Luigi Benetton has published a nice article called “Knowledge Management Know-How” in the current edition of The Lawyers Weekly.

The article quotes me and fellow SLAW contributor Dominic Jaar, but what I like about the article are the viewpoints from others in the industry and the wide range of tips and advice on best practices.

What I find with knowledge management is that there is usually never a single approach or method and varies a fair bit depending on the type of organization, its culture and staffing.

In fact, there has been lots of discussion in the . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal just uploaded a speech by Chief Justice Winkler on labour arbitration and conflict resolution, although it was initially presented at Queen’s University on November 30, 2010.

Justice Winkler’s views on labour law reform have been of considerable interest, especially considering his holding in Fraser v. Ontario, overturned this year by the Supreme Court of Canada.

In this speech, Justice Winkler provides four recommendations for labour law reform:

1. Shorten grievance procedures
2. Conduct discovery and productions within grievances, and not arbitration
3. Select arbitrators who are more immediately available
4. Conduct hearings with proportionality

[Colin Lachance is the President of CanLII.]

In his recent column on Slaw entitled Funding the LIIs, Sean Hocking wrote of the challenges faced by BAILII, the successes of AustLII and, to the extent information was available, the various funding models pursued by other legal information institutes. In referencing CanLII, he noted:

They don’t tell us much just that “CanLII is funded by the members of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, in other words, the law societies of Canada’s provinces and territories and the Chambre des notaires du Québec.”

It’s true, our site does . . . [more]

On 25 July 2011, AALL hosted a panel discussion attracting at least 250 attendees. Coordinated by Michael G. Bernier, Director of Library Relations, BNA and moderated by Christine L. Graesser, Head Legislative Librarian, Connecticut Legislative Library, the speakers were:

• Lesley Ellen Harris, lawyer, author and educator, Copyrightlaws.com
• Katherine Lowry, Director of Information Resources, Baker & Hostetler
• Tracy L. Thompson-Przylucki, Executive Director, New England Law Library Consortium, Inc.

Bernier described the discussions “like listening in on a living room conversation between three experts!”

Some of the many questions discussed:

How should the license define licensed content? Usually falling under “Subject Matter” . . . [more]

My post earlier this morning complaining about “and/or” has got me on a roll.

Here are a few more pet peeves or commonly seen grammar errors:

1) Commas in Pairs (Rule 6.17, Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed)

Whenever a comma is used to set off an element, a second comma is required if the phrase or sentence continues beyond the element being set off:

– Incorrect: Judy went to Italy on June 15, 2004 to eat pasta.
– Correct: Judy went to Italy on June 15, 2004, to eat pasta.

You need a comma after the year in . . . [more]

As reported last week internet activist Aaron Schwartz “was charged … with sneaking into a computer closet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and making unauthorized downloads of more than four million journal articles” from JSTOR. While there is a long list of charges (a copy of the 15 page indictment from the US District Court can be found here), the charge that has generated the most online debate is “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2).

Academic libraries pay for access to JSTOR – an enormous repository of . . . [more]

I remain surprised at the number of intelligent, articulate, and well-read legal professionals who still use “and/or” in legal writing.

I am therefore creating this post to document a fairly complete list of authorities that support what I think is the better (if not obvious) view: never use “and/or” in legal writing (or any writing). And yes, I said “never.”

The Abomination that is “And/Or”

Although there is some support for “and/or,” the weight of authority is against its use, primarily for two reasons: (i) its use can result in uncertainty, (ii) it is not a real word.

I definitely . . . [more]

In addition to the blog posts I put together from selected sessions at the PLL Summit on Saturday, I have also liveblogged a few of the other conference sessions I have attended:

• Barbara Tillett and John Mark Ockerbloom on Authority Control Vocabularies and the Semantic Web
  These are notes are from talk by Dr. Barbara B. Tillett of theLibrary of Congress and John Mark Ockerboom of the University of Pennsylvania.
• To Recover or Not to Recover: Trends, Solutions, and Alternatives for Taming Online Research Costs
  These are notes are from a panel discussion session with Joan Axelroth

The Meaning of License

According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a “license” is “The permission by competent authority to do an act which, without such permission, would be illegal, a trespass, or a tort.” Also, “Permission to do something which without the license would not be allowable.” It is that license which allows us to download an e-book onto our e-book reader, upload computer software, and legally obtain music online. In fact, with digital content, licensing has become an integral part of our access to, and use of, informational, educational, and entertainment content. And yet the meaning of a license . . . [more]

I just received this information from the CALL webinar committee, and thought the SLAW community would be interested. I work with Rick – he has incredible knowledge of legislation and a wicked sense of humour. Caroline is not unknown to the CALL community – she has spoken at annual conferences before, and has always impressed me with her skill as a speaker and her encyclopedic knowledge.

This is a session not to be missed!

Thursday September 15, 2011
1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT 

Join two legislation experts in the first of a series of webinars that will share tips

Sunday at the AALL 2011 conference in Philadelphia about 200 people attended the Cool Tools Cafe, a 75 minute session in which we could visit 5 minute demos of new tools at any of 17 tables. I managed to visit about half. I was particularly impressed by DRAGNET, a legal search tool from the New York Law School demonstrated by Terry Ballard, Assistant Director of Technical Services for Library Systems of Mendik Library.

DRAGNET (Database Resource Access Using Google’s New Electronic Technologies) is a search tool created with Google custom search which we have mentioned a few times over . . . [more]

I am currently in Philadelphia for the American Association of Law Libraries 2011 conference. Today is the PLL Summit put on by the Private Law Libraries Special Interest Section (PLL-SIS). I have live-blogging the sessions I attended:

• James Jones on Understanding Law Firm Trends
• Esther Dyson on Technology Changes in Business and Libraries
• Steven Lastres, Julie Bozzell and Toby Brown – Moving Beyond the Library Walls to Support Strategic Knowledge Management
• Joan Axelroth – What Law Firm Administrators Want Librarians to Know
• Greg Castanias – How librarians add value to their law firms
• David Curle on transformations in the