We learned this morning of the death of Professor Hugh Lawford, a legend in Canadian legal information. He will be mourned by many students who studied with him at Queen’s University Law School, and his passing should be noted by every Canadian lawyer, because Hugh and his colleagues revolutionized how law is practiced. . . . [more]

I spent most of the last week moderately involved in a somewhat different model of law reform, the annual meetings of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, held this year in Ottawa, hosted by Justice Canada. (The website does not include this year’s proceedings, but you can find last year’s reports, resolutions and other documents there.) One of our fellow slawyers, a long term ULCC full participant, was also there as an Ontario delegate. The delegate to the ULCC are mainly senior or middle-level bureaucrats from the provincial, territorial and federal governments, but law commission representatives and others (such . . . [more]

Domenic Bellacicco’s phone is ringing off the hook these days thanks to a great “practice tip” article he wrote for latest issue of LAWPRO Magazine. Domenic is a Claims Counsel in the New Claims Unit at LAWPRO. and his article addresses an area we all too frequently see claims in these days: administrative dismissals.

Read the full Administrative Dismissal: Take It Seriously And Ask For (Our) Help article here.

I spoke with colleagues at two law societies (one in the West and one in the East) who said this was also a big issue (with local variations) in their . . . [more]

In his regular column for Lawyers Weekly Magazine, freelance technology writer Luigi Benetton has a piece in the Aug. 21, 2009 issue on drafting and editing documents in real-time.

He discusses real-time applications like NetMeeting, and asynchronous platforms like wikis and traditional DMS. He suggests the latter are more appropriate for lawyers who don’t collaborate as smoothly together.

I point out that the efficiencies created by collaboration tools help boost lawyer productivity, which can raise billable hours and improve work/life balance. The amount of time learning new technologies is minimal compared to the returns over time.

Fostering more . . . [more]

The increasing influence of social media has not just been noticed by traditional print publications.

CNW Group (formerly Canada News Wire) is Canada’s largest source for press releases and media information. They’re also known for their audio and video webcasting abilities, so they’re always on the cutting edge for technological developments.

One of their more exciting projects recently has been the Social Media Release, which allows for text to be augmented by more rich content including hyperlinks, dowloadable images and logos, audio and video.

You know the time has come for law firms to adopt social media when they . . . [more]

The English legal / publishing press are taking Reed Elsevier’s current travails to speculate whether the RoI of legal publishers is sustainable.

In previous economic downturns, the London firms have not responded by making cuts to legal information budgets. This time, perhaps with the transformations that have come with with the rise of free public legal information and increased client scrutiny of disbursements, it appears to be happening.

I recall one indiscreet Canadian legal publisher tell me that their company had been profitable since inception, including the Great Depression.

Here is the English take on the issues, from the Guardian . . . [more]

A “Round 2” edition of biotech highlights:

• Round 1 of this week’s IPOs (yep, that’s IPO with an “s”, as in more than one) was a draw, with shares of Cumberland ending flat on the day; but Round 2 — Emdeon’s offering the next day — was a knock-out, leading some (ok, me) to suggest the markets may be opening up to the idea of biopharma offerings.
• Round 2 of Amgen’s study showed that genetic differences really do correlate with response to their medicine — Vectibix — in the treatment of colorectal cancer. Score this one for personalized medicine

One of the quotes I go back to often is a quote from a 1945 paper by the economist Hayek where he says:

The economic problem of society … is not merely a problem of how to allocate ‘given’ resources – if ‘given’ is taken to mean given to a single mind … It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society … a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality. (Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society

Simon has drawn our attention to Peter Schwartz’s comments on the “Reinvention of Legal Research” that appear in the Huffington Post. The premise of the post appears to be that legal publishers are suffering because they are no longer able to impose “per-minute and per-use pricing structures” which allowed publishers to use law firms as information wholesalers. According to Schwartz, this pricing model facilitated cost recovery by law firms who passed these charges through to their clients.

The flaw in this argument, in Canada at least, is that it has been more than a decade since flat rate pricing models . . . [more]

The Law Commission of Ontario (LCO/CDO) has an ongoing project on the possible reform of the law of crossborder litigation, particularly the matter of judicial jurisdiction. A consultation paper has been prepared by Professor Janet Walker, a scholar in residence with the LCO/CDO, and comments were invited from members of the profession.

The Ontario Bar Association submitted its response to the consultation paper this spring, and has made its work available online in PDF. . . . [more]

Congratulations to Slaw and The Court founder Simon Fodden for being featured in the article “The Paperless Chase” by Emily White in the July/August 2009 edition of National, the Canadian Bar Association magazine (see pages 38 & 39). Simon talks at length about Slaw, law blogging, and technological change.

In the article, Simon explains:

I think there are a good many lawyers who would like to write much more than they do…Of course, they write memos and opinions, but I think they’d like to expand on a topic. And blogs give them that opportunity to do that.

White also . . . [more]

Michael Carabash, a recent Osgoode graduate who has set up with his own practice and marketing services, just released a free online book for legal marketing.

I’ve been sharing some ideas with him and Garry Wise recently, and there are a couple of projects in works that may be interesting.

Although Carabash’s book covers what many of us would consider the basics, there are still lots of lawyers coming up speed. The U.K. government is paying £160,000 a year for these specialty services.

You can get the book for free here. . . . [more]