Today’s Calgary Herald reports the death of the distinguished Canadian legal author, John Ballem QC of Gowlings, at the age of 85.

Those of us who have had to refer to Ballem’s masterpiece, The oil and gas lease in Canada (now in its third edition) and his pioneering work on fiduciary duties in the 1963 Alberta Law Review, will likely not realize that he was also the author of fourteen novels (The Devil’s Lighter, The Dirty Scenario, The Judas Conspiracy (reissued as Alberta Alone), The Moon Pool, Sacrifice Play, The Marigot Run, Oilpatch Empire, Death Spiral, The Barons, Manchineel, . . . [more]

Among the most important pieces of legislation that came into force last January First is the Act respecting the Compilation of Québec Laws and Regulations, S.Q. 2009, c. 40 (version française : L.Q. 2009, c. 40).

Pursuant to this Act, all consolidated statutes published by the Québec Official Publisher have official status “whatever the medium used“, including of course those published online by the Publications du Québec. Consolidations of regulatory texts will have official status on January first 2012. In the mean time, certain regulations will have official status if so stated within the published document. . . . [more]

There is lots of advice around, addressed to the young and innocent but probably applicable to the old and jaded as well, to be cautious about what one puts online about oneself, since it could be there for a long time and influence people whose interest you have not yet thought about — future employers and mates being two of the main classes.

The French are now pondering a legal ‘right to forget’ (un droit à l’oubli) — or at least a right of a person to get old information about him/herself taken down. The BBC has the . . . [more]

All Toronto public library branches now have free Wi-Fi Internet access. Anyone with a laptop or smartphone can now access the Internet for however long they want in any library branch.

See Toronto Public Library announcement. . . . [more]

As everyone starts the year off with resolutions for self-improvement, I prefer to deflect by analyzing others’ flaws. This week provided several targets for deflection in the biotech world:

• New federal-level initiatives in the U.S. and China and state-level initiatives in North Carolina, Missouri, Arizona and Indiana (not to mention Québec’s new Biopharmaceutical Strategy) mean that Ontario has to up the ante if it wants to improve its ability to grow and attract top biotech talent.
• Policy makers and commenters need to look farther into the future to effectively regulate the coming revolution in reproductive genomics — “designer babies”

We might be used to seeing archived video footage of legal proceedings on the SCC site or through CPAC, but on YouTube?

Simon Fodden previous mentioned the initiative the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to upload the Proposition 8 appeal in Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

Well it seems that the objections aired over the broadcast have gained some support with a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The term court order issued today states,

…permitting real-time streaming is stayed except as it permits streaming to other rooms within the confines of

To add to Ted Tjaden’s neat engine for law firm websites, and Google Scholar’s legal scholarship tool, you may be interested in the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center customized search engine

It announces a free search engine which searches the free full-text of over 300 online law reviews and law journals, as well as document repositories hosting academic papers and related publications such as Congressional Research Service reports. Several of the law reviews (such as the Stanford Technology Law Review), working papers, and reports are available online only.

When you actually look under the engine it’s a customized Google . . . [more]

We posted about the major cuts that Thomson-Reuters announced in early December to trim almost 2 % of its North American workforce. The blogosphere has noted the significant cuts made to Eagan’s library liaisons.

But we’ve seen no formal announcement or confirmation of the rumours of seventy five Carswell staff being let go from Thomson-Reuters’ Canadian legal operation, that was initiated just before Christmas. The rumours suggest that the cuts include twenty-five in the legal editorial group and that the downsizing may still be ongoing.

Funny that the Australians reported the news about the Canadian lay-offs while there’s . . . [more]

Our discussions of Iraq have tended to have focused on the news and the involvement of lawyers in matters of the justification of torture, so it’s nice to have a good news story, stemming from the Red Bulls, the 34th Infantry Division in the U.S. Army National Guard t, garrisoned at Rosemount, Minnesota. The Red Bulls are using web-based technologies to assemble online the law of Mesopotamia. . . . [more]

The Kingdom of Bahrain has launched the Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution. This initiative of the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs will deliver international ADR services in cooperation with the American Arbitration Association. TimesOnline’s Law Central has the story.

What makes this project interesting is that Bahrain has passed legislation ensuring that when parties agree to arbitration by the BCDR the result will be binding and beyond challenge in the Bahrain courts. Presumably, they’ll have better luck with their “privative” provisions than has been the case elsewhere.

At present the link to the BCDR opens only . . . [more]

Without much in the way of overt hoopla, the Law Library of Congress today launched seven video podcasts of lectures and presentations on matters of current interest. The link to the Itunes site is here.

The topics covered are:

Legislating in Heels–An Anecdotal Journal: The Honorable Constance “Connie” Morella 1:09:03

Legal Challenges Facing NATO at 60 1:41:21

The Approach of the Halakah and Sharia’ to Contemporary Legal Issues 1:33:14

Law Day 2009: Emancipation Proclamation 1:20:10

Human Environment Challenges, Domestic and International – a Talk by Barry Hill 1:00:52

Looking Beyond Gitmo: U.S. and Foreign Approaches Toward Legal Treatment of

Yesterday I happened upon the Legal History Blog, and wanted to share my find. Started in November 2006, this blog has been consistently covering the academic scene in legal history, including the publication of new treatises, for some time. It is a group blog with main contributors Mary L. Dudziak, Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science at the University of Southern California Law School, Dan Ernst, Professor of Law, Georgetown University, and Clara Altman, a graduate student at Brandeis University who co-ordinates the Legal History Blog’s accompanying Facebook . . . [more]