It was big news in late August when Microsoft said that users who enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for their accounts will end up blocking 99.9% of automated attacks. This doesn’t apply just to Microsoft accounts. It applies to any other account on any website or online service.

Today, virtually all service providers support multi-factor authentication, and in most cases, there is no charge. It can be something as simple as SMS-based one-time passwords or advanced biometrics solutions.

“Based on our studies, your account is more than 99.9% less likely to be compromised if you use MFA,” said Alex Weinert, Group . . . [more]

On March 20, 2918, I received an email message about Legal Aid Ontario’s (LAO’s) increases in financial eligibility for legal services.[1] But the majority of the taxpayers who fund Legal Aid Ontario, cannot afford legal services for themselves (except for very routine, simple legal services). Any legal service that takes any significant amount of a lawyer’s time is unaffordable to that majority of the population. And so, the majority of lawyers is short of clients.

Legal Aid’s funding is indeed very poor (see the tables of figures in that email message). In R. v. Moodie, 2016 ONSC 3469, . . . [more]

I recently visited with a friend in my hometown in Lethbridge, Alberta who is struggling with an incurable cancer. He was suffers from pain, confusion, and despair. He loves his life and his family and is sad to think about dying.

I asked about his future medical plans and his wife proudly declared, “we’ve been to the lawyer and filled out those forms” — suggesting that nothing more needed to be done. But can a form filled out in a lawyer’s office really ensure that you get the medical care that’s right for you?

I asked my friend’s wife for . . . [more]

In 2010, when the American Association of Law Libraries inducted 78 law librarians in its inaugural Hall of Fame, I noted in a Slaw article that eight of them had made major contributions to the profession of foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) librarianship. And I wondered what criteria could there be for induction into an International Law Librarians Hall of Fame, and who would be initial inductees. Jolande Goldberg was on that list, and she was inducted into the 2019 AALL Hall of Fame this past July. It’s been almost 10 years, so I thought I’d revisit my list. . . . [more]

On May 17, 2019, Canada and the United States agreed to remove reciprocal trade restrictions on steel and aluminum – the U.S. “national security” tariffs and Canada’s countermeasures. In Canada, the removal of the U.S. Section 232 tariffs without the maintenance of residual quotas or export restrictions (the initial U.S. condition) was considered an important “win.” While Canada did succeed in this regard, it did agree to “snap back” provisions; the tariffs can be re-introduced on a product-by-product basis in the event of a “surge” of imports of steel and aluminum beyond historic levels due to imports from third countries. . . . [more]

Social media are everywhere that the Internet is. As comprehensive methods of communication, they are naturally attractive to those with things to communicate: advertisers, proselytizers and politicians. This column examines the status of social media use by the latter class, and in particular, the degree to which they can control their use once they start.

We have looked previously (if briefly) at whether politicians’ use of social media turns their communications (in whatever form) into “official documents” for purposes of laws governing public records, like archival responsibility, privacy rules and subjection to access to information requests. There is a smattering . . . [more]

On June 17, 2019, Canada overhauled its trademark regime, allowing Canada to accede to three treaties standardizing our trademark system with some our of global trade partners. The Singapore Treaty, the Madrid Protocol and the Nice Agreement, relate to categorizing trademarks by the type of goods and services and allow a process akin to a ‘global trademark’.

The changes, made through amendments to the Trademarks Act (including renaming it from the Trade-marks Act to the Trademarks Act), and accompanying Trademark Regulations, came into force June 17, 2019.

One of the more controversial changes was to remove the requirement that a . . . [more]

In the Law Times article “Diversity and inclusion fundamental to the OBA” (July 3, 2019), Law Society of Ontario Treasurer Malcolm Mercer said that the Statement of Principles “genuinely divides” people in the profession. The statement suggests that the legal and paralegal professions, numbering over 52,000 lawyers and 9000 paralegals, are aboil with conflict over the Statement. In fact, in 2017, the first year the Statement was required, Law Society statistics (evidence) show that 98% of lawyer members indicated in their annual reports that they have such a statement. The Ontario Bar Association, comprising more than 10,000 members, supports it. . . . [more]

I’m spending this summer by the shore of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But I did go back to Washington, DC for the 112^th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), held from July 13 to 16. Despite the usual hot and humid weather, the meeting was well attended and quite stimulating.

I spent a considerable amount of time in the Exhibit Hall, meeting vendor friends and colleagues and catching up on the latest updates. The news that might be of the most interest to you is that access to the Indigenous Law Portal, which was . . . [more]

I read a Linkedin posting by lawyer and consultant, Simon Haigh, asking “Which book is in you?”, perhaps the correct assumption being that many in and around the legal profession, inter alia, have, deep within them, a desire to commit their experience and expertise to the written word. A reaction from some at this point will be that nobody writes or reads books any more, nor should they. Indeed, published articles have seen one commentator’s headline pronounce that “lawyers should stop doing legal research”, while another’s boasts “Hire me. I won’t work hard for you”; . . . [more]

By all accounts, last week’s Ethics Commissioner Report on the SNC-Lavalin controversy was a bombshell, condemning as it did Mr. Trudeau’s improper attempts to infringe the prosecutorial independence of the Attorney-General’s office.

But other than revealing the extraordinary access of SNC-Lavalin to the highest ranks of government and the magnitude of the combined efforts to obtain a deferred prosecution agreement that would dismiss foreign corruption charges against the company, we learned very little we did not know before.

Indeed, the most striking part of Mr. Dion’s report is that he was denied access to important information that would bring all . . . [more]

I recently saw an exciting legal tech product that has a lot of potential. I think it could make a lot of people’s lives much easier. And a partner wants to mandate its usage! You can probably see where this is going. It was a struggle the moment we tried to get others on board: elements didn’t line up with others’ preferences; people were upset about the learning curve; there was massive passive resistance.

This was just one of many similar experiences. It seems technology and persuasion are not sufficient – and barely necessary – to create sustainable mainstream adoption . . . [more]