The idea for this column arose from discussions at a recent meeting of a research lawyers in Toronto. This column takes a slightly different path from our banter at that meeting but, in essence, rests on one of the same themes: the role of research lawyers in firms today.

As we all know, over the past several decades it has become not uncommon for law firms of various sizes to have in-house research lawyers. Similar functions to those of law firm research lawyers are also carried out by dedicated individuals in government departments, courts, tribunals, and other organizations; these persons . . . [more]

In this crazy world of competing deadlines, priorities, sound bites and instant communication technology it sometimes seems harder than ever to nurture the important relationships in our lives. We are all under such pressure to perform and to achieve there is little time left in the day to reach out and show someone that we care.

The energy between two people is what creates great marriages, families, teams, and organizations. Yet, when we think consciously about improving our lives, we put almost all of our effort into self-development. (Tom Rath, Vital Friends)

It’s easy to forget that there . . . [more]

As academics might be said to live and thrive by consideration of fair use, we need to perk up when this vital legality goes to court, and all the more so when it is a good knock-down case of goliath celebrity taking on struggling Davidesque scholar. As most readers will know, with works of “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research,” to use the example of the U.S. legal system, authors can in the name of fair use reasonably cite others’ published work without violating copyright.

Fair use, in this sense, represents the larger society’s recognition that learning . . . [more]

The Internet is getting big and ugly. While our personal experience is still what we make of it, web-culture is seldom more than a reflection of our greater society. We take the good along with the bad; unfortunately, when it comes to web marketing, things don’t appear to be shaping up much different.

How bad is it? I recently came across this April 9th post by Steve Rubel that drives the point home: “94% of all email is spam, 64% of all English language blogs are splogs, and click fraud for sponsored links rose by 15% last year alone. Can . . . [more]

Now that baseball season is (finally) with us again, I’d like you to meet Kevin Ahrens. He’s not a lawyer, judge or law professor – he’s a 19-year-old from Houston who has foregone college to start a career as a professional baseball player. Last June, the Toronto Blue Jays chose him with their first-round pick in major-league baseball’s annual amateur draft (he was the 16th overall selection).

Kevin plays shortstop and has been a very productive hitter throughout his amateur career, which consists of three all-district and two all-state selections during his time at high school. He stands 6’2″, . . . [more]

Do you dread networking events? Wonder about what to say? Do you find there is something uncomfortable or possibly distasteful about the seemingly compulsory exchange of business cards? If so then you probably value sincerity and professionalism. Too often networking is reduced to a numbers game of how many business cards you can pass out in an hour. If you are looking for a different approach, one more in alignment with your own professional values, then read on.

The introvert advantage:

Introverts have the advantage. You don’t have to grandstand, shake fifty hands and talk about yourself. Instead, the name . . . [more]

Information literacy is a well-established principle in library and information studies. Ensuring that their target population – users of their libraries and information centres – are information literate is a key goal of librarians and information specialists. The concept requires that library users know (or know how to determine) the questions they need to ask, how to find (or seek assistance in finding) the information they need to answer their questions, and – crucially – how to critically (and perhaps skeptically) examine and understand that information.

This goal applies equally to the specific context of legal analysis and legal research. . . . [more]

What follows is the opening of a book prospectus I am in the midst of developing for a work on John Locke and what I refer to as the “intellectual properties of learning.” This book grows out of an earlier article I did on Locke’s “common-wealth of learning” and will explore — well, if that’s not clear in the first 800 words of the prospectus, can I reasonably expect a hard-pressed publisher to bite? Putting this in Slaw follows on recent Web 2.0 data-mashups that would drag the book-in-progress into the network, setting it adrift in the blogosphere and giving . . . [more]

When talking about free / open source software, I am often surprised at the number of people today who still say to me – “if it is free it cannot be of any value”. Or those who ask – “what exactly is open source software?”. If you pardon the shameless use of the phrase, “long live free software” (or “vive le logiciel libre!”) ought to be the battle cry of the free software movement. Indeed, although not put that way by most proponents, that is the general sentiment.

What is free software? The Free Software Foundation maintains a definition of . . . [more]

This month’s edition of Web Law Connected could be seen as a bit of a rant, but the honest intent here is to explore the underlying marketing value offered to lawyers by what has become the 800-pound gorilla of social networks – Facebook.

It’s difficult to refute the fact that Facebook is the fastest growing entity on the web today, and the adoption rate within the legal community has been no different than that of any other group within the Facebook walls – it’s expanding, and fast. While some law firms are guarding business productivity by blocking access, we’ve also . . . [more]

Last week, the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Licensing and Accreditation task force delivered its Interim Report To Convocation [PDF] on the province’s bar admission scheme. I think it’s a groundbreaking report, brimming with indisputable facts and uncomfortable choices about the state of the current system and the urgent need to reform it. Other reports have come and gone, but I think this one will leave its mark.

The main report is 44 pages long, followed by an additional 152 pages spread out over 10 appendices. This is what the report, to summarize briefly, says:

1. The task force recommends

My hope for 2008 is that Stevan Harnad will prove prophetic once again, this time by declaring this the year of the mandate, or as he puts it with his notable precision, “the year of institutional Green OA self-archiving mandates.” For those colorblind to Harnadian distinctions, the mandates in question have been enacted by research funding agencies (21 to date) and a few institutions and require researchers receiving funding from those agencies (or working at those institutions) to deposit an electronic copy of their published work in an online archive so that it is freely available typically 12 months after . . . [more]