You’ve got to have standards. Not the kind that castles and ships fly or that armies carried into battle (see, e.g., the Battle of the Standard, in reference to which the word was first used in English to mean flag, the OED tells us, because a versifier there wrote: ‘it was there that valour took its stand to conquer or die’), but growing out of that notion of a centre from which commands are issued all the way to a measure of uniform quality. Modern life is so complex that it’s standards or chaos, it seems to me.

Some . . . [more]

Everyone knows you’re not supposed to do a data dump in e-discovery. But oh boy, is there a temptation to drown the other side in a case with an avalanche of useless data. Too often, law firms and their clients succumb to this temptation.

In SEC v. Collins & Aikman Corp. (S.D.N.Y. 2009), the SEC dumped 1.7 million records (10.6 million pages) on the defendant saying that the defendant could search them for the relevant evidence and asserting that it didn’t maintain a document collection relating specifically to the subjects addressed. As the court correctly noted, Rule 34 of the . . . [more]

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, based at the University of Alberta, has announced that it is moving to York University.

The Forum undertakes research to improve the civil justice system for Canadians by:

• collecting in a systematic way information relating to the system for administering civil justice;
• carrying out in-depth research on matters affecting the operation of the civil justice system;
• promoting the sharing of information about the use of best practices;
  functioning as a clearinghouse and library of information for the benefit of all persons in Canada concerned with civil justice;
• developing liaisons with similar organizations in

. . . [more]

We’ve not yet mentioned on Slaw the Law & Humanities Blog, “A blog about law, literature, and the humanities,” run by Christine Corcos, a law prof at Louisiana State. (Daniel Solove, a GWU law prof and author of The Future of Reputation, among other books, is nominally a member but, so far as I can tell, wrote one post a long time ago.)

The main focus seems to be on literature, and the posts typically point to recent publications, such as:

• Stephen R. Alton, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, has published The Game is Afoot!:

. . . [more]

Ecojustice, formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund, has launched a lawsuit on behalf of Aamjiwnaaang First Nation members, Ron Plain and Ada Lockridge, alleging that the cumulative effects of government approved pollution in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley amounts to a violation of their human rights under sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case is an application for judicial review, attempting to strike down Ministry of the Environment action that allowed Suncor to increase production (and presumably emissions) from its refinery in Chemical Valley. Suncor had been required to limit production at the facility . . . [more]

According to a report from iPolitics.ca, Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart is investigating a government plan to give Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) officers expanded powers to search airport and port employees in new customs-controlled areas. The plan aims to curtail organized crime, drug trafficking and contraband items by cutting down on port employees’ involvement in the trades.

I’ve spent a lot of time listening to corporate counsel over the past few weeks. The examples they give of how their external law firms “don’t get it” never cease to amaze me. For instance, the GC of a large financial institution said she was once told by her litigation counsel, “Look, it’s our factum; that argument stays in.” Not only did the argument not stay in, but neither did the law firm! 

I’m sure most readers will think, “No one in our firm would be that stupid.” So let me ask you this: if an important client offered to . . . [more]

The RCMP has recently made changes to the national system for accessing information about individuals’ criminal records. This post describes the relevant background and the changes, with a focus on what is relevant to employers .

Background on CPIC and background checks

The Canadian Police Information Centre or “CPIC” is an information system through which Canadian law enforcement agencies obtain information on crimes and criminals from an RCMP administered national database. The national database contains a range of information useful to law enforcement, including records about hybrid and indictable offences. “CPIC agencies” (local police forces) voluntarily report information to the . . . [more]

♬ Red alert! Red alert!
It’s a catastrophe..♬

Lyrics and music by Buxton Ratcliffe, recorded by Basement Jaxx.

It reads like a bad lawyer joke. How many lawyers does it take to get caught in a fraud scam? Apparently the number is 80. The ABA Journal reported on Nov. 22, 2010 that Federal prosecutors have indicted 6 people in a $32 Million dollar internet collection scam that caught 80 lawyers in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Alabama and Georgia. . . . [more]

Although my copy of the new Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Canadian Precedents of Pleadings (Carswell, 2010, $299 CDN) arrived earlier this Fall, I am only now taking the time to review it in detail.

The Canadian version of the British classic litigation precedents title comes in a 612-page bound monograph. It is divided into different parts, by topic, with each part edited by a leading subject expert:

Part A: Class Actions (John A. Campion/Sarah J. Armstrong)
Part B: Construction Claims (Duncan Glaholt)
Part C: Defamation (Howard WInkler)
Part D: Employment Law – Wrongful Dismissal (Stuart Rudner/Erik Marshall)
Part E: . . . [more]

Several sources are reporting that a Chinese company called MIC Gadget has stopped selling their Steve Jobs action figure after receiving a nastygram from Apple’s lawyers stating that it violated Apple trademarks and copyrights. See for example Mobiledia, MacLife, Mashable.

This image is from the MIC store.

I get that companies need to police their brands – but let’s think about this for a minute.

Its not as if this in practice causes any harm to Apple or Steve Jobs or confusion about their brand. It doesn’t put Steve or Apple in any bad light- in fact, . . . [more]

I’m currently collaborating with a colleague who is doing a lengthy research project attempting to identify the characteristics, traits and behaviors of the most effective law firm managing partners. In our most recent discussions he posed this question: “In firms you’ve observed where the managing partner isn’t doing well or leadership is weak or dysfunctional, what one or two things do you find are the biggest or most common causes of failure?”

To provide a meaningful response, I went back through a decade worth of notes from training practice group leaders, scrutinized the results from the psychometric data that I . . . [more]