In 2014 I wrote a column about researching Native American Law. In it I discussed the controversy over sports teams whose names and mascots were perceived as being derogatory and racist. The most egregious of these names was that of the Washington Redskins football team. In 2013 their owner, Dan Snyder told USA Today that “We’ll never change the name.” “NEVER – you can use caps.” To read more about the history of opposition to the name see this Wikipedia entry.

In 2020 never is now. The US is roiling with protests against systemic racism and its symbols. In . . . [more]

I have been thinking about writing lately. There are so many reasons why people write and so much it can give them and the community, so I thought I would share a bit here about why I write and give some suggestions on why you might want to write too.

When I started writing for publication in about 2010, I wrote about issues that mattered to me professionally (You can read some of these early pieces here). This started because I found that I had things I wanted to say and talked about it when I went out . . . [more]

Executive orders are in the headlines again. As every child in the US is taught in school, the federal government is made up of three branches, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary. This arrangement was designed as part of an intricate system of checks and balances intended to avoid giving too much power to any part of the government. In recent years there has been much debate over the limits of executive orders, particularly those executive orders relating to immigration, and this debate has been brought to the fore in recent weeks because of executive orders signed by the . . . [more]

There continues to be extensive discussion about artificial intelligence and law, and concerns are regularly raised about the ethical and moral issues this presents, so I was happy when Marcelo Rodríguez invited me to be on a panel at the American Association of Law Libraries Conference on “Legal Ethics in the Use of Artificial Intelligence” with Kristin Johnson, Steven Lastres, and with Kim Nayyer moderating this year. Here’s the session description:

There is a pressing need for both innovators creating the datasets as well as users such as law librarians and attorneys to be aware of the ethical implications of . . . [more]

In this post, I would like to highlight the barriers to accessing legal information and ways we can help remove them.

Let’s begin by clarifying the difference between accessibility and availability. Material is accessible when barriers to the content are removed and they can be used by as many people as possible, these barriers can take several forms such as financial or technical limits to access. Material is available when people can easily use it, because it is free of legal and policy restrictions.

A legal document can be accessible, but not available. For example, a member of the public . . . [more]

A month ago, I introduced Lexum’s first step in providing Knowledge Management as a Service (KMaaS) via Lexbox. This development has made it possible for Lexbox users to start searching their own documents alongside the public legal information made available on the CanLII website. This post covers the upcoming release of the second feature tied to that approach. In a few weeks Lexum will integrate its citator to Lexbox, automating the linking of legal citations included in the body of documents submitted by users to the corresponding cases and legislation on CanLII.

The idea of enabling users to auto-link their . . . [more]

For Academic Law Librarians, June and July are the conference season. Many law schools don’t have summer classes, and so what would otherwise be a slow part of the year ends up turbocharged with preparing presentations, finalizing travel arrangements, and taking care of other professional development. This summer, of course, most of us will not be attending any conferences in person. The silver lining is that I’ve been able to attend conferences I would not necessarily have been able to attend in person, such as the CALL/ACBD (Canadian Association of Law Libraries/L’Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit) conference, the LLNE . . . [more]

As we continue to develop CanLII as a content platform and start to work more on developing original content, I have been thinking about the tension between platforms which gain value from lots of content, and organizations that create content as their primary value proposition.

The observation may be trite, but to illustrate my point using more general examples, Google and Facebook are examples of platforms that gain from having additional volume while devaluing each individual piece of content. Newspapers and magazines provide value primarily through the content they create.

In legal information we have analogous organizations with similar . . . [more]

We citizens in DC have been subjected to too much sad news and desolation due to the coronavirus and the violent federal response to a peaceful demonstration against police brutality. These peaceful demonstrations are continuing throughout the United States.  

I was very happy that on June 15th the Supreme Court of the US decided that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from firing employees for being lesbian, homosexual, bisexual or transgender. Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia was a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

On page nine of the opinion he states that: Title . . . [more]

Ever since Washington, DC, shut down two months ago, I have been inundated with offers of free Zoom webinars and all sorts of interesting virtual meetings. I will attempt to point out some of the more relevant and interesting information that has come to me, with a focus on legal information sources and a bit of personal enrichment.

My friends at the Law Library of Congress have continued to update Congress.gov and provide legal research support through their Ask a Librarian service. The main Library of Congress webpage leads you to a treasure trove of digital resources including the World . . . [more]

Hosting a conference in a hotel, doing an escape room with your colleagues, inviting guest speakers to your class, joining a sports team, cooking dinner for friends, these are all great activities for building community. But how do we translate that to an online environment during a time of social distancing? What do we lose or gain?

As I write this in self-isolation, I’m reminded of the importance of community building. I’m inspired by how people are cheering outside their balconies at the same time every night in support of healthcare workers, putting drawings of rainbows on their windows for . . . [more]

We are living in unusual times. While some of us are battling illness, overwork, or the exuberance of nearby small children, others are finding ourselves with more self-directed time than usual. If you are seeking some direction for your work, here are some ideas for research challenges or organizational methods so that you can learn something or organize something to make your future work life easier. They’re arranged according to the approximate time they’ll take: very short tasks, tasks for an hour or so, and multi-hour tasks.

Organizational tasks for five minutes or less:

Organize your inbox. For almost everyone, . . . [more]