Let me throw some controversy into your world today.

When I speak to groups about innovation in legal services the topic that always hits a raw nerve is the subject of office space. Next to personnel costs, office space is one of the largest fixed costs of any business, including law firms. However, much like the weather, every lawyer talks about it, but no one does anything about it.

It is a space planning rule of thumb that law firms need between 600 – 1,000 square feet of space per lawyer. Think of the savings if that number could be . . . [more]

we frequently refer to Bill such-and-such years after the Bill has been passed and has become an Act. In the last decade, people tend not to distinguish between a Bill, which has not become law, and an Act, which has.

How do you best deliver bad news?

A recent article in Salon describes the difficulty some doctors have in delivering bad news to their patients. No news a lawyer or project manager delivers will ever match what doctors occasionally have to impart, so how hard can it be, right?

Of course, it can still be extremely difficult to deliver unglad tidings.

The opening couplet of Doug’s Divorce by the brilliant band Uncle Bonsai puts the dilemma thus: “Do you like to pull the Band-Aid quick or slow? / Do you like to be the first or last to know?”

Quick . . . [more]

The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 is seeking comments on a newly released Issues Paper entitled “Issues Paper Concerning Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5 and the Limits on Virtual Presence in a Jurisdiction.” They are seeking comments to assist their consideration of the issues that come up when lawyers establish a presence and practice virtually in a jurisdiction that is away from their physical location. Responses are requested by July 31, 2012. See the above link for instructions on where to send them.

Remote virtual practices raise all sorts of interesting questions:

• How do you ensure the

. . . [more]

The Copyright Board of Canada and the various tariffs that it certifies rarely attract media attention. But a tariff recently certified received coverage by most major media outlets. That tariff, mandating payments for playing recorded music in weddings and other events for the years 2008-2012, will be collected by Re:Sound, a private organization representing record companies and performing musicians. If the events include dancing, the fee is double. This unusual media attention, often describing the fees as a “wedding tax” or “dancing tax”, is not surprising because it reflects how undemocratic some aspects of Canada’s copyright system have become. . . . [more]

Slaw is proud to announce the institution of a new group of columnists who will write on the topic of intellectual property. The IP group joins the eight groups currently writing on specific topics.

The IP group includes:

Paula Bremner – Sim, Lowman, Ashton & Mckay LLP – Paula specializes in pharmaceutical patent litigation and also has significant experience in trade-mark opposition matters.

Lorraine Fleck – Hoffer Adler LLP – Lorraine is a lawyer and registered trade-mark agent and she founded and maintains her own blog, IP Address Blog which publishes Canadian intellectual property and technology law news and commentary. . . . [more]

Microsoft held a press event on Monday to reveal its new line of tablets it has branded “Surface“. They announced 2 models – both built and sold by Microsoft. The first has an ARM chip, runs the RT version of Windows 8, and is meant as a competitor to the iPad. The second model is an ultraportable computer in tablet form. This second model will be an interesting test. Apple is adamant that tablets and notebooks should be totally different. Microsoft thinks not.

These tablets have a built in stand, and a cover that opens up to a . . . [more]

A perennial challenge for lawyers is managing client communication. E-mail remains a cornerstone of lawyer interaction with clients and colleagues but it requires constant tending. You can use cloud-based tools to help you to automate some of your e-mail management. When a new e-mail hits your inbox, slap a label on it and archive a copy of the e-mail to your online file storage service.

One way this is possible is with a service that has already been mentioned on Slaw called If That Then This (IFTTT). In the Year of Coding, it seems a fitting name for a . . . [more]

While this debate has already spanned many years now, this past week alone, the topic of assisted-suicide in Canada has been explored once more with the BC ruling discussed in this blog posting.

At this very moment, in the UK, this very same debate is ongoing, as the high court in London is currently hearing a case on assisted dying. Mr. Tony Nicklinson, who has suffered from locked-in syndrome since 2005, and his lawyer are arguing that the common law defence of necessity should be extended to doctors who assist individuals in cases of assisted suicide. At the moment, . . . [more]

Connie called out people working in knowledge management in Canada to start sharing. I decided to take up the challenge by sharing a tool from the Field Law arsenal of groovy things that the library shares.

Follow this link to a checklist for noting up administrative law materials.

The checklist is part of the materials that are shared with students attending the Edmonton Law Libraries Association Head Start program, which starts on Thursday, June 22, 2012. The program turns 10 this year and all of the organizers are thrilled that our annual event continues to provide articling students with . . . [more]

Listening to law librarians at their recent annual meetings, it is apparent that online services are now seen in the same light as loose-leaf services. Both are sources of increasing consumer frustration that is triggering the cancellation of services that were once seen as essential to the practice of law.

The fall from grace

In their prime, online services and loose-leaf services were each seen as the panacea for all that was wrong in the world of legal research. Given the inflated expectations as to what each format could deliver, a fall from grace was inevitable.

It is hard to . . . [more]

In the very entertaining decision of Ugovsek v. City of Toronto et al which was released last week, Master Haberman provided a lesson on how, and how not, to resolve a lawsuit.

The plaintiff, Ugovsek, slipped and fell on a piece of land in 2008. Having difficulty determining who was responsible for the piece of land in question, Ugovsek named the City of Toronto and others as defendants. By 2011 Ugovsek had determined that the non-City defendants (which I will refer to simply as the defendants) bore no responsibility and proposed to release the defendants from the lawsuit without costs. . . . [more]