Since my clients and colleagues have been remarkably gracious about my attempts to vacation this week, I will keep this brief and return to my rest BEvERage novel kids. Here’s some of what has been going on in my absence:

• Some fairly significant deal activity, especially for the end of August. Biovail picked up product rights from Swiss company Santhera, and Cardiome decided to use $27.5 million to buy back shares instead of to perform R&D.
• Some further good vibes for biotech investing, with more industry journalists picking up the meme, and rumours of new IPOs.

Last month I wrote about Fired Without Cause, an online legal service for consumers created by Vancouver startup Paradigm Shift Solutions Inc., formed by Chilwin Cheng, LLB and Jim Hamlin, a software development expert. Since I’m curious to know how innovative companies get started in the Canadian legal industry, I arranged for a telephone interview with Chilwin Cheng through his PR company Fleishman-Hillard.

Connie: I want to start at the beginning. Where did you do your law degree? . . . [more]

I’m an iPhone user. Hell, I’m a Mac fanboy. But I’ve been slow to come to those apps on the iPhone that don’t claim to increase my productivity somehow. Professional deformation, I guess. But I’m finally plumping for an iPhone app that would be a real stretch to use in connection with law: Brushes. This $5 app lets you paint on your iPhone. I know, I know: finger painting, like Trix, is for kids. Uh uh. Nope. Not a bit of it.

Don’t believe me? Just take a look at some fantastic finished products, all done on a canvas . . . [more]

A quick sidebar update to my previous post on astronaut problems with image appropriation in advertising. This fall Omega commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, releasing a print advertisment for the Speedmaster watch “The first and only watch to go to the moon / July 20, 1969.” The ad features a photograph of John F. Kennedy, and his famous quote that started it all: “We choose to go to the moon.” Alas: the ad formally references the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and its website. Lesson learned? . . . [more]

The Foundation for Legal Research has awarded the 2009 Walter Owen Book prize to

• Bradley Crawford, The law of banking and payment in Canada (Aurora, Ont.: Canada Law Book, 2008); and to
• William Tetley, Marine cargo claims, 4th ed. (Cowansville, Que.: Thomson Carswell, 2008)

The press release is on the Canadian Bar Association website. . . . [more]

I deplore the practice of some of those who publish on Slaw—or, indeed, anywhere else—doing so anonymously. I have raised the matter privately with Simon Fodden but I raise it now publicly. In my opinion, anyone who wants to publish anything on Slaw, whether as a post or a comment, should do so only after he or she has provided Simon with a valid e-mail address, a short bio and a statement of the organization with which he or she is affiliated. This information should be available to anyone. Whether or not anonymous blogging will eventually come to an end—as . . . [more]

Last week I posed a survey on copyright reform. Here are the results.

The result is overwhelming.

So in anticipation of comments pointing out the following:

– it clearly was not scientifically accurate

– it is quite possible that the question was biased

– it may reflect the large proportion of users to creators and thus shows the tyranny of the majority rather than a principled view. . . . [more]

Larry Lessig, noted law prof at Stanford and long-time blogger, has decided to close down his eponymous (I love that word) blog. He’s posted his last entry, setting out his reasons (baby #3, spam comments, volunteer technical support, new research project) which add up to blogger burn-out after seven years. Sad but understandable.

He’s not leaving the public arena, though (…as if…). He says:

This isn’t an announcement of my disappearance. I’m still trying to understand twitter. My channel at blip.tv will remain. As will the podcast, updated as I speak. I will continue to guest

The internet is a panopticon. Not the prison that Bentham designed (“a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”) — that charming role has now fallen to CCTV, thankfully not on the public internet and not so widespread in Canada as it might be. No, I’m thinking of the humble, ubiquitous webcam. Thanks to those little devices and hundreds of thousands of volunteer computers, we can see pretty much whatever we might wish to, from wherever we might be: tourism as voyeurism (if it wasn’t that to begin with).

The very first . . . [more]

♬We’re talking ’bout manners, nice manners,
Manners make you feel good
Manners, nice manners.
Manners make you feel so good,
They make you feel so good.
They make you feel so good.♬

Lyrics and music by Cathy Bollinger, “Manners”.

Perhaps it is a factor of growing older…perhaps it is a recognition that social etiquette (along with ethics) are not just welcome but necessary, or perhaps it is just a fact that I seem to have an increasingly striking resemblance to a certain disgruntled elf in Snow White (as an aside, if ‘disgruntled’ means grumpy, what does ‘gruntled’ mean????? Was . . . [more]

Tom Shumate has a good article up on Law Practice Today titled Computers, Tequila and Hand Guns: Controlling Technology So It Doesn’t Control You. The tips he offers on managing technology are all good reminders of taking a common sense approach. See the section headers for those recommendations:

• Double-Check Everything
• Slow Down
• Set boundaries
• Schedule it
• Monotask

The funny part for me is that I’ve met Tom at some of the LPM section events, and he’s as polite as they come. Almost Canadian. So for him to lead with a quote about “tequila and hand guns”; and then . . . [more]

How do I monitor things, let me count the ways. The many, many, many ways.

Twitter, Google Reader (yes, I switched), Facebook status updates, LinkedIn groups, internal firm communications, and very significantly print that comes in the mail.

One item that I used to monitor in print is the Canada Gazette. I made a decision to monitor it in print years ago because I was afraid of missing something if I had to remember to go to a website to retrieve it. This unfortunate choice of media nearly caused me to miss the proclamation of the . . . [more]