Presto for Social Libraries, which the companies will co-market and support under a strategic partnership, is an integration of Inmagic Genie, an integrated library system, with Inmagic Inc.’s Presto. Presto for Social Libraries is a Social Knowledge Network (SKN) application that integrates library workflow with knowledge-based content and the “wisdom of the community” to create a “Library 2.0” environment to support the research and business objectives of organizations.

Everyone is promising "business as usual" for the customers. Time will tell if this is the case, or if some customers take this opportunity to look for new alternatives. As a one-time customer of Inmagic, I watch with interest.

Given the increasing level of globalization in the world today there continues to be considerable interest in trade with emerging markets like China.

Dan Harris of the China Law Blog provides a recommended list of English reading on commercial law in China:

1. The Legal System of the People's Republic of China in a Nutshell

2.  Chinese Commercial Law: A Practical Guide.

3. China Law Deskbook, A Legal Guide for Foreign-invested Enterprises.

4. Understanding Labor and Employment Law in China

5. Patent Litigation in China

5. Environmental Law in China: Mitigating Risk And Ensuring Compliance

6. Anti-Monopoly Law and Practice in China

You can read a full review of these texts on the site here.

Google provides a dashboard where you may view and edit the information it collects about you, and set policies for its collection of info in future. Google also describes data it collects that is not editable here.

It's an interesting interface as much for what it implies as for what it states. Since multiple services, such as Gmail and Picasa, collect personal information independently, any inaccuracies in the various profiles could potentially be identified and corrected. For instance, my gmail profile lists Afghanistan as my location, but I'll bet that, between Picasa, my calendar info, and various other indicators, that I'm not fooling anyone.

In combination with my Amazon, Chapters, Facebook and UVic information, I suppose there is a very strong connection for public and private institutions between my digital presences, my body, and, my interior life (especially as it pertains to spending money).

Identity Management is a computer science/management term to describe systems for collecting personal information and ascribing permissions to individuals. As we conduct more of our lives via computers, the control of this information, in terms of what is collected and how it is shared, is becoming more important. It's a commonplace now that when we are offered a 'free' service such as Facebook, we are not in fact the patrons but the product. Many assert that this is the trade-off for the use of the service, but there is no room for negotiation. EULAs are mis-named for this sort of service. They should be called information collection agreements. Perhaps people should be reimbursed in dollars for the sale of this information.

There are many dimensions of this problem, and there is an open access journal devoted to the topic: Identity in the Information Society. Some of the issues are distinctly legal. In A Whole New ….You? 'Personal Identity', Emerging Technologies and the Law New Zealand law professor Colin Gavaghan discusses the philosophical assumptions about personal identity that underlie many legal concepts.

My conversations with my lawyer include emails with documents attached in PDF form. It would be great if I could manage who gets to see that stuff, and the encryption technology is available. What is lacking is a scheme by which I can determine policies and enforce sharing restrictions. The same issue of this journal has a paper suggesting a model for doing just that: A Persistent Data Tracking Mechanism for User-Centric Identity Governance.

Not that Research in Motion needs more bad news and Apple more positive press, but today Apple launches a significant update to its operating system along with its new cloud service.

I am looking forward to testing out both new developments since I continue to more heavily integrate my iPad into the practice of law (in addition to amassing more Zombie games, including the highly addictive Call of Duty: Zombies HD; my joy in slaughtering zombies, albeit only in a video game app, is causing me concern, although there are apparently no moral issues in killing the undead).

The iOS 5 software update, which includes 200 new features, is being regarded as a big deal. Apple has a ton of information here (yes, largely promotional). Some of the features I am keen to try include iMessage, a new Reminders feature, the Newstand app (for managing newspaper and magazine subscriptions), and rich text email and and an improved Calendar. Plus there is the ability to synch wirelessly without the need to be connected to a PC.

On the other hand, it is harder for me to predict the impact on me of their new iCloud service. For what is described as a "hard drive in the sky," Apple will be providing 5 GB to users for free (with an option to pay more for extra space: for example, $100/year gets you an additional 50GB of space). Apparently, iCloud will keep your email, contacts, and calendars up to date across all devices, with no syncing required. SLAW has already commented on iCloud, including whether it stands to be a Dropbox killer. Of course, SLAW has also discussed the concern for legal professionals to ensure that client-confidential information is not at risk.

Interesting times.

I have the pleasure of presenting today in Calgary at an Advanced Legal Research Seminar sponsored by the Legal Education Society of Alberta. Included on the panel with me are a number of experienced legal researchers from Alberta, including SLAW's own Shaunna Mireau.

What makes the seminar interesting is the variety in topics covered, including core research competencies and how to effectively approach research, traditional and non-traditional gathering paths, comparative research (the art of comparing and analyzing), foreign and international legal research, and advanced legislative research. In addition, there is what we are calling a "speed dating" session after lunch where each of the presenters will sit at a table and the attendees will move in small groups from table to table with each presenter giving one or two more research tips to their table.

While I or Shaunna may try to blog today on SLAW about the conference, I can't guarantee that. Instead, a number of people have promised to tweet at #lesaonline.

In addition, for legal professionals in the Edmonton area, we will be doingna live "repeat" of this seminar in Edmonton on October 13th.

Recently, I had occasion to look at the speeches and presentations made by members of ultimate courts of appeal – the Supreme Court and its equivalents. And Canada ranks somewhat disgracefully last in terms of making the speeches publicly available.

Eugene Meehan has monitored the court too for speeches and presentations, but his pickings are similarly slim in recent years.

Compare this record to Chief Justice French of the High Court whose seventeen speeches from 2010 and eleven to date from 2011 are available here

His predecessor Chief Justice Brennan's speeches from the Nineties are there prominently available.

The new UK Supreme Court has a decent record, though some falling off between 2010 and this year.

Even Chief Justice Balakrishnan has a better record in New Delhi.

The US Supreme Court seems to publish only speeches by justices nominated under Democratic administrations – Chief Justice Roberts speaks often but you won't find the speeches archived. I found remarkable a speech by Justice Ginsburg from July commenting on the most recent term.

All I can assume is that the updating of the SCC website has lost priority because of other pressures, or that the controversy from the conservative press' reaction to the Unwritten Constitutional Principles speech has led the court to permit publication of remarks in other places, but not the court's own website.

There is an important speech by Justice Ian Binnie entitled, Sondage Après Sondage . . . A few Thoughts about Conflicts of Interest” by Justice Ian Binnie, edited version of remarks at a panel discussion at Les Journées Strasbourgeoises in Strasbourg, France, on July 4, 2008, which illuminates the court's decision in R. v. Neil but you won't find it anywhere electronically, only in a conference volume published by Les Editions Yvon Blais.

And speaking of Justice Binnie, the entire transcript of his interview with the Globe and Mail's Kirk Makin is well worth reading.

Way back in December rumours were flying about the social bookmarking site Delicious. Various reports had it that owner Yahoo! would be closing it down. Slaw's own Steve Matthews even put together the post R.I.P. Delicious tracing its pending demise. Many people looked for an alternative and exported their bookmarks to other sites in anticipation of it being closed. Some of those alternative services welcomed the new members with open arms, even creating tools for transferring the bookmarks over.

Fast forward: an announcement came out in May 2011 announcing the sale of Delicious to AVOS, owned by YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, in July. Following the sale, a notice went out over the summer asking members to give Yahoo! permission to transfer their bookmarks to the new owners. And then this week the "new" Delicious was launched.

The new Delicious was not launched without some pain, however. In the notice asking for permission to transfer the bookmarks there was not, unfortunately, any indication that the service would actually be changing. The new owners launched the new site without advance notice. Members (myself included) were shocked to find bookmarks and tags (personal categories) suddenly missing. As well, much of the functionality was gone. And the interface had changed. Some–those who had not seen the notice to give permission to Yahoo! for the transfer of bookmarks–discovered their accounts gone altogether.

A little shell-shocked, those of us who had loyally stuck by Delicious watched the site to see any signs of improvement. There seemed to be no forum in which to share concerns other than general sites such as Twitter. ReadWriteWeb reported that the new site was a big disappointment. Finally, at the end of the day AVOS put out a blog post on their own site explaining what had happened. A few things were at play:

• they had pulled the Delicious site into what they consider beta test, starting with a basic site and adding features back in
• they had transferred only the most recent bookmarks and some tags from Yahoo! with the intention of loading them all back in gradually
• anyone who had missed the notice asking to give permission to Yahoo! to transfer the bookmarks and did not provide permission were not included in the transfer to the new site.

AVOS subsequently created the delicious beta status blog to track improvements being made and complaints as they were being addressed. Still, some messaging is coming out from the AVOS blog. Gradually we are seeing functionality return.

The problems have distracted most of us from the new changes that have been made:

• the front of the Delicious site has been reworked to be more accessible, with more visual content
• the idea of "stacks" have been introduced: links grouped and shared by members (which also populate the front page).

Time will tell if the service gets back to where we had it, and if the new features were worth the switch. It seems to me the lack of communication initially around this project is a good example of what not to do with change management: not keeping extremely loyal users in the loop with regard to changes. It will be interesting to see if they have learned any lessons along the way.

