After a very long absence I recently rediscovered the books of Henry Cecil in our library and wanted to recommend them to any SLAWers who do not know of this gem of a writer, and his wonderfully funny stories about English law. A lawyer and later judge himself Cecil published around thirty books about the humorous trials and many tribulations of lawyers, judges and assorted villains. Written mainly in the fifties and sixties the few I have recently re-read seem little dated and I know that little has changed. My wife started reading “Brothers in Law” which recounts the story . . . [more]

Le 09 août dernier a été jugée par la Supreme Court of New Jersey l’affaire Jaliyah Muhammad v. County Bank of Rehoboth. Comme les affaires Dell et Rogers, que nous avons commenté à plusieurs reprises ici et là, et encore là), et qui, soit dit en passant, seront entendues par la Cour suprême) (la notre) respectivement le 13 et le 14 décembre 2006, il s’agit d’une broutille, d’un presque rien, une «coquetterie juridique» sur le plan de l’enjeu financier, qui a pourtant pour effet de faire avancer le droit sur la délicate question de la compatibilité entre . . . [more]

I’ve been watching this wiki list of Vancouver Web2.0 companies grow for the past month or so. I’m not sure every entry could be considered a Web2.0 company, but then again, I’m not sure I buy into the 1.0-vs-2.0 differentiation anyway. For me, lists like this are an easy way to track local web innovation.

If anyone knows of a similar list for the TO, Ottawa, East Coast, or another Canadian market, please feel free to share. . . . [more]

Today is the first day of the extraordinary Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert where an entire city will be created over the next few days, focussing on the theme of Hope and Fear – the creation and envisioning of the Future:

The centerpiece of Hope and Fear will be a sleek Art Deco palace, the Pavilion of the Future.

Imagine 35,000 people suddenly arriving in the desertI know, small by Notting Hill standards, but there is a legal system in Notting Hill – and running water, and one senses the needs for norms, institutional mechanisms and (in . . . [more]

Google doesn’t yet have an Office 2.0–a full suite of hosted productivity applications aimed at the Microsoft Office crowd, especially the small- and medium-sized firms–but starting [today] companies or organizations can deploy Google email, calendar, chat and Web page (Page Creator) hosting for free (ad supported). The set of Google communications applications is an extension of Gmail for Your Domain, and has some limited UI customization and administration features. Later this year, Google will offer a subscription service with additional storage and support options.
ZD Net: Between the Lines, “Google Office ‘version 1.0’ debuts“

For an . . . [more]

Tussy needs advice – and where better to get it than Slaw.

My young Canadian friend Tussy Mohr needs some advice from the Slaw community – given its diversity of backgrounds and experience. She’s like many recent graduates – wants to go to law school but is uncertain about the choices.

She’s got a good science undergraduate degree from one of the top Canadian universities, a very respectable LSAT, but faces a dilemma. Should she apply to law schools in Canada or in the United States for an LLB/JD degreeShe has a romantic transborder liaison which makes the US option . . . [more]

Chers Slawyers, pour la deuxième fois cette semaine je suis très heureux d’annoncer que il y a un collaborateur nouveaux (et “core”) chez Slaw. Dominic Jaar est deja bien connu ici à cause de son blogue propre, WIM: Wines and Information Management. “Par jour” il est conseiller juridique à Bell Canada (Beaudin Legault). Bienvenu, Dominic.

Dear Slawyers, for the second time this week I’m happy to announce that we have been joined by a new core contributor. Dominic Jaar is already well known to us because of his own blog, WIM: Wines and Information Management. His day job . . . [more]

This week’s fillip comes from a suggestion by Slawyer Steven Matthews.

We’ve given you the Which Supreme Court Judge Are You test. Now it’s time for the Which Superhero Are You quiz. I mean, it’s one thing to learn that you’re Chief Bev, but it’s quite another to discover that under that Casual – Friday – 70% – cotton – 30% – man – made – fibres – Guayabera – top there beats the secret heart of [Adjective] Person!

On a personal note, may I say that one of the superheroes you can’t be is Plastic Man, a personal . . . [more]

This request for help from Annette Demers, Reference Librarian at the Paul Martin Law Library, University of Windsor:

I just wanted to solicit assistance from the other blog readers out there. Has anyone successfully configured access to O’Briens Forms using EZ Proxy? Currently we are using this link to OBriens http://www.obriensforms.com/scripts/oblogin.pl but after the patron enters the OBriens website and agrees to the Terms and Conditions, we get a red “Invalid Access Method” message on the next screen that appears. What we think is happening is that ezproxy is absorbing the first cookie that gets set, so that the user

Today’s headlines include stories about the possibility of cameras coming to Ontario courtrooms. This is a result of a press release released yesterday by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General about the report received from the Ontario Panel on Justice and the Media established by Attorney General Michael Bryant back in January 2005. The Panel was created to help find ways to foster understanding between the media and the justice system. The full report is now available on the Ontario Ministry of Attorney General website. According to the Executive Summary, the Panel made 17 recommendations which cover the following . . . [more]

Freenigma is a Firefox plugin that can encrypt your webmail. You and your correspondent both have to use Freenigma for it to work, though I think each of you can use a different webmail client. Your emails get encrypted in your own browser thanks to some JavaScript in the plugin, and so nothing gets sent to Freenigma.

This might be of use for some smaller firms in which there’s a spate of really sensitive material going to and fro in email. I doubt it’ll keep the American NSA out of things, but short of that it promises to be effective. . . . [more]

E journals, databases, journal aggregators, yada-yada-yada. Amidst all the furor over e content, I want to draw your attention to the Canadian Journal of Law & Society-CJLS, one of my favourite journals, simply because of the innovative cover art that they use on the cover of the journal since volume 15 in 2000. Akin to the debate on cover art on LPs after the downfall of vinyl, are we losing sight of cover art with online journals? …

Here are some recent examples of the artwork on the cover of CJLS. Hold your cursor over the image for more . . . [more]