Dean Beeby, “Justice Canada Chops Research Budget by $1.2 Million” (May 12, 2014) Globe and Mail online.

This report solidifies what librarians and critics of this government’s approach to evidence, information, data and research have been decrying since the discontinuation of the long-form census; information and data is to be manipulated so as to support the government’s political agenda.

“Previous legal research in the department sometimes caught senior officials “off-guard … and may even have run contrary to government direction,” says an internal report for deputy minister William Pentney.”

Some past projects have “at times left the impression that . . . [more]

The media was abuzz last week over the Chief Justice and Prime Minister’s interactions with respect to the Justice Nadon appointment issue.

The controversy is taking away from what I think should be the bigger issue.

Quebec has a constitutional right to have three appointed members of the Supreme Court of Canada. That is the undisputed effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6. Yet despite this constitutional right, there has now been a vacancy in Quebec’s representation on the Court for over eight months. 

The unexpected twists from the Nadon . . . [more]

Last year my oldest daughter worked in an office supply store. She has a remarkable gift for the retail concept of up-selling and because her store was across the street from my office, I was frequently a target customer. One of the items I purchased was a Kobo eReader (on sale, plus the employee family discount – a deal). For some time I had been wanting to experiment to see if providing a device loaded with firm owned eBooks was a workable concept.

The Kobo became the property of my law firm library and it holds a selection of ABA . . . [more]

Speaking of media neutrality … a US judge has ruled that a search warrant served on Microsoft in the US required the company to divulge records stored on servers outside the US. An account of the decision is here.

The company argued that the court could authorize a search only of premises within the territory of the court’s jurisdiction. The court held that a search warrant that applied to electronic records was in the nature of a subpoena as well as a search warrant. Since MS had control of the documents, it had to turn them over.

Does this . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology

Use High Dynamic Range or HDR for Better Pictures on Your Smartphone
Dan Pinnington

Most smartphones now have an option called HDR, which is short for High Dynamic Range. When you take a picture in HDR, your smartphone camera actually shoots three pictures at three different exposures. Your phone then combines these photos to create one composite image that will be sharper and have more vivid colours. . . . . . [more]

I live in Whitehorse, Yukon — Canada’s “top left hand corner”. Recently I was in Toronto on a business trip. When making the travel arrangements, I scheduled my departure for 24 hours after the end of my meetings so I could hook up with a few of the people I know in that great city. So, instead of departing Toronto late on a Friday afternoon and being back in Whitehorse that evening, I left on Saturday afternoon leaving the enjoyment of 7 hours of flying time to a Saturday night. This 24 hours, I thought, would give me plenty of . . . [more]

Many law firms manage their trust and regular bank accounts on the Internet, and some firms have the ability to initiate various banking transactions online, including account transfers and wiring funds. While the convenience and efficiency of online banking are huge benefits, the downside is that online banking exposes you to security risks. The steps outlined below will help law firms to understand, address and reduce online banking risks – for both your firm and personal accounts.

Know and understand the terms of your banking agreements: As a starting point, carefully read your bank account and electronic banking services agreements. . . . [more]

One promising metadata project dealing with the legal domain is URN:Lex (A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for Sources of Law (LEX). A proposal was submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) back in 2010 and was the product of a number of groups. The Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques of the Italian National Research Council led the charge and the initiative also involved Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.

“The purpose of the “lex” namespace is to assign an unequivocal identifier, in standard format, to documents that are sources of law. The identifier is conceived so that

The Canadian Bar Association, including 11 former presidents of the CBA, last week came to the support of the Chief Justice of Canada following recent claims by the Prime Minister that the Chief Justice attempted inappropriate conversations with him in 2013.

Among other media appearances, a statement was published in the Globe and Mail on Tuesday. From the statement:

The recent comments by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, claiming that the Chief Justice of Canada attempted an inappropriate conversation with him, demonstrate a disrespect by the executive branch for the judicial branch of our constitutional democracy, and for the Chief

Do you want a sure-fire way to predict when something is going to go terribly wrong? I do. There is a way but it’s not a crystal ball or Ouija board. The answer is in Forbes contributor Paul B. Brown’s article… The One Sign Something Is About To Go Wrong… And What You Can Do Before It Does. The legal profession is changing rapidly, and the ability to spot and adapt to these changes is invaluable.

Brown was asked for a formula to predict success…

While I haven’t found a foolproof formula to predict success, I know I have

Slaw has been a great source of information about a wide variety of creative initiatives to address the need to improve access to justice and bridge the implementation gap. I believe we need to proceed on at least two tracks simultaneously:

• seeking out and learning from new and existing initiatives around the world and
• stepping back to create and experiment with brand new things

My last post on the Social Lab approach encourages this two track approach by encouraging deep research and by creating a “container” within which a variety of different initiatives can be designed, tested, tried, modified in . . . [more]