As an update to my posting of 19 September 2011, the Canadian government introduced on 29 September 2011, Bill C-11, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act. This bill is identical to Bill C-32 which was introduced in June 2010. Bill C-32 died in March 2011 when the Canadian government fell in a vote of no confidence. This is the 4th attempt at amending the 1924 Canadian Copyright Act in order to address newer ways in which we all create, distribute and use copyright-protected works, and in order for Canada to be able to join the two digital WIPO treaties. There are some indications that the bill could be fast tracked and passed by the end of 2011.

I see that LexisNexis Canada has announced a new court docket service in Canada for dockets at the Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada:

From one intuitive online interface, LexisNexis CaseConnection Dockets enables fast access to key case information for ongoing and new proceedings filed with the Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada. This information helps law firm, government and corporate professionals stay on top of emerging legal issues and cases quickly, cost-effectively and securely.

The press release was not clear on cost of the service, although registration here was free. I registered and there appears to be small charges for searching dockets or running saved searches to monitor docket activity. At this stage, it does not appear that one would be able to obtain the full-text of court filings from the Federal Court or Supreme Court of Canada (or at least the press release is silent on this point).

In addition, their litigation services appear to open the door to lawyers and law firms to serve court documents with an option to also sign up for their US court dockets service (trade-marked as CourtLink, a "fee" service I already use to access US court full-text court filings).

Having now mentioned this service on SLAW, I imagine I will be contacted by my LexisNexis Canada rep who may be able to provide more information or clarification at which point I can update this post in the comments if there is any additional information.

Courtney Minick has written a post on Universal Citation for State Codes over at VoxPopuLII, a blog published at the Cornell University Law School.

She discusses the spread of universal, or vendor-neutral, citation in the United States. The bulk of the article is devoted to developing neutral citation for state laws, but one detail attracted my attention. In contrast to Canada, where neutral citation has been widely adopted for caselaw, the practice is still not very widespread South of the border:

To date, 16 states assign universal citations to their highest court opinions. (To date, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have adopted universal citation for caselaw.) Illinois is the most recent state to adopt the measure (in June 2011)…

In March 2010, Ivan Mokanov of the Université de Montréal, wrote on VoxPopuLII about neutral citation practices in Canada. He pointed out that "nearly three quarters of citations to recent case law [in Canada] use the neutral citation".

Jureeka! is a browser extension for Firefox and Chrome built by Michael Poulshock now in collaboration with Cornell's Legal Information Institute that turns legal citations into hyperlinks to open access versions of the material cited.

Somewhat surprisingly, it works with some citations to British materials and to Canadian materials, principally federal statutes and Supreme Court of Canada cases on CanLII, so far as I can judge. This is no substitute for the high-end commercial products and neither for CanLII material. But if you find yourself working with US material in HTML outside either of the biggies, you might find this plugin useful.

It would help if there were a full statement of which citations, US domestic and foreign, it captures — there is a list in the sidebar of the Jureeka! blog that lists some of the US citation forms the plugin captures. It would also help, of course, if something akin to the now commercial LexCite from Lexum were available free for documents referencing Canadian legal materials.

For the last few months, I have been tracking new issues of Canadian law journals for Bora Laskin Law Library's Recent Law Journals Tables of Contents service (July issue here) . This was as part of a bigger project, that will hopefully see the light of day someday. One of my collaborators on that project Andrea Davidson (a lawyer who is currently a masters student at the University of Western Ontario's Faculty of Information and Media Studies) thought it was worth noting that a number of the journals we were looking at were not available on either Lexis or Westlaw. This is a bit of a surprise as I had half-assumed going into this project that I would be able to find most journals I needed online by looking in one or two places. While most journals are indeed online somewhere, you have to look in a few different places to find them all.

A closer look at what I found is surprising. There may be errors here – I have relied on UofT's list of law journals, but this gives a good general picture. We certainly do have a way to go.

Of the 66 Canadian law related journals I am tracking:

- 11 are on all three main commercial platforms (Lexis, Westlaw and HeinOnline)
- 12 are on two of these platforms (10 Lexis, 10 Hein, 4 Westlaw)
- 20 are on only one of these platforms (3 Lexis, 7 Hein, 10 Westlaw)
- 2 are only on Hein but are not current
- 21 are not on any of the three platforms (some of these are published on the web only, others are available on other online platforms such as Gale or Proquest or a CLB database, and some (about 12) I could not find online at all)

Looking at things another way, if I was expecting to get one stop shopping - of my 66 journals I would find:

- 24 of them on Lexis
- 25 of them on West
- 30 of them on Hein (not all would be current)

I guess there are a couple of lessons here. One, it looks like neither of these sources has a clear competitive advantage in their journals coverage. The second is one that my library mentor Ted Tjaden made sure I understood when I joined UofT: if you are doing journal research and want to know what has been written on a specific topic use an index - full-text searching is (still) not enough.

First to BC where a committee of the Law Society of British Columbia, under the chairmanship of Gavin Hume, has produced the best and most thoughtful piece on how to practice ethically and effectively using cloud computing. We've referred in the past to helpful work done by the Bar Association in North Carolina and the ABA's 20/20 Commission – see Jack Newton's posts from May and July, as well as Connie's and Omar's take on last week's ABA discussion.

At the Canadian Lawyer, David Paul has a good tip sheet of practical advice on the intelligent use of Google in the practice of law – well worth a close look. Even Slaw readers might pick up a tip or two.

Back to the cloud – to my way of thinking, Gavin's committee has really done us all a service with the clarity and practicality of its analysis.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation 1: The Law Society should adopt and publish the attached due diligence guidelines for lawyers using third party electronic data storage and processing (see Appendix 1).

Recommendation 2: In order to ensure the Law Society’s regulatory process keeps pace with evolutions in data storage and processing technology, and to ensure the audit process remains robust, the Act and Rules Subcommittee should draft rules that capture the following concepts:

1. Rule 3-68(0.1) should include reference to Rule 3-59 in order to facilitate the Trust Regulation Department auditing and investigation of accounting records;

2. Rule 3-68 should be amended to remove reference to the “chief place of practice” requirement with respect to electronic records, and instead should require that electronic records be made available at the time of request in a format acceptable to the Law Society (the Law Society should publish guidelines as to what the Trust Regulation Department requires as an acceptable format);

3. The general retention period in Rule 3-68(1) should be 10 years from the final accounting transaction;

4. There should be a general rule regarding records in electronic form that gives the Law Society the discretion to accept copies of those electronic records in paper or another form;

5. There should be a general rule regarding records in electronic form that the Law Society has the discretion to require the lawyer to provide the meta data associated with those records;

6. There should be a general rule that requires lawyers to ensure their electronic records are capable of meeting the prevailing electronic discovery standards of a British Columbia superior court;

7. The Act and Rules Subcommittee should determine how to incorporate the following trust rule requirements:

(a) If monthly reconciliations are prepared and stored electronically, the reconciliation must show the date it was completed. Each of the monthly reconciliations must be available with appropriate back up documentation and not overwritten by the system.

(b) If billing records are stored electronically, they must include the creation date as well as any modification dates.

(c) All accounting records must be printable on demand in a comprehensible format (or exported to acceptable electronic format (ie. PDF)) and available for at least 10 years from the final accounting transaction. If the member scans all his supporting documentation such as 3rd party documents like bank statements the full version meaning all the pages front and back even if there it is blank page.

(d) A sufficient “audit trail” must be available and printable on demand in a comprehensible format (this should be a requirement of all accounting software whether it’s in the cloud or a stand-alone program such as ESILAW or PCLAW etc.).

(e) Audit trail transaction reports must be complete, showing all postings into the software with specifically assigned transactions that correspond chronologically with dates etc.

(f) Cash receipts must always be retained in hard copy.

(g) Ability of system to provide creation dates, what changes were made, and how often the documents (i.e. Word, Excel and/or Adobe) were changed. Ensuring that metadata information is not lost when stored on a cloud.

(h) Ability for LSBC to have view only access & printing access to all items stored on cloud (I.e. emails, documents, accounting records) when required. This does not derogate from any rule that allows the Law Society to copy a record or have that record provided on request. The purpose is to allow for a forensic investigation that does not alter the underlying record.

8. There should be a rule that recognizes, in circumstances where the Law Society has had to copy electronic records held by a third party, the Law Society may rely on the copies as best evidence and the onus is on the lawyer to provide a forensic copy of those records if the lawyer wishes to dispute the quality of the evidence.

9. The Act and Rules Subcommittee should consider, as part of future revisions to the Legal Profession Act, amending s. 37 to permit orders for copying or duplication of records, as an alternative to “seizing” records.

Recommendation 3: For the purposes of interpreting Rule 3-68(4), and subject to the other recommendations in this report, if a lawyer ensures through contractual safeguards that custody or control of his or her records does not pass to a third party, the lawyer can use a third party for the storage or processing of those records. If the lawyer is unable to access those records and provide them on demand during an audit or Law Society investigation, however, the lawyer may be found to have lost custody or control of the records, which may lead to disciplinary consequences.

