It remains a continuing problem as to how to destroy digital data. In some instances one may have to destroy the storage medium itself.

Lately the Florida State Bar published a proposed advisory ethics opinion to the effect that lawyers have an obligation to ensure that confidential data — personal information but also client data generally — must be effectively erased from any storage medium before that medium is disposed of. This extends beyond computer drives to cell phones, digital fax machines and copiers (which have memories that keep the data), and even to third-party service providers’ equipment. The opinion . . . [more]

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Slaw.

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The New York State Bar Association has decided that it is ethical for lawyers to gather information on adverse parties in litigation from publicly accessible social media pages of those parties. Lawyers are not allowed to ‘friend’ the adverse parties, or have anyone else do so. (This is consistent with the Philadelphia Bar opinion from last year.)

A story about the Philadelphia Bar view is here (the Bar’s own site is currently down for maintenance).

Here’s how the press characterized the NY State ruling: “Lawyers may comb social media for dirt”. Does that strike you as fair?

What would we . . . [more]

We’re very pleased to announce that Jack Newton is joining Slaw as a regular contributor.

Jack is the co-founder and President of Clio, an important provider of cloud-based practice management software. He writes and speaks frequently about the security, ethical, and practical aspects of cloud computing and how practice management systems can be used to help lawyers practice efficiently.

If you’d like to see Jack in action, take a look at a video of an interview he gave at the ABA TechShow in 2009, where Clio was awarded “Best in Show.” Or listen to him on a Legal IT . . . [more]

May we draw your attention to the fact that Slaw book reviews are now published as columns. This means that on the main page they will show up along with other columns in the sidebar to your left. As with other columns, of course, they can be read in full by clicking on the “more” link beneath the main page excerpt.

We have done this so that book reviews can remain on our home page somewhat longer than would be the case if they stayed as blog posts. As you will doubtless appreciate, writing a book review requires a good . . . [more]

As we said last year on the first Monday in August:

Slaw will be quieter than usual today: it’s the August civic holiday here in most of Canada, which, as befits our particular federation, goes by various names across the land —

Alberta (Heritage Day)
British Columbia (British Columbia Day)
Manitoba (Civic Holiday)
New Brunswick (New Brunswick Day)
Northwest Territories (Civic Holiday)
Nova Scotia (Natal Day)
Nunavut (Civic Holiday)
Ontario (John Galt Day + Simcoe Day + others)
Prince Edward Island (Natal Day)
Saskatchewan (Saskatchewan Day)

[source: Wikipedia]

– or is not celebrated at all, as in Newfoundland & Labrador, . . . [more]

We pause to salute Mr Tech Tips, Dan Pinnington, whose eminently practical post takes Slaw to its six thousandth post.

From Simon’s initial post on July 8, 2005, let’s look back at what happened on July 20 each year. Start with Connie on corporate filing services, then to Heather Acton’s post on O’Brien’s forms four years ago, Ted Tjaden on the Simpsons and Legal Research, Agnes in 2008 on Animal Law, Gary on how lawyers can help feed the hungry a year ago, this has been an eclectic ramble to say the least.

Thanks . . . [more]

A member of the Uniform Law Conference – Electronic Commerce (ULC-ECOMM) email list points out that the electronic version of the Ontario Reports is announced by an email to members with a link to the latest edition and that states:

This communication is intended for use by the individual(s) to whom it is specifically addressed and should not be read by, or delivered to, any other person. Such communication may contain privileged or confidential information.

He asks, given that the material in the ORs is all likely available on library shelves or elsewhere: “Does this make any sense?”

Presumably the . . . [more]

The Court of Appeal for England and Wales has recently decided, in Flood v Times Newspapers Ltd [2010] EWCA Civ 804 that the ‘responsible journalism in the public interest’ defence to defamation requires that an online archive of a story must be updated to take account of exculpatory developments.

Since the Canadian version of that defence (‘public interest responsible communication’) expressly applies to blogs and other non-mainstream-media publications, will bloggers have to update their stories too? Will they have to go back and amend or annotate the original posting? Does the usual blogging software allow for that?

(In Flood, . . . [more]

Please welcome Jean-Marc Leclerc, our newest occasional contributor here at Slaw.

Jean-Marc is a partner in the litigation department of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Toronto. He practices in class action, antitrust and white collar crime litigation. He has also taught appellate advocacy at Queen’s University, where he received his LL.B. in 1999. From 1999­-2001, he was a law clerk at the Federal Court of Appeal for Justice Sexton and at the Supreme Court of Canada for Justice Major.

He is also a member of the Pro Bono Law Ontario Child Advocacy Project and Advocates’ Society Court of Appeal . . . [more]

The Utah Supreme Court this week held that electronic signatures gathered through a web site were valid signatures for the purpose of nominating a person to run for elected office: Anderson v Bell 2010 UT 47 June 22, 2010.

To run for governor in Utah, one needs a nomination document signed by one thousand people. The would-be candidate submitted a nomination form with a combination of hand-written and electronic signatures, the latter appearing on the form only as a list of typewritten names. The state election authority refused to accept the electronic signatures, thus reducing the number of signatures to . . . [more]