The great Code of Hammurabi, nearly 4,000 years old, was written in cuniform script in Akkadian, a lingua franca for much of the middle east and north Africa at the time.

Thanks to the efforts of scholars at Cambridge, you can now hear what it might have sounded like. (Obviously, there’s no way to know with any certainty how Akkadian sounded, but certain clues, comparisons, and good guesses can give us an idea.) Here is a link to an MP3 file on Slaw’s server; you can also access the recording on the Cambridge site.

The . . . [more]

Later today I’m headed for the Canadian IT Law Association’s annual conference, which is in Montreal this year. In my opinion this is consistently the best continuing ed conference for those who practice IT law.

Are any other Slaw contributors or readers going? . . . [more]

An earlier SLAW post by me commented on the fun aspects of the iPad.

Since then, in addition to my personal Gmail email, I have added my work email to the iPad email client, along with syncing my work Calendar and Contacts, and now regard the iPad as a true BlackBerry replacement (to the point on my recent work trip to the United States I left my laptop and BlackBerry at home, making do quite nicely with only the iPad, relying on WiFi at the hotel and conference centre and using the Skype app for when I needed a . . . [more]

Over the last five years, electronic resources have become an increasingly more important part of the services provided by law libraries. Administering electronic database subscriptions can be a time-consuming process; managing an electronic subscription includes, but is not limited to, evaluating the resource, negotiating a contract, training users, dealing with passwords, and billing back costs (if necessary). This column discusses a specific aspect of managing database subscriptions: the advantages and disadvantages of using individual user IDs rather than organization-wide passwords.

One problem with the growing number of online database subscriptions is the associated increase in the number of passwords that . . . [more]

Time flies when you are having fun. For those of us in Alberta anticipating changes to court rules on November 1, 2010, time has flown quickly indeed.

I have written about the new Alberta Rules of court here and here and here, but just in case, I thought it worthwhile to touch on this topic one more time.

I have spent quite a bit of time lately helping with the final checks of my firm’s court precedents collection. Alberta’s Rules are significanly changing and so the form of documents that will be filed on and after November 1, 2010 . . . [more]

I’m following Omar Khadr’s sentencing hearing via Carol Rosenberg’s tweets. She’s a Miami journalist who has covered Guantanamo longer than any other reporter. The “jury” of U.S. military officers is engaged in the business determining the appropriate sentence for Mr. Khadr, who has pleaded guilty to five serious offences in this… curious process.

As of half an hour ago, a forensic psychiatrist, Michael Weiner is on the stand testifying as to whether Khadr is dangerous as “a violent jihadist.” The witness claims to have worked for 500-600 hours on the Khadr case, hired by the U.S. Department of Defence. . . . [more]

The Law Times has a longish story on a Kingston Ontario judge who allowed service on a family law defendant by Facebook. It is not clear in the story how much of an effort the plaintiff had to make before getting permission to serve that way. The judge seems to have given retroactive blessing to the method when it was shown to have worked (because a reply was received).

The judge gave a talk to a conference about how well this had worked. Other commentators discuss why such service would be a good idea, and at least as a method . . . [more]

While you won’t see it mentioned either on Canlii or the Federation of Law Societies web page, but Canlii has a new board of directors, and a much leaner governance structure.

The new Board members are

Sonia Poulin, Director of the Alberta Law Society Libraries
Darrel Pink, Executive Director, Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society
Diana Miles Director, Professional Development & Competence, Law Society of Upper Canada
Johanne Blenkin, Executive Director at Courthouse Libraries BC
Dr. Martin Felsky
Professor Michael Geist
Charmian Harvey, Directrice générale chez Totalmédia

Here is the text of the official statement: . . . [more]

Attention forum shoppers! Your governing law clause could buy you a lot more than you bargained for

There are many good reasons to “forum shop” when choosing the governing law of an outsourcing contract. Proximity to the place of performance and comfort with the commercial sophistication of the selected jurisdiction are two. In a ruling relating to a franchisee class action, the Ontario Court of Appeal has recently added another (maybe not so “good”) reason to the list: the possibility that the jurisdiction’s general body of statute law may apply to operations outside the jurisdiction even if you have not . . . [more]

Peter Fogh Knudsen, the director of European Consumer Centre Denmark, will be one of the keynote speakers for the 2010 ODR and Consumers Conference scheduled for Vancouver, BC on Nov. 2-3, 2010.

This week in biotech, Canada’s competitiveness was discussed and challenged.

The 2nd Canadian Science Policy Conference took place in Montreal this week. As with last year, the conference this year was full of well-reasoned and compelling ideas. In some areas, like genetically-modified food, Canada is a world leader. In others, like “Encouraging Investment in Science and Innovation”, we are not world leaders. I had the privilege of moderating the latter panel, where one of the few points of unanimity was that biotech entrepreneurship in Canada still faces a cultural hurdle. Programs like those at MaRS and UTM help, but . . . [more]

Ethics committees across North America are, as always, in the process of examining issues of great importance to lawyers in the US and Canada. As part of process of establish new ethics opinions and rules, ethics committees typically hold hearings or publish proposed opinions for comment, seeking input from practicing attorneys.

Unfortunately, these hearings and requests for comment are often met with silence from practicing attorneys. Vendors and other interested parties respond in force, but the group that will ultimately be most impacted by ethics committees decisions have, apparently, nothing to say.

For example, only one practicing lawyer signed up . . . [more]