There have been very amusing discussions of the improbability of things that happen in the movies actually happening—the ability of the hero or heroine to find a parking space exactly where he or she needs one, being a common one. In fact, I think that some were recently published on Slaw.

I am now seeing movies and television programmes in which software works flawlessly—the most recent programme that I saw was a (fictional) English TV series on MI-5 in which the good guys defeated a nefarious plot to take down the British Internet by first copying information in the Russian . . . [more]

On electronic discovery issues we tend to focus on the early stages – identification and preservation. But what happens at the end of the process? After all, the purpose of electronic discovery is to help the parties settle their case and ultimately prepare for trial. When cases do get to that stage, and the parties have gathered, reviewed and produced their “ESI”, can they be sure that the court will handle the evidence in a way that keeps it secure?

Because not all governments and court administrators have developed appropriate systems for e-trials, some judges have taken it upon themselves . . . [more]

As Calgarians head into the Stampede, today’s Globe and Mail notes that the partners at Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer have decided to make a donation to their local food bank rather than hold their annual Stampede party. Here’s the relevant bit:

Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP decided to forgo its usual glitzy party with more than 2,000 guests after it learned that the Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank had recently seen a 50-per-cent jump in demand, but a decrease in donations and volunteers.

“The partners got together and decided, you know, it may be more appropriate this year instead of putting

Since Steve pointed the way, Slaw readers might well be interested to see from the Public Accounts volume III that Justice Canada appears to be a Lexis shop rather than a Westlaw-ECarswell.

Page 71 of the Accounts provide details of where “Canada’s largest law firm” – as Justice Canada is often described – spends its legal information dollars:

Lexisnexis Canada Inc Kingston Ont $1,146,011
Quicklaw Inc Kingston Ont $200,484
Carswell Toronto Ont $409,583

The DPP expenditures are similarly skewed.

Lexisnexis Canada Inc Kingston Ont 324,940
Quicklaw Inc Kingston Ont 102,476

Of course the really large cheques are cut elsewhere: CGI . . . [more]

Thanks to a couple of well placed FOI requests & investigative journalism by Robert Todd over at the Law Times, we now know that the DOJ spent over 24 million on outside counsel in 2008.

Below is a graphic clipped from the story showing those top-10 firms:

A couple of observations here. First, even if we acknowledge that this is only a list of the top-10, it’s hard not to notice a non-Canadian firm is was way out in front with 35% of the work delivered. And second, it seems odd that both Quebec and East Coast firms are . . . [more]

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]