There’s an interesting, long article in the New York Times Magazine, “Google’s Gatekeepers,” in which the author, Jeffrey Rosen, takes a look at how Google copes with the various demands of governments and citizens to remove or block material thought to be offensive in one way or another. Rosen, a law prof at George Washingto, concludes with a swipe at lawyers (and, presumably, their bosses):

Given their clashing and sometimes self-contradictory missions — to obey local laws, repressive or not, and to ensure that information knows no bounds; to do no evil and to be everywhere in a

On Nov. 27, 2008, I attended a session hosted by the Toronto chapter of the Legal Marketers Association (LMA) on Social Media Success.

The event was moderated by Max Valiquette of Youthography, and featured a panel with Parker Mason of CNW Group, Michael Rabinovici of AR Communications Inc., and Stuart Wood of Torys LLP.

Wood claimed his firm didn’t know he was there. But the event was promoted on the LMA website, and as he soon found out, he was part of an impromptu podcast when Mason revealed he was recording the session.

Full audio . . . [more]

I am very busy this week with additional, ongoing preparations and adjustments, as are all my colleagues and co-workers, as we move into the thick of renovations at the Priestly Law Library. If you’re interested, we have a renovations website up and running. It contains some architectural renderings of what the finished product will look like, as well as some background on the principles governing the design, as well as updates on progress, photos, etc. Have a look. We expect to be finished by next Sept! . . . [more]

Thanks to Random Musings from the Desert, I discovered the Typealyzer. It tells you what Myers-Briggs type you are, based upon analysis of your blog content. Needless to say, I pointed it immediately at SLAW. I figured that it would have some trouble coming up with a typology, given the number of personalities that contribute to the blog. Disappointingly, it came up with a fairly valid identification in a short while. SLAW is:

ISTJ – The Duty Fulfillers

I had occasion to cancel a credit card and get a new one recently, which made me look at and think about credit card numbers. I suppose that I’d always thought of them as a more or less random string of integers, maximizing the number of such strings that would be available to banks etc. (10 X 10 X 10 etc. for each integer place…) and making it just that bit more difficult for criminals to suss out a number.

Turns out I couldn’t be more wrong: credit card (and bank card) numbers are highly structured entities and only make . . . [more]

The Canadian Press is reporting that the planned extension of US passenger screening is going ahead next year. Unlike existing rules, which require airlines to provide passenger information for flights headed to the US, the new rules will require them to provide this information even if the flight is only traversing US airspace. (See: The Canadian Press: New U.S. air security rules create turbulence in Canada.)

This raises a whole host of issues, particularly on the privacy front. The names are being scrubbed against the US no-fly list, which is notoriously of dubious quality. It has interfered with the . . . [more]

Some time back I wrote about typefaces and why lawyers might want to care about which face they put forward. Of course, the choice of typeface isn’t the only aspect of the print world (whether on paper or in pixels) of interest: how the text is laid out is an obviously important feature affecting readability, one element of which I want to touch on in this post.

That element is justification, by which I mean whether or not the text is made to line up on the right edge of the column in what is sometimes called “flush right.” There . . . [more]

Voici le discours . . . [more]

Since it’s important, here it is – in English .

No time for a witty comment . . . [more]

As delivered by the wonderfully named Herménégilde Chiasson, yesterday’s Throne Speech in Frederickton contains a paragraph on legal information.

The speech from the throne opened the third session of the 56th Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick.

* Timely access to justice is important and your government will receive the report of the Task Force on Access to Family Justice. It is expected that the report will provide recommendations for improved access to justice, expanded use of alternatives to family court, and increased access to legal information and legal assistance in family law matters. Your government will provide its . . . [more]

The Globe and Mail’s article yesterday on the Alberta Court of Appeal decision in Yugraneft Corp. v. Rexx Management Corp. left me wondering. In Yugraneft, the Court held that an application to register and enforce a foreign arbitral award under the 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (a.k.a. the New York Convention) is subject to the ordinary limitation period of two years.

The decision has indeed been the source of much concern among Canadian arbitration practitioners; even the decision by the Court of Queen’s Bench in 2007 created quite a stir. My own sense . . . [more]

Like many Slaw readers, I monitor legislation in Canada, especially federal legislation. Our 1st session of the 40th parliament officially began on November 18, 2008 with the Throne Speech on November 19, 2009. We are now on day 8 of this parliament and Bill C-2, the first government sponsored bill, has yet to appear on the Projected Order Of Business or the Order and Notice Paper.

As I clicked my shortcut to LegisINFO and saw no Bill C-2 again today, I found myself wondering if this long delay was out of the ordinary. To do a fast grab of . . . [more]