In India, a woman may marry a goat. In Canada, it’s illegal to board a plane while it’s in flight. In Sweden, it’s illegal to buy sex, but okay to sell it. In France, it’s illegal to name a pig Napoleon. Dueling is legal in Uruguay – provided both parties are registered blood donors. Pillows are considered “passive” weapons under German law. Several countries have laws against kissing in public. Some laws make you laugh out loud, some make you shake your head in wonder, and some are just puzzlers. Could something have been lost in translation? Were these really . . . [more]

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently considering the next generation of legal publication. Louis Mirando’s excellent column about the future of print reporters identified the future storage and delivery of primary law; in a nutshell, bound volumes of the law reports are soon to be just a memory. 

One comment in Mirando’s column that particularly caught my attention concerned the importance of headnotes and report collections generally. What this says to me is that even though there may be comprehensive databases of case law available to us, there is still value in providing summaries of lengthy decisions and . . . [more]

Over the past few months I have had the privilege to be involved in an important project in British Columbia known as the Public Commission on Legal Aid (“Public Commission”).

Although the scope of the Public Commission is province wide and therefore includes cities and communities of all sizes, I have been personally interested to hear the unique challenges faced by those in rural communities in regards to legal aid. Commissioner Leonard Doust, Q.C. will be releasing an official report of his findings sometime in 2011; however, I wanted to take the opportunity now to share some background on the . . . [more]

Morris Leo Cohen died on Saturday, December 18, 2010. He had recently celebrated his 83^rd birthday. More than a few of us call Morris mentor. During his years at Yale, Harvard, Penn and SUNY Buffalo, he attracted disciples with ease and grace. I trust that a round of tributes will follow his passing, but one aspect that may be neglected is the symbolic value of it for librarianship. Morris was the last great scholar bibliographer of his generation in American law librarianship. Not a scholar who stepped into the role of librarian, Morris was a scholarly bibliographer, a man . . . [more]

My quest for better file access started with a nagging suspicion that my shrinking storage containers would be my downfall. I went mobile with a laptop, which was smaller than my desktop and was portable. Then I added a handheld computer, which was still smaller and even more portable: no cords, no bags. On to USB thumb drives and finally shifting to a 2 GB micro SD card about the size of a raisin. Portability raised the likelihood of my files being lost or stolen if I misplaced the container in which they were stored. I solved the problem . . . [more]

When I talk with people in the legal marketplace about alternative fee arrangements, I often hear two common objections. Interestingly, one is raised by lawyers and the other by clients. 

Lawyers say they don’t want to offer fixed fees because they figure that the client, having bought what is essentially an unlimited amount of legal services, will then deluge the lawyer with phone calls, emails, and tasks of varying complexity, burying the lawyer in work for which he or she will never be compensated. Clients, on the other hand, say they don’t want to accept fixed fees because they figure . . . [more]

In the United Kingdom and in Canada the history of the language of law reports is as much about the influence of the French language as it is about the use of English. To a lessor extent such history is also about the influence of Latin.

Consider that the first English law reports were in the French language for over 300 years, specifically:

– the first English law reports are found in the Year Books that run from 1260 to 1535 and they were written 100% in the French language. See page 99, The Language of the Law by David . . . [more]

Many judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings these days are recorded on audio- or videotape, rather than by a court reporter taking notes in person then transcribing them. Usually the audio tape is then transcribed, at least if someone needs a transcript. 

The recordings are often taken as the (or an) ‘official’ version of the proceeding. For example, a practice direction of Ontario’s Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) treats recorded and transcribed proceedings on an equal footing. The rules of practice of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission provide in Rule 2.237(a), “If the hearing is recorded on videotape or some other video . . . [more]

[This is the third in a series of articles about the trends, theories, principles and realities that have influenced the redesign of the new library of Osgoode Hall Law School – part of the renovation and rebuilding of the law school currently underway. This instalment is written in response to Eric Appleby’s recent post on “The Future of Headnotes”.

When you walk into an academic law library, the first that meets your eye is row upon row of bookstacks as far as the eye can see, filled with published law reports. It’s an impressive sight; and, in the 21st . . . [more]

Lawyers love to armchair quarterback the trials of others. We strategize, we second-guess, we substitute our own brilliance for the wit and experience of learned trial counsel. It’s our professional equivalent of Tuesday Morning Football.

However, on the rarest of occasions, there comes a time when a legal strategy is just so outrageous that our armchair quarterbacking risks incurring hoots of derision.

I’ve been reading about a particular trial for the past few weeks (yes, it’s now, at the time I’m writing this, in week 6 of what could be a 9 or 10 week trial). I believe, officially, that . . . [more]

In a previous column, we described the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice’s Inventory of Reforms, a freely accessible, online database that contains descriptions of civil justice system reform initiatives from across Canada. The importance of this information is not only in letting people within a jurisdiction know what is changing, but also letting all jurisdictions across the country see what is being tried elsewhere. The natural extension of this is the ability to identify the most effective reforms so that they can be highlighted and applied elsewhere, though this function is naturally the most challenging to put into . . . [more]

Acquisitions and mergers are expected to continue as the major legal publishers explore ways to increase their profitability, achieve growth and increase market share. When organic growth fails to achieve corporate expectations, acquisitions and mergers are the next best thing.

The acquisition of Canada Law Book by Carswell Thomson is simply the most recent acquisition of note in the Canadian market. There have been many others of far greater significance in recent years, including the acquisition of Yvon Blais by Carswell, the acquisition of Quicklaw by Lexis Nexis and the re-acquisition of Irwin Law from Quicklaw by its founders.

Long . . . [more]