We have been watching the ascent of social media in legal marketing for a few years now. Law blogs, once considered a frivolity suitable only for the technogeek outliers at the fringe of the law firm, are now recognized as legitimate business development vehicles at many, if not most, firms. Likewise, other social media channels including Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube and to some extent Facebook, have all been moving (at varying paces) along a recognizable continuum inside the law firm environment that looks a bit like this:

Derision >> skepticism >> grudging curiosity >> cautious adoption >> widespread use

As social . . . [more]

Site news for those who read Slaw only via RSS or email

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 29 comments. You might be particularly interested in two lengthy and detailed comments by Don Laird on Is It Possible to Secure Law Firm Data?

You can subscribe to the comments on Slaw either as a separate matter (RSS, email) or as part of a subscription combining posts and comments (RSS, email).

2. SlawTips

This week’s tips on SlawTips are:

• Tuesday: Technology: Send a Text Message to a Mobile Phone via

You’ve built your evidentiary PowerPoint. It’s ready to take to court. It’s chock full of interesting and persuasive images, maps, diagrams documents etc. needed to prove your case. What’s next?

Previous columns covered the basics of creating an evidentiary PowerPoint (PPT). In this column I’ll begin to cover considerations for using a PPT in court.

The PowerPoint as an Exhibit

A crucial first step is to decide is how the PowerPoint will be filed as an exhibit.

Like any object or photo used in court the PowerPoint (PPT), once referred to by a witness or displayed in court, must be . . . [more]

While I was pondering the angle to take on the new television show Pan Am, I came upon Patrick Smith’s article on Salon.com, “Why I’m not watching Pan Am”. The author (a pilot) offers (in jest, I assume) that he feels hurt that he was not invited to provide his expertise as a technical advisor, and “it’s a TV show, not a historical documentary, and I’d be liable to find myself sitting there grumbling at the screen, pointing out inaccuracies and taking the whole enterprise a little too seriously.”

In a way, the reason why I wanted to watch . . . [more]

The possibility of losing any portion of your benefit due to your insurer’s insolvency has probably never crossed your mind. Why should it? After all, we live in a country with a carefully regulated and stable financial services industry. As a result, I think it’s unlikely that your insurer will become insolvent. However, there is a risk, albeit a very small one, and it has happened three times.

In 1992, Les Coopérants became the first Canadian insurance company to become insolvent. This was followed by Sovereign Life in 1993 and Confederation Life in 1994. This affected over 1.1 million Canadian . . . [more]

The Harvard Business Review has an interview with Jeff Weiss and Jonathan Hughes, “Implementing Strategies in Extreme Negotiations,” that contains advice that may help with any important and difficult negotiation. In essence, the advice is to:

• “understand what’s motivating the other party;
• “come up with a variety of possible solutions and invite critiques;
• “use facts to persuade;
• “demonstrate a commitment to a fair and reasonable outcome;
• “build trust over time;
• and focus on actively shaping the process of the negotiation.”

In preparing for a negotiation, Weiss and Hughes suggest using a “seven-elements checklist” developed by their colleagues at . . . [more]

It is important that every business or organization has their domain names (eg slaw.ca) registered in their own name, and that the administrative contact is a senior person within the business.

There are a couple of reasons for that.

Domain names are often registered by an advertising agency, web designer, or IT provider for one of their customers. They should register it in their customer’s name, but often register it in their own name because it is simpler and easier for them.

Given that domain names are valuable assets, they ought to be registered in the actual owner’s name. The . . . [more]

A recent ethnographic study at a number of Illinois academic libraries suggests that students who have grown up with computer and Internet access are not as sophisticated at accessing the world of online resources as is often assumed. A very brief article on the project appeared in many daily papers last month and my colleague Humayun Rashid brought a much more detailed report in Inside Higher Education to my attention. The Inside Higher Ed. article provides an excellent summary of the study.

The results of the ERIAL Project (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) are perhaps not very surprising to . . . [more]

I have in the past complained about the abysmal lack of online access to Canadian court dockets at the same time as trying to compile a list of known links to Canadian court dockets to my Case Law research page on my legal research and writing website.

In addition to the new LexisNexis Canada dockets service I mentioned last week, a colleague has pointed out the free Canadian Federal Courts dockets service at IPPractice.ca, a website maintained by Alan Macek of Dimock Stratton LLP, a great site that does not yet appear to have been mentioned on SLAW . . . [more]

[W]e’re writing these things that we can no longer read. And we’ve rendered something illegible. And we’ve lost the sense of what’s actually happening in this world that we’ve made.
Kevin Slavin, How algorithms shape our world, TEDGlobal (July 2011)

I finished my last post speculating that the business of law will be changed by programmers in the same way one might boil a frog. That is, it will happen slowly under the guise of software support for all of the decision making you have to do every day, and you’ll accept that support, incrementally, because you are a . . . [more]

Library and Archives Canada announced today that, to celebrate the 170th anniversary of the Canada Gazette (on October 2), the back issues of that publication have been made available and searchable online. There are four entry points to the database:

• Keyword Search
• Advanced Keyword Search
• Search the Consolidated Regulations of Canada
• Find an Issue

Issues published since 1998 have been available online for some time.

[hat tip: @richards1000] . . . [more]

The 7th edition of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation is over a year old already. In a normal world, the newness and newsworthiness of this book (commonly known as the McGill Guide) would have worn off. Still, whenever someone asks for assistance with citing materials, I find myself in need of ‘more’ information. What are you citing, cases, articles? For whom, an academic paper, an internal document, the courts?

A book review published in the 2011 Saskatchewan Law Review at Volume 74, page 275 tells me that I am not alone with struggling for the correct answer to . . . [more]