One of the satisfying moments that recurred regularly in Star Trek, the Next Generation, was Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s simple executive gesture and the words, “Make it so.” A lot of magic thinking was bound up with that. The United States Supreme Court, however, has recently told attorneys that no such wishful assertion can be as effective, at least in the universe where human laws intersect with the laws of nature.

Two days ago the court released the decision in Mayo Collaborative Services et al. v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. No. 10–1150. The following is from the headnote:

Although “laws of

What constitutes alumni at a law firm? Does your firm have a program? Is it inclusive or exclusive? Should your firm develop an alumni program?

This is one of the few area’s in the practice of law where when asked “what are other firms doing” there is very little consistency. Some firms offer use of office space, have on-line portals that include useful materials or simply offer an annual receptions. Others would prefer that their alumni never existed.

There are a number of dividends to building an alumni program including:

• Goodwill. Those who have left will have another reason to

The issue of corporate or government employers asking for social media login ID’s and passwords for job seekers has reared its head again. See this CBC article entitled U.S. job seekers get asked for Facebook passwords. And see this article I wrote a year ago on the subject. This is wrong on so many levels that it is hard to believe anyone would ask for that. 

It is not unusual for employers to look at what job applicants are posting on publicly accessible areas of facebook and twitter. We can debate what influence that should have on the hiring . . . [more]

Machine-Assisted Review

Let’s start with a very hot if not very sexy topic. You may have heard of new technology called predictive coding or technology-assisted review. Recently, we’ve seen the phrase “machine-assisted” review a lot. They are all the same thing. A rose is a rose is a rose, but we have not yet settled on a name for this nascent technology.

The way most lawyers engage in traditional keyword searches is, as others have suggested, the equivalent of “Go Fish.” The requesting lawyer makes his best guess about which keywords might produce relevant evidence without having much knowledge of . . . [more]

Earlier this month, I published an article in the Montreal Gazette regarding my departure from private practice (at Norton Rose Canada) and my move to an in-house counsel position and the legal ramifications involved therewith. This post is an abridged (inproved?) version of the full article, which can be found here.

As an employment and labour lawyer, I was very conscious of wanting to do the “right” and legal thing in accepting the offer from my new employer and letting my firm know that I was leaving. Legal issues aside, I loved where I worked and wanted to treat . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of March 14 – 20.

♨ 1. Romspen Investment Corp. v. 6176666 Canada Ltée. 2012 ONSC 1727

[1] I suppose that on a sunny, unusually warm, mid-March day one should be mellow and accept, without complaint, the systemic failures and delay of this Court’s document management system. The problem is that from the perspective of the members of the public who use this Court, delays caused by our antiquated, wholly-inadequate document management system impose unnecessary, but all too real, costs on them. And yet the entity that operates

The following is based on an article that appeared in the January 2012 edition of LAWPRO Magazine. While the details of the insurance coverage discussed in the article are specific to LAWPRO insureds, the issues highlighted in the article apply to all lawyers. Lawyers outside Ontario should check with their own insurance providers about what is covered under their policies.

Lawyer mobility is now taken for granted: The days of spending one’s whole career in a single practice setting are long gone. Consider these scenarios:

Scenario one: A lawyer previously in practice elsewhere joins a new firm. A claim . . . [more]

Last week Mary Abraham (Above and Beyond KM) asked What’s the Right Question for a Better Answer? Mary’s thought provoking post discussed an experience with preparing questions to get expert advice and realizing that the questions could shape the answer, limit the conversation, and possibly lead to an undesired or lengthy outcome.

By setting out the questions beforehand, I had limited the range of answers and set up false boundaries for our conversation.

I filter Mary’s post with my legal research goggles on. From the librarian perspective, we know to ask open ended questions, identify what the researcher has already . . . [more]

With the launch of Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton’s inquiry into the “Involvement of Foreign Foundations in Canada’s Domestic Affairs”, increased scrutiny is being focused on the activities of Canada’s charitable environmental groups. In particular, is participating in public consultations, or encouraging others to do so, a political activity forbidden to charities?

The Conservatives have expressed concern about foreign foundations making donations to Canadian charities to influence Canadian law and policy, and whether this puts undue obstacles in the way of major Canadian energy projects. This was apparently triggered by frustration at the large number of registered interveners in the Enbridge . . . [more]

[ UPDATE (March 19, 5 pm): As you will see from the comment below from Colin Lachance, the judgment has now been restored. So far as I can determine, no element of the court’s criticism has been altered. ]

Slaw has learned that the judgment of Justice David Brown in Romspen Investment Corp. v. 617666 Canada Ltd 2012 ONSC 1727 has been withdrawn from all publishers’ electronic databases pursuant to the request of the court administration. The request said that the decision had been “sent to publication in error,” and asked that publishers “remove [it] from your records and destroy . . . [more]

Last week I wrote on The High Cost of Cloud Computing Due Diligence, and asked readers what thoughts they had on how the burden of cloud computing due diligence could be reduced.

In his post on The Myth of Due Diligence, David Whelan questions the assumption that we should apply more strict due diligence requirements to the cloud than to traditional desktop-based software:

If due diligence is called for – and something is, whether it needs that name or not – then it should apply equally to the wireless routers, operating systems, and locally installed software within law

In my post here on 19 September, I railed on about the fork in the road of advocacy – one towards mediation, the other towards traditional court advocacy. I said, “Court advocacy is to mediation advocacy, as tennis is to cage fighting. Without an umpire.” My theme: although there is some overlap of skills, the two are sufficiently different that the advocate should concentrate his or her practice on one or the other.

In the Spring 2012 Advocates’ Journal there is an article by the Chief Justice of Ontario which lays bare the differences between court and mediation advocacy . . . [more]