I recently accepted a connection request and added my 3,000th contact on LinkedIn. I’d like to use this notable occasion to describe how I’ve completely failed to derive any real value from LinkedIn over the past few years.

I should start by acknowledging that the fault is largely mine. I began using LinkedIn with the best of intentions and the finest of habits. I would only accept connections from people I had previously encountered (online or in person). I would acknowledge each new connection with a brief note of thanks for the addition. I would curate my network carefully, so . . . [more]

At Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald famously referred to Canada’s Senate as a chamber of sober second thought. One, he said, that “will never set itself in opposition against the deliberate and understood wishes of the people.”

Sir John A. should be turning in his grave.

Say what you will about Canada’s first Prime Minister, he was right about our Senate: it should provide checks and balances on the elected House, while respecting the will of both that House and the electorate. Our democracy – and public trust in the Upper Chamber – depends in large part on that respect. . . . [more]

Business decisions – especially those involving marketing and branding – require careful consideration. But they also require timely action. Are law firms hurting themselves by being too slow and cumbersome in making business decisions?

Within administrative and outside provider circles, law firms are notorious for their slow reactions and lengthy decision-making processes. It is for this reason that so many administrators who are hired from outside of law firms fail to last more than two years in this difficult environment. And increasingly, I’m hearing about consultants and suppliers who are opting to steer away from law firms as clients.

Generally, . . . [more]

The blockchain continues to be a popular topic for entrepreneurs, journalists and technology lawyers. Also, in the United States, for legislators. Several states have enacted legislation about the blockchain in some manner. This note reviews what they do and why. To the best of my knowledge, Canadian legislators have not ventured into the blockchain universe. Feel free to note if and how they have, or if you think they should, in Comments.

Several states have done legislation. The most usual provision is to amend the state’s version of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (similar to the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act . . . [more]

It was a slow death. I should have seen it coming. First, the reference collection was right across from the reference desk – visible, in plain sight, and easy to get to. There were all these reference tools right there, in physical form. And then we weeded the reference collection. Moved some books to the regular stacks, and the remaining collection away into the main reading room area, so it took multiple, intentional steps to consult the books therein. And so it came to pass. The collection gathered dust as we forgot them or found other ways to obtain the . . . [more]

A frequent interaction with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office is the registering of documents ‎against pending or granted patents and trademarks. Assignments of intellectual property rights, changes of corporate ‎name, reorganizations and security interests are all commonly registered. As part of changes expected ‎later this year, this practice is likely to change, reducing some formalities.

For the approximately 23,000 patents granted in 2018, around 20,000 of these types of documents ‎were registered. With a government fee of $100 per document, around $2 million in government fees ‎were paid to register various documents against the granted patents. ‎

‎Currently, for patents, . . . [more]

The cherry blossoms are finished this season, but new information continues to come out from U.S. government sources. I may have been hibernating over the winter, but my colleagues at the Law Library of Congress have been very active. Their November posts included many updates to Congress.gov and in December they celebrated the sixth anniversary of Congress.gov with an annual over view update.

Their January post featured the “Unified Congressional Committee Calendar, where you can quickly view all of the House and Senate committee meetings and hearings scheduled for a given week or day”. February’s post includes . . . [more]

One common interpretation of intellectual property law is that it is not so much about protecting a creator’s natural law property rights (as is the case with bicycles and beachfront properties). Rather, intellectual property law is about motivating individuals to create and invent for the benefit of all. It has been carefully structured and revised over the years, by this reading, to spur on individual and corporate investment in fostering and consuming novelty. In the eighteenth century, when intellectual property took its modern legislative form, the intent was boldly declared to be the encouragement of learning and to promote the . . . [more]

The Ontario government dropped a bombshell on its legal aid system in its April 11 budget, hitting it with a 30% funding cut, with more to come in future years.

The province spoke of transforming the legal aid system. However, there is no underlying plan from the province – simply cuts. Legal Aid Ontario has to move quickly to implement the cuts, which apply to the 2019-20 budget. At the time of writing, it is unclear where the cuts will be made, although refugee services will end.

The impact on community clinics and student legal clinics is not yet clear. . . . [more]

In 2018, Alberta amended its whistleblower protection legislation. It is a modest improvement over previous legislation, and relative to the federal Act. However, in a number of respects, the legislation does not go far enough.

First, a little bit of context. Whistleblowing legislation serves two inter-related purposes: upholding the public interest in exposing serious wrongdoing, while protecting employees who blow the whistle on that wrongdoing. On this last point, the legislation is remedial by protecting the employee from dismissal or reprisal that might otherwise be permitted at common law. In Canada, whistleblowing legislation (which exists in most provinces) . . . [more]

In the Hague Declaration on Access to Justice that was adopted on 7 February this year three things stand out (see my previous column). It recognises the need to make justice systems more people-centred. It calls for a more evidence-based way of working. And, finally, it calls for innovation. The question that nobody has really answered is: how does that work? If you are a minister of justice and you wake up one day thinking “I want to do that Hague Declaration thing”, what comes next? How do you know what ‘people-centred’ is? What does “evidence-based working” mean in . . . [more]

On March 21, 2019, the Canadian legal profession lost a giant of the bar: David Scott passed away in Ottawa after a sudden hospitalization. I regret that I did not get a chance to see David in the hospital or tell him how much he meant to the University of Ottawa law school, to our profession and to me. I can only offer this tribute instead.

David Scott represented the very best of our profession. He was recognized for his accomplishments with the highest honours our profession provides. That he was the first Canadian ever to be elected President of . . . [more]