Recommendation 4: In circumstances where the Law Society Rules require a lawyer to either provide the Law Society the lawyer’s records or make copies of the records available to the Law Society, and the lawyer either refuses to comply, or is unable to comply by virtue of having used a service provider that does not make the records available in a timely fashion, the lawyer should be suspended until such time as the lawyer complies with the disclosure requirements under the Law Society Rules. The Act and Rules Subcommittee should consider whether this requires creating a new administrative suspension rule, or proceeding by way of Rule 3-7.1. In circumstances where the lawyer is suspended, the Law Society should consider seeking a court order for a custodianship in order to protect the public and ensure the suspended lawyer’s clients continue to be served.

Recommendation 5: The Law Society should encourage the CBA BC Branch and CLE BC to include as part of future courses on cloud computing (or similar technology), information about the best practices and Law Society Rules.

Recommendation 6: The Ethics Committee should review its ethics opinions regarding the use of third party service providers and update them to address the concerns arising from the use of cloud computing, or similar technology.

Recommendation 7: Law Schools and PLTC should teach students that lawyers’ have an obligation to ensure their use of technology is consistent with their professional obligations.

Recommendation 8: The Law Society’s Trust Regulation Department, and the Professional Conduct and Investigation Department, when dealing with investigations involving a lawyer who uses cloud computing, should identify circumstances in which the approach proposed in this report is failing to protect the public interest, in the event modifications to the policy and rules is necessary for the Law Society to fulfill its public interest mandate. Because technology will continue to develop, and standards will emerge, it is important to ensure the Law Society keeps pace with these changes, and staff will play an important role in keeping the Benchers apprised of the potential need for amendments to the policies and rules recommended in this report.

Recommendation 9: The Practice Advice group should modify their resources to reflect the recommendations in this report. This may involve creating checklists to better assist lawyers.

Recommendation 10: Because cloud computing is an emerging technology, the Law Society should ascertain whether any lawyers who use cloud computing are willing to have the Trust Assurance Department determine whether their system meets the present requirements, and the investigators determine whether the system meets the requirement for a 4-43 investigation. This would not be for the purpose of endorsing a
particular system. It would be for the purpose of identifying any concerns to ensure the Law Society’s auditing program can address cloud computing.

Recommendation 11: Because cloud computing stores records in a manner where the Law Society may not be able to make forensic copies of hard drives, or segregate irrelevant personal information that is stored in the cloud, Rule 4-43 should be amended to make it clear that the process for protecting personal information during investigations is subject to the lawyer using a record keeping system that supports such a process. If lawyers choose to use systems that do not support that process, they do so at their own risk, and the Law Society may end up having to collect or access personal information that is irrelevant to an investigation.

And a very practical due diligence check list for those considering venturing onto the cloud:

PART A: GENERAL DUE DILIGENCE CHECKLIST Lawyers must ensure that the service provider and technology they use support the lawyer’s professional obligations, including compliance with the Law Society’s regulatory processes. This may include using contractual language to ensure the service provider will assist the lawyer in complying with Law Society investigations.
Lawyers are strongly encouraged to read the service provider’s terms of service, service level agreement, privacy policy and security policy. Lawyers must ensure the contract of service adequately addresses concerns regarding protecting clients’ rights and allowing the lawyer to fulfill professional obligations. Ensure the contract provides meaningful remedies. At a minimum consideration should be given to the following:
o Lawyers must take steps to ensure the confidentiality and privilege of their clients’ information is protected. Clear contractual language should be used to accomplish this objective.
o Lawyers should try to ascertain where the data is stored/hosted. Consider the political and legal risks associated with data storage in foreign jurisdictions. The lawyer must consider whether he or she can comply with British Columbian and Federal laws, such as laws governing the collection of personal information, when using third party service providers (see Part B).
o Who owns the data? Confidentiality and privilege are rights that lie with the client. Lawyers must ensure ownership of their clients’ information does not pass to the service provider or a third party.
o What happens if the service provider goes out of business or has their servers seized or destroyed?
o On what terms can the service provider cut off the lawyer’s access to the records?
o Will the lawyer have continuous access to the source code and software to retrieve records in a comprehensible form? Consider whether there is a source code escrow agreement to facilitate this.
o How easily can the lawyer migrate data to another provider, or back to desktop applications?
o Who has access to the data and for what purposes?
o What procedural and substantive laws govern the services? What are the implications of this?
o Does the service provider archive data for the retention lifecycle the lawyer requires?
o Are there mechanisms to ensure data that is to be destroyed has been destroyed?
o What are the lawyer’s remedies for the service provider’s non-compliance with the terms of service, service level agreement, privacy policy or security policy?
o Ensure the service provider supports electronic discovery and forensic investigation. A lawyer may need to comply with regulatory investigations, and litigation disclosure, in a timely manner. It is essential that the services allow the lawyer to meet these obligations. What is the service provider’s reputation? This essentially requires the lawyer to assess the business risk of entrusting records to the service provider. Lawyers should seek out top quality service providers. What is the service provider’s business structure? Lawyers must understand what sort of entity they are contracting with as this affects risk. Does the service provider sell its customer information or otherwise try and commoditize the data stored on its servers? Lawyers should strive to keep abreast of changes in technology that might affect the initial assessment of whether a service is acceptable. Services, and service providers, may become more or less acceptable in light of technological and business changes. What security measures does the service provider use to protect data, and is there a means to audit the effectiveness of these measures? A lawyer should compare the cloud services with existing and alternative services to best determine whether the services are appropriate. If using a service provider puts the lawyer off-side a legal obligation, the lawyer should not use the service. For example, there may be legislative requirements for how certain information is stored/secured. Lawyers should establish a record management system, and document their decisions with respect to choosing a cloud provider. Documenting due diligence decisions may provide important evidence if something goes wrong down the road. Consider the potential benefits of a private cloud for mission critical and sensitive data, along with information that may need to be stored within the jurisdiction.
With respect to certain trust records, the Trust Regulation Department at the Law Society of British Columbia recommends the following as best practices:
1. All bank reconciliations (for all trust and general bank accounts) should be printed the same date it was completed and stored in hard copy;
2. A full and complete trust ledger should be printed in hard copy at the close of each client file matter and stored in hard copy;
3. A master billings file should always be maintained in hard copy;
4. Have a disaster recovery plan in case the cloud provider shuts down. Regularly back up all files and records in possession of the member. Store backup files in a fire safe, safety deposit box;
5. All Members should print off or export to electronic file (i.e. pdf) all accounting records required by Division 7 Rules on an ongoing basis and store locally;
6. If client files are stored electronically, all key documents supporting transactions and key events on the file must be printable on demand in a comprehensible format (or exported to acceptable electronic format (ie PDF) and available for at least 10 years from the date of the final accounting transaction.
The Lawyers Insurance Fund notes that there may be data breaches and other risks in using a particularly technology, including cloud computing, that may lead to losses by lawyers and clients. These are not risks to which the professional liability insurance policy responds, so lawyers will want to consider the risks and how best to protect themselves as part of their due diligence. Steps that might be taken include: A lawyer should obtain informed client consent for the use of the services; A lawyer should require the service provider to indemnify the lawyer for any claims the lawyer faces as a result of using the service; and A lawyer should consider buying insurance on the commercial market to cover risks such as data breaches.

Fastcase has just announced the Fastcase 50, the "fifty most interesting, provocative, and courageous leaders in the world of law, scholarship, and legal technology". The entire list is interesting but let's mention 5 friends who may be familiar to Slaw readers.

Congratulations to each of them:

David Whelan
David Whelan is a lawyer, librarian, and technologist who has truly seen it all. He currently serves as the Manager of Legal Information for the Law Society of Upper Canada (as head librarian of the Great Library, the job is often referred to as "the Great Librarian"). David previously served as Director of the ABA's Legal Technology Resource Center, and is a frequent writer and speaker on legal technology and information topics. His book Finding and Managing Legal Information on the Internet was published in 2010. He has lectured on network technology, information systems, Web design, and legal research at three U.S. graduate schools. His roles revolve around improving lawyer access to information, managing law libraries and content and corporate records teams.

Catherine Sanders Reach
Catherine Sanders Reach is one of the leading lights on the use of technology in the law office. Catherine is the Director of the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, and is an organizer of ABA Techshow. She is an active speaker at legal conferences regarding the use of technology in legal practice, and has published articles in Law Practice magazine, Law Technology News and GPSolo magazine on topics including the best way to maximize legal research dollars.

Robert Ambrogi
Bob Ambrogi is one of the most respected lawyers, arbitrators, and legal technology journalists. He has been a legal publisher, podcaster, blogger, and expert in legal technology for decades. With one part humor, one part curiosity, one part critical thinking, and very fast writing, Bob has managed to remain a unique voice in legal writing. And his opinions are required reading for tech lawyers and software companies alike.

Tom Bruce
If Tom Bruce is anything, he is a rebel. As Director and co-founder of the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School, Tom is a world leader in democratizing the law. In fact, LIIs around the world have followed Cornell's example — today Legal Information Institutes promote the rule of law around the world. Tom is known for developing Cello, the first MS Windows web browser in the early 1990's, and a celebrated pioneer of open access in the legal community with the Legal Education Document Archive (LEDA). He is more knowledgeable about legal information than almost every lawyer in the world — even though he himself is not a lawyer. He is also known for a subversive sense of humor, possibly cultivated as a touring roadie with some of the largest rock acts in the world.

