Another year gone and in the world of legal content / publishing I’d like to suggest it’s been one of the most important we’ve had since the mid 90’s and the advent of the CD Rom.

Although most of 2011 has been fairly quiet with the usual round of product developments, upgrades and rejigs. The last quarter of the year has more than hinted that the upheavals of 2008 / 2009 have now filtered through to the core modus operandi of the companies whose job it is to distribute legal content through to the professions, business, government and the wider . . . [more]

Do you belong to a Professional Association? Have you become involved in it in any way? This column is written in praise of such bodies, and the work they do. It’s not very techie, there isn’t anything new or even greatly educational in it, but it is more a reflection on an unsung entity that is not often recognised beyond its own membership.

In December I participated in the annual meeting of the International Association of Law Libraries, which was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was the 30^th meeting, with the first one being held in 1966; they . . . [more]

Commercial arbitrators often hear litigators and business people complain that arbitration has become just as expensive as litigation.

“Why arbitrate when it costs so much? Plus we have to pay the arbitrator; in court, at least we don’t pay for the judge.”

It’s a valid question. But I think the more important question is: what can arbitrators and counsel do to make arbitration more cost effective?

The arbitrator needs to take control of the process. This is harder than it sounds. Arbitration exists because the parties have agreed to arbitrate rather than litigate. So the parties control the process and . . . [more]

Canadian patent CA 2246933 was issued on January 17, 2012 for the Amazon 1-Click claim. Aaron Edgar and Grant W. C. Tisdall, in "Amazon.com’s Canadian ‘one-click’ Patent on the Threshold of Issuance" (gowlings.com, January, 2012), have written:

On December 23, 2011, barely a month after the Court’s ruling, the Commissioner himself approved Amazon’s application and a Notice of Allowance was sent out. On December 28, 2011, Amazon’s patent agents submitted the required issue fee and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) then promptly processed the fee as paid. Given the recent speed at which CIPO processed allowance of

When people lament the deteriorating state of access to justice in Canada and the unwillingness of cash-strapped governments to address the issue in meaningful ways, their focus often shifts to the role of lawyers in ensuring the delivery of critical legal services. Many observers, including Canada’s Chief Justice and Governor-General, characterize the role as a professional responsibility tied to the collective privilege of an effective monopoly on legal work. Others point to the lack of any moral or practical imperative in the equation, and characterize the role as more of a professional expectation. Given that most but not all Canadian . . . [more]

My fellow slaw columnist Jordan Furlong has written a number of articles over the past few years about the shortcomings of legal education (the latest of which is here). The New York Times has also added to the debate with a recent article entitled “What They Don’t teach Law Students: Lawyering”. One of the themes floating around has been to partially return law school to its roots as a vocational school.

I had the occasion to think about some of these ideas recently when a move to Australia led me to requalify as a lawyer in a different system. . . . [more]

Many firms and lawyers alike still approach marketing as a task on a to-do list. Get carpets replaced, schedule articling student interviews, get a marketing speaker for the associates…

Marketing is not any singular item. It’s not holiday cards, a website, client lunches, or even a marketing speaker. None of these activities could stand alone and generate much of anything worthwhile unless your firm is the only gig in town. For the same reason that when you meet someone for the first time, it’s unlikely they will immediately send you work. You need to develop a relationship and find multiple . . . [more]

You can’t have missed the recent coverage of the housing and governance crisis in Attawapiskat. The story certainly captured my attention. I’ve been watching news of the situation travel over the Internet.

Social media played a key role in the coverage of this story. What particularly interests me is that the quality of some material published about Attawapiskat through social media is as good as or better than high quality legal information available through traditional legal publishing channels. And this caused me to consider again: what is the role of social media in legal publishing?

I first became aware of . . . [more]

We are just preparing the 2012 Online Legal Services Conference. It seems that in the last year or two the legal, business and technology planets have aligned to produce a surge in interesting web-based projects hitting our legal shores. Far from overnight inspirations, many seem to have been nurtured for years. Often the result of pain experienced by lawyers, or their clients.

When such projects ferment for so long, their depth can be surprising. They start out providing solutions to real problems the legal entrepreneur has experienced, but are enriched by feedback from numerous sounding boards.

Another observation is . . . [more]

Last summer I wrote an article that was scheduled to be published in the Law Library Journal. The article, like Gaul, was divided into three parts. Each of the three was edgy. The first was a reflection on the end of scholarly bibliography as a mainstream intellectual activity. The second was an overheated rebuttal of a piece on the nature of Law Librarianship that the eminent Professor G. Edward White had written in the Green Bag a few years back. The third part consisted of me pontificating on the future of academic law librarianship in the United States. In that . . . [more]

Uncertainty… is a lawyer’s discomfort. When I sit down with clients and ask them to “project how many cases this business development initiative could produce,” they squirm in their seats. Then they say… “It depends on… I don’t know if… It’s hard to say.” It happens every time!

As lawyers, you are trained to find the certainty and the precedence. You want to know the answer before you ask the question. That is what makes you good lawyers. But, it is also what makes you lousy business development planners and strategists!

Strategizing requires that you: make educated guesses, take leaps . . . [more]

by Cheryl Canning*

I was recently engaged in a discussion about the importance of resiliency in the workplace. The topic intrigued me. I had never really thought of resiliency as something that would be a necessity in the workplace. In my mind it was more about the ability to cope with personal crises. Through a series of recent events however, I came to appreciate its importance in all aspects of life, and I have developed my own theory as to how to build up one’s resiliency. My theory has not been tested or proven through scientific study. It is . . . [more]