While the US government deals with having less A’s these days it’s been AAA (August Acquisition Action) in the world of legal publishing.

We’re not sure though whether we should adding a plus or minus after those three A’s.

Law Librarians News readers will know that we’ve touched upon this subject in our last two editorials

Usually we see acquisition and deal season in the world of legal publishing happen either post Easter or in September to combine with the Partridge hunting season (Sep 1 – Feb 1) in the UK.

But for reasons we haven’t yet deciphered August 2011 . . . [more]

Namespaces are used in XML to avoid the problems caused by what would, without the use of namespaces, be latent ambiguities.

A long time ago, in a place far away, there were two ships called “Peerless”. The plaintiff in Raffles v. Wichelhaus (1864), 2 H. & C. 906 (LLMC), 159 E.R. 375 (Hein), 33 L.J.N.S. 160, claimed he had a contract with the defendants for the delivery of some cotton to the defendants in Liverpool “ex Peerless from Bombay” (a.k.a. Mumbai). The defendants claimed they had refused to accept delivery from the Peerless which had sailed . . . [more]

The police cannot force someone to talk and then use the answers against them; can environmental regulators do so?

The courts have always allowed them to. In 1969, the Ontario Court of Appeal convicted Strand Electric [1968 CarswellOnt 291, [1969] 1 O.R. 190, [1969] 2 C.C.C. 264] of failing to maintain a scaffold in good condition contrary to the Construction Safety Act. The only evidence against the company was an oral statement made by its supervisor to a government inspector, a statement that he was required to make under the Act. The Court ruled that since the Company had a . . . [more]

In his book, Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. discusses many factors that affect how persuasive you can be with others. Cialdini was also one of the authors of Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, co-authored by Noah J Goldstein and Steve J. Martin.

Lawyers can use these persuasive techniques to help them increase the percentage of inquiries or initial consultations that turn into paid client engagements.

People like people who are like themselves; they hire people that they know, like and trust. In your initial consultation, you need to build up the . . . [more]

The newspaper reported on the Labour Day weekend that September is one of the busiest months for family lawyers. Tense spouses see the kids back to school and finally call their lawyer to initiate legal proceedings that were put on hold over the summer.

Most of us are conditioned to think of the Tuesday after Labour Day as the start of the New Year. For years, the return to school meant new teachers, friends, courses, crayons and even new clothes. January 1^st, stuck in darkest winter seems to be the wrong time of year to think about fresh . . . [more]

The past two months have seen a flurry of innovative activity in the corner of the legal technology world that concerns free access to law and open legal information. Here are some developments that seem noteworthy:

Open Legal Educational Resources

New, free, and open versions — in ePUB and .mobi formats — of U.S. federal court rules have been published, jointly by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School and CALI, The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. This is the latest addition to the ePUB-based open legal publishing endeavor that John Mayer describes in this recent post. . . . [more]

In the various provincial election campaigns across the country, there is little attention being paid to the funding of the civil justice system. Among elected officials, the dominant paradigm is one that sees funding of the civil justice system as an obligatory expense for the government. The costs appear unlimited and ever increasing. The challenge within this paradigm is how to minimize this expensive item while still meeting their basic obligations. The results are evident in court delays, the ever increasing number of self-represented litigants, increasing restrictions on access to legal aid, and a myriad of unresolved civil disputes in . . . [more]

Studying or writing about your peer group can be a daunting and sometimes professionally hazardous task. For evidence of this, consider well-respected consultant and legal futurist Richard Susskind whose early work “The Future of Law” was met with considerable skepticism and even derision in some legal circles.

Despite the hazards, inherent in such an endeavour I could not help myself recently but to accept such an assignment that tasked me with the performance of an analysis and the development of a framework for the engagement of consultants in an industry in which I myself am a consultant. The task for . . . [more]

We have been watching the ascent of social media in legal marketing for a few years now. Law blogs, once considered a frivolity suitable only for the technogeek outliers at the fringe of the law firm, are now recognized as legitimate business development vehicles at many, if not most, firms. Likewise, other social media channels including Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube and to some extent Facebook, have all been moving (at varying paces) along a recognizable continuum inside the law firm environment that looks a bit like this:

Derision >> skepticism >> grudging curiosity >> cautious adoption >> widespread use

As social . . . [more]

You’ve built your evidentiary PowerPoint. It’s ready to take to court. It’s chock full of interesting and persuasive images, maps, diagrams documents etc. needed to prove your case. What’s next?

Previous columns covered the basics of creating an evidentiary PowerPoint (PPT). In this column I’ll begin to cover considerations for using a PPT in court.

The PowerPoint as an Exhibit

A crucial first step is to decide is how the PowerPoint will be filed as an exhibit.

Like any object or photo used in court the PowerPoint (PPT), once referred to by a witness or displayed in court, must be . . . [more]

The possibility of losing any portion of your benefit due to your insurer’s insolvency has probably never crossed your mind. Why should it? After all, we live in a country with a carefully regulated and stable financial services industry. As a result, I think it’s unlikely that your insurer will become insolvent. However, there is a risk, albeit a very small one, and it has happened three times.

In 1992, Les Coopérants became the first Canadian insurance company to become insolvent. This was followed by Sovereign Life in 1993 and Confederation Life in 1994. This affected over 1.1 million Canadian . . . [more]

[W]e’re writing these things that we can no longer read. And we’ve rendered something illegible. And we’ve lost the sense of what’s actually happening in this world that we’ve made.
Kevin Slavin, How algorithms shape our world, TEDGlobal (July 2011)

I finished my last post speculating that the business of law will be changed by programmers in the same way one might boil a frog. That is, it will happen slowly under the guise of software support for all of the decision making you have to do every day, and you’ll accept that support, incrementally, because you are a . . . [more]