Jean O'Grady
Jean O'Grady is leading the transformation of one of America's largest law libraries. She's the Director of Research Services and Libraries at DLA Piper and creator and source of the call-it-as-she-sees-it "Dewey B Strategic" blog covering the strategic importance of libraries and the legal profession. Since launching her blog in early 2011, Jean's posts have spurred conversations among today's legal technology thought leaders. Jean has an extensive career in legal research including serving as Director of Information Services at WilmerHale and as Director of Legal Information Services at Shea & Gould.

Luigi Benetton has published a nice article called "Knowledge Management Know-How" in the current edition of The Lawyers Weekly.

The article quotes me and fellow SLAW contributor Dominic Jaar, but what I like about the article are the viewpoints from others in the industry and the wide range of tips and advice on best practices.

What I find with knowledge management is that there is usually never a single approach or method and varies a fair bit depending on the type of organization, its culture and staffing.

In fact, there has been lots of discussion in the past several years as to whether knowledge management is dead or not.

I prefer to think it is alive, but evolving, with many in legal knowledge management increasingly getting involved with the other "management" aspects of law practice, including risk management, project management and client management.

With knowledge management, however, I have often wondered if it is perhaps time to describe knowledge management in better terms (particularly since it seems slightly oxymoronic to think about "managing" knowledge – can you manage knowledge?). At the SLA conference this year in Philadelphia colleague Katharine Thompson attended a workshop by Guy St. Claire and others of SMR-Knowledge.com where there was discussion on using the "Knowledge Services" as better describing what we do (especially since we are in a service industry). I find "Knowledge Services" to somehow seem fresher than "Knowledge Management."

How important is the name or description of what we do?

In part because I came to knowledge management through law practice as a lawyer, researcher and law librarian, what I feel most strongly about in Luigi's article is the notion of "integrated" services – that it is best to not distinguish between library, legal research, precedents, training and the other aspects of information and knowledge management. It truly should be a one-stop shop for information, whether from internal memos or precedents or from external databases or other sources.

In addition to the blog posts I put together from selected sessions at the PLL Summit on Saturday, I have also liveblogged a few of the other conference sessions I have attended:

• Barbara Tillett and John Mark Ockerbloom on Authority Control Vocabularies and the Semantic Web
  These are notes are from talk by Dr. Barbara B. Tillett of theLibrary of Congress and John Mark Ockerboom of the University of Pennsylvania.
• To Recover or Not to Recover: Trends, Solutions, and Alternatives for Taming Online Research Costs
  These are notes are from a panel discussion session with Joan Axelroth, Axelroth & Associates, Anthony A. Licata, CFO of Dechert LLP and Nuchine Nobari, Library Director of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, LLP. The session was moderated by Sarah Mauldin, Head Librarian of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP.
• Coding Potpourri: A Survey of Programming Languages and Tools Used in Library Applications Today
  These are notes are from a panel discussion session with Nicole Engard, Director of Open Source Education ByWater Solutions, Ted Lawless, Library Applications Developer at Brown University, Jason Eiseman, Librarian for Emerging Technologies at Yale Law School Library, and Tom Boone, Reference Librarian, Loyola Law School. The session was moderated by Cynthia Bassett, University of Missouri Law School Library.
• E-books and the Future of Legal Publishing
  These are notes are from a panel discussion session withScott Meiser of LexisNexis, Dan Bennett of Thomson Reuters Professional, and Steven W. Sutton of YBP Library Services, A Baker & Taylor Company . The session was moderated by June Hsiao Liebert, Coordinator, John Marshall Law School.

I've had some good feedback to the blog posts. These are selected notes; any errors or omissions are mine. I welcome comments! So far I haven't put any analysis together; it is all muddling around in my brain currently. I thought the E-books session in particular was a good follow-up to our similar session at the CALL conference in May. It is now Tuesday afternoon. The last few sessions are running and people seem to be quietly moving out, heading back home. See you in Toronto!

I am currently in Philadelphia for the American Association of Law Libraries 2011 conference. Today is the PLL Summit put on by the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section (PLL-SIS). I have live-blogging the sessions I attended:

• James Jones on Understanding Law Firm Trends
• Esther Dyson on Technology Changes in Business and Libraries
• Steven Lastres, Julie Bozzell and Toby Brown – Moving Beyond the Library Walls to Support Strategic Knowledge Management
• Joan Axelroth – What Law Firm Administrators Want Librarians to Know
• Greg Castanias – How librarians add value to their law firms
• David Curle on transformations in the legal publishing industry
• Joelle Coachman – Resistance is Futile: Integrating New Technology into Your Library
• Larry Guthrie and Doug Malerba on Developing Collaborative Communities

This day was an incredible testament to the keen engagement of the law firm librarians. The PLL Summit was started last year, and this year they doubled the attendance. All sessions (except one) were recorded, so all will be posted.

Law library consultant Nina Platt is the editor of the new PinHawk News free daily email alert service for law librarians, the Librarian News Digest.

From the inaugural issue:

Welcome to the first issue of the daily Librarian News Digest, a free digest of news from publications and blogs on the internet that focus on topics of importance to librarians. As editor of Librarian News Digest, my goal is to track pertinent news and select what's most important to you as a librarian. Expect to see news and ideas that help you manage, acquire, organize, research, and market your library, along with other interesting topics.

As you scan through this issue and those to come, please remember that this is your digest. I welcome your suggestions on what sites to track or what topics to include as well as other feedback. Please send suggestions and feedback to nplatt@pinhawk.com.

Happy reading! Nina Platt

Click on the image below the fold for a sample.

Thank you for the kind welcome Simon. I’ve just returned fresh from a research leave where amongst other things I investigated the challenges and possibilities around creating a Canadian subject based research tool that does for Canadian Journals what the wonderful Current Index to Legal Periodicals does for US journals. I hope to talk a bit more about this project in a future entry.

In the meantime, along with many SLAW readers and contributors I have been missing the excellent Current Law Journal Content service offered by the Washington and Lee Law Lbrary. Simon has recently written about CLJC here. This service (which ceased in May) provided reasonably timely tables of contents for hundreds of law journals. At Bora Laskin we included links to CLJC in InfoExpressCurrent our monthly faculty newsletter as way to alert our faculty to new issues of Canadian journals.

Fortunately my research leave project required me to collect and keep track of the table of contents of every new Canadian law journal issue, so it seemed natural that we re-purpose all this information and in a small way try to fill CJLC’s void – at least for Canadian journals. My colleague Susan Barker, Bora Laskin’s Digital Services and Reference Librarian has taken all the ToCs that I am collecting, and has since May been producing a monthly list of tables of contents to include in our faculty newsletter. Our May listing is reproduced on SLAW here (under the Useful Things tab). If you think you will find this useful we encourage you to sign up for the RSS feed on the Bora Laskin Law Library’s Blog. I imagine similar projects may be brewing or are already in place in other libraries – in which case we may have opportunities for collaboration.

Ideally, in time this service will be supplanted by something much more robust – perhaps a collaborative effort by Canadian law schools to create an open access online repository of Canadian legal scholarship along the lines that Simon described a couple of months ago. In the meantime, I look forward to your comments and the possibility of collaboration.

Some of you may know that I am celebrating the unboxing of the Mireau family treasures onto library shelving that travels most of the length of my new house. My husband and I are getting up extra early these days to enjoy our reading time before the work day begins. The alarm ringing at 5 is obnoxious but the extra minutes spent with a novel is lovely. I am secretly hoping that it continues to rain so that I can read novels for my vacation next week rather than landscape.

A few of the novels read in the past couple of months have been downloads to the various ereader apps on my iPad. When there is a hole in a collection, or it someone else grabbed the desired item first, or when something is unavailable in the print or digital public library collection in the moment that I want to consume it, an e-book version is a handy alternative. In my world – alternative not replacement.

A few items came my way this week that provoked some personal reflection on electronic books:

1. From Time: Bookless Library Trend (hat tip to John DiGilio aka iBrary Guy)
2. From the scholarly kitchen: The Ticklish Problem of Pricing E-books for Libraries (Thanks to Alicia Posesorski of Irwin Law)
3. From Stephen Abram at Stephen's Lighthouse: New Textbook Models
4. Simon Chesters Slaw post yesterday about Internet Archive Canada's financial woes.

The references above make for some very interesting reading and some worrying thoughts. Will the trend of e-books further narrow publisher competition? Will the proliferation of accessible written work increase literacy, decrease monetization, destroy copyrights? Is a scholarly borrowable collection going to be available to non-academics or are license fees and restrictions for academic libraries going to limit access for those outside the insitution? What does all of this mean for my law firm library budget? What does it mean for our clients in terms of the cost of legal services?

With a hat tip to my colleague Ben Keen, who spotted the story below on the Torstar website.

"Internet Archive Canada, a small non-profit company, fired 35 of its 47 employees on Wednesday due to a massive drop in donations. Most will leave Aug. 12 unless a white knight appears soon".

It's difficult to find out exactly what the issue is – the website offers no explanation.

The story ends:

"The loss will be felt by more than those who will be out of work.”

Here they all are – they've made a major contribution in digitizing Canada's book heritage.

