Kevin O’Keefe recently discussed Digital Darwinism as it related to legal researchers, publishers and advertisers. The economic downturn, coupled with technological advances, has resulted in the demise of many major industries that have been the backbone of corporate America.

But O’Keefe also suggests another slightly troubling proposition,

Blogs will be widely cited in briefs and court decisions.

What better way to provide compelling arguments and establish binding precedent than sourcing articles with a milisecond publishing turnaround time?

There is obviously a broad variety of quality and depth in the legal blogosphere.

The credibility and authority of both the author and . . . [more]

When can it be said that a new print publication is in fact “recognized as an authority” by the Canadian legal research community?

This question came to mind when I asked a law librarian attending the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries if she had added Halsburys Laws of Canada to her law library collection. Her answer was that she would do so as soon as Halsburys was “recognized” by the legal research community and not before.

The ultimate form of recognition

Identifying the ultimate form of recognition as an authority is an easy task. It is . . . [more]

I was just on the website of Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (that’s the organization that kicked off the “open law” movement of which our own CanLII is a part). They are asking for financial donations. The notice explains:

Your support helps us help others.

There are over one million links to the LII, from hundreds of thousands of websites.

Today, many of those are sites that help people who are struggling with debt, and the people and organizations who help them: debt counselors, bankruptcy lawyers, consumer self-help sites, and countless others.

The LII stands out because we make law both

The Conference Board of Canada has just released its Index of Consumer Confidence.

The monthly Index of Consumer Confidence is constructed from responses to four attitudinal questions posed to a random sample of Canadian households. The latest results are based on over 2,000 telephone interviews conducted in early December 2008.

According to the News release:

The Index of Consumer Confidence stumbled for the third consecutive month in December, falling 3.3 points to 67.7 (2002 = 100), the Conference Board reported today.

“On a monthly basis, the index has now dropped significantly below early 1990s levels. Only during the recession

The U.S. Mission to Canada is pretty hip, serving up content the way you want it:

• podcast
• facebook
• twitter (@usembassyottawa)
• news feeds (RSS)
• Ambassador David Wilkins also apparently held “web chats”, the most recent his farewell chat held on December 11th (transcript here).

I wonder if the incoming ambassador will take it a step further and open up a Second Life presence ?

As a side note, I notice the U.S. Embassy in London also on Twitter: @usembassylondon; their Twitter updates (“tweets”) are also reposted on their website. . . . [more]

The Call List-Serv is offering the Western Samoa Law Reports, 1930-1949 and 1970-1979 (2 volumes) free for the cost of shipment. Some Samoan cases are available online, though the Index is also on PacificLii.

Samoan law is described in PacificLii.

I’ve not found any reference to any Canadian court having considered a Western Samoan case. But it does seem sad that the inexorable rise of web-based caselaw has put this obscure bit of antipodean jurisprudence in the recycling hopper. Unless someone wants to claim it from the BC Courthouse Library. . . . [more]

There’s a new addition to the roster of domain name suffixes coming: .tel And it’s unique among extensions in at least a couple of ways. First, its distribution is in wholly private and commercial hands — you’ll pay to play — and second, it won’t locate a place on the web. Evidently, dot tel will lead to a collection of your resources located right on the domain name server, and what it serves up will depend on how you come to it and where you come from. The idea is to make the DNS emit information that is responsive to . . . [more]

Wealth of comparative and historical material in Hein Online’s Classics.

I just stumbled over a book I never knew existed:

1884 W. T. S. Daniel, The History and Origin of the Law Reports,
Together with a Compilation of Various Documents Shewing the Progress and Result of Proceedings Taken for Their Establishment and the Condition of the Reports on the 31st December, 1883

We have been debating law reporting for longer than we suspected. . . . [more]

So says Nick Abrahams in his similarly titled post of last week:

Today in what appears to be a first in Australia and perhaps the world, Master Harper of the ACT Supreme Court ordered that a default judgement could be served on defendants by notification on Facebook.

I wonder how long before this happens in Canada? After all, Canada is the country in the world with the highest Facebook penetration, as a percentage of its population… 29% in July 2008! Too bad Facebook doesn’t send back read receipts to lawyers serving documents on Facebook. . . . [more]

This is a midweek meander, taking us away from law, and that’s okay, I hope. What’s around this particular bend are the 1,500 photographs that the New York Public Library has selected from the 640,000 photos of its Digital Gallery for tagging and inclusion in the Flickr Commons. These represent, we’re told, a sort of “appetizer course” for the larger transfers to come. Images in Flickr Commons are by and large available for use free of encumbering copyright restrictions.

I’ve quickly run through all of the NYPL additions and can tell you that there’s a wide range of interesting . . . [more]

Today saw the release of an Ipsos Reid survey on the legal problems faced by low-income British Columbians. More than 80 per cent have faced problems since 2005 that have been serious and difficult to resolve. The poll was commissioned by the province’s legal aid program.

Consumer, money, and housing issues topped the list of legal problems with employment and family relations following close behind.

“The high incidence of legal problems is troubling,” said Mark Benton, QC, Executive Director of the Legal Services Society, the organization that provides legal aid in BC. “This survey, along with other research . . . [more]

I came across the following enthusiastic review of a new book on the law of Bail:

Faris on Bail is the most extensive and insightful book written on the law and practice of bail in Victoria. It is clearly written and structured and includes a reference and link to every relevant case on the topic. It provides lawyers and judges with a complete resource on the relevant law and is one of the few legal publications that provides an exhaustive treatment of a subject matter.

Well what’s unusual about that, you might ask.

Legal publishing in jurisdictions like Victoria – . . . [more]