The annual Consumer Electronics Show is about to start in Las Vegas. The CES officially runs from January 6 to the 9th, but there are several press conferences today for new product announcements. The show is huge – 2700 exhibitors, and over 100,000 attendees. Most of the major electronics brands will be there showing off their latest computers, cameras, TV’s, home theatres, and accessories. (With the notable exception of Apple.)

One of the hot items this year will be tablets. As I’ve mentioned before, (and I’m certainly not the only one) tablets will forever change how we consume . . . [more]

Many areas of publishing, to me, are bizarre. For example, visit the Frankfurt Book Fair and see tiny stand after stand, staffed by families, displaying delightful books, over which they have slaved, yet nobody’s making money. Publishing is often seen like that; resembling academic and religious endeavour, done for the greater good rather than profit. It’s not my view but neither, mostly, is it any of my business how others think and behave.

When it comes to legal and professional information publishing, you’d think it would be different. With customers such as fat, succulent lawyers, accountants, tax advisers, big corporates . . . [more]

The beginning of the year is a great time to look back and to look ahead. This week, I’ll look back at the top stories of 2010:

1. Canada’s 2010 Federal Budget had some juicy bits for biotech, venture capital and innovation, including the elimination of Section 116, which was long held up as an example of an unnecessary barrier to foreign investment.
2. The top three reasons why biotech companies should use social media — their customers, investors and peers all do.
3. Personalized medicine continues to attract tons of attention, not least because people expect it to be

. . . [more]

Translating these five leadership categories to a law-firm environment, we can see the clear parallels for a law firm to achieve transformational results.

If you’re ever in the mood to drop back a good few yards to get some perspective, you might want to take a look at the Philosophy of Law section of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP). You’ll have almost a dozen essays to choose from:

• Feminist Jurisprudence
• Human Rights
• Just War Theory
• Law and Economics
• Philosophy of Law
• Legal Positivism
• Legal Pragmatism
• Natural Law
• Punishment
• Right to Private Property

The essay on Philosophy of Law might be a good place to start, as it does a tour d’horizon of various theories of jurisprudence: analytical, normative, and critical.

The IEP . . . [more]

The federal cabinet was just shuffled. I have been waiting, impatiently, to post this. News was slow to filter my way, until I found this site, which offers live tweets. Well done Toronto Star.

For those who just want news without any commentary iPoliticsca tweets:

Kent, Ablonczy, Fantino and Menzies are the new four in Cabinet #cabshuff #cdnpoli

I suppose I could have tuned in to CPAC, but like many web video services, it doesn’t play nice at the office.

What is your favourite method for watching political news? . . . [more]

A speaker at one of our conferences a few years ago, announced that he advised young lawyers not to admit to knowing anything about IT, otherwise they would damage their career prospects at most firms. In other words … they’d get dismissed as geeks. 

That comment prompted at least two attendees to no longer bother with lawyers as a market. One of them was the developer of a reasonably popular document assembly program. He now describes himself as a marketer of legal services, and puts his development skills into building better tools for his new business rather than tools for . . . [more]

A couple of years ago I posted on the few offerings about law that were available on iTunes U, Apple’s semi-successful attempt to corral some serious podcasts and videos. I’ve had another look and find that the corpus has grown — though it hasn’t exploded in the way I imagined it might — and now contains a fair number of worthwhile lectures, both audio and video.

Searching for law in iTunes U isn’t particularly easy. There’s no category for it per se, and it’s variously plunked in other slots in the roster of topics. And searching for “law” . . . [more]

At this time of year many legal bloggers are busy making predictions about what major trends, technologies and shifts we’ll be seeing in the legal space in the coming year. Here’s a roundup of what some of the legal blogosphere thinks is in store in 2011:

• What Surprised you in 2010 (and What Should Lawyers Expect in 2011)? by Adrian Lurssen on the JD Supra Scoop Blog
• 10 Legal Tech Predictions for 2011 by David Bilinski at Thoughtful Legal Management
• 2011 Tech Trends for Lawyers by Niki Black at Sui Generis
• 10 Legal Trends for 2011 by John Wallbillich at

. . . [more]

Time to check all the #law blog award winners!

Last month I wrote about the recent birth of my second son as being a happy reminder to keep things in perspective and to maintain balance in my life. With the winter solstice approaching later this month, this is perhaps the most important time of year to make balance a priority. Darkness is depressing. Going to and from work in the dark makes us feel as though we’re living in a cave. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a clinically recognized phenomenon, particularly for those of us living far from the equator. Added to that are the complexities of the holiday . . . [more]

(Having allowed Simon F. the honour of the first 2011 post, not the least in recognition of all that he and the rest of the Slaw administration do to keep this place going. I trust that I am not presumptuous in thanking all of you, again.)

This isn’t quite a new year’s resolution but it will do.

Let’s hope that common sense (whatever it means) prevails this year.

Let’s hope that public (political, judicial, and other) and private reference to decisions supported by, or required by, common sense aren’t calls to the seeming authority of common sense because the conclusion . . . [more]