"Most employees believe they are making the world better by liberating billions of words that would otherwise be trapped in a library.

“If we had 10 more years, we could archive every single book in Canada,” Gabe Juszel said. “But not any more.”

Fellow law library consultant Kathie Sullivan and I have been working together to track new collaboration tools and document the challenges that groups face in using them. New project management platforms such as Basecamp, collaborative mindmapping, and wireframe/mockup tools like Mockingbird and Balsamiq join familiar tools like wikis and Google Docs to make teamwork easier, regardless of where everyone is located. We are specifically interested in how these might be used in library and legal settings.

We are building a wiki that will document the tools and related stories (still to be made public), and will be speaking at two events this month:

• Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) Webinar – Tuesday, July 19, 2011, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET
  For details and to register, see the CALL webinar series page.
• American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) 2011 Conference in Philadelphia – Monday, July 25, 2011 – 8:45 – 9:45 a.m. ET
  See session description.

In preparation for these talks, we are hoping to create scenarios for multiple settings in which a real problem is outlined and we make some suggestions of tools which could facilitate a solution.

Would you be willing to share your story with us? We'd like to know a) what collaborative tools you've used with success but also b) what kinds of problems you've encountered when attempting to work on team projects. Team projects could be within your office/library location or between remote locations (branches, other libraries, committees, etc.).

This request has already gone out to some of the AALL and CALL listservs–thanks to everyone who have participated! We have been gathering some great stories and would like to add to it. Feel free to post in the comments here, or email me directly.

Set out below is one technique I use to make doing legal research on the iPad easier. If readers have other suggestions, I would welcome comments.

Rather than create Safari browser "Bookmarks" on my iPad, I instead found it more useful to use the option of "Add to Home Page."

What I have therefore done was this: I use a customized HTML "home page" at work and on my home laptop that is organized into 6 "boxes" providing links (and password information) to web resources covering such things as reference tools, books, publishers, journals, research databases, news, case law, precedents and legislation (in some situations, I deep link into commercial databases).

I then uploaded that customized home page to my Dropbox account and opened up that page on my iPad's browser and chose "Add to Home Page" and added it to a "Research" folder on my iPad, as shown with the blue arrow in the following screenshot:

Here is a screenshot showing more detail of the actual page and links (with password information redacted):

When I am "on the road" and need to do legal research on my iPad, I find loading this page makes it very quick and simple to access the research sites I most frequently use.

Last week Simon linked to the piece in the New York Times which described the remarkable trend in the USSC towards resorting to dictionaries to determine legal meaning.

The US doctrinal literature has quite a history in a trilogy of articles by Judge Samuel A. Thumma & Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier, The Lexicon Has Become a Fortress: The United States Supreme Court’s Use of Dictionaries, 47 Buff. L. Rev. 227 (1999); Appendix A, Appendix B, The Lexicon Remains a Fortress: An Update, 5 Green Bag 51 (2001), and Scaling the Lexicon Fortress: The United States Supreme Court’s Use of Dictionaries in the Twenty-First Century 94 Marquette L. Rev, (2010)

Undertaking a similar exercise on the Supreme Court of Canada would take a month or so, so perhaps some advance results might be of interest.

Our court far prefers the Oxford English Dictionary and Blacks Law Dictionary over their Canadian equivalents.
Indeed it's remarkable how relatively infrequently the court refers to Daphne Dukelow's Dictionary of Canadian Law.

Here are the rough results:

Oxford English Dictionary 154
Blacks Law Dictionary 70
Websters Dictionary 34
Jowitt's Dictionary of English law 30
Le grand Robert de la langue française 24
Stroud's judicial dictionary of words and phrases 14
Oxford Canadian Dictionary 13
Concise law dictionary by P.G. Osborn 12
Cornu, Vocabulaire juridique 10
Reid, Dictionnaire de droit québécois et canadien 9
Dukelow, Dictionary of Canadian Law 8
Le grand Larousse 6
Mozley & Whiteley's Law dictionary 5
Dalloz, Dictionnaire général et raisonné de législation, de doctrine et de jurisprudence 4

Law libraries can't have too many dictionaries.

I've been updating the case law digest and the reading list in a process that resembles renovation, in that it is messy, you uncover a lot of broken material, and it takes twice as long as it should but the results are satisfying.

Both the case law digest and the reading list were neglected for about a year. I had been accumulating links in my bookmarks with the idea that some time soon I’d get around to doing something about it – and when I did, there were hundreds of links to sort through, discard, hunt down and write brief summaries for. So, here’s where we are.

The eDiscovery Case Law Digest – what’s NEW.

The digest was updated in two stages, the first time back in March and more recently earlier this month. New sections have been added to cover pleading practices, discovery planning, the application of the proportionality principle, discovery of social media and other internet sources, and admissibility and authentication of electronic evidence. Newly added decision summaries include deep links into the paragraphs in the decision dealing with the issue.

The eDiscovery Reading List – what’s NEW

Like the case law digest, the reading list has been through two updates. The current version is dated May 2^nd and has been weeded of all broken links and older material. Some new links were added, as well as whole new sections on Social Networks and Discovery and Cloud Computing. The latest version, which is with LawPRO for loading onto the practicePRO website, contains all the new links as well as a whole new section on Authenticating Electronic Information.

As anyone who follows e-discovery knows, new material is published daily on the internet. For the most part, the material on the Reading List comes from courts, law societies and bar associations, law review journals, The Sedona Conference®, government agencies like NARA, legal technology industry analysts (Gartner, IDC, etc.), judicial committees, EDRM, ABA Law Practice Management and similar sources.

The Curator is on Twitter and will tweet new links as they appear, with the best being added to the list.

From Dr. M Veerappa Moily, the Centre's Minister of Law & Justice comes a Press Release:

The scope of this program is creation and management of the ‘National Legal e-library’ for 933 schools in India, Bar Associations, Government Legal departments etc. and meet the needs of academic librarians, students, faculty and young practitioners. It aims to provide a practitioners view and a comprehensive understanding of core subject areas of law.

Various technology tools that make the concept of E-Library indispensable are Easy Access to provide a campus wide access using IP Authentication, Results clustering to familiarize new users with different classes of content by providing an instant, multi faceted analysis of distribution of hits in each result set, flexible display option with inclusion of full featured tools that allow for printing, emailing and saving, interoperability that works with systems one use to manage electronic holdings through e-journals systems, Article linking Federated search, Meta search & Citation export to Reference Works, smart indexing technology to help users to reach the information they need by applying controlled vocabulary terms for several different taxonomies and powerful source selection to identify sources by type, language, topic, geography and other facets.

Comments on the announcement can be found here and here

The Minister has had a busy week, since he also announced a very broad privacy and data protection law: “every individual shall have a right to his privacy — confidentiality of communication made to, or, by him — including his personal correspondence, telephone conversations, telegraph messages, postal, electronic mail and other modes of communication; confidentiality of his private or his family life; protection of his honour and good name; protection from search, detention or exposure of lawful communication between and among individuals; privacy from surveillance; confidentiality of his banking and financial transactions, medical and legal information and protection of data relating to individual.”

We'll check in after the big day to see how much of this is vapourware or PR puff.

Forgive me, please if this is a tad parochial, but yesterday the Toronto Civil Court Lists were made available on the Internet

The Toronto Lawyers Association announced that working with Regional Senior Justice Ed Then, and his Court staff they have finally secured for the benefit of the profession internet access to the Toronto Civil Court lists.

They should be available here. They undertake to post the next day’s list by 5 pm each day (the lists are subject to change).

Currently they have Trials, Pre-Trial & Case Conferences, Motions and Masters' Motions available. Soon they hope to have the Commercial and Bankruptcy Lists.

Hap tip to my colleague Adam Goodman – and congratulations to Sam Marr and the TLA.

With digital publishing coming of age, many publishers are rethinking how they produce and sell their content. I know First Reference is. One of the main challenges we face as publishers is making our content and products accessible.

Experts in the fields of accessibility and publishing from around the world have joined together under the banner of the Enabling Technology Framework. According to the group:

The publishing landscape is becoming much more user-oriented; ensuring your published content is accessible by all your potential readers is more and more important. Today’s readership needs to be able to consume technology in a variety of different ways and publishing’s metamorphosis from a print-dominated into a mixed and inexorably into a digitally-led industry presents an unprecedented opportunity for publishers to extend their products to the widest possible audience.

However, this is easier said than done.

I get the point that accessibility should be an integral component of publishing, what does this really mean? Simply put, content and software are accessible if they can be accessed and used effectively by individuals with disabilities. To achieve this, electronic documents and websites must be accessible in both their content and structure, meaning they should include such things as navigational aids, text that can be read by a screen reader, extra information for those person with low vision, alternate text description for images, form-field descriptions, and a defined document language, among other things.

