Those who don’t always have easy access to the big commercial databases might like to be reminded of the useful free service provided by the Washington & Lee Law School’s Current Law Journal Content, where the tables of contents of nearly 1600 journals are indexed. A few years ago Slaw used this service to offer a page setting out the TOCs of Canadian journals, but it somehow got lost in the first redesign of the blog.

I’ve re-instituted it now. You can always find the link on the new “useful things” item in the main Slaw menu. On the . . . [more]

To supplement an earlier posting on World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Intellectual Property Day, I note that the Canadian Intellectual Property Office is also promoting April 26, 2011 as Canadian Intellectual Property Day! . . . [more]

The long-awaited decision of Judge Denny Chin was released yesterday. The court rejected the settlement because it is not fair, adequate and reasonable. There will undoubtedly be much written on the decision and predictions on what happens next. For some preliminary thoughts, see posting by Professor Kenneth Crews and read Judge Chin’s decision. . . . [more]

I was happy to receive and thumb through the new 4th edition of Daphne Dukelow’s The Dictionary of Canadian Law (Carswell, 2011).

It has been close to 6 years since the previous editon was issued. In that time, Dukelow notes in her preface that one “sea change” in legal language has been a movement to plainer English in legislation and judicial reasons. According to her, the new edition focuses more on pure legal terminology and less on industries and activities regulated by law. Dukelow also notes that Betsy Nuse helped with this new edition (and on a historical note: in . . . [more]

Here at House of Butter we don’t usually go in for advertorials but at the moment we are taken by a piece of software developed by a 25+ year old legal software company out of Sydney called EIS (Eurofield Information Systems) who have told us about an electronic looseleaf concept that they’ve developed out in the wilds of Chatswood (Northern Sydney suburb).

They say their software simply allows users to update a publication securely whilst keeping all past addendums in a easy to view list that also allows one to refer back to previous updates and view them . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal issued a judgement today that will attract attention for its consideration of an employee’s expectation of privacy in information stored on a work computer. The Court recognized an expectation of privacy in the specific circumstances of the case, but also demonstrated a willingness to allow employers to govern system information through policy and procedure.

A school board investigated a teacher after noticing he had an abnormal pattern of network use. A member of the board’s IT staff accessed his laptop remotely and found nude photographs of a 16-year-old Grade 10 student. Soon after, the board . . . [more]

A week ago we learned that Ontario’s Attorney General is willing to consider putting video cameras in Ontario’s courtrooms, and is:

… prepared to speak with the judiciary about their interest in having the discussion at this point in time, where we would go, and canvass the views of other participants in the justice system.

This statement — hardly a rousing endorsement of video access — came as a result of his interview with Canadian Press reporter Allison Jones, who, through a freedom of information request, had obtained a copy of an evaluation done nearly three years previously of the . . . [more]

India, as an emerging knowledge worker superpower, is a country to look to for close ties to cross commonwealth legal issues, like intellectual property rights. I have been monitoring intellectual property news from around the web for some time, and I have enjoyed the well written posts from the Spicy IP blog.

I was very pleased, while checking out the LIIofIndia (announced here at Slaw), to see that a link to to the Spicy IP blog by navigating to Intellectual Property through the Subject pages at the Legal Information Institute of India. There is also a link to search Spicy . . . [more]

I recently bought a new car. If you have done this in the last little while you know it can be quite the endeavour, and the choice available today is unprecedented. There are styles — sedan, convertible, station wagon, minivan, SUV, CUV, or truck. There are sizes — microcompact, subcompact, compact, midsize, or full size. There are fuel choices — gas, diesel, electric, or hybrid. There are transmission choices — standard, automatic, multi-clutch, or CVT. I could go on but you get the idea.

What do you do? And more importantly how do you choose?

In my instance, my wife . . . [more]

Civil litigation accounts for more legal malpractice claims in Ontario than any other area of law. It is also responsible for the second highest percentage of claims costs, after real estate.

From 2000 to 2010, litigation-related claims accounted, on average, for 34 per cent of LAWPRO’s claims count (650 claims per year), and 28 per cent of our claims costs ($17.4 million per year). On average, resolving a litigation claim cost LAWPRO $38,000 over that period.

While the annual number of civil litigation claims has remained relatively consistantly in the 600-700 range over the last 10 years, the cost of . . . [more]

The London Times reported on 10 March that UK litigation lawyers are “bracing themselves” for the “revolution” of hot tubbing which will shortly be run in a pilot trial in Manchester, England.

More formally known as “concurrent evidence”, hot tubbing is a new method of presenting expert evidence at trial. Opposing experts testify in each other’s presence, as members of a panel, and are questioned in each other’s presence in front of the trier of fact.

It seems to be gathering steam in several jurisdictions, other than the US, as a method of reducing cost and delay in civil litigation. . . . [more]

Last week Twitter announced support for secure HTTP, or HTTPS, for its popular microblogging service. Twitter joins Facebook, who announced support for HTTPS earlier this year, and Google, who enabled default HTTPS access for Gmail over a year ago.

The ever-increasing support for HTTPS is a good thing for the web and its users, as it protects data from being snooped upon by hackers or other third parties. Plain, unencrypted HTTP is highly susceptible to eavesdropping attacks, especially if you are using a public Wi-Fi network. Everything transmitted over HTTP, whether the contents of an e-mail or a username/password . . . [more]