If there’s one time of year that should give us cause to pause and look out from our legal Fishbowls it’s the autumn. Given the season, I thought I’d invite us all to take a break from our computer screens and document briefs and look out our windows to reflect on nature.

I had just such a moment of distraction last spring that I let slip into a Tweet. Peg Duncan (keeper of the LexUM e-discovery case law digests) translated it into this wonderful English-style Haiku:

the tower creaks

in the cool east wind

ridable waves in Toronto

Running a call-girl business is an inherently risky venture. The lines frequently blur, and participants end up in what the law would describe as prostitution.

To sort out these complicated legal dilemmas operators frequently have to hire counsel. Should these expenses be reportable for tax purposes?

The now-defunct Exchequer Court examined the issue back in 1964, in Canada (Minister of National Revenue – M.N.R.) v. Eldridge, when several employees of the respondent were arrested on prostitution charges.

. . . [more]

A month ago the Vancouver Sun picked up on study done by two South Carolina economists at Clemson University, Bentley Coffey and Patrick A. McLaughlin, entitled “Do Masculine Names Help Female Lawyers Become Judges? Evidence from South Carolina” (American Law and Economics Review, January 2009, 11 (1), pg. 112-133 — behind paywall). The gist of the article, if there can be such a thing in a heavily statistics-based study, is that in South Carolina a woman lawyer has a better chance of advancing in her career and of becoming a judge if she has a “masculine . . . [more]

This is the Second Live Blog Post From 2009 Legal Futures Conference.

The Second Plenary has Bruce MacEwen, who’s known in the blogosphere as the President of “Adam Smith, Esq.”, talking about the
Economic & Strategic Perspectives on The Current Environment . . . [more]

For the next day and a half, Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver is the venue for a programme focussing on the Future of Law. I’ll post about the highlights.

The keynote address was a talk on the Legal Transformation Study Update by Ward Bower of Altman Weil, Inc.
Ward was one of the leaders of the 2008 Legal Transformation Study which identified four scenarios for the legal marketplace of 2020. The study produced reports on global developments that suggest market movement toward one or more of the scenarios, and the latest projections of the probability of . . . [more]

I’d like to offer Slaw readers a quick pointer to a new mini-research project we’ve released over at Stem. For the past couple weeks Emma Durand-Wood has been assembling a list of law firm taglines from firms based in Canada, US and the UK.

That list is now live. Enjoy! . . . [more]

While looking for something else I stumbled across a page on Judicial Humor by staff at the Marion Gould Gallagher Law Library (at the University of Washington School of Law).

This page is a nice counterpoint to Dan Michaluk’s SLAW post last month on using humour (the correct spelling!) in legal advocacy.

The page from the Marion Gould Gallagher Law Library provides lots of examples by American judges writing their decisions in verse or inserting humour into their reasons (although somewhat frustratingly they link to password-protected Westlaw versions of the decisions, but they do provide some sample passages). One . . . [more]

If you litigate civil claims in Ontario and do not yet have a quality means of processing electronically stored information, your time may soon run out. This post describes why, explains what processing of electronically stored information is about and links to some key resources.

I’d like to deal with terminology first, because “processing” is an ambiguous term in e-discovery. It is often used in a narrow sense, to describe the process of manipulating paper or electronic records so they can be read by litigation support software. I use it here in a broader sense, to describe the process of . . . [more]

I find it a little puzzling that when it comes to proving emails there isn’t more fuss and bother than there appears to be. Doubtless I’m missing things that Slaw readers, particularly the e-discovery folks, perhaps, will point out to me. But it strikes me that the very thing making email so wonderfully convenient is also likely to make it difficult to prove an email in a court of law. I’m referring, of course, to email’s etherial nature: the fact that an email exists both everywhere and nowhere in particular.

Unlike a printed letter, which has an actual, physical, unique . . . [more]

In an article in the current New York Review of Books, “The Torture Memos: The Case Against the Lawyers,” Georgetown law professor David Cole examines the role and culpability of the lawyers of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who, under the Bush administration, wrote memoranda approving of and authorizing torture by the CIA. Cole says,

The OLC lawyers had the opportunity, and the responsibility, to prevent illegal conduct before it occurred. The lawyers involved in drafting the “torture memos”—Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Daniel Levin, and Steven Bradbury—failed to live up to these obligations. In

♬Following the leader, the leader, the leader
We’re following the leader wherever he may go…♬

Lyrics and music by: Sammy Fain, Sammy Cahn, Frank Churchill, Winston Hibler and Ted Sears, from Peter Pan.

The ABA Journal on Sept 17, 2009 reported that O’Melveny and Myers revealed plans to become a high-end fixed-fee leader in their latest 5 year strategic plan.

‘The aim, according to the plan, is to become “the leader in providing high-end legal services on a fixed fee basis, reducing costs to clients and achieving superior economic performance through practice management oriented toward cost-effective client service.’

Woah! Wait . . . [more]

Some of the most interesting people I know are not lawyers!

This is the premise underlying this, my first, “get to know” post. My intent is to introduce this wonderful community of legal thinkers to wonderful thinkers with something to contribute from other communities. I’d encourage other Slaw contributors to do the same. This is valid online social networking isn’t it? And is building links beyond our immediate social network not a path to greater creativity and knowledge for all?

My first subject is James Chisholm, business simulation designer and principal of ExperiencePoint. We became friends back in b-school in . . . [more]