Most people are completely unaware that their car has a black box. The device is known as an Event Data Recorder (EDR) and while it’s not yet mandatory, approximately 90% of cars on the road are equipped with this device. If you are wondering if your car has one, it should be disclosed in your owner’s manual. 

EDRs are similar to commercial aircraft flight-data recorders, but don’t record voices or GPS locations and only retain information during a crash event, and from 5 to 30 seconds immediately before. Some of the recorded data includes:

• airbag deployment
• speed
• engine RPM
• brake

Because law belongs to the people, the governments and courts that issue law must make it available to the people. This is a simple and widely accepted fact.

In practice, as governments and courts carry out their responsibilities to make law available, they do so in a wide variety of ways. For example, the digital versions of federal statutes available from Justice Canada are “official”, and they exist in forms and with rights extended to all and sundry that permit reuse and republication without royalty or permission. However, in some provincial jurisdictions, a surprising range of limitations exist. . . . [more]

“Would you pick up a half bottle of beer left on the pavement and drink it?”

This question was put by Rob Cotton, CEO of NCC Group , to a BBC Radio4 presenter when he was discussing the risks of using free wifi hotspots in cafes, etc. Perhaps the image was a bit extreme, but it caught my attention, as intended. He was drawing a picture of the not so pristine world of unsecured free wifi hotspots, and the lure of joining the Cloud wherever you find yourself. The premise is that you should think about what you search, or . . . [more]

Have you had a good look at what’s been coming into your browser lately? I was moved to do so recently when Michael Geist posted (March 7, 2013), on his blog (michaelgeist.ca), “Forget Fair Dealing: National Post Seeks $150 To License Short Excerpts”. The title pretty much tells the story. Prof. Geist was surprised to be asked for money when he used his mouse to highlight some text in the article by Chris Selley, “Full Pundit: You can’t say that in Canada” (nationalpost.com). On March 12, 2013, Prof. Geist posted a followup, “National Post Appears to . . . [more]

Lawyers’ eyes usually glaze over when marketers talk about the six Ps of marketing: Product, Position, Package, Promotion, Price, and Place. You can’t sell legal services the same way you sell soap, they declare, because the products are different. 

OK, so how would you define your product?

That’s where the fun starts. The usual first words are some combination of the three E’s—education, expertise, and experience. Well, the fact is, while each of these has a role in making a good lawyer, none of them is actually the lawyer’s product. Education is nice to have and it makes your mother . . . [more]

The recent news of PLC being acquired by Thomson Reuters is a most significant indicator of change and direction, certainly inasmuch as it affects the state of play competitively in the UK.

Finally Thomson Reuters, in its Sweet and Maxwell and Westlaw UK guises, has woken up to a world that combines a deep commitment to electronic delivery of primary and secondary content, with related workflow in the form of guidance and documentation driven by clever software. This, alongside the timely new launch of Westlaw UK Insight, seems to me to take the UK business, in one leap, . . . [more]

“The promise of arbitration is choice, and in order to fulfill that promise, choice must be deliberatively and effectively exercised,” Thomas J. Stipanowich, in Arbitration: the New Litigation.

“I am a firm adherent to the school of thought that denies acceptability of a person who has mediated subsequently filling the role of arbitrator, notwithstanding statutory recognition of this possibility.” Sir Laurence Street, “The Language of Alternative Dispute Resolution” [I992] ADRLJ 144.

Kari Boyle and I are writing columns this month about mediation at adjudication, commonly known as med-arb: she from the mediation perspective and I from the adjudication . . . [more]

There’s an unmistakable trend in software and it’s going to change how firms and users handle technology in the future. The trend is for far more frequent upgrades – often as part of a Cloud or subscription package — and the result is going to be a higher tempo of IT testing and user training.

Numbered are the days when you’ll sit comfortably on 8 year old software doing what you’ve always done. Coming are the days when your computer acts more like your mobile phone or tablet – with new software updates (including feature changes and additions) coming on . . . [more]

There is an obvious inherent tension between competition principles and intellectual property (“IP”), including patents. A recent Competition Bureau inquiry into alleged market manipulation by Alcon provides a good illustration of how these principles can intersect.

By their very nature patents may be considered exclusionary and anti-competitive. The Competition Act (s. 32) specifically empowers the court to prevent use of a patent only if it “unduly” lessens competition. Otherwise there must be “something more” than the mere exercise of patent rights to be anti-competitive. The Competition Bureau has provided enforcement guidelines to evaluate when IP rights may be used in . . . [more]

I closed December’s article by writing: Another important thing about managing projects [is] you have to be there. Projects don’t manage themselves. As Woody Allen said, “90% of life is just showing up.”

But what does “showing up” as a project manager mean?

Three facets of showing up bear examining. The three related to each other, but although there is overlap, each has key characteristics worth understanding separately.

Presence

Consider the lawyer/project manager who spends most of his time in his office, sending emails to the team from time to time. When he does walk around, the team feels just . . . [more]

Over the last few years the physical footprint of law firm libraries has been decreasing. Reasons for this include the ever-increasing price of real estate and the availability (both real and perceived) of legal materials online. Some library users rarely or never set foot in the library; this may be because they work in a different office, they work from home, or simply that they prefer to be able to access library services electronically.

In some cases, the decrease in square footage has been library-driven; if the library manager sees that the library does not need all the space it . . . [more]

What can legal business developers learn from a consumer brand expert? Quite a bit, actually, Forbes Magazine contributor Patrick Spenner points out in his article that engagement is important… but that the new frontier in 2013 for consumer brands is… SIMPLICITY. How simple can we make it for a customer to make a decision to choose you? 

As you know the legal profession is behind when it comes to adapting to trends… some lawyers are still not convinced that market engagement is a worthy goal. If you are one of the believers, then you know that market engagement matters! If . . . [more]