I am reporting today from a session at the American Association of Law Libraries 106th Annual Meeting. This morning I am attending a session on Business and Competitive Intelligence.

The session is a cooperative effort between AALL and the International Legal Technology Association. The AALL program app shares the intention of the session:

The session started with an overview survey, mainly answered by law librarians, to identify themes of how law libraries in firms supported BI and CI. The five major themes were:

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Law Librarians shared stories of their BI and CI efforts. Firm library teams have created interesting . . . [more]

One participant on the cbafutures.org website noted that with their own law school tuition at $13,000 a year, the pool of applicants with the means to attend shrinks tremendously. Indeed, some new students will pay almost $30,000 in tuition in order to attend their first year of law school.

But so what? A lawyer is a lawyer is a lawyer, right? Everyone who goes to law school has the same education, and could conceivably serve the same constituency.

The question is really about the value of diversity. We’re used to thinking of diversity in terms of gender equality, and the . . . [more]

Technology is often cited as the game-changing factor in the future of the legal profession. There’s an endless parade of new devices, plus software is being developed that can do some of the work lawyers used to do. Legal entrepreneurs harness the power of the cloud to power new business models.

What it’s doing to the legal profession is just one side of the equation. For clients – actual and potential – rapidly changing technology can both expand their reach to consumers, and be a legal minefield.

People who conduct any part of their business over the internet, for example, . . . [more]

♫ Innovate and stimulate minds
Travel the world and penetrate the times
Innovate and stimulate minds
For now I appreciate this moment in time…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Hard Driver.

The 2013 edition of The Pacific Legal Technology Conference, Canada’s first and foremost conference on all aspects of legal technology, will feature two major new developments this year!

First: This year’s conference will be webcast….all three concurrent tracks in the morning and in the afternoon…making this conference fully available across Canada and the web (all except for the lunchtime presentations -we are still seeing if we can make . . . [more]

It’s articling season in Alberta. If you’re one of the many students who didn’t land an offer this week, that’s the first thing that you have to remember. You’re one of many students who didn’t land an offer this week.

During the official recruitment period the supply of jobs will inevitably be much smaller than the demand. While firms can safely decide not to participate in the recruitment period, how many students do you know who had the courage to take that risk? As taxing as articling week is on students, it’s also onerous for firms. As such, a lot . . . [more]

If you’re keen on law blogging, the way we are here at Slaw, you’ll be pleased to note that the recent changes to the Law Society of Upper Canada’s requirements for continuing professional development make it clear that bloggers can get CPD credit. This might give a little boost to those who might otherwise hesitate on the threshold.

The relevant change to the rules states:

. . . [more]

There’s some good stuff happening over on Osgoode Hall Law School’s IFLS blog, which is managed by the impressive Sonia Lawrence. I’m referring to a “roundtable” discussion about the recent Supreme Court of Canada case Quebec (Attorney General) v. A, 2013 SCC 5, otherwise known as Eric v. Lola. The old song says “whatever Lola wants, Lola gets” — but not this time. The majority of the court supported the exclusion of de facto spouses from the provisions of the Civil Code governing spousal support and division of property, making Québec (yet again) unique among the provinces. This, . . . [more]

I would normally take care in posting something about “the curve” in law circles, as there is a good chance that somebody who graduated law school will break out in hives. Those who do break out in hives might be heartened to know that the curve has utility far beyond determining law school mark, one such is use is in explaining how polling works. With the results of most recent election in B.C. and the recent spotty track record of polls in various Canadian elections, I have found these recent tribulations fascinating as I distinctly remember a few years ago . . . [more]

Two resources I’d like to share with you, each touching on the topic of flipped classrooms. The first is Matt Homann’s 6 minute contribution at lexthink.1 where he talks about disrupting CLE. Moving beyond technology supported learning, Matt makes some interesting points on the physical structure of learning environments, telling us to “flip that classroom!”. (Click into this post to view the embedded materials.)

The second piece is from Rich McCue’s recent presentation at UVic on Flipped Classroom Benefits. The preceding link routes to a summary of Rich’s presentation, and his prezi slides are embedded below:

I would consider . . . [more]

Last month I participated in the CBA Equal Justice Summit, and previously I wrote about its highly effective opening evening simulation.

I found the plenaries and parallel workshops equally stimulating. Indeed, they seemed to diverge in character from traditional conference sessions. The plenaries engaged participants with multimedia, debate, and even theatre. The workshops I attended were interactive, beyond a handful of questions post-presentation, and some drew from the diverse thoughts of panels larger than I often see in conferences.

The pursuit of equal access to justice is manifold, and Summit organizers, presenters, and many participants are active in . . . [more]

Technology is the game-changer in the legal field, and yet most lawyers are not very technologically inclined. LawTechCamp seeks to change that, bringing together non-lawyers from the tech sector and the lawyers who are eager to identify the opportunities of the future.

Now in it’s third year, LawTechCamp is scheduled for June 8, 2013 in Toronto. The panels this year will again focus on some of the cutting-edge developments in the intersection of law and tech, and brings in several speakers from outside of Canada. Here’s a sampling of what you can expect:

Due diligence is one of those things . . . [more]

A tweet this morning from Heather Colman alerted me to the Building Smarter Organizations event happening today in Toronto.

If you are like me, and you are not in Toronto attending this event, you can still participate through the web.

There is a Linked In Group and a #smartorg twitter stream. There are plenty of concepts being shared through tweets that will make you think. Examples:

Mark Federman ‏@MarkFederman
Great Drucker quote: Mgmt mostly consists of making it difficult for people to do their work. #smartorg

Heather Colman‏ @HeatherColman
More bureaucratic mgmt= less engaged staff #smartorg

It is worth your . . . [more]