The February 2014 issue of Connected is available online.

The bulletin covers news about the impact of new social media on courts.

Most of the items are about the United States, but there is coverage of other jurisdictions from time to time. The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers.

In this issue:

• NCSC’s Social Media and the Courts Network gets an update (a new site that provides information on how courts are currently using social media)
• Courts using social media to warn public of scams
• Harvard’s

. . . [more]

The question relates to the discoverability of social media information and whether having something on a ‘private’ page makes any difference. Case law has dealt with this too. My own summary is that any document relevant to civil litigation has to be disclosed by a party, wherever it is and however private it is. However, the opposing party will not be given free access to fish among private documents on mere speculation that there is something relevant there.

Once lawyers know this (and presumably most litigation lawyers now do), can they advise their clients to move stuff to private sections . . . [more]

In my seemingly never-ending quest to grasp the underlying technical components that feed into the various linked data efforts out there, I happened on an interesting talk given at last year’s SymfonyLive* conference. This presentation, by Markus Lanthaler, was called “Building Next-Generation Web APIs with JSON-LD and Hydra.”

If you’re interested in JSON coding at all I would recommend the first half of this presentation for Lanthaler’s nice overview of the differences between JSON and JSON-LD (JSON for Linking Data).

However, what really struck me in this presentation were a couple of slides he . . . [more]

Check out Google’s new Map Gallery.

Sourced from various governments, nonprofits, and businesses, this newly launched service works as a jumping off point to locate historical and resource-based map collections. Once a map of interest is identified, the user can click in and see that map as an overlay, layered together with Google maps. See the examples below to get a better idea:

• 1814 published map of the Lewis and Clark expedition
• Ecological and cultural features and areas of northern Vancouver Island and the Central Coast (Living Oceans Society)
• 1995 Heart of the Rockies Map
• Bylaw Infractions – City

. . . [more]

A recent piece in University Affairs profiles Toronto lawyer Arshia Tabrizi and his academic community engagement start-up, Vidoyen. The name, the article explains, blends “video” and “doyen.” But I’m not sure how many Deans, if any, are on the roster: The site does, though, boast “academics, scholars, experts and thought leaders.”

The site features two-minute video mini-expositions falling in a range of categories. In a quick look through the categories, I don’t see any law professors or practitioners, other than Mr. Tabrizi himself. The slate of advisors includes Former Mayor David Miller and David Cohn, the Director of News . . . [more]

Like many in the legal profession, I spend a significant proportion of my days working at the craft of writing.

Sometimes, I write on risk management topics for Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association. Weekly, I sit down to write a post for publication here on Slaw. From time to time, I also write reports, meeting minutes and more.

Because I work mostly alone, I often have found myself lamenting the absence of another set of eyes to review what I have written. No matter how many times I review my drafts, it seems I always miss something that any good . . . [more]

The most recent Snowden revelation, as reported by the New York Times, has revealed that even law firms have become ensnared in the NSA’s ever-growing communications dragnet.

The top secret document, leaked by Edward Snowden, reveals that a US-based firm was targeted by the NSA over the period of time it represented Indonesia in trade talks with the US government. Controversial FISC court rulings grant the NSA permission to monitor the communications of Americans, even communications within the scope of attorney-client privilege, provided those communications are deemed to have intelligence value and are with foreigners.

Given these revelations, US-based . . . [more]

The old adage is that there are three things that matter in real estate; that being location, location and location. But a recent item here in Nova Scotia caught my attention for turning that axiom around a bit. That being the story of a man who is appealing his property tax assessment due to the availability of high speed internet access or more specifically the lack thereof. The linked story contains most of the details but I’ll try to impart the readers digest version (or perhaps we should change that axiom to “the blog version”) here. In short, his house . . . [more]

We were recently made aware of a September 2013 news release from the FBI, stating that a lawyer-targetting fraudster had pleaded guilty and received hefty fines and a prison sentence. Nice to see a victory in the struggle against online scams. The number of law enforcement agencies involved shows how international these scams are, and how much cooperation is required to bring the fraudsters to justice.

Here is the text of the release:

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a Nigerian national charged in connection with a multi-national scheme that bilked more than

. . . [more]

With the first seven top-level domains going live on January 29th, and more new TLD domains becoming available each week throughout 2014, trade-mark holders may wish to grab some protection through ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse.

For $150/year per Trade-mark, the Clearinghouse will warn potential domain squatters that they are attempting to register a domain against an existing trade-mark.

What’s unique about this service is that they will do this for all the incoming new TLD domains, and I assume, make these warnings available through all the domain registrar companies.

One of the questions I’m frequently asked is, “Should . . . [more]

The January 2014 issue of Connected is now available online.

The bulletin covers news about the impact of social media on courts. Most of the items are about the United States, but there is occasional coverage of other jurisdictions.

The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers.

In this issue:

• Florida judge removed from divorce case after sending litigant friend request
• Two new jury resources from Reynolds Courts and Media Law Journal: “Jury Instructions Cautioning Against Use of the Internet and Social Networking,” developed by The American College

. . . [more]

The Internal Revenue Service of the United States has recently denied charitable status to an organization that promotes a knowledge of internet security to bloggers and civil society groups, notably those in foreign countries whose freedom of expression may be threatened by state bodies.

As one US commentator wrote:

The IRS denial, in short, hinges on the applicant’s activities looking too much like a for-profit trade or business and also the following not qualifying as “charitable” – (1) preserving the fundamental human rights set forth in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (b/c it is a declaration, not

. . . [more]