A couple of posts ago I mentioned the Public Review of LegalDocML’s Akoma Ntoso v1.0. If you’re interested in legal XML and want to learn more about the Akoma Ntoso XML standard there are a couple of courses being offered at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia this summer.

The first is the Basic Course offering an, “introduction to Akoma Ntoso XML standard and to basic XML technologies for drafting and managing standard-compliant legislative and legal documents.” The second part, an Advanced Course, will provide, “in-depth analysis of the higher levels of Semantic Web technologies . . . [more]

I probably won’t be making it to the Chicago Bar Association’s CLE on “How To… Get the Most Out of Twitter” tomorrow. But that’s not to say that I wouldn’t have been choked to miss Catherine Reach’s tweet mentioning it. Mostly that’s because there was something else she linked to which caught my attention: Kevin O’Keefe’s post from last Thursday heralding that “Twitter is teaming up with Google to bring Twitter’s real-time content to Google’s search results.”

So there it is. Google and Twitter are getting friendly (once more). And just when you thought Mobilegeddon was . . . [more]

As you may have heard, during the recent E-Laws website migration, the decision was taken to discontinue producing the Detailed Legislative History Tables.

In 2002, Ontario stopped publishing the Table of Public Statutes in the Statutes of Ontario. Instead the SO directed users to E-Laws for these tables moving forward.
The Table of Public Statutes has been published since 1877 as an important historical legal research tool.

Now the tables have been discontinued outright, however the E-Laws team has not yet devised a solution to take its place.

Accordingly, I have prepared a letter and petition to the Ontario Attorney . . . [more]

In 2013, the Library of Parliament, in collaboration with Canadiana.org, launched a new Canadian Historical Parliamentary Resources digital portal.

The portal initially offered free public access to digital versions of the debates of the Parliament of Canada in both official languages, starting with the first session of Parliament in 1867 until debate coverage on the parliamentary website parl.gc.ca begins (in the mid-1990s).

The portal has now added access to the Journals of the Senate and of the House of Commons, again going back to 1867. The Senate and House of Commons Journals are the notes and records kept . . . [more]

When it comes to technology, are we not always hearing about the breakneck speed of change? The inexorable pace and ubiquity of it? How technology is revolutionizing law and practice? Our magazines, CLEs and law bloggings are replete with calls to brace for one type of Lawmageddon or another—the imminent (or at least happening really, really, probably, rather soon) confluence of events that will change lawyers’ lives forever. Anything short of fully encrypted communication between lawyer and client will spell negligence. You will become or be devoured by an alternative business structure. Cybersecurity will become the mantra by which you . . . [more]

OASIS* is a “nonprofit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society.” Under the OASIS umbrella is the LegalXML Member Section a group of “lawyers, developers, application vendors, government agencies and members of academia” working on the creation of “standards for the electronic exchange of legal data.”

The OASIS LegalDocumentML (LegalDocML) Technical Committee recently announced a month long review period to gather feedback for a number of standards they have development.

“The OASIS LegalDocML TC works to advance worldwide best practices for the use

Earlier this week at its annual conference in Moncton, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries announced that the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History book series was the winner of the 2015 Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

Over the past 35 years, the Society has published books that cover the breadth of Canadian legal history, including the history of crime and punishment, women and the law, the legal treatment of minorities and much more.

The Award is named after the late Hugh Lawford, law professor at Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario and the founder of Quicklaw. . . . [more]

The 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law will take place at the University of San Diego next month. ICAIL has been held biennially since 1987 and provides a “forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest research results and practical applications and stimulates interdisciplinary and international collaboration.”

The proceedings are published by the Association for Computing Machinary (ACM) and the abstract from the proceedings of the 14th meeting has this to say about how research in this area has emerged and the complimentary nature of AI and law:

“It is not a coincidence that

Perma.cc, a service invented by the Harvard Law School Library that helps organizations create an archive of permanent links for web citations, has won the 2015 Webby Award in the category of best law-related website.

Perma.cc is supported by some 60 law libraries and was developed to deal with the problem of link rot, the growing problem of broken or dead hyperlinks.

The Webby Awards recognize outstanding achievement in websites, online film and video, mobile and apps, and interactive advertising and media. There are numerous categories, ranging from activism to sports.

The Awards are presented by the . . . [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]

That was the question that welcomed us on the morning of Day 2 at the law repositories conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. This session was billed as a “debate” between Sharon Bradley, University of Georgia School of Law, and Beth Williams, Louisiana State University Law Center, but it turned out that the two speakers didn’t really have much to disagree on; they both considered digitization a form of preservation.

Bradley stressed the need for libraries to get started. “Digitization can’t wait,” she said, “your books are deteriorating.” She sees digitization as a way to both protect the physical . . . [more]

Every year, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) hands out the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

It honours a publisher that has demonstrated excellence by publishing a work, series, website or e-product that makes a significant contribution to legal research and scholarship.

The nominees for this year are:

• BC Laws (British Columbia Queen’s Printer)
• CanLII Connects (CanLII)
• Centre de documentation et de ressources informationnelles [CDRI] (Chambre des notaires du Québec)
• Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History book series (University of Toronto Press)
• Quickscribe 2.0 (Quickscribe 2.0 Services Ltd.)
• Saskatchewan Builders’ Lien Manual, 2^nd ed.