Andrea Zielinski, Librarian at Emery Jamieson LLP and Chair of the Edmonton Law Libraries Association let me know about a good read in the latest Canadian Lawyers 4Students issue (starting page 21). The article titled “Key to the Kingdom” quotes well respected academic librarians from law schools across the country about law student orientation week. The article is filled with great gems.

From the article:

Keys to legal research success

Get to know your librarians
These people are the oracles of legal information and they want to help you. David Michels says he even answers calls from graduates

. . . [more]

It’s no secret, and no puzzle, that lawyers’ attention generally follows the money. Indeed, with the possible exception of criminal law as romanticized on TV, the public’s view of law itself is shaped by this legal currying of currency and its sources.

But that same public’s actual encounters with the law often happen in areas that have a tiny bar or no bar at all. One of these is with respect to municipal by-laws. In a city of any size, there will be thousands of these laws regulating much of the activity and paraphernalia of everyday life: where and when . . . [more]

An Alberta woman did. She waited 19 years to be compensated over gender discrimination by her employer in an Alberta Human Rights Tribunal decision rendered on September 2, 2010. Her relentless battle against Mobil Oil Canada to receive the same pay as a man in the same position won her a damage award of more than $650,000.

Twitter has a new design on its way. It will feature embedded media thanks to partnerships with Flickr, TwitPic, USTREAM, Vimeo, Yfrog, YouTube and a number of other providers. The fun video below gives a preview. The new version is being rolled out over the next several weeks.

The new Twitter platform for the Internet reminds me a lot of the Twitter iPad App, although perhaps not as slick since there is no screen touch available with this version.

More details about the new Twitter are on the Meet the New Twitter page. What do you think? . . . [more]

The provisions of outsourcing agreements relating to employees have grown more complicated. There was time, in the early 1990s, when the obligations of the service provider under the Outsourcing Agreement focussed almost exclusively on describing in detail the services to be performed. There was little mention of the service provider employees used to perform the services (or privacy, software or subcontractors for that matter). The times have changed however: in my experience at least, it is now customary for outsourcing agreements to include extensive provisions relating to the personnel used by the service provider to perform the services.

In this . . . [more]

The Google Reader blog recently published the following graph that shows their growth of accounts over the past five years:

Online pundits have been calling RSS a dying technology for a while now. If you’ve read Slaw for any period of time, you’ll probably recognize what a huge fan I am of the technology. It’s still part of my daily routine, and I continue to find incredible value in a properly tuned personal RSS reader.

Many thanks to Andy Beal for his post: If RSS is Dead, Someone Please Explain This Chart to Me! I agree completely. . . . [more]

What follows in this post are some initial thoughts on what I think is a fairly important topic for law librarians and legal researchers: (a topic I might consider researching in detail if I ever were to pursue a doctorate in information studies): what, if anything, can be done to lessen the anxiety that legal researchers suffer during the research process?

That legal researchers suffer anxiety goes without saying. The researcher may be uncertain where to begin, they may be suffering from too much information, or they may lack confidence in concluding they have reached the “correct” answer (I myself . . . [more]

One (of many) benefits of being a member of the Toronto Association of Law Libraries (TALL) is getting access to their salary survey (published every 2 years or so, most recently in 2010, 2008, 2006, 2005 and 2003) (with a “shout out” here of thanks to colleague and blogger Brenda Wong who, with her committee, was in charge of helping to compile the most recent survey).

This year’s 2010 survey had two items I wanted to comment on:

1) Dual-degree law librarians: Of the 135 responses on the question of educational level, 15 people (11.1%) responded as having both . . . [more]

The availability of secured connections and applications on the Web means potentially safer online law practices. Opt for using secure connections and develop a habit that can limit exposure of your work product and client confidences. You can do this by making some small modifications to your Web activities.

Let’s start simply. If you’re like most people, you sometimes find yourself at the Google Web search engine. Ever typed in something related to a client in Google? If you did that over an unencrypted coffee shop (or home!) wireless network, your search is being transmitted in plain text. Google now . . . [more]

Seanna and I watched Gary Hustwit’s documentary film about the Helvetica font on the weekend. It’s led me to pose the question, “What’s your font of choice for formal legal argument?”

The movie explains that, aside from being ubiquitous, Helvetica is modern, minimalistic and neutral. I like it for formal legal advocacy for two reasons. One, I feel it’s a good “empty vessel” though which I can impose my own meaning without a font signaling something “off message.” Two, I’ve bought into the idea that persuasive argument is, first and foremost, digestible argument: writing point-first, plain language argument in Helvetica . . . [more]

This iPhone app gives Ontario lawyers handy Child Support and Land Transfer Tax calculators. Find it at the iTunes store for $1.99.

Cross posted at Avoid A Claim . . . [more]

A former Field summer student wrote this on my Facebook Wall:

I read your post on Slaw, but I can’t tell: what do you think of the new McGill changes? Are they retroactive– should we cite old cases with the new style? Won’t that make it difficult or impossible to do effective Westlaw citation searches? Do we *have* to follow the dumb ‘no periods!’ suggestion despite it being totally ridiculous? I’ve noticed the new AB courts judgments haven’t changed their style. If the SCC doesn’t start using the new guide suggestions (esp. the periods thing) in the upcoming term,

. . . [more]