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Archive for ‘Practice of Law’

Reminiscences of Bench and Bar — 1904

Gutenberg Canada, our local wing of the internet publisher of public domain texts, has just published its 100th e-book. For the honour, it’s chosen a 1904 publication, Osgoode Hall – Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar by lawyer James Cleland Hamilton (1836-1907).

For reasons of efficiency and ease of preservation, the Gutenberg folks often provide materials in the simplest of forms, which can make reading them — online or off — something of a chore rather than a pleasure. But I’m happy to say that for this work they’ve confined the html column of text to a readable width (but, . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information: Publishing, Practice of Law, Substantive Law

Leg@l.IT2008: Canada’s Premier Legal Technology Conference

For all you law and IT lovers, I am pleased to announce that Leg@l.IT is back this year! With Canada’s Privacy Commissionner, Jennifer Stoddart, and Prof. Pierre Trudel as co-presidents, three tracks with the most interesting and en vogue subjects (here is the agenda) and an impressive group of speakers, including fellow Slawers (Simon Chester, Jordan Furlong and Vincent Gautrais) and blogger (David Bilinsky), it is THE event you don’t want to miss!

Leg@l.IT is an accessible and spearheading conference, the most important of this kind in Canada, about the potential and . . . [more]

Posted in: Education & Training: CLE/PD, Legal Information: Information Management, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Practice of Law, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions, Substantive Law: Legislation, Technology

Videos of SCOTUS Judges

LawProse, Inc. has a remarkable set of videos of interviews with eight of the justices of the United States Supreme Court — 26 videos in all. If you’re a court watcher or interested in the psychology of judges and judging — or if writing for judges is your thing — this is a feast for you. An article by Tony Mauro on the U.S. Supreme Court Monitor describes the videos as showing the

justices speaking passionately, sarcastically, angrily, into the camera as they answer questions about brief writing, oral advocacy and their own love-hate relationships with the written word.

Apparently . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

What’s Hot – According to New York Legal Tech

Here is a link to a summary of the attendee survey results from the ALM Legal Tech Conference in January.

Odd that it took this long to compile – at ABA Techshow in 1988, we were doing automated audience surveys, using unbelievably primitive tools, but real-time.

Here is the answer list to one question:

What topics do you see as hot technology issues in 2008?

Electronic Discovery 69%
Online Collaboration 32%
Knowledge Management 36%
Document Management 53%
Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity 29%
Data Security 48%
Other 13% . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Practice of Law, Technology

Steve Matthews – CBA National – “Who Do You Think You Are?”

A tip of the SLAW hat to SLAW’s own Steve Matthews for his article called “Who Do You Think You Are?” in this month’s edition of the CBA National magazine. Among other things, Steve writes on protecting your online brand and developing an online network. Nice work Steve. . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information: Publishing, Miscellaneous, Practice of Law

Collaboration

At TechShow last week, a roll-out for what I believe to be a first – a book devoted to advanced technologies for lawyers to collaborate.

The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell empowers lawyers who are just beginning to try these tools, as well as providing tips and techniques for lawyers with intermediate and advanced collaboration experience. . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Practice of Law, Technology

Women’s Court of Canada

The Women’s Court of Canada launches this week. (See the story in the Ottawa Citizen.) The WCC is a group of women academics and practitioners who combined to rewrite six Supreme Court of Canada decisions to take a full and proper account of women’s equality. The affected decisions are:

. . . [more]
Posted in: Education & Training: Law Schools, Practice of Law, Substantive Law

College of Law Practice Management InnovAction Award

The College of Law Practice Management (of which I am (ahem) the President) sponsors the InnovAction Award, which is designed to identify and honor innovation in law practice management. Slaw is pleased to be a Friend of InnovAction

The College of Law Practice Management is calling for entries for its 2008 InnovAction Awards. This is a worldwide search for lawyers, law firms and other deliverers of legal services who have invented and successfully applied totally new business practices to the delivery of legal services. The goal of the InnovAction Awards is to demonstrate to the legal community what can . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

Kennedy’s Trends in Legal Tech

Dennis Kennedy has done his 2008 column for LLRX on legal tech. There aren’t a lot of surprises in “Eight Legal Technology Trends for 2008 – Good Times, Bad Times or Hard Times in Legal Tech?” with the exception, perhaps, of his view that e-discovery has failed to conquer; but there are a lot of wise words. Here are the subheads:

  1. Smart Ways to Work Together – Collaboration Tools.
  2. Dancing with a Recession.
  3. Opening Audio and Video Channels.
  4. Going Mobile.
  5. The Death Throes for Email?
  6. Security Begins to Matter . . . Really.
  7. Lawyers Win Round 1 in
. . . [more]
Posted in: Practice of Law, Technology

Lawyers Beset by Information Overload, Study Finds

A national workplace survey reports that more than seven in ten American white collar workers feel inundated with information at their workplace, while more than two in five feel that they are headed for an information “breaking point.”

Sponsored by our friends in Dayton, OH, the news release states:

Eighty percent of legal professionals feel overloaded with information, and 70 percent say they spend a lot of time sifting through irrelevant information. Nearly half say that research takes up so much of their time that they occasionally omit billing clients for this work.

Other survey findings that demonstrate challenges for . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law

New Paper on Collegial Decision-Making at the Supreme Court of Canada

University of Toronto law professors Andrew Green and Benjamin Alarie have posted a new paper on the Social Science Research Network entitled Should They All Just Get Along? Judicial Ideology, Collegiality, and Appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada:

“Over the past 25 years, the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada have not exhibited the divergent policy views along party lines that have been characteristic of the justices of the United States Supreme Court. This apparent lack of partisan polarization in Canada may at first give rise to smugness about the appointments process in Canada; after all, our

. . . [more]
Posted in: Practice of Law, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions