The Beeb, home to much that is creative, has done it again. They’re hosting a site called Memoryshare, the title to which pretty much tells it all. The simple notion is that viewers log in to leave their memories of a time gone by, whether a day or decades in the past. Each nostalgic note is represented as a coloured blob in a time spiral that goes back to 1900. Hovering over a blog causes an excerpt to pop up so you can judge whether this is a memory you want to visit.

Now there’s not much in this . . . [more]

We’ve talked about virtual law offices before here on Slaw. Well here’s a fellow who has an office but perhaps doesn’t use it much:

click to see full image

No, he’s not in Alabama. He’s a lawyer in Ottawa who’s decided to make house calls — for those who can’t afford house counsel. Kind of the opposite of a virtual law office… . . . [more]

Courts hold sittings — which demand chairs, for everyone except witnesses at least. Yet it’s surprising (okay: only mildly) how little attention gets paid to courtroom furniture, as if bums would be happy in any old seats. But if I were in London (England) right now, I’d be able to see how a couple of the world’s great architects tackled the problem.

First, however, a bit of background. After partition in India, half of Punjab went to Pakistan and the capital, Lahore, along with it. So the state and federal governments decided to construct a new, modern capital in Chandigarh, . . . [more]

Two recent interesting articles on knowledge management in law firms you might find useful:

• Knowledge management: The number of knowledge management lawyers is on the rise, but the field is still working out some kinks (Lawyers Weekly) by Milton Kiang, June 26, 2009 issue

  Interviews with various Canadian KM directors, talking about where we are with knowledge management as well as the growing role of lawyers in KM. Quoting Blakes‘ KM director Marcia Cooper:

  It’s considered a necessary function, for the firm to work effectively, for the firm to deliver value and best client services. Even in these

Synesketch feels your pain, and expresses it as an abstract drawing. Just feed it some text to start it off.

Synesketch is a result of a research that spreads out through several diverse fields – from natural language processing techniques based on WordNet, across Ekman’s research of emotions, to color psychology, visual design, data visualizations, and affective computing.

Produced in Belgrade, by Uroš Krčadinac and others, the potential applications are interesting.

The author also suggests it could be useful for a chat program, but that strikes me as pretty abitious, considering that it is the lack of context that can . . . [more]

Hat tip to the National Law Journal for this news:

The Michigan Supreme Court has laid the hammer down on gadget-happy jurors in banning all electronic communications by jurors during trial, including tweets on Twitter, text messages and Google searches. The ruling, which takes effect Sept. 1, will require Michigan judges for the first time to instruct jurors not to use any handheld device, such as iPhones or Blackberrys, while in the jury box or during deliberations

Read more at the Michigan Courts website

July is Juror Appreciation Month. . . . [more]

In this world of super fast document retrieval it is sometimes important to remember the basics. I was just asked for a decision where the style of cause and the citation both contained errors. The “help I can’t find this case” is usually one of my favourite problems. This Thursday after a mid-week Canada Day off is a lot like a Monday.

The citation that was given to me was a 1983 case from the O.L.R.s – obviously that was incorrect as the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviationreports that the Ontario Law Reports was published between 1901-1931 only. Rather . . . [more]

Steve Matthews has mentioned his client CLIO and their blogging about SaaS here on Slaw previously. I expect he doesn’t want to inundate us with client talk, but some of their recent blogging begs to be mentioned. They have just completed a 10-part blog series “10 Things Every Lawyer Should Know About Legal Saas” as follows:

Part 1: What is Software-as-a-Service? A discussion of what exactly Software-as-a-Service is, and how it compares to the more traditional desktop computing model.

Part 2: Why (Or Why Not) Choose a SaaS Solution? Why SaaS offers compelling advantages over traditional desktop software

In honour of Canada Day I share with you a video introducing a new book about the Six String Nation project by writer, radio host and producer Jowi Taylor. I was recently fortunate to hear Jowi speak and had the opportunity to try out the guitar. The longer story is over on my personal blog.

Happy Canada Day!

. . . [more]

The Global Legal Monitor, published by the Law Library of Congress in Washington, is a publication that provides regular updates on legal developments from around the world on a vast array of topics.

Content comes from official sources, judicial decisions, and other legal news sources.

As of last September, it has offered an RSS feed for updates for all news stories.

It now also offers dozens and dozens of free RSS feeds broken down by topic and/or jurisdiction. . . . [more]

Yes, I’m in the office on Canada day. Decided that because the weather is lousy today, its a Wednesday, and taking Friday off made more sense for a number of reasons – I would work today and take Friday off instead.

Anyone else doing the same? . . . [more]

Thought Slaw readers might like to read my Free Press column this week about social media in the courtroom. It talks about some of the good things – like journalists (the real kind) getting permission to tweet during trials. And some bad things – like witnesses texting while on the witness stand.

My conslusion is that – like with most new technologies in general – Trying new technologies in the judicial process, questioning how things are done, and taking innovative approaches are all good things. But we must balance them with some thought about whether it’s the right thing to . . . [more]