That’s the title of my Free Press article for this week. Cloud computing seems to be a popular topic, so thought it was worth posting here. This article talks about the privacy issues of cloud computing from the view of a recent report by the World Privacy Forum.

From the article:

The forum report’s clear underlying message is that users must be diligent in understanding terms of service, how disclosing information to a cloud provider changes their privacy and confidentially rights in that information, and how remotely stored information may not have the legal protection it should have.

The forum . . . [more]

Here’s a link to a first chapter by the Advanced Legal Research instructors at Stanford Law School in a work on the history of CALR. I suspect they need to get into the stacks more

It’s interesting as far as it goes, but it doesn’t capture as much of the early detail as Jon Bing’s Handbook of Legal Information Retrieval. Jon’s book led me to Louis O. Kelso’s Does the Law Need a Technological Revolution in 18 Rocky Mntn. L. Rev. 388 (1945-1946) – yes 1946. It discusses the application of computers to the task of legal research. . . . [more]

Family law disputes and brushes with the law under the Provincial Offences Act likely constitute two of the most common ways people come into contact with the legal system (I’m not counting here going to a lawyer to have a will prepared or to buy or sell real estate). The Law Commission of Ontario is undertaking projects in both these areas that should benefit a good proportion of Ontarians. . . . [more]

Today’s Free Press has a piece by Chip Martin on the history of the University of Western Ontario law school – and a nice tribute to Ivan Rand. There’s a new biography of Rand on the horizon by Bill Kaplan which will likely deal with his involvement in the founding of the state of Israel.

There’ll be big celebrations all year in London Ontario. . . . [more]

Those of us who were trained to look at the documents – always the documents as I.F. Stone taught – will find the attached documents on the torture of those detained at Guantánamo Bay detention centre both fascinating and chilling.

For the record here are the links: . . . [more]

Twitter was a certainly a hot topic at ABA TECHSHOW last week. Loads of active Twitterers were tweeting away there, and many more attendees where trying to learn more about it. Are you still trying to figure out what Twitter is, and more importantly, what it might do for you? My good friend Jim Calloway, the Practice Management Advisor at the Oklahoma Bar Association, has a special knack for explaining technology in a practical and very understandable way. To learn more about Twitter read this great article he posted on the OBA site earlier this week: Twitter: The . . . [more]

Some stories are beyond Twitter. The full text from Trinity Church on Wall Street, and reports from the Telegraph, Ma Jones and the NYT.

Someone can tell me whether this represents progress, or another sign of the apocalypse. . . . [more]

As noted over on the Stem blog yesterday, we continue to build our list of Canadian law blogs on LawBlogs.ca. Since our January update, there have been 13 new additions. Those were:

• Brian Bowman – On the Cutting Edge (Pitblado LLP)
• The Cross-Border Biotech Blog
• Halifax Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog (John McKiggan)
• Halifax Personal Injury Lawyer Blog (John McKiggan)
• Sexual Abuse Claims Blog (John McKiggan)
• Law in Québec
  
• Making Sense of It. Law and Life (Peter MacSweeney)
• Ontario Real Estate (Brian Madrigan)
• Ottawa Injury & Accident Lawyer Blog (David Hollingsworth)
• The Two Wheel Geek
• Canadian Lawyerista
• Clayton Whitman
• Law for

…comes on a Thursday this week, because tomorrow, Good Friday, is a holiday and, I suspect, no one will be reading Slaw, even a Slavian fillip. [Kudos to John Gregory for coming up with that perfect parallel to Shavian!]

Sheep’s the theme, as some of us contemplate the traditional dinner of lamb. And I’ve a flock of mostly silly stuff for you, which seems somehow fitting. But first up is Sheep 101, that course you avoided back in university in favour of The Comedy Film in Popular Culture, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1.30 p.m. But I’ll only detain you . . . [more]

This is slightly off-topic, though I would argue it all goes back to the classic discussion of Wine and the Law. And here is some legal discussion on wine law from Fermentation.

My friend Charles Hodgson of Podictionary fame has just written:

Compare and contrast:

· First book, a year to write, three years to sell, a year and a half to bring to market
· This book, five months to write, eight days to bring to market

The blurbs on Amazon say: “A great read.” -Rod Phillips, author of A Short History of Wine, “Certain to find . . . [more]

I attended day 1 of the Mesh conference yesterday. (I had a conflict for today – but a colleague is going in my place.) Some video from the event is already on the Mesh site.

The highlight for me was the keynote by Mike Masnick of Techdirt. Anyone interested in changing business models and how to conduct business on the web should follow the Techdirt blog.

Microsoft had one of their Surface devices there. If you ever get a chance to play with one, you should. Multitouch technology will be included in Windows 7. That could lead to . . . [more]

♫ Tell me something good
Tell me that you like it …
What I got to give will sho nuff do you good.. ♫

Lyrics and Music by Stevie Wonder, recorded by Rufus and Chaka Khan, “Tell me Something Good“.

While Simon Chester may be leading the discussion on the application of Twitter for lawyers, there is no question that Twitter has proven its value for legal technology conferences.

There were many new and exciting aspects about ABA TECHSHOW 2009 including Richard Susskind’s keynote address on the end of lawyers. But to me, in looking back at . . . [more]