After the 2010 earthquake destroyed Haiti’s law libraries, the Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC), a non-profit cooperative of libraries, spearheaded the Haiti Legal Patrimony Project. 13 U.K., U.S., and German libraries contributed unique materials from their collections to help rebuild a collection of Haitian law online via the LLMC Digital database. Many of the 700+ titles on the master list (initially compiled from Law Library of Congress and Columbia University Law Library bibliographic data) have been digitized. The online collection comprises constitutions, statutes, codes, periodicals, and legal treatises. The Haiti Project is one of many digital law library initiatives. . . . [more]

on account of prosecutorial misconduct at trial. The prosecuting lawyers put “evidence” in front the jury that the judge had ruled inadmissible. When caught out, they suggested the jury be told to disregard that evidence. The trial judge was not impressed. (http://tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=371713)

There is to be a Sept 2 hearing to decide if there will be a new trial.

Canadian judges are somtimes equally unforgiving where prosecutorial misconduct is involved which results in the jury hearing inadmissible evidence – see R v. Kusk, 1999 ABCA 49 – even where Charter issues are not mentioned. . . . [more]

As those of you who’ve hopped in your bumper car on the brand new Google Plus ride will know, Google is working to bring many or most of its offerings onto one fairground. Plus, or + as Prince might have it, is a step in that direction, integrating Buzz, chat, Picassa, YouTube, News (aka Sparks), and the new microblogging platform, with presumably more to come. Perhaps as a way of getting us to think of all things Google as a unity, they’ve released a nonce device, called What do you love?. And interestingly, the front end is the simplest . . . [more]

I have recently returned to work after a maternity leave. Now I am struggling with how to get back up to speed on all things legal research-related. Despite my best intentions, I was unable to stay on top of Slaw posts or Supreme Court decisions while at home. Now I am constantly second-guessing my research, worried that I have missed some new resource or decision. On the plus side, I am pleasantly surprised when I discover ‘new’ features on my favourite websites and online databases; of course, I have no idea how long they’ve been there, or what other ones . . . [more]

This is the first of a series of posts that were prepared as the sequel to a request by Professor Daniel Poulin to explain the character and purpose of “Halsburys” and the “C.E.D.” to his seminar on legal information at the University of Montreal. The first post is a generic description of the Halsburys Model and will be followed by posts on Halsburys Laws of Canada, the Canadian Encyclopedic Digests, and the Juris Classeur Quebec, three publications of the same ilk or genre that are designed to provide legal researchers with “a complete statement” of the laws of Canada, the . . . [more]

New tool allowing you to find out if your email address was stolen in a hacker breach. The online tool is called HackNotifier.

[ français / English ]

Depuis mon retour dans le milieu de la justice en 2005, j’ai entendu à maintes reprises bâtonniers, ministres de la justice, juges en chef, professeurs d’université et tutti quanti dire que leur priorité est l’accès à la justice pour tous ! Comment ne pas être d’accord ? C’est un des principes fondamentaux de nos sociétés libres et démocratiques. 

Un autre de ces principes est « nul ne peut ignorer la loi » : on impose comme obligation à tous de connaître toutes les règles qui gouvernent notre société. L’accès à la justice, c’est aussi ça  . . . [more]

Tories kill access to information database

Tories to create government-run media centre: report

What’s the adage about being careful what one wishes for lest one get it? . . . [more]

Thank you for the kind welcome Simon. I’ve just returned fresh from a research leave where amongst other things I investigated the challenges and possibilities around creating a Canadian subject based research tool that does for Canadian Journals what the wonderful Current Index to Legal Periodicals does for US journals. I hope to talk a bit more about this project in a future entry.

In the meantime, along with many SLAW readers and contributors I have been missing the excellent Current Law Journal Content service offered by the Washington and Lee Law Lbrary. Simon has recently written about CLJC here . . . [more]

As I grow older and crabbier, I attend fewer conferences. Seeing old friends is a treat, but the standard meeting format that is built around a parade of speakers, many of whom are not natural communicators, and many of whom do not understand the inner soul of using PowerPoint, holds less and less appeal for me. But on June 16, 2011, The Future of Law Libraries Conference at the Harvard Law School gave me new hope. John Palfrey and his staff, with special nods to Meg Kribble, put on a stimulating, provocative and, well, classy event. The legal information situation . . . [more]

A few months ago on SLAW I mentioned the ebook initiative by LexisNexis Canada for three of their court rules / legislative services.

They have now added a fourth title, being the Canadian Federal Courts Practice 2012 (Hughes, Renaud and Horne).

The books are published in epub format and can be read in a variety of readers. Purchasers of the print version get the ebook version included as part of their purchase.

Since lawyers seem to increasingly be using the iPad and other larger screen tablet devices, I think it is useful that publishers are experimenting with ebook versions of . . . [more]

It appears that SLAW has not yet mentioned what appears to be a very useful and reasonably priced current awareness and case law service in Manitoba: Cite-on-Site Publications.

The site is run by Manitoba lawyer Brad Brooks and offers current awareness newsletters with case law summaries for the following 5 topics of Manitoba law: civil, criminal, family, first nations and municipal. Annual pricing seems extremely reasonable, with a range from $20 per year for the municipal service and $100 per year for the First Nations service, with the other services falling in between those ranges. Sample newsletters are provide . . . [more]