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Archive for ‘Substantive Law’

Electronic Records and Freedom of Information

In a decision released earlier this month a strong panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal took a look at one aspect of the issue of what constitutes a “record,” in this case for the purposes of applying the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M. 56. Toronto Police Services Board v. (Ontario) Information and Privacy Commissioner 2009 ONCA 20 entailed a request by a journalist for information stored in Toronto police databases in a format different from the one used by the police. The data could have been produced in the . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

The Climate Change Impact of Spam

Taking off from David Canton’s post on the Economics of Spam, here’s a link to a survey from McAfee published today that has some findings that surprised me – One e-mail is like driving three feet:

An estimated worldwide total of 62 trillion spam emails were sent in 2008
Globally, annual spam energy use totals 33 billion kilowatt- hours (KWh), or 33 terawatt hours (TWh). That’s equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes in the United States, with the same GHG emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using two billion United States gallons of gasoline
Spam filtering . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Substantive Law, Technology

Canadian Cochrane Centre

Something with only a tangential relation to law, but squarely in the middle of our interest in online resources and libraries:

As of today all Canadians can log into the Canadian Cochrane Centre, part of “The Cochrane Collaboration,” and free of charge read abstracts in plain language of studies in medicine and health care — or, as the welcome page puts it:

…the best available evidence on which health treatments work, which ones don’t, and which may cause harm.

I have to say I’ve never encountered the Cochrane Library before and am basically ignorant about how it’s funded and . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Legal Information: Publishing, Miscellaneous, Substantive Law

Walrus Magazine Profile of Canada’s Chief Justice

The most recent issue of The Walrus has a profile of Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada.

The article, The McLachlin Group – How Canada’s first female Chief Justice has taken the heat off the Supreme Court, is by Susan Harada. . . . [more]

Posted in: Miscellaneous, Practice of Law, Substantive Law

The History of Computer-Assisted Legal Research

Here’s a link to a first chapter by the Advanced Legal Research instructors at Stanford Law School in a work on the history of CALR. I suspect they need to get into the stacks more

It’s interesting as far as it goes, but it doesn’t capture as much of the early detail as Jon Bing’s Handbook of Legal Information Retrieval. Jon’s book led me to Louis O. Kelso’s Does the Law Need a Technological Revolution in 18 Rocky Mntn. L. Rev. 388 (1945-1946) – yes 1946. It discusses the application of computers to the task of legal research. . . . [more]

Posted in: Education & Training: Law Schools, Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Miscellaneous, Substantive Law, Technology

Canadian Contract Law, 2d Ed. (Angela Swan)

I have just received my copy of Canadian Contract Law, 2d ed (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2009) authored by SLAW’s own Angela Swan (with the assistance of Jakub Adamski).

At 959 pages and the most recent treatise on the topic, it stands to be an important addition to the Canadian legal literature. . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Substantive Law

IP Essay Contest

The the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada and IP Osgoode have inaugurated an IP Writing Challenge. The winner in each of three categories — law student, graduate student, professional — will receive a $1000 prize and the publication of the work. Works in either English or French are eligible. The precise rules are set out on the IP Osgoode website, but a brief description of the scope of eligible essays is set out below:

Entries must develop a thesis of importance in an emerging area of intellectual property law from a Canadian, comparative or international perspective. Topics can be

. . . [more]
Posted in: Education & Training, Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Legal Information: Publishing, Substantive Law

Access to Justice and “Going Electronic”

In a comment to the recent post by Patricia Hughes, Justice B. T. Granger of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice referred to a set of slides for a presentation he had given at the 2008 CBA Canadian Legal Conference in Quebec City entitled “The Future is Now: Improving Access to Justice: The Need for Lawyers and the Judiciary to Go Electronic.” I thought that this was a presentation that might interest more than a few Slaw readers and got in touch with Justice Granger, who kindly agreed to let Slaw publish the slides.

Of course because this was about . . . [more]

Posted in: Education & Training: CLE/PD, Practice of Law, Substantive Law, Technology

Free and Commercial Access to the Law

Slaw’s own Ted Tjaden is quoted in this week’s Lawyers’ Weekly on whether the free access to the law movement has reached the point of such reliability and comprehensiveness that it can be considered as an adequate substitute for the commercial giants. Canlii’s Daniel Poulin comes to the defence of Canlii.

“I rarely use free resources,” Tjaden said.

“We have the luxury of having one of the better-equipped law libraries in a Canadian law firm with extensive print resources and online subscriptions.

“Although free search engines do supplement the legal research I do, we continue to rely on the value-added

. . . [more]
Posted in: Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Legal Information: Publishing, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions, Technology

SCC as Greater Influence on Foreign Law Than the US Supreme Court

That’s the proposition advanced in an interview with Justice Ginsburg reported in the NYT and the Post yesterday. She comments on the comparative law question:

“Why shouldn’t we look to the wisdom of a judge from abroad with at least as much ease as we would read a law review article from a professor?”

For Slaw readers, the most interesting line is:

The Canadian Supreme Court, she said, is “probably cited more widely abroad than the U.S. Supreme Court.” There is one reason for that, she said: “You will not be listened to if you don’t listen to others.”

This . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Practice of Law, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions