How do you use social media in conjunction with events, whether "live and in person" or online? The upcoming Twitter Moot always impresses me in how they have redefined an in-person event for the virtual space, holding the actual moot online–and publicly!–so that others can follow along and even participate. It changes the whole dynamic of the event.

How else can social media be used in conjunction with events–to plan them, promote them, engage people at the event or people just observing, how to "capture" or record the event, and how to allow everyone to learn from the event? Daniel . . . [more]

On December 4, 2013, the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Industry announced that Canada's new anti-spam law (CASL) will come into force on July 1, 2014.

Concurrent with this announcement, Industry Canada published its finalized Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations (ECPR) with respect to CASL. These regulations were released in response to concerns that its initial set of regulations imposed unnecessary and overly burdensome requirements with respect to the dissemination of commercial electronic messages (CEMs).

After further consultation, Industry Canada introduced a degree of increased flexibility in the ECPR by including, among other things, changes related to familial relationships, excluded CEMs, . . . [more]

Each year on December 1st we open up Clawbies.ca for "nomination season", a month long process where online participants can highlight some of their favourite voices within the Canadian legal blogosphere.

This past Sunday we were pleased to carry forward that tradition once again – unbelievably for the 8th time! The website theme and award badges got their annual facelift, and the announcement post went live at 9:00 am eastern/6:00 pacific.

A handful of days later, and I'm happy to share our annual "good will project" is off to a great start (and not just Erik Magraken, who now famously . . . [more]

I don't know if Gmail and Google Calendar are much used within practice — I can think of a bunch of reasons why they shouldn't be — but I'm certain that many of us who work in the legal industry use these applications in our private lives. In either case, it's important to have control over your data. If you don't access your Gmail via IMAP, you don't have a local copy on your own machines. Now Google plans to let you simply download your mail data as they roll this ability out over the next month. Calendar data can . . . [more]

The November 2013 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:

• Michigan court to begin using social media to contact hard-to-reach parties
• Texas Judge bans social media use for child custody litigants
• How are governments using Instagram?
• Arizona Supreme Court launches new veterans' clearinghouse website

  . . . [more]

Auditions are currently open until December 6th for students who would like to participate in the third Twitter Moot taking place on Friday, February 28th. Unlike a traditional moot held in a courtroom type facility, a Twitter Moot takes place online via Twitter (hashtag #Twtmoot).

From the West Coast Environmental Law website:

On Friday, February 28th, 2014 at 10am PST (1pm EST), students from law schools across Canada will argue an appeal over Twitter about the duty of Canada's governments to consult First Nations on mines development.

The appeal, to be heard before three judges of the

. . . [more]

Having spent the last 3 weeks in Australia and Hong Kong, I will be using Slaw to discuss some of the ideas and the firms that I met while out in the Wild East. *** Listen for the audible sigh of relief from everyone at the Law Society of Upper Canada as they learn that I won’t be throwing any more daggers at them – this year ***.

Australia is a beautiful country with a legal market not that dissimilar to Canada. Although with a population of about 20 million people and about 37 law schools, Australia is ripe for . . . [more]

It will be no surprise to anyone that one of the reactions to the NSA/Snowden revelations would be attempts to evade spying. Many organizations have looked at their systems to determine where the vulnerable weak points are. For example, even if certain internet communications are encrypted, there may be points along the chain where it becomes unencrypted and vulnerable.

This article talks about efforts by Microsoft and others to encrypt more than they have before. Those interested in this topic can learn more by following Bruce Schneier and the EFF.

The EFF, for example, recently published a chart that . . . [more]

This week I'm attending my first Dreamforce conference, the annual Salesforce.com "user conference."

I put user conference in quotes because, although that's where Dreamforce started, over the years it has evolved into something much, much larger. There are nearly 100,000 attendees and over 1,000 sessions covering topics ranging from starting up a new company to collaboration to meditation. Keynote speakers include Marissa Meyer from Yahoo and Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook. Green Day and Blondie are playing a concert for attendees. The breadth and depth of the topics is simply mind-boggling.

The vibe and energy at the conference is amazing. . . . [more]

Judge Denny Chin of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York today dismissed the copyright violation lawsuit that US author groups had launched against Google.

The search giant has been digitizing tens of millions of books to create a massive online library / bookstore but the project was opposed in a lawsuit by US publishers and author organizations that started in 2005. The publishers' group split off and settled earlier.

The judge wrote that the ambitious project respects authors' rights and is a case of "fair use" (equivalent to fair dealing in Canadian copyright . . . [more]

“I know lawyers who are very innovative and lawyers with very traditional practices. The latter seem to make much more money,” says Noel Semple, a self-described “lapsed lawyer and aspiring professor.”

And there, in a nutshell, appear two of the biggest impediments to innovation in the legal field: the idea that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t need fixing, combined with the real possibility that the innovation will fail – or at the very least, that the innovator will be scrambling for money until the idea catches on.

Innovations in the legal sector – and the impediments thereto – were . . . [more]

The October 2013 issue of Connected is available online. The bulletin covers news about the impact of new social media on courts.

Most issues cover news from the United States, but there is occasional coverage of other jurisdictions.

In this issue:

• Courts and QR Codes
• Justices from 12 midwest states consider implications of evolving technology on the courts
• Australia's Supreme Court of Victoria launches new social media initiative
• Ohio explores haunted courthouses across the state

The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers. . . . [more]