Satellite libraries, as the name suggests, are libraries that are adjuncts to a principal library. In law firms, they can vary in size from a bookcase in a hallway to a full-sized library. Satellite libraries may be in the same building as the central library, or they may in a different city or even country. They may or may not have library staff running them. Unstaffed satellite libraries present a greater challenge as they depend on articling students, receptionists, or secretarial staff to do such things as loose-leaf filing and reshelving books.

Why do satellite libraries exist? For satellite libraries . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

. . . [more]

The Royal Bank has advised us that several counterfeit Canadian dollar bank drafts have been negotiated by lawyers (4 in Ontario, 3 in Alberta and 1 in Quebec). These drafts are drawn on RBC transit 05142 003 and are payable to individual lawyers. The subject line on all 8 drafts indicates “Rowland Webster”. They are dated April 12 and 13, 2012, and are in the amount of $325,850. They indicate Royal Bank of Canada, Mississauga ON on the top left corner of the draft. RBC’s investigation indicated that these drafts were given to the lawyer as payment on a debt . . . [more]

I sometimes help clients wrestle back domain names and corporate social media accounts from disgruntled ex-employees or other unfriendly parties. All businesses and organizations should keep in mind that these are valuable assets. It is important that they are registered in the business name, and not that of an employee or service provider. 

And if use or control of those accounts resides in an employee who is about to become an ex-employee for whatever reason, make sure that control is passed back at the time the employee leaves.

Otherwise, the disgruntled person with control of those can lock you out, . . . [more]

Risk management has been a hot topic in the corporate community for about 10 years, springing mostly from scandals such as Enron, Worldcom and more recently the financial crisis of 2008. The devastation that these events wrought forced boards of directors to devote significant resources to managing risk and to keep abreast of what is happening in the world at large.

When one looks at law firms, we see that attention is paid to risk management only in the micro-sense; controls are put in place to prevent lawyers and staff from stealing trust funds, there are some controls over who . . . [more]

An interesting human rights case is making its way to the European Court of Human Rights where the British government is set to defend the right of employers to ban employees from wearing the cross at work as it is not a ‘requirement’ of the Christian faith

Every once in a while, someone in one of my classes asks, Aren’t there any tools for Legal Project Management?

(“Every once in a while” means every other session or thereabouts. It’s a common question.)

I answer this in three ways that I’ll share here.

“Tools” Does Not Mean Technology

First, “technology” is not a synonym for “tools.” It is at best one set of tools among many. To be specific, it is a minor set.

You can manage legal projects perfectly well without technology, and certainly without purpose-built “project management” technology. Lawyers Abe Lincoln and Clarence Darrow, for example, . . . [more]

The Supreme Court today released its decisions in the van Breda, Banro and Black cases. It dismissed all three appeals.

I want to look in particular at van Breda, which deals at length with jurisdiction simpliciter and with forum non conveniens, with a discussion of real and substantial connection and a sideways glace at enforcement of foreign judgments (not yet at issue in this case, of course.) The Court, per Justice Lebel, sets out the principles of private international law.

In particular the Court upholds the Ontario Court of Appeal’s refinement of the factors that indicate a . . . [more]

The College of Law Practice Management has just launched the 2012 InnovAction Awards.

The COLPM is looking for lawyers, law firms, and other deliverers of legal services who are engaged in some extraordinary innovative efforts.

Would your firm qualify or do you know of another firm or person that would deserve this prestigious award and the recognition it brings? Here are the Judging Criteria:

• Disruption: does this entry change an important element of the legal services process for the better, and marketplace expectations along with it?
• Value: is the client and/or legal industry better off because of

. . . [more]

From Gov’t of Canada Publications: “… the decision has been made to completely transition all publications published by the Publishing Program and publications provided by departments to the Depository Services Program from traditional print to exclusively electronic publication in two years. “ My first question is, does this include primary materials such as bills, gazettes and acts?

While we may have been expecting this transition to occur in the future, the question was always when does that future become the present? For now, that time looks like it is 2014, the question being is this the right time to make . . . [more]

This is another in a series of columns about developing a law library collection development policy for the new, digital information environment. In my last column, I looked at journals – what they are, how they’re produced and their respective markets. In this second part, I’ll look at how journals are used in legal research today in both practice and in law schools, their place in a contemporary law library collection, and possible policies for collecting them.

Journals vs Books

Journals are used differently than books. A legal treatise examines the many aspects of a single, relatively broad topic . . . [more]

I spent a portion of last week viewing things through 3D glasses. Today, I saw an article from the Daily Commercial News titled Loughborough University researchers in England work on 3-D printing app.

It’s not really printing, of course. But it works somewhat like the inkjet printers used in many homes and offices. In an inkjet, the printhead, containing black and coloured inks, moves back and forth across a sheet of paper. As it moves, tiny nozzles spray droplets of ink, forming printed words and pictures.

But it turns out that the “ink” can be many things.

There have . . . [more]