The highly anticipated Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) judgment in R. v. Grant was released this morning. Grant was a young black man walking in a neighbourhood patrolled by both plainclothes and uniformed police. During a routine patrol, plainclothes officers stated grant “stared” at them and began “fidgeting”. A uniformed officer was tasked to “have a chat” with Grant and this officer requested biographical information from him during which time he told Grant to “keep his hands in front of him.” The two plainclothes officers who had observed Grant earlier joined the uniformed officer and the three of them took . . . [more]

Not too long ago I invited you to think about Greenland, our second largest neighbour. Now I’d like to invite you back to look at it, because a very — very — large piece of its ice cover is about to fall into Nares Strait opposite Ellesmere Island. How large is very large? The piece of ice in question is the tongue of the Peterman Glacier, and the amount destined for a dunking in the next few weeks is something like 5 billion tonnes in weight and an area the size of Manhattan, according to a report in the New . . . [more]

…resolve disputes between domain name holder and trade mark owners, that is. ICANN — Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — is on the road at the moment, gathering views about their planned expansion of top level domain name space. Evidently the main issue that the public has hammered the travelling committee with has to do with the way in which disputes between domain name holders and trade mark owners are resolved. According to a report in the New York Times from earlier this week, “Brokering Peace Between Brand Owners and Domainers” by Saul Hansell, all the . . . [more]

In May 2008, University of Ottawa law students and The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) in Ottawa filed a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada over alleged poor privacy practices by social networking site Facebook. The office of the Commissioner has released its report today. The three biggest concerns found:

• Facebook’s explanations of privacy are confusing and incomplete;
• Facebook applications allow application developers access to private information where it is not necessary; and
• when a Facebook account is deactivated, Facebook still retains personal information. This is in contravention of Canada’s privacy law

I am the very proud parent of two lovely teenage daughters. The Mireau Giggles do not have their own cell phones, much to their dismay. Some day soon they will both have steady employment and I am sure phones are high up on the purchases priority list. As an aside, I had no idea that I was being mean as I MOS my kids while they email in our shared family office.

Rather than MYOB [mind your own business], a careful parent (or a lawyer trying to decipher instant message transcripts) will be happy to know there is a texting . . . [more]

There’s a piece in the current Lawyers Weekly, “Commodification of contract drafting,” about some of the work that U.S. lawyer Ken Adams does. (The whole piece is on Adams’ site, page 1 and page 2, or here in a single page.) Much of the article deals with the obvious, such as the need for precision in expression and the dangers of using old-fashioned boilerplate. But three things caught my eye as being interesting.

First, Adams suggests that firms need rules when it comes to drafting contracts. The thought is that a firm style should be imposed where, presumably, certain . . . [more]

According to a report in the Times, the U.K. Justice Minister has agreed to move to abolish the crimes of sedition and criminal libel.

An act of sedition is one that incites hatred or contempt for the king, government or constitution…

Criminal libel is rare but similarly oppressive. Even though the vast majority of libel actions are brought through the civil courts, crown prosecutors can press charges for criminal libel if it is thought to be in the public interest. The penalty is up to two years in jail and an unlimited fine.

Something is considered defamatory if calculated

The latest issue of Law Practice Today (www.lawpracticetoday.org), the ABA Law Practice Management’s webzine was published today. This blockbuster issue has all sorts of great articles for the “suddenly solo” lawyer. This is new lawyer starting out as a solo because they didn’t get a job at a firm, or someone leaving a firm to continue a practice on their own. Many of the top names in law practice management have contributed articles to this issue: Dennis Kennedy, Jim Calloway, Andy Atkins and Mark Robertson.

Read the Law Practice Today “Suddenly solo” issue here.

Law Practice Today is the . . . [more]

The Osgoode Hall Law School blog The Court today published a commentary on live webcasts by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Since February 2009, the Supreme Court has provided live streaming of oral arguments and judges’ questions in authorized cases. The webcasts are archived.

On The Court, Daniel Del Gobbo writes favourably of the experience:

“Observers may be emboldened by the transparency of the Supreme Court’s new initiative, the comprehensibility of oral arguments, or the sensitivity of justices in asking questions. Further, observers may better understand that the process by which the court’s decisions are made involves an

Last week the CRTC announced that in two cases it has issued notices of violation with fines to two telemarketers who called numbers on the “do not call” list. These are the first two such notices since the DNC list became effective, on June 30, 2006, pursuant to CRTC “unsolicited telecommunications rules.”

The CRTC released no information about the identities of the telemarketers or the size of the fines proposed in the notices.

This reluctance concerning publicity is in line with stated CRTC policy, according to which enforcement of the rules proceeds in stages, the first of . . . [more]

We recently tried something new with our consultation process and we’ll likely do it again. Lauren Bates, head of our project on developing a coherent approach to the law as it affects persons with disabilities, participated in a web based consultation with the assistance of Citizens with Disabilities – Ontario. Citizens with Disabilities provides on-line conference rooms that can accommodate various size groups for meetings, courses and interviews, among other uses, through their on-line Conference Centre. Apart from the convenience of format, there is the obvious advantage of accessibility. . . . [more]

Author and marketing guru Seth Godin has a post today on his blog that rings true for anyone selling anything – including lawyers.

He talks about products where a buyer’s perception of them may not be the reality – leading to frustration after the product is purchased.

His conclusion:

“There are lots of things you can do to make the sale. They often are precisely the opposite of what you should do to generate word of mouth. I know, you can’t have word of mouth unless you have a sale, but a sale that leads to pain is hardly worth . . . [more]