Creating accessible electronic documents and websites requires a combined effort by content authors and the publishers of the software and tools that authors use. This means:

• Content authors must take advantage of the accessibility enabling features in their software and tools, and keep accessibility in mind throughout their work by defining document structures and adding navigation aids and explanatory information
• Publishers of software and web-based development tools should enable the creation of accessible content, retain and encode both content and structure in ways that suit accessibility, provide useful tools to help optimize documents, and effectively transmit information to other assistive technologies

Software and web-based tools represent important milestones in accessibility. Accessible electronic documents and websites are becoming an integral part of an organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), demonstrating an organization's commitment to providing equal opportunities. Inaccessible electronic content and websites can undermine an organization's other CSR efforts. The Enabling Technologies Framework project explains:

People with disabilities are often excluded from various aspects of society, largely due to inaccessible buildings and services. When an organization's website or content is not accessible, it further excludes people with disabilities. When an organization's website and content are accessible, it empowers people with disabilities to participate more fully in society. Providing an accessible website is one way an organization can demonstrate that it strives to meet the access needs of a diverse society.

The Enabling Technologies Framework project is working to make the vague concept of accessibility in publishing more concrete for publishers by releasing the Accessible Publishing: Best Practice Guidelines for Publishers. It is worth a read, and it contains many valuable insights and instructions that content publishers can apply now at little or no cost. And you probably understand by now that “content publisher” can mean anything from traditional print publishing to online news to informal blogging.

Accessible Publishing provides guidance to content authors, editorial and production departments, publishers, IT staff and others on the ways they can improve accessibility in their products. The document also offers help to manage many of the issues and challenges these people may encounter as they strive to make their products more accessible. The guide has been endorsed by the International Publishers Association, The Federation of European Publishers and The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers.

It will be interesting to see who adopts the guidelines and how long it takes for them to spread throughout the print and digital publishing worlds. It will be especially interesting to see how the guidelines affect creative design and layout, since these areas tend to be less bound by restrictions. I’m also curious to know how readers without impairments will react to changes in publishing to improve accessibility. Many accessibility advocates claim that such improvements benefit all readers, but it remains to be seen whether that is in fact true.

At any rate, this guide is a big step forward for accessible publishing. It may only be a stepping stone toward more fully inclusive products, but it is precisely what content publishers need to start.

I had the pleasure last week of presenting at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries / /L'Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit on the topic "Legal Project Management: Is There a Role for Law Librarians?"

My co-speaker was Andrew Terrett, the National Director of Knowledge Management at BLG who provided a great, pragmatic overview of project management in law firms.

Although in my paper I also provided a brief overview of legal project management and what various law firms were doing about it, the focus of my talk was instead on the third part of my paper on whether there was a role for law librarians in project management (this being a conference whose attendees were largely law librarians).

A copy of my paper, entitled "Project Management in Law Firms: A New Role for Librarians?" is available here, and includes a bibliography on legal project management resources (20 pages, PDF).

The first theme of my talk was that legal project management is definitely here to stay so we should all be embracing it as a new way of practicing law.

The second theme was that legal project management presents great opportunities to law librarians to leverage their expertise and expand their services.

Those people who know me well will know that I strongly believe in the connection between law librarianship and legal knowledge management (and I in fact don't distinguish between the two activities since I think they are so closely entwined). Therefore, to the extent that there are overlaps between legal knowledge management and legal project management, there are, I think, a number of roles for law librarians to play.

I identified 8 roles for law librarians:

#1: Education and current awareness: To the extent that legal project management may still be quite new to some firms, there is an opportunity for law librarians to acquire materials on the topic and educate those within the firm through current awareness and monitoring what others in the industry are doing.

#2: RFPs / bidding process: An important element in legal project management for law firms is bidding on work through the RFP process. In many firms, there are opportunities for the RFP process to be improved and there are opportunities here for law librarians to work with their Marketing Department counterparts and firm management on organizing and standardizing their RFP documentation.

#3: Checklists: Law librarians are natural keepers and organizers of checklists, an important tool in large deals or lawsuits to tracking the steps that need to be taken (when discussing checklists, I like to mention the great work done by the Law Society of British Columbia in making a number of practice checklists available online). When combined with Role # 4 below, librarians can augment checklists by providing easy access to documents required at each step of the matter.

#4: Research / Precedents: To be more efficient and effective on large deals or lawsuits, law librarians are well poised to "imbed" research and precedents within the various resources needed on a particular deal or lawsuit. Of the 8 roles identified, this is perhaps the most obvious role (or at least the one most closely associated with what law librarians do).

#5: Evaluating and using Project Management Software: Many law librarians are likely the most experienced "searchers" within their firms and often have good expertise in evaluating software, including project management software. And although project management isn't only about technology, software tools can play an important role (if you have not yet had your daily dose of being overwhelmed with too much information, check out the over 120 titles listed in the Wikipedia entry for project management software titles).

#6: e-Discovery Support: Canadian law firms are starting to get more experience with e-discovery with the increased adoption of new rules of civil procedure on handling large volumes of electronic discovery. Due to the large volume of materials, e-discovery is ripe to being project-managed. While in many situations it may be litigation law clerks or paralegals who will involved in the day-to-day "hands on" of e-discovery under the supervision of the resonsible litigation lawyer, many Knowledge Management departments in law firms help support e-discovery, whether it be evaluating e-discovery software, developing and organizing e-discovery precedents or simply monitoring e-discovery developments and best practices.

#7: Post-deal Reviews: An important element of project management is following up after the project is completed to see how the team did and how things can be improved next time. In many situations, both the lawyers and the client are too busy to deal with this or are otherwise already moving on to the next project. Depending on how your firm is structured, I think there is a role here for the Knowledge Management department to help with the post-deal review process.

#8: Internal Administrative Projects: Although much of legal project management correctly focuses on meeting client needs, realize that firms will also benefit from applying project management to their own internal projects and processes. In many situations, law librarians are well-suited to be involved on these internal projects, which could include such things as evaluating and implementing a new document management system or integrating library catalogues in a merged firm.
______________

I welcome comments.

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Note 1: When I prepared my paper (available at the link above), the following book published by the Ark Group had not yet been announced. I told attendees I would provide a link to that paper in this post, so here is the link:

– Barbara J Boake and Rick A Kathuria, Project Management for Lawyers (London: Ark Group, 2011)

Note 2: I also saw this morning that Jim Hassett has announced the launch of his new Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide.

As recently announced, Carlos Rossel, Publisher, The World Bank, is guiding the transition of the Bank’s print publishing to largely electronic, open access publishing. As part of this transition, The World Bank invited several of its employees including editors, economists, researchers, lawyers and invited non-Bank guests to a two-hour session yesterday in Washington, DC.

Carlos opened the session introducing the issues and speakers. I then gave an overview of relevant copyright and licensing/contractual issues relating to OA publishing. The information I provided was based on U.S. law as well as international copyright principles from the leading copyright treaty, the Berne Copyright Convention. It was interesting to note that Berne has 164 country members and The World Bank has 187 member countries. Thus the Bank is working with non-Berne countries whose domestic copyright laws do not follow the Berne required minimum copyright protection as well as automatic copyright protection upon creation and fixation of a work. Berne member countries cannot require registration of copyright works or the use of © as prerequisites to copyright protection. Once a work is protected in one Berne country, it is protected in all Berne countries according to the national laws of the country where the work is being used.

The bottom line of my presentation was “you cannot use what you do not own.” In terms of OA publishing, my summary included understanding copyright and contracts; planning ahead and leaving sufficient time to determine and clear relevant rights; and informing authors about underlying rights in their contributions and obtaining rights clearances and warranties from authors.

OA advocate Sandy Thatcher gave a thorough overview of the history of OA publishing, the different types of OA, and various OA publishers such as The National Academies Press and Athabasca Press, and various funding models for OA including revenue from print, author fees, foundations, endowments, subscription, patronage and advertising.

The World Bank publishing office is considering whether its open access publishing will allow both commercial and noncommercial use, whether derivative works could be based upon their publications, and whether attribution to The World Bank is essential.

With the relative newness of digital licensing and the growing opportunities for licensing electronic content (including on social networking sites), there are a number of misconceptions already developing. By discussing and clearing up these misconceptions, it will help clear the path to an easier negotiating road and to better licenses.

Misconception #1: Not all licenses are negotiable. Almost every licence is negotiable, but often you have to ask the other side if they are willing to negotiate so that you will have a licence that meets your needs. Always remember to only accept a licence and arrangement that works for you in your particular circumstances.

Misconception #2: Licenses must be in “heretherewithto” language. It is best for everyone to use plain English in your licenses and not technical or legal language. Say what you mean and put that in writing. If the language is unclear, ask the other side what things mean. Define terms in the licence that are unclear.

Misconception #3: I need a lawyer. Often content owners and users know more about digital licensing than lawyers. Do not be intimidated by not having continuous access to a lawyer. Do your homework and ask questions so you are comfortable with the arrangement into which you are entering.

Misconception #4: Renegotiating every year is mandatory. Nothing is mandatory! Negotiating is time-consuming and costly. At the same time, technology is changing rapidly and so is the way we all use digital content. Lengthy durations for licence agreements may not be appropriate, so consider an automatic renewal clause, provided that both parties are satisfied with how the licence is working out for them and provided each side has an opportunity to positively opt-in to the renewal.

Misconception #5: You can control your users. The licence agreement you sign is between you and either an owner or user of content. Your licence only contractually obligates you and that owner or user. As such, you cannot agree, or expect the other party, to police subsequent users of that content. However, you may wish to educate staff and researchers about legally using licensed content, and obligate any user licensing your content to do the same.

