Which laws exist to protect patients from snooping eyes of health care providers?

Disciplinary hearings were held over the past few weeks in Ontario for nurses who looked at patient files without authorization. Despite the knowledge of several of these instances, there has never been a successful conviction of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) since coming into force a decade ago, and some people are starting to ask why.

One of the major challenges is the regulatory regime itself, which is particularly unwieldy and requires prosecution by the Attorney General. The Health Minister has already promised to simplify . . . [more]

Later this week the American Bar Association will publish The Relevant Lawyer: Reimagining the Future of the Legal Profession, a collection of essays on the future of the profession. It includes two chapters written by members of Slaw.

Details of how to get the book itself are here. We’ll publish a full review in Slaw shortly.

. . . [more]

Almost exactly a year ago Amy Taylor, Emerging Technologies Librarian and Adjunct Professor at the Pence Law Library, Washington College of Law, wrote about creating a legal ontology for basic 1L legal research instruction. She shares her experience and provides a useful methodology that can guide you if you ever set out to create your own ontology.

Taylor was motivated to start thinking about this when she saw a change in headnote presentation in the then new (Fall 2012) WestlawNext platform. The change, in both style and content, prompted her to ask a couple of good questions: . . . [more]

Christine M. Stouffer, Director of Library Services at Thompson Hine LLP in Cleveland, has a nice article in the February issue of the AALL Spectrum. It’s called, “Closing the Gap: Teaching ‘Practice-Ready’ Legal Skills,” and talks about the “widening gap between legal education and real-world legal practice skills” and the role that law librarians can play in narrowing that perceived gap.

Stouffer touches on the January 2014 report from the American Bar Association Task Force on the Future of Legal Education. She provides a good review of this report and I would recommend reading this . . . [more]

Prepared by
Laverne Jacobs, PhD
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
University of Windsor, Faculty of Law

Hi Everyone,

it’s with great pleasure that I’m writing to announce that the Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice has become an open access journal.

Our first open access issue (31(1)) became available last week. The move to open access was initiated by an editorial team of our colleagues over the past few years, along with Yearbook coordinator, Vidya Balachandar. The initiative was led by former Editors-in-Chief, Reem Bahdi and Myra Tawfik. Here is a link to issue 31(1): http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/WYAJ

The Yearbook’s move . . . [more]

In a February 6 article in the Toronto Star, Olivia Carville stated that Ontario law schools are failing in providing domestic violence training for their students.

Unfortunately, the outcome of her article was predetermined by the narrow scope of her question. Her focus on whether there is a mandatory subject in which the topic is addressed cannot capture the many things that law schools do, in curricular and in extracurricular ways, to help students learn about and respond to domestic violence and violence against women. What is worse, the ‘single compulsory course’ inquiry is based on a too simplistic . . . [more]

That’s the feeling of Jason Boehmig (president and CEO of Ironclad Inc.) who has teamed up with Ron Dolin (co-founder of Stanford University’s Program for Legal Technology & Design) to teach a new course on legal technology and informatics at Notre Dame Law School.

“The course introduces students to the practical and ethical issues relating to the newest legal technologies and their potentially revolutionary effect on the practice of law. Surveying topics ranging from how to pair technology with legal functions, legal technology startups, law practice management software, and the use of technology to increase access

LawWithoutWalls (LWOW) is a collaboratory investigating the “intersection of law, business, technology, and innovation.” Launched in 2011 by Michele DeStefano, associate professor at the University of Miami School of Law, LWOW aims to “pull down barriers between business and law.”

In many ways, LWOW has been a response to comments that DeStefano and her colleagues have been hearing about legal education and the business and practice of law:

“‘When are legal educators going to start training our law school students to be the 21st century lawyers of tomorrow?,’ and then at the

Recently, I read this post from the University of Manitoba’s news feed about how pharmacy technician students from the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology (MITT) are being trained through the university. The two institutions, U of M and MITT are working together in a unique way delivering a multi-disciplinary, peer-led education experience. Here’s how it works:

“…students from Pharmacy, Social work, and Rehabilitation Sciences provided a presentation to Pharmacy Technician students, teaching the role of each practitioner within a Pulmonary Rehabilitation program.”

Advit Shah, (B.Sc. Pharm, U of M) Pharmacy Technician Program Coordinator at MITT and event organizer says . . . [more]

Daniel Martin Katz and Michael J. Bommarito II are teaching a new course on machine learning this semester at the Michigan State University College of Law. The course is called ‘Legal Analytics‘ and Katz has shared an introduction to their course on Computational Legal Studies. . . . [more]

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with law students at Robson Hall as part of the Pro Bono Students Canada (“PBSC”) launch event. I had been asked to give a speech on my own pro bono and access to justice work with a view to motivating students to volunteer for one of the many interesting projects PBSC is coordinating this year. In preparing for the presentation, I thought back to my own days at Robson Hall and realized, with some dismay, how little I gave of my time to others at that point in my life.

Because I . . . [more]

There’s a new resource that aims to assist Ontario law students with issues relating to “stress, anxiety, and other wellness and mental health concerns.” JustBalance, which received funding from the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges & Universities, was developed by the Osgoode Hall Law School in collaboration with law faculties at the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa (Common Law Section), University of Windsor, Queen’s University, Western University and Lakehead University.

Melanie Banka Goela, Osgoode’s Student Success and Wellness Counsellor, led this initiative which began with a survey of law students who were asked what they might . . . [more]