I was at my monthly book club meeting the other night. As is our wont, after a solid discussion about the book (Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy) we moved along to other topics of import. The question about women in law firms came up, not surprisingly since I am a law librarian and another member of the group is a lawyer. The rest of the group were surprised to learn that, despite law school students being at least half female, the percentage of female partners in firms still falls significantly short of the 50% mark.

We speculated on various . . . [more]

John Ruskin, the “leading English art critic of the Victorian era,” didn’t simply opine and judge; he drew and painted as well. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has put online his collection of drawings meant to help students of art learn to draw according to his principles. The drawings, often coloured with water colours, are made available in a way that lets you zoom in to investigate and appreciate the details of his technique.

But I thought that rather than this somewhat passive involvement with Ruskin, you might prefer some classes on how to draw, using Ruskin’s drawings. . . . [more]

The Honourable Rob Nicholson responded to critics of the current crime bill who said that crime is declining and the vast majority of Canadians feel safe, “We don’t govern on the basis of statistics.” . . . [more]

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat has published an article about Canadians’ perceptions of personal safety and crime, 2009.

Among the highlights:

• In 2009, the vast majority (93%) of Canadians aged 15 years and older living in the provinces said they felt satisfied with their personal safety from crime. This proportion was similar to 2004, the last time this survey was conducted
• Despite higher rates of victimization, younger Canadians were more satisfied with their personal safety from crime than older Canadians. In 2009, 94% of Canadians aged 15 to 24 years said they felt very or somewhat satisfied, compared with

The Clawbies website design is now updated, and the season opening post is up. Yes, it’s time for the (6th!) Canadian Law Blog Awards!

Whether you’re a blogger or blog reader, the month of December has become the time to shine a light on your favourite Canadian law blogs and bloggers. And if you’re new to the Clawbies tradition, please make careful note of ‘the humble Canadian rule’ — don’t toot your own horn! Your blog gets automatically nominated when you nominate and link to other bloggers! Yes, it’s a wink-wink, nudge-nudge concept, but take a look around at . . . [more]

To call a smart-phone a phone is really a misnomer. We need to think of them as computers with internet connections that we carry around in our pockets. 

Why is this an important distinction? From a legal perspective, that changes the perspective tremendously. Consider Connie Crosby’s Slaw post “Digital Wallets on Their Way” , and the comment on the post musing about privacy and the warrant-less search of cellphones that is being debated in various jurisdictions.

The privacy aspects of a phone that just makes phone calls without retaining any information, and the consideration of whether law enforcement . . . [more]

I’m by no means an expert in banking, but seems to me things are heating up in the world of alternative payments. Last week Benjamin Ensor from Forresters posted a nice overview of the rise of the digital wallet (also known as mobile wallet) in his article The Battle of the Digital Wallet. He says this is going to be a game-changer for the retail market:

A mobile digital wallet is more than just a mobile payment system because it combines:

• Mobile payment. Digital wallets are likely combine several different payments systems into a single service, including mobile

Every so often there’s nothing for it but to resort to words. I know these are our stock in trade and as such can overstay their welcome. It’s for that reason that the Friday Fillip usually paints you pretty pictures or invites you into some silly but entertaining time-waster of a game—the equivalent of the “Ohne Wörte” [without words] caption that gets put at the bottom of cartoons in Germany that, well, have no words (apparently so that you don’t blow your entire day hunting for the explanatory text). But, as you’ll likely have guessed, I’m veering into the word . . . [more]

If you have ten minutes to spare head on over to Google’s British Page, where you’ll find (to quote The Guardian)

A spiky-haired, bespectacled animation of the Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem, as the search engine marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of his first book, The Astronauts.

. . . [more]

The trend to more invasive surveillance and control by North American governments (indeed, by many countries that we consider civilized democracies), or their granting of too much control to others is disturbing. Too many things are making creeping (and sometimes creepy) inroads into privacy rights, along with the usual specious “if you’ve got nothing to hide… ” argument. Too many things are tending towards shoot first, ask questions later. And governments are too eager to look to ISP’s and others who run the internet pipes to control what flows through.

Some examples:

The proposed US SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) . . . [more]

Last week, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrinch made a comment during an appearance at the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Business that was picked up by the media: “child laws […] are truly stupid”. Speaking about poverty and inequality in American society, Mr. Gingrich explained that he favoured easing labour laws that prevented teens from working.

Requiring children to go to school until a certain age, limiting the number of hours they can work each day and the age at which they can start working are generally believed to be valuable from a social and moral standpoint. It may be easy . . . [more]

Congratulations to Ted Tjaden who is featured in the Autumn 2011 issue of University of Toronto Faculty of Information alumni magazine Informed article “Alumni to Watch.” He also graces the cover.

The article traces Ted’s career from practicing lawyer in B.C. to library student at the Faculty of Information (now known as the iSchool) at the University of Toronto, to law librarian at the Bora Laskin Law Library at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law and adjunct professor for the Faculty of Information, and finally to his current position as National Director of Knowledge Management at McMillan LLP. . . . [more]