Marketing of philanthropic activities is not a new concept and now appears to be the norm for most law firms with their involvement in various charitable campaigns, fundraising events and pro bono work. What is surprising is the low profile these activities have on law firm websites and the lack of a consistent approach within the profession. An informal survey of 15 large to mid-size law firm websites found Corporate Responsibility under the following sections:

• “About Us” section – 10 sites
• “Student Recruitment” section – 4 sites
• “Home Page” – 1 site had a direct link on its home page

SUBJECT: Distribution of Hard Copies of Senate
Publications – Phase II

On may 26, 2010, following a proposal adopted by the standing committee on internal economy, budgets and administration, the distribution of hard copies of the senate order paper, journals and debates was eliminated within the parliamentary precinct.

This venture reinforced environmental stewardship by reducing paper printing and followed up on the Senate Administration’s strategic review of expenditures.

On December 9, 2010, the Internal Economy Committee adopted Phase II of the paper reduction exercise which will further assist in this venture.

Effective immediately, the printing and distribution of all Senate

The Beef Cattle Marketing Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. B.5, s. 3, provides:

3(1) Except under the authority of a licence, no person shall sell cattle.

(2) Every person who sells cattle shall be deemed to be the holder of a licence.

This technique certainly cuts down on unnecessary paper work!

I did not find this; a colleague directed me to it. He described it as “the best tautological statutory provision” that he had seen. . . . [more]

Every so often — it seems to happen as Spring approaches — I ask your indulgence as I leave the law track to wander off to some shiny thing or other that pleases me so much that I need to write about it on Slaw. I ask it now, in order to point you to a pair of developments at Google that might just please you while you wait impatiently for Winter to end.

If you enjoy food, you may cook. And if you cook, you may occasionally want to glance at a recipe. It used to be that you’d . . . [more]

A frequent posting on the Canadian Association of Law Libraries listserv (CALL-L) is a request for an English translation of a Canadian court decision written in French, typically from a Quebec court.

Although the CALL-L Archives contains some of the information that follows, it does not contain all of this information. In addition, responses in the Archives are not accessible by non-subscribers and hence are not indexed by Internet search engines. As such, my goal with this post — with the help of any SLAW readers adding additional information or clarifications in the Comments section below — is to update . . . [more]

Software developer Aji has just released a new version of iAnnotate with some feature upgrades that will please lawyers who’ve given up reading printouts of cases but crave an active electronic reading experience. Here’s Aji says about version 1.4:

Version 1.4 adds: Typewriter annotations, thickness and transparency for drawing annotations (including a “free-form” highlighter), and ability to view many other types of PDF annotations created in other tools. The ability to save web pages as vector (fully-searchable, highlightable) PDF files. The ability to import Word and PowerPoint files as vector PDF. Single-page mode option including swipe, slide, and tap to

This post concludes with the last two draft recommendations of the CCCT IntellAction Working Group on Court Web Site Guidelines:

• Site Features – Keep It Simple
• Publication of information – Make It Simple

The previous draft recommendations can be found here:

• Court Web Site: Use a Web Content Management System
• Court Intranets: Use the same Web Content Management System
• Recommended content of court web sites
• Search, Navigation & Taxonomies – Keep It Simple

Grateful for any comments and suggestions that you may have – merci! . . . [more]

Now that 2010 has come to a close and the ink is dry on the flurry of year end deals, many of us can now sit back . . . draw in a long, deep breath . . . relax . . . and start to focus our vision on the opportunities that lie ahead for 2011. What would the start of a new year be without some predictions on the future of business process outsourcings (BPO). Here’s some of our projections for 2011: 

Importance of Cost Reduction – Cutting Measures 

The debates continues as to whether or not we . . . [more]

One of the tasks a law librarian might carry out is legislation monitoring. At the Field Libraries we keep a detailed spreadsheet of which bills lawyers or clients may want status updates for, we monitor legislation from any jurisdiction and we email interested parties whenever there is a status change for a bill. We also watch for regulations, proclamations, government news releases and other published legislation hints. It is one of those tasks that is best carried out by a small organized team so that only the relevant information is disseminated to the many. I confess to a geeky interest . . . [more]

We learn last week that the Cornish pasty is safe at last from plain pasties passing themselves off as being from Cornwall, thanks to a decision by the European Union to give that delicacy Protected Geographical Indication status. In this it joins 19 other UK products and over a thousand from elsewhere in Europe protected by GI (“geographical indication”), DO (“designation of origin”), or TSG (“traditional speciality guaranteed”) status under European law.

There’s a designation database available online that you can search or browse by country, product and protection type.

A very few non-European nations can be found in the . . . [more]

Once law reform on the topic of electronic communications had dealt with first-level issues like how to satisfy writing requirements or signature requirements electronically, people started paying attention to harder questions. One of these was how to meet a requirement that a document must be transmitted or stored as an original. 

The approach to such questions at the  United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), which has tended to lead world thinking on the subject, is to seek a ‘functional equivalent’ of what satisfies the requirement on paper. What is the function or policy purpose served by the requirement, . . . [more]

The Canadian Bar Association has released a discussion paper by Ottawa law prof Adam Dodek, “Solicitor-Client Privilege in Canada, Challenges for the 21st Century” [PDF]. Although, as Professor Dodek says, the privilege has evolved into a “quasi-constitutional right,” its future is far from clear or, indeed, secure. From the conclusion to the 50-page paper:

As the CBA’s interventions with governments demonstrate, legislative intrusions on the Privilege are frequent, possibly more so. We live in an increasingly globalized legal world and Canadian law on the Privilege differs in significant respects from other jurisdictions which are important both in terms