Misconception #6: You may restrict fair use or fair dealing. Parties to a licence may agree to limit fair use or fair dealing between the parties subject to the agreement. However, any other persons are not bound by that agreement. These persons may apply the relevant copyright law to their use, which means that fair use or fair dealing, would apply to that licensed content.

Misconception #7: Standard licenses are the answer. Each situation is unique. Although model or standard licenses may seem like the answer to avoid costly and time-draining negotiations, you must always look at your own particular situation and find an arrangement that is suitable to your needs.

Misconception #8: One side always loses in negotiations. In the ideal world, negotiations should be “win-win.” In other words, both parties should be satisfied with the end result. This, of course, is not always possible. By being prepared before entering into negotiations and by understanding your needs as well as the needs of the other party, you will be taking the right steps to finding an agreement satisfactory to both sides.

The time is ripe for the creation of an online repository and clearinghouse for Canadian legal scholarship in digital form. There are perhaps 70 Canadian journals publishing articles on or immediately relevant to law, making for a manageable supply of material. And the software and associated technology is readily available for free or at a very low cost. Of course, the labour necessary to construct and manage such a resource is not free, and may be less than readily available; but it seems to me that the major obstacle at the moment is simply the lack of will. Someone — some institution — needs to "pull the trigger" to launch the thing.

And launching would entail beginning the task of persuading authors and journals to submit material to the repository or, at least, to licence the use of a copy obtained otherwise. I don't mean to imply that this task would be easy. But I believe it could be accomplished. The willingness of authors now to publish drafts or "preprints" via the Social Science Research Network suggests that there is an appetite to make their work available in a professional setting.

It's hard to judge exactly how much of Canadian legal scholarly output is online at the Legal Scholarship Network within SSRN. Most is submitted by authors from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, two of the top contributors among non-US law schools. There are, however, ten Canadian law schools among the top 100 non-US law school contributors. (Top contributing law schools are divided into "US law schools" and "International law schools"; "foreign" is what's meant, or, perhaps "non-US".) But so far as I can see, there are no means of isolating articles by national origin or principal jurisdictional focus from the pool of 100,000 LSN items.

While the availability of some Canadian research in the LSN is an unalloyed good, a repository such as the one I'm advocating would have a broader purpose than that served by the Scholarship Networks. It would aim to develop a catalogued, rationalized and searchable collection, creating the sort of metadata likely to prove useful in the foreseeable, technological future. And, of course, the articles along with their metadata would be made freely available online for use by anyone, according to an appropriate license. Once the repository had current publications under sufficient control, there could be a program to bring into the repository material from the past, akin to that pursued by CanLII with respect to older judgments.

It might be that a project such as this would work best as a cooperative venture among a number of law schools. This would help to spread the cost, of course, and to encourage adoption by scholars in the contributing institutions. Too, it would seem a project likely to appeal to various funding sources — law foundations, governmental research councils and the like.

But these are details, capable of being worked out by someone — some institution — willing to take the plunge.

A message on the American Law Libraries – Private Law Libraries SIS Listserv has alerted me to: (i) A new blog by Law Librarian Jean O'Grady called Dewey B Strategic which has the subtitle of "Risk, value, strategy, libraries, knowledge and the legal profession," and (ii) a recent intriguing post on this new blog called The Myth and the Madness of Cost Effective Lexis and Westlaw Research Training that raises the challenge (if not impossibility) of trying to teach "cost-effective searching" on Westlaw or Lexis to students or associates given the complexity of how these products are priced. Some examples of the points being made from the post:

Handing an associate a Lexis or Westlaw password and asking them to be “cost effective,” is like handing someone a credit card and sending them into a store in which none of the merchandise is priced and then berating them when the bill comes in exceeding your budget. No consumer affairs department would allow a retailer to perpetrate this kind of thing on the public. How is it that almost every law firm in the US has put up with this for the past 3 decades?

_________________

The obsession with being “cost effective” distracts the associate from focusing on the real goal — finding the right answer. Here comes the brain theory. Effective legal research requires deep focus and concentration yet… “the myth of cost effective research” requires an associate to engage half of their attention on a collateral and competing analysis of factors which have nothing to do with the substance of the law. (Am I in hourly or transactional mode? Is this content included or excluded? Should I print or read online? Should I execute a new search or will that cost too much? Have I selected the cheapest file? Is it cheaper to print by the line or print a page or print a document or should I email the results to myself?)

Does our museum need a digital licensing agreement policy?

May we post content on flickr, YouTube or Facebook?

What special concerns do Canadian museums face in licensing digital content on a global basis?

What fees should our museum collect for the use of its content on an organization’s Web site?

Who should be part of our negotiating team when licensing digital content?

These are a sampling of the many questions museums face when licensing digital content. Libraries, other cultural heritage institutions as well as law firms, governments and a variety of organizations are all faced with signing various license agreements for the use of digital content. This 2nd ed. of A Canadian Museum's Guide to Developing a Digital Licensing Strategy provides guidance in the digital licensing sphere with a unique Canadian perspective. The book is published by the Canadian Heritage Information Network and available for free online here. Chapters are:

1-What is Digital Licensing Strategy?

2-Creating Your Strategy One Step at a Time

3-Speaking the Language

4-Your Win-Win Negotiations

5-Sample Licensing Clauses

6-Standard Clauses

7-Your Questions on Licensing

8-Time to License

Appendix A has a Licence Agreement Checklist.

Earlier this month a certain Liam McHugh-Russell uploaded a functional Canadian Legal Style to Zotero's style library here.

Look for the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 7th ed. (McGill Guide), Liam's style handles secondary sources perfectly, as far as I can tell, and performs well for cases and legislation.

When I asked him about the style, he did note that, due to the variety of formats in which citations to cases and legislation are offered online, the style cannot guarantee seamless downloading of citations to primary resources.

That said, I was able to extract a citation from CanLII, and with a bit of fiddling, produce this result in a footnote:

Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) v Fabien, 2011 FC 472 (available on CanLII)

Which is pretty close to perfect. I had to remove a period after the v. supplied by CanLII, copy the complete neutral citation into the Reporter field, eliminate the content of the Date Decided field, and change the URL to "CanLII." Still, mutatis mutandis, I can now cite this decision accurately at the click of a button.

Thanks Liam. This is a very welcome contribution.

Collaborative blogs, and inviting guest bloggers, is one of the most effective ways to maintain continuity for professional blogs. But who owns the intellectual property of the posts, especially if the site goes commercial with the intent to gain profit?

Jonathan Tasini started writing for the Huffington Post when the site was just 7 months old, writing 216 pieces, and stopped blogging on February 10, 2011, just 3 days after a purchase of the site by AOL was announced.

He's launched a class-action lawsuit against AOL Inc., TheHuffintonPost.Com, Inc., Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer for damages and injunctive relief. The entire claim can be found on the site dedicated to the suit set up by Kurzon Strauss LLP. One of Tasini's lawyers, Jeff Kurzon, is a McGill Law graduate.

The preliminary statement raises an interesting question,

1. This action seeks to vindicate the fundamental principle that the creators of value deserve to be compensated and, in particular, addresses the important issues of (a) whether in the digital age, profitable digital media sites should be required to compensate the creators of valuable content from which such sites derive substantial revenues and (b) if so, how the creators of content should be compensated.

The claim makes a point in para. 12 of noting that Tasini was also the lead plaintiff in the class-action, New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 (2001), which was successful at the Supreme Court of the United States in finding that the New York Times could not license freelance journalist work in back issues of electronic databases.

The $105 million claim would entitle the site's 9,000 bloggers damages for $11,666. The basis of the claim is grounded in deceptive business practices under N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law §349. Mark Wilson points out that no such provision exists, and it's likely that N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 349 was what was intended:

Deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any business, trade or commerce or in the furnishing of any service in this state are hereby declared unlawful.

As Wilson notes, the claim does not substantiate where promises of exposure were made by the Defendants.

The second basis for the claim is under the common law principle of unjust enrichment. Wilson points out that the Huffington Post’s Terms and Condition do not contain any "valid and express agreement between the parties" regarding payment, but there was no contract either. However, Strauss has been quite clear that the claim is not based on contract or a statutory claim.

Jeff Bercovici interviewed Jimmy Nguyen of Davis Wright Tremaine over the claim, and Nguyen pointed out some problems with getting the case certified, especially if some of the bloggers state they were treated fairly.

Wilson adds some additional points on class certification,

…do the class members all have the same case, arising from a similar set of facts? With 9,000 potential class members, that seems attenuated. Were all bloggers treated the same? Some undoubtedly generated more traffic than others, meaning that any injury they suffered was greater (unless they also received more exposure for their personal websites, which would tend to mitigate their injuries).

The question of injury to any individual blogger is a pretty individualized question. Not all bloggers benefitted the same. Not all bloggers put the same amount of work into Huffington Post. If their work were given a value, probably a very small number of bloggers – much less than 9,000 – could say they deserved a significant amount of money.

I expect the class will not be certified because the “questions of law or fact” are pretty individualized, at least based on this definition of the class. That any person who has ever blogged for Huffington Post suffered injury, and how much injury they suffered, is in question.

