Once a country has been officially declared as sanctioned, trying to locate, evaluate and access reliable sources of information becomes a struggle. Depending on the levels of sanctions enacted, research of all kinds can be severely curtailed or completely cut. This lack of most, if not all official channels of communication has a severe impact when you are trying to secure pivotal materials or sources, either physical or online; accessing websites and evaluating online information; and contacting vendors, universities, experts, research centers based in these countries.

When it comes to legal research, these impediments and challenges are maximized regardless of . . . [more]

Self-represented litigants (SRLs) make up a significant percentage of litigants appearing before the court in civil and family cases. In the NSRLP’s 2013 report data provided by provincial ministries of justice indicated that at least 40% of individuals who appeared in provincial family court and at least 30% of litigants in civil court are self-represented.

These statistics are staggering, and it is no secret that SRLs face unique challenges within the court systems across Canada. Although it is the case that Canadian courts operate with the principle of access to justice as a foundational pillar, the reality is that . . . [more]

For those of us that use Facebook, one of the fun features is Facebook Memories – those tidbits we posted or reacted to over the years that remind us of moments in time. A year into the pandemic, it is interesting to look back at our reactions to COVID-19 at the early stages. A lot has changed during that time: Zoom is now a household name; there have been fun viral moments like “I am not a cat”; and unfortunately depressing news about death and job losses. In many ways our priorities changed as we watched this unfold on the . . . [more]

Passwords have been around since the early days of mainframe computing. Believe it or not, passwords were not originally designed to prove identity. The betting money is that computer passwords first showed up at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1960s in order to track time when using a mainframe computer: The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS).

Today, passwords are used to help authenticate the identity of the computer user. From a security perspective, the problem is that people use crummy passwords, forget them and even reuse them across multiple systems. At the end of the day, if someone has . . . [more]

One way to look at whether your salary is fair is to understand how a law firm calculates your value. We’re going to look at the numbers behind such a calculation with a concrete example and assume you’re a lawyer making $100,000 a year. This is intended only as a primer – adjust the numbers and add/subtract factors according to your own facts.

What is your value to a firm? Profit, of course

There are two bottom-line numbers to calculate your value to a firm in terms of profit: how much money you make for the firm, and how much . . . [more]

Canada uniquely provides a notice and notice regime by which copyright owners can require an ISP to forward notices of alleged infringement to a suspected typically anonymous internet user claimed to be infringing the owner’s copyright.

Courts describe one of the purposes of the notice-and-notice regime is “to provide copyright holders the information they need in order to bring infringement actions against suspected violators, who will usually be Internet users whose identities are unknown to the copyright holders, but known to the respective ISPs”.^[1]

The Supreme Court has also described a purpose of the notice and notice regime was . . . [more]

Despite hiccups on vaccine receipt and distribution, we now know that by the end of the year, there’s a very good chance we’ll all be back to normal. That means there’s still another considerable block of time to get through first. We don’t want to be in either survival or neutral mode forever. So as we finish weathering this storm, what should law firm strategy look like for the remainder of 2021?

First and foremost, stick to your longer-term strategic plan. The point of a strategic plan is that it helps to guide a firm through the goods times, and . . . [more]

The United States just endured a second impeachment trial. The outcome was foreseen, but the procedure was necessary. On January 6^th both branches of Congress convened for a ceremonial act to tally the states’ certified results. This began at 2pm, but when they got to the votes from Arizona, objections were raised by Republican Representatives and Senators. At the same time, a mob spurred on by President Trump to march to the Capitol, began to break into the building. I was watching online and could hardly believe what I was seeing.

The Capitol Police were overwhelmed and violent people . . . [more]

Cognitive bias is:

1. Making decisions or judgments not supported by objective reality;
2. The subject of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow;
3. A barrier to effective Legal Project Management;
4. All of the above.

As a lawyer, you probably have some familiarity with cognitive biases. (If you do defense work, your clients are likely very familiar… from experience.) However, I want to focus on some ways cognitive biases can screw up projects.

(I’m deferring my promised column on project charter disasters to next time.)

Anchoring, or “First Liar”

We can’t help it. Someone tells us about a . . . [more]

In February, it was reported that the UK’s Legal Services Board was moving forward with plans to introduce “continuing competence checks” for lawyers. This could involve the regulator obtaining feedback from consumers, judges and peers; making quality assurance visits; and possibly even requiring formal revalidation of lawyers’ credentials.

In my last column, I discussed how the raison d’être of lawyer regulation is to ensure that anyone providing legal services will meet standards of professional competence and professional conduct. In Ontario, this is codified in s. 4.1(a) of the Law Society Act.

But I have long wondered: Is the . . . [more]

The Courts were busy in 2020 with some significant decisions in patent law addressing several substantive issues affecting the enforceability of patent rights in Canada. The following summary focuses on some of these decisions that may be of interest beyond those practicing patent law.

Computer-implemented Inventions – An area of significant an ongoing uncertainty has been the degree to which patents can be granted for software and ‘business method’ inventions. In Choueifaty v. Canada (Attorney General), 2020 FC 837, the Federal Court rejected the approach used by the Canadian Patent Office in reviewing these types of inventions to . . . [more]

For all the lives lost and human suffering experienced as a result of this pandemic, the rapid biomedical response to this scourge has been a ray of light and hope. A number of open science approaches – including publishers making all of the relevant research open access – have led to accelerated genetic sequencing, vaccine development, three-phase clinical testing and approval and a global vaccination roll-out. The open science movement has also been spreading beyond the immediate questions of treating COVID-19.

It is influencing the opening of scholarly publishing, more generally, which is the area in which I work on . . . [more]