Although duty-bound to report on the Ark Group seminar on Legal Project Management held last week in Chicago (led by Stephen Levy of Lexician and Patrick Lamb of the Valorem Law Group) — which I will do shortly — I will instead first post a SLAW travel tip that will highly recommend a visit to the iconic Farnsworth House about 1 hour outside of Chicago in Plano, Illinois (and yes, if you bear with me, there are several law-related components to this travel story, if only slight).

To hear about or see pictures of the Farnsworth House does not . . . [more]

Sujit Choudhry of the University of Toronto was recently awarded the Trudeau Foundation Fellowship. Fellows are selected based on their research achievements, creativity and social commitment.

Choudhry is a constitutional law professor who has had increased profile in Canada in recent years working as intervenor in a number of cases and commenting in the media on public affairs issues. In the UofT press release Choudhry indicates he will use the $225,000 provided by the award to develop post-conflict constitution-making.

An interview with The Globe can be seen here. . . . [more]

Esquimalt may join New Westminster in adopting a living wage policy for all employees. That would make it only the second municipality in the country to take the step.

The Tyee story linked above, outlines how it was not an easy sell in New West., but in the end has been a popular choice. Councellor Jaime McEvoy says municipalities pay their executives well, and always look carefully at the salaries for councilors and mayors, but

It’s only for the group of people at the bottom that we don’t worry about what they’re making or how they’re doing.

The living wage . . . [more]

The following is a guest post from Eva Warden, Citations Editor at the McGill Law Journal:

“Please note that adoption of the McGill Guide to Uniform Legal Citation by Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal and Court of Queen’s Bench is not specific to the 7th edition. Only new additions to the list of institutions that have officially adopted the Guide were consulted prior to the publication of the 7th edition, and although the SKQB and SKCA have adopted previous editions, their adoption of the 7th edition is still pending until the courts review and approve all changes. Until they do so, . . . [more]

Should companies have to tell people what the companies can be sued for?

You’ve seen him: he’s the soft-voiced Englishman who pushes a vacuum cleaner around on TV. He’s also a very wealthy man, thanks to that vacuum cleaner and his other inventions (you may have used his Air Blade, a truly tornadic hand dryer). He’s James Dyson, of course. And his foundation offers an annual £10,000 prize to the student or group of students who invent the best “something that solves a problem.”

In four days time, the foundation will pick the 2010 winner from the 15 semi-finalists. Have a look and place your bets.

It’s hard to choose. There’s the . . . [more]

Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker for September 27th contrasts the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the US with social media ‘activism’ today. He says that social media are great for sharing information widely, for exploiting weak ties for low risk, low commitment actions. However, they are not good for working strong ties towards high-risk, disciplined activity.

He says that the reports of the usefulness of Twitter at the time of the Iranian election and in Moldova were greatly exaggerated.

The drawbacks of networks scarcely matter if the network isn’t interested in systemic change if it just wants

. . . [more]

This is Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s last week in office. I think the legal community owes her a big thank you. How many ordinary Canadians knew what prorogation was before Her Excellency, Madame Jean had to deal so publicly with that question?

If you are in Ottawa this week, you have some opportunities to thank her in person, or at least as part of a crowd:

Tuesday, September 28

10 a.m.
Reopening of the National Capital Commission’s Greenhouses
Speech from Her Excellency
Rideau Hall
OPEN TO MEDIA

Noon
Reception Hosted by the Speakers of the Senate and the House of

. . . [more]

You simply must see this video of Switzerland’s finance minister collapsing in a fit of giggles as he struggles through a bunch of bureaucratic language about the importation of cured meats.

It is truly the only way to respond to a whole lot of awful writing. This is one guy I’d like to see in our Parliament.

. . . [more]

I’ve been distracted today by a book that arrived in the morning mail: Frederick Vaughan, Viscount Haldane: ‘The Wicked Step-father of the Canadian Constitution’ (Toronto: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History / University of Toronto Press, 2010)(LAC Amicus no. 38031823)(UTP pid no. 2758). For those not familiar with the name, this is from pages xv and xvi of the introduction:

It is fair to say that no jurist in our history has received so much learned abuse as Viscount Haldane of Cloan. Twenty years after his death, he received a scholarly tongue-lashing from the late chief

. . . [more]

I often think that the only truly harmless thing that human beings do together is the making of music. If I include dancing as well, then I’ve embraced the two videos I offer you today, each of which shows how much pleasure we can get and give in groups, and will, I hope, delight you.

The first relies on surprise and incongruity: you’re at a big city train terminal, hustling on in your daily commute when:

The expressions on the faces of the onlookers are something wonderful to see.

The second is surprising because it makes use of technology to . . . [more]

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner announced the formation of the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, or GPEN. It includes 13 privacy enforcement authorities from around the world.

We have come a long way from a few years ago when it was thought that the privacy commissioner’s ability to deal with entities or issues outside of Canada, even if there might be a Canadian connection, was limited. From the press release:

Canada has joined with privacy enforcement agencies around the world to establish the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN), a network designed to facilitate cross-border cooperation in the enforcement of privacy laws. . . . [more]