In email conversation with a well-known figure of the US eDiscovery world a few weeks back, I realized that we had both noticed that the eDiscovery world has a dirty little secret: there are some eDiscovery vendors out there, offering both software and services, who promise more than they can deliver.

Let me hasten to add, before I start receiving a torrent of protests, that there are many, many vendors who deliver what they promise, and that often failure to deliver is not a reflection of the vendor’s capabilities (or their promises), but rather issues with communication, changes in project . . . [more]

I can’t do more than point to some links, but Google’s pre-emptive response to Wolfram|Alpha appears to be about to launch.

It is discussed by the BBC, ZDNet , SearchEngineWatch and Inquisitr . The Beeb says

It takes information from the web and displays it in a spreadsheet in “split seconds”, something Ms Mayer said would normally take someone half a day to do.

During the demonstration, a query for “small dog” was typed into the search box. Seconds later a table popped up showing photographs of various dogs, their origin, weight and height in a clear and simple

This post from the Fifth Column details a mix-up with the re-tweeting of a comment on the Tamil protests in Toronto. I remember seeing this Tweet myself, and being somewhat surprised that an experienced politician would offer such a strong opinion. Seems now that he didn’t.

Points out yet again the need to be a skeptical cautious consumer of information, whatever its form. . . . [more]

In what it is describing as a “small settings update” Twitter has altered the flow of blurts such that we no longer see public replies to people that we’re not following — those @doofus Well, not on your nellie! messages that simply cluttered up your flow. I am mightily pleased. (Others, not so much.) My position is that there are plenty of ways of learning about interesting folks to follow, and sometimes the irrelevant noise from some of the chattier folk I once followed made the whole exercise a painful process. Now I might actually consider . . . [more]

Further to my post last night, we have received more than a dozen calls and e-mails from lawyers further to the fraud warning blast LAWPRO sent out Monday afternoon this week. Thankfully, that e-mail blast prevented most of these lawyers from being victims of a bad cheque fraud.

However, two of the lawyers who called didn’t get our message because their Spam filter caught our e-blast. One happened to call us for advice on how to handle a suspicious transaction further to articles he had read in past issues of LAWPRO Magazine. The other just happened come across our . . . [more]

Google today launched a set of new options for filtering and presenting its search results. Now when you do a search, you’ll see a link in the upper left corner of the results page offering to “show options”:

This opens a menu down the right-hand side of the window displaying a dozen filters, as shown in the image to the left. The videos option displays thumbnails of videos, mostly from YouTube, whose titles contain your search terms. The forum option (somehow) manages to find in your results the hits from forums. Reviews seems to select journals and book reviews. The . . . [more]

Patricia told us this morning about the LCO’s dialogue about law reform, through Wednesday’s symposium.

This is a live post on Michael Tilbury’s Public Lecture entitled “Win-Win” or “Who Will Rid Me of this Turbulent Priest?” The Relationship between Law Reform Commissions and Governments . . . [more]

Science writer Simon Singh included this passage in piece he wrote for the Guardian:

The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

The Association sued Singh for libel. Evidently in British libel law, a judge must rule as to whether the statement in question was a “comment” or a “statement of fact.” If it is ruled the . . . [more]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has published on the web a set of “Legal Tools” for use by members of the public:

They equip users with legal information, commentaries and an application to work more effectively with core international crimes cases (involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide). The Tools serve as an electronic library on international criminal law and justice. They comprise at present over 40,000 documents in several databases (the “Legal Tools Database”), together with four legal research and reference tools developed by lawyers with expertise in international criminal law and justice: the Case Matrix,

The media are slowly picking up on the number of court cases that are requiring disclosure of Facebook and other social network pages in litigation. SunMedia has a story today — see, e.g. “Social networking plays out in court” in the North Bay Nugget, and yesterday there was a story on Canoe Technology, “Facebook content showing up in lawsuits.” [See also “An Obligation to Discuss Facebook During Discovery,” from a couple of months ago on Slaw.]

Ian Kerr of U of Ottawa is quoted in the Sun Media story as saying this:

“The courts

First, a quick plug for the LCO’s Public Lecture this evening at 5:30 in Convocation Hall at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West. It’s all about the complex relationship between law reform commissions and governments and delivered by a man who has been close to the action as a commissioner with the New South Wales Law Reform Commission for many years, Michael Tilbury.

And tomorrow is the Symposium: registration at 8:15 am, starting at 8:45 am, going until 4:30 pm. Lunch included. This is a chance to engage with people who have written about, influenced and engaged in law reform . . . [more]

As we said in launching the Slaw Scavenger Hunt contest, we always knew that the List that the two Simons had assembled was going to be partial, and we’ve been gob-struck at how we could have put a list together and missed dates as significant as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen from 1789, which led to so many other developments. Duh!

But we’ve been overwhelmed by the variety and the erudition of what our readers have suggested should go on the list. So here is the list that our reader contestants have put together: . . . [more]