How is it that we are such a wealthy society yet services that were once available are no longer available (at least at affordable prices)? Many people, but certainly not all, had help in their homes and farms, even full-time help. Doctors used to make house calls. When I was a child, the milkman[1] made deliveries each day. There used to be people who actually answered telephones in businesses.

What we call the “access to justice” problem seems to be similar in nature. We know that the number of self-represented litigants has dramatically increased over the last four decades. . . . [more]

I’ve been thinking a lot about cybersecurity recently. But when news of the Equifax data breach surfaced recently, I was more alarmed than usual. Although Equifax is the latest of a long line of data breaches where personal information has been stolen, this one was different.

There was the usual furor, of course, (US Senate hearings, questions in the House, newspaper headlines raging, stock tanking, etc.) when the fact of that massive data breach occurred was finally disclosed (a full five months after the breach occurred). More details on the scale of the breach have trickled out since then. But . . . [more]

Copyright law seeks to regulate creativity. Nowhere is this regulation more apparent, or specific for that matter, than at the level of setting tariffs for copyright uses as set by the Copyright Board and administered by collective societies. As illustrated most recently in the Access Copyright v. York University decision, this system of collective administration is horribly broken. It is time to get creative about how we regulate creativity.

This is how copyright works. Authors (and their intermediaries) are compensated for their creations through a tradeable commodity known as copyright. The ability of some authors to make a living depends . . . [more]

In his 2005 Ted Talk “The Paradox of Choice” Barry Schwartz presented an insightful condemnation of the “official dogma” of the modern, western, industrialized world. The “official dogma” states that real freedom comes from maximizing choice. Seems reasonable, even obvious. However, he emphasizes that too much choice has two negative effects on people:

1. Too much choice produces paralysis rather than liberation. With many options to choose from people find it difficult to choose at all; and
2. Too much choice makes us less satisfied with the result of our choice even if it was a good decision. This is because of

Trade creates wealth. See Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776). The world’s wealthiest nation, the U.S.A., is the most successful economic union in world history.

Russell David “Russ” Roberts is an economist and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Roberts states that self-sufficiency is the road to poverty. Roberts in a podcast elaborates on the economic theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo to explain how specialization and trade creates wealth and how radical self-sufficiency leads to poverty.

Trade restrictions reduce the benefits of trade for consumers. Adam Smith condemned government restrictions that restricted an economic activity . . . [more]

On September 13, 2017 Ontario’s Law Society with no name sent a now infamous e-mail to its licensees stating:

You will need to create and abide by an individual Statement of Principles that acknowledges your obligation to promote equality, diversity and inclusion generally, and in your behaviour towards colleagues, employees, clients and the public. You will be asked to report on the creation and implementation of a Statement of Principles in your 2017 Annual Report.

While some have defended the Statement (see Omar Ha-Redeye here on SLAW and Renatta Austin’s comments on The Current) most commentary has been harshly . . . [more]

About sixty years ago, a few intersections held a few traffic lights like the one illustrated below.

Look carefully.

Not only is the green on top, but note the glow – on top! – of the red signals telling cross traffic to stop.

In other words, for, say, east/west streets, green took pride of place, but for north/south streets, red was uppermost.

Needless to say, this would have been confusing for distracted drivers. Luckily, there were no cell phones or onscreen maps back then… but the streets teemed with hundreds of station wagons filled with screaming kids. And of course, . . . [more]

I received an email from a father and a former Military lawyer now in private practice. He started with… “Thank you for the wonderful resource. I came across your blog on LinkedIn.” As he continues the tone turned to frustration and resignation. He explained the pressure and stress that I hear from many, many lawyers. He had the guts to write it down and hit SEND. He wrote…

“Bottom line is that I am more miserable right now than I have ever been in 12 years since graduating, have no job satisfaction, stress through the roof, and not sure how

The sale of Wolters Kluwer’s remaining Croner/CCH publishing assets in the UK did not, of itself, significantly affect the bigger picture of law and tax publishing there, primarily because of the residual size and scope of its activities and failure to compete immediately prior to the sale. To some romantics and self-delusionists, it may be thought to be the end of an era, with wistful memories of Croner’s heyday in the last century; to others, for its, at times, unhinged, incompetent (or perhaps worse) and at top level, obscenely and inconceivably justifiable overpaid management and self-serving nitwit advisers and . . . [more]

The past year has seen communities around the world dealing with major weather events. Here in Canada flooding in Quebec and unprecedented wildfires in BC displaced tens of thousands, while the southern U.S. and South East Asia suffered from intense storms. Forget about polar bears – these communities are the new face of climate change.

And it’s going to be costly. The Insurance Board of Canada has repeatedly warned that climate change is driving the costs of weather-related disasters ever upward, including after record breaking losses in 2016.

​”Severe weather due to climate change is already costing Canadians

One that got away

In my time at Carswell (now Thomson Reuters) I took a very aggressive approach to product development and was never very happy when an author signed with another publisher. Even more distressing was a decision by an author to go his or her own way and self publish a title that was originally published by Carswell. I always believed that publishing with an well established major legal publisher was the key to acceptance by the legal community and the key to commercial success. I was wrong.

One request by an author for the return of publishing . . . [more]

By the time I was figuring out my stance on artificial intelligence, the legal tech talk had already moved on to blockchain. So I decided to write about something even more outdated – hyperlinks.

Links are the backbone of (legal) information systems

In research information systems we use citation information heavily. In the legal field, the cited-citing connections allow us to group documents into smaller universes. This feature of legal information is being exploited by virtually all providers for use in hyperlinking, to create citators, to provide the ability to note-up documents, and to rank search results. Citations can be . . . [more]