Online courses, webinars and other digital media open up a wide range of convenient, cost-effective training options for busy professionals. But there are a lot of options. Myriad combinations of technology, platforms, content and classrooms sometimes make the selection of a course as challenging as learning new subject matter.

How can you tell which choice is right for you? I interviewed e-learning strategist Holly MacDonald to find out. Macdonald is the driving force behind Canadian e-learning innovation consultancy Spark + Co, where she creates strategies and program development for clients including Fortune 100 corporations, technology firms, public institutions and . . . [more]

“Teaching The Digital Caveman: Rethinking The Use Of Classroom Technology In Law School” is an article written by James B. Levy, Associate Professor at Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad Law Center. In it Levy provides a great overview of the impact of technology and its effect on the science of learning in the law school classroom including examining our assumptions about so-called “digital natives.”

He outlines his paper as follows:

“This article begins in Part II with a short history of modern classroom technology, why it has routinely failed to work as promised and the

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]

In his presentation at the Canadian Association of Law Libraries Conference subtitled Triangulating Legal Literature, Paul McKenna offered that the idea of three is prevalent … Something that resonated with me as a process improvement professional. My first memory of the bell curve with Sigma lines being a visual in a CALL Conference slide. I was so astonished I didn’t get a picture!

Seeing the Forest for the Threes

McKenna brought up the Theoretical Perspective of Albert Borgman – Blending the social analysis and philosophy to argue that technology creates a pattern in human lives that consists of natural, cultural . . . [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]

Nostalgia title for this post – I can’t tell you the number of times I said to the now grown, employed and, after this evening, all moved out on their own, Mireau Giggles, “Use your words”. Actually, it wasn’t too often come to think of it, but as you read the phrase you may hear your mother or fathers voice. Use your words is a more recent theme as well. Yesterday, I was delighted to share some tips for deploying knowledge management initiatives in mid-sized law firms with a group of engaged participants from the BCLMA KM Subsection. My presentation . . . [more]

An editorial in today’s New York Times highlights the plights of law school graduates in the U.S.,

About 20 percent of law graduates from 2010 are working at jobs that do not require a law license, according to a new study, and only 40 percent are working in law firms, compared with 60 percent from the class a decade earlier. To pay the bills, the 2010 graduates have taken on a variety of jobs, some that do not require admission to the bar; others have struck out on their own with solo practices. Most of the graduates have substantial student

On March 26, 2015, the new Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (nouveau Code de déontologie des avocats) for Quebec lawyers came into force. All lawyer members of the Quebec Bar are required to complete a three-hour training session by December 31, 2015. . . . [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]

I have been absent from Slaw for a couple of months while I wrapped up an extended stint as a student in the Villanova University Master Certificate in Six Sigma program. I have finished the part of my learning that requires a university ID number. I have not lost my interest in continued learning in the area of defining, measuring, analysing, improving and controlling the processes that help my organization give excellent client service. Like many Slaw readers, I look forward to the next educative moment – which is just around the corner!

This May, I am looking forward to . . . [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]