Tom Hayes is already joking that we can call him a "digital scab,"

Writers need to think differently about their careers now, need to be their own brands, in demand for their unique skills and product. Rather than think like employees, we all need to see ourselves as entrepreneurs — we all work for ourselves now. And, like smart businesspeople, sometimes you use lose leaders, like an unpaid post here and there, to drive traffic or make a sale elsewhere.

One of the bigger questions is whether collaborative blog sites will take a different approach moving forward. Mike Young suggests webmasters take the following steps to avoid these problems in the future,

(1) clearly states the work is donated, (2) there’s no compensation for it, and (3) identifying the intellectual property rights you’re getting to the blog posts.

The flip side is that Tasini's lawsuit might also help resolve the question of how to deal with collaborative blog sites. Bercovici states,

Even if Tasini does succeed in getting certified, a judge could still easily rule that there’s nothing inherently unfair about the arrangement, whatever the writers in it may have belatedly decided. Since Tasini has said his bigger goal with this suit is to get it enshrined in law that writers must be paid for the value they create, such an outcome would be, for him, a worst-case scenario. Says Nguyen, “He could create a precedent that’s the opposite of what he wants to create.”

We've blogged before about the useful work done by Public Legal Information and Advice sites like CLEO, and its sister organizations in British Columbi and across the country.

I've found it surprising that the Website of the Public Legal Education Association of Canada is "Under Construction" though details of its work can be found in Red Deer, Alberta.

In Ontario, CLEO is looking for volunteers to help it redesign its website.

We need your input

In the coming weeks, we will be asking you, our community of users and stakeholders, for your feedback in a variety of ways:

Usability tests on the wireframes or blueprints for the site. These tests take less than five minutes to complete and help us ensure that people can find information on the site easily.
Feedback on the beta or "work-in-progress" version of our Services Map so we can confirm the information we have is correct and gather information about other organizations and services to add to our growing database.
Feedback on draft "Common Questions" and suggestions about other questions to include
User testing on a preliminary design for the site.
How to get involved

If you would be willing to help us with our testing, or if you would like more information on the development of "Your Legal Rights", please contact Fiona MacCool, CLEONet Project Manager, at fionamaccool@cleonet.ca or call 416-408-4420 ext. 829.

In DC today, the Law Library of Congress unveiled its Strategic Plan for the next five years. While the entire Plan is interesting, Slaw readers may be particularly interested in the Library's Social Media strategy:

Strategy 6.

Commit to adopt industry standards and best practices while monitoring emerging trends and cutting-edge practices.
objectives:
1) Update law library data contained on the public website by adding xMl and RDf as available formats for all data and e Pub for published reports by September 30, 2015.
2) Conduct an ongoing review of all law library data contained on the public website and update as needed to ensure availability of data in relevant accepted industry standards by September 30, 2016.
3) Conduct annual reviews of industry standards to ensure compliance of law library data.

Strategy 7.

Use social networking technologies for the purpose of disseminating, receiving, and collecting information. by using standard unit
metrics, demonstrate the depth of value and recruit loyal followers to support the law library brand by using standard web metrics.
objectives:
1) increase law library staff and partner active participation in law library social networking initiatives like facebook and Twitter to 25 percent of all staff by September 30, 2011.
2) add the library of Congress web-sharing toolbar and links to our social sites to all law library websites by September 30, 2011.
3) Conduct annual reviews of new social networking opportunities and determine appropriateness for law library investment while aligning with library of Congress partners.

The Law Library plan is oriented around the overall LoC strategic objectives.

In a recently released report, "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" [PDF], the White House proposes the creation of a voluntary system in which citizens, government agencies, and businesses could register, permitting the secure provision of multiple services and commercial transactions. From the executive summary:

In the current online environment, individuals are asked to maintain dozens of different usernames and passwords, one for each website with which they interact The complexity of this approach is a burden to individuals, and it encourages behavior—like the reuse of passwords—that makes online fraud and identity theft easier At the same time, online businesses are faced with ever-increasing costs for man- aging customer accounts, the consequences of online fraud, and the loss of business that results from individuals’ unwillingness to create yet another account Moreover, both businesses and governments are unable to offer many services online, because they cannot effectively identify the individuals with whom they interact . . .

[T]he . . . “Identity Ecosystem” . . . is an online environment where individuals and organizations will be able to trust each other because they follow agreed upon standards to obtain and authenticate their digital identities—and the digital identities of devices.

The US government sees this as being something the private sector should develop with the support of government. In that regard the government proposes to develop an "implementation roadmap" and to establish a "national program office" to coordinate government and private initiatives. The report says the "Ecosystem" will take years to develop.

Outlaw.com has a story on this initiative.

Larry Lessig is famous for, among many other things, his dictum that "Code is law," meaning that code in both legal and computer senses is a means of social control. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that people at his former home of Stanford University are working to see if they can actually make laws into computer code.

The wonderfully named Hammurabi Project from Stanford's Center for Computers and Law is converting a few patches of U.S. legislation into machine readable C# in an attempt to express the logic and relationships of those provisions in a way that might allow facts to be plugged in and a useful conclusion to be emitted.

I'm going to quote the Project Rationale in full, because I think it expresses well the sense of frustration anyone must feel coming to law from the outside (or, in many cases, even as an insider) and encountering its hypercomplexity:

Around the world, there are millions of pages of law – constitutions, statutes, regulations, case law, and interpretive decisions – with which societies are expected to comply. This mass of material is logically complicated, referentially byzantine, terminologically inaccessible, difficult to contextualize, and sometimes vague and ambiguous. Aside from the ethical issues caused by this complexity, it is grossly inefficient as an information system. The capital required for an actor to understand a legal right or obligation is a wasted resource that creates drag on individual, corporate, and social progress.

Though not often thought of this way, law is inherently computational. It is a set of algorithms that prescribe how various computations are to be carried out. What is my standard (tax) deduction? Am I eligible for family and medical leave? On what day did I become liable for unemployment taxes? Determinations such as these are like mathematical functions: given various inputs, they produce corresponding outputs.

The Hammurabi Project provides a vehicle for representing portions of the law in an executable format, so that the process of logical inference can be offloaded from human to machine. Once executable, it can be embedded into our computing infrastructure where it can drive other applications.

Information technology and computational power have become increasingly sophisticated, almost exponentially so; and it would be a fool who said that this thing will never fly. And it does represent one scenario for the "end game," as it were, of ever increasing legal complexity, the alternative being collapse of the system. So put this in the back of your minds while you're debating whether or not to abandon hourly billing or to build a client portal.

The coders are coming, the coders are coming.

[hat tip: @SapnaLawPC]

Standards for on-premise, cloud and mobile technologies used by lawyers have, to-date, been lacking. While an abundance of recommendations, best practices and other guidelines have been issues by Bar Associations and other organizations, there has not been a single, comprehensive document lawyers could look to for clear guidance on what minimal standards should be adhered for on-premise, cloud and mobile technologies.

The International Legal Technology Standards Organization (ILTSO) aims to change that. ILTSO is a non-profit organization consisting of attorneys, bar association representatives, IT professionals, and business leaders with a stated mission of "helping attorneys and clients better understand the practical and ethical implications of technology for the practice of law".

Today at the ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago, ILTSO released a draft set of standards encompassing on-premise, cloud and mobile technologies. With the initial draft 2011 standards published, ILTSO will now begin accepting feedback from vendors, practicing attorneys, state bars and other stakeholders in legal technology standards.

The proposed standards fills tremendous void in the legal technology space. To date, lawyers have not had a single standard set to look to that address the spectrum of security- and privacy- related concerns that need to be addressed for their on-premise computers, mobile devices, and cloud services. Law Societies and Bar Associations have also been in need of such a document. Draft ethics opinions on cloud computing and other technologies, such as the North Carolina Bar Association's Proposed Formal Ethics Opinion on cloud computing, reference the need for a broadly recognized set of best practices relating to technology; prior to ILTSO, no such document existed.

I'm proud to be part of the team that has produced the first set of ILTSO standards – give the draft a read, and let us know what you think. An essential component of the ILTSO standard is that it will be continually evolving, updated with the latest best practices and recommendations on a yearly basis; it is a living document, and will be iterated and improved upon based upon feedback from people like you.

Those who don't always have easy access to the big commercial databases might like to be reminded of the useful free service provided by the Washington & Lee Law School's Current Law Journal Content, where the tables of contents of nearly 1600 journals are indexed. A few years ago Slaw used this service to offer a page setting out the TOCs of Canadian journals, but it somehow got lost in the first redesign of the blog.

I've re-instituted it now. You can always find the link on the new "useful things" item in the main Slaw menu. On the new page you'll find the TOCs of the 20 most recently indexed Canadian journals, as well as a popup list at the top of the page telling you which 20 these journals are. You'd be well advised, though, if you're interested in keeping abreast of Canadian law journal articles, to subscribe to the appropriate Current Law Journal Content RSS feed, a link to which also appears on the page.

But the Slaw page of TOCs, interesting though it is for the casual browser, has its main purpose in offering Google something to index: thanks to a Google custom search engine, the data on that page is searchable via our Canadian law blogs search function, found near the top of the right sidebar.

Now we simply need to persuade all Canadian law journals to become open access.