…comes on a Thursday this week, because tomorrow, Good Friday, is a holiday and, I suspect, no one will be reading Slaw, even a Slavian fillip. [Kudos to John Gregory for coming up with that perfect parallel to Shavian!]

Sheep’s the theme, as some of us contemplate the traditional dinner of lamb. And I’ve a flock of mostly silly stuff for you, which seems somehow fitting. But first up is Sheep 101, that course you avoided back in university in favour of The Comedy Film in Popular Culture, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1.30 p.m. But I’ll only detain you . . . [more]

Heads up. No, it isn’t a soccer ball flying into your yard from the over zealous kick of spring fever infected neighbourhood children. It is a news release about some enhancements to Quicklaw. There are even screen shots of the new look.

The new Quicklaw functions are designed to follow your workflow and eliminate screen clutter:

• Set your own Start Page with the streamlined global navigation toolbar
• Speed up your research with sharper buttons and icons, highly readable fonts, and an inviting colour palette
• Consistently locate Related Links, General Search screens, and the What’s New icon (available soon) on

Once you’ve recovered from the stimulation of LegalIT 3.0 (April 20, Montreal), you can sign up for the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s annual conference, this year on “Taking Remedies Seriously” (September 30 – October 2, Ottawa). A listing of some of the overarching topics will give you a sense of what’s in store:

• Private Law and the Remedial Imagination
• The Relationship Between Rights and Remedies
• Remedial Issues for the Future
• Administrative Law and Remedial Choices
• Remedies Against Public Bodies
• Remedies Available to Administrative Agencies

Today I am at the second day of the mesh conference. mesh is arguably Toronto’s premier social media/business conference, now in its fourth year. These notes have been “liveblogged” during Rob Hyndman’s session “Legal Bootcamp for Web Startups”. Rob Hyndman is principal of Hyndman Law, and one of the five founders of the mesh conference. Any inaccuracies or omissions in the notes below are purely my mistake and not Rob’s. Note this is not legal advice, but general discussion only. The main audience for this talk is start-up owners/those in the market to start up a tech company. . . . [more]

Government Bill 167, Toxics Reduction Act, 2009, received first reading in the Ontario Legislature yesterday; and the text of the bill is just now available in PDF and HTML on the Legislature website.

This is a substantial piece of legislation aimed at reducing and managing the use by industry of substances designated as “toxic,” and, as the preamble states in part, will require

owners and operators of facilities that use or create the substance to prepare, in specified circumstances, a toxic substance reduction plan for the substance. The plan must include certain matters specified in the Bill, including the

About two years ago I wrote about an application in development that would make your computer desktop more like your real desktop, providing the ability to arrange things in piles, pin icons to “walls” and the like. BumpTop has finally been released (Windows 7 only). There’s a brief video on the site’s main page that puts the app through its paces, so you’ll get a chance to see what it can do. It may suit the way some people work, but I doubt it’ll find much favour in law offices — though I could be wrong. . . . [more]

The most recent issue of Reform, the journal of the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), is devoted to Native Title.

As noted by Professor David Weisbrot, ALRC President, in his Comment, the Commission has played an instrumental role in advancing the ideas of native title in Australia (based on Indigenous customary land tenure).

However, he writes that most observers feel that the framework developed for resolving native title disputes has developed many weaknesses:

“Mabo [ (1992) 175 CLR 1 ] and the subsequent Wik case established the basic common law principles, but the detailed laws and procedures

This is slightly off-topic, though I would argue it all goes back to the classic discussion of Wine and the Law. And here is some legal discussion on wine law from Fermentation.

My friend Charles Hodgson of Podictionary fame has just written:

Compare and contrast:

· First book, a year to write, three years to sell, a year and a half to bring to market
· This book, five months to write, eight days to bring to market

The blurbs on Amazon say: “A great read.” -Rod Phillips, author of A Short History of Wine, “Certain to find . . . [more]

I attended day 1 of the Mesh conference yesterday. (I had a conflict for today – but a colleague is going in my place.) Some video from the event is already on the Mesh site.

The highlight for me was the keynote by Mike Masnick of Techdirt. Anyone interested in changing business models and how to conduct business on the web should follow the Techdirt blog.

Microsoft had one of their Surface devices there. If you ever get a chance to play with one, you should. Multitouch technology will be included in Windows 7. That could lead to . . . [more]

♫ Tell me something good
Tell me that you like it …
What I got to give will sho nuff do you good.. ♫

Lyrics and Music by Stevie Wonder, recorded by Rufus and Chaka Khan, “Tell me Something Good“.

While Simon Chester may be leading the discussion on the application of Twitter for lawyers, there is no question that Twitter has proven its value for legal technology conferences.

There were many new and exciting aspects about ABA TECHSHOW 2009 including Richard Susskind’s keynote address on the end of lawyers. But to me, in looking back at . . . [more]

Most of us tend to look outside our offices for threats or dangers. However, you should also be aware of potential inside dangers. Statistics show that the majority of incidents involving the destruction or loss of data were perpetrated by current, soon-to-be dismissed or recently dismissed employees. Few, if any, know more about your firm’s systems than your employees, and few, if any, are in a better position to cause major damage.

In particular, your IT staff, employees with advanced technology knowledge, and outside technology support people are potentially the greatest threat because they have the greatest knowledge about your . . . [more]

While Worldlii covers many jurisdictions, it missed last night’s decision in Malvolio v. Olivia argued before the Supreme Court of Illyria. [Nothing to do with Marmont’s division of the Illyrian territory into 96 cantons, each with a justice of the peace. The rest of the judicial hierarchy consisted of 11 Tribunals of First Instance and a supreme court of Illyria – see Napoleon and the transformation of Europe by Alexander I. Grab at 191.]

Shakespeare apparently missed out the denouement of the story of Twelfth Night, where Malvolio did not go sheepishly to gaol, but responded by suing Olivia . . . [more]