Michael Kirby, Mr. Justice Kirby of the High Court is known to love the limelight and he doubtless was tickled when the latest issue of Australian Business described him as the Rock star of the bench.

In a wide ranging account drawn from a speech to university students he talked about the organization of judgments:

“I know the real reason you love me,” Justice Kirby said.

“Headings. Headings. Sub-headings. Sub-sub-headings. Indent dot points. That’s the real reason.”

Kirby had some other helpful hints for those who find his judgments time-consuming. “You don’t communicate ideas if you write High Court . . . [more]

When Dr. Henry Morgentaler was presented the Order of Canada some people raised eyebrows, but few were in a fury.

Church officials expressed disappointment with the appointment, and the Federal government deliberately distanced themselves. Dimitri Soudas, a government spokesperson, said,

The Conservative Government is not involved in either deliberations or decisions with respect to which individuals are appointed to the Order of Canada…

Rideau Hall makes these appointments based on the recommendations of the Advisory Council for the Order which is chaired by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Nobody expected the controversy to result in . . . [more]

One of my profs during the first-year of university told me there are 4 types of lawyers:

1. Finders are those who find the work, better known today as rainmakers
2. Grinders are those who grind out the client work, and are really efficient and doing research memos
3. Binders are those who bring the members of a firm together by (for example) inviting a small group to lunch or recognizing achievements of the firm’s lawyers
4. Minders are those who perform administrative tasks, and coordinate the efforts of the finders, grinders, and binders to be sure that the firm will run as

[S]omewhere between 40 and 70 percent of trials now feature overmatched laymen bumbling through labyrinthine court procedures without the help of a lawyer.

The Walrus has an article by Alex Hutchinson, “The People’s Court, A case for universal legal care,” that looks at some of the changes that have happened to legal aid over the last decade and a few of the changes to civil procedure expected in British Columbia. . . . [more]

Richard A. Posner, the outspoken justice on the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals and University of Chicago law professor, has written a short piece for The New Republic, entitled “In Defence of Looseness,” in which he takes the U.S. Supreme Court to task for its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller [PDF], the case involving the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution dealing with arms and militias. As always, Posner is enjoyable to read because his mind is good and he expresses his arguments well. If you’re interested in constitutional or statutory interpretation, you’ll . . . [more]

I am an Olympics fan-girl, and have been absorbing as much television coverage as possible. What I find new this Olympics are all the references by reporters to blogs written by athletes. I was a bit surprised that the athletes would be into blogging, but in a CBC interview following his Olympic competition this weekend, Kyle Shewfelt said that he likes to write and he finds writing about his day of training to be a good way to unwind and “let it all out”.

And write he does! I had a look at his personal blog, simply called Kyle Shewfelt . . . [more]

One of the more interesting parts of Guy Joubert‘s recent interview with the Canadian Lawyer is his observation that there is only scant accurate and current statistical information on the Canadian legal profession. We encountered this in drafting a background chapter of the CBA Conflicts Report in which we discussed trends within the population of Canadian lawyers and access to justice. . . . [more]

Last week, in my first posting on Slaw, I wrote about what appears to be some sort of unnamed force that draws certain people into law school and then into law firms with little conscious agency on the part of the individual. Years after this process has pushed the lawyer onto a certain path, the lawyer will look up from his or her desk and wonder how they got there and why they are miserable in their chosen career.

I also suggested in my last posting that I have an answer to this problem. “Answer” may be too strong a . . . [more]

A piece in yesterday’s New York Times talks about the results of a soon-to-be-published study which finds that in most cases (61%) where plaintiffs refuse to settle and go to trial they wind up with less than the proposed settlement would have given them. That settlement is good is hardly news: according to the authors of the study somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of cases in fact settle; but the study hopes to raise questions about the reasons for going to trial in the 2054 disputes studied. The study, “Let’s Not Make a Deal: An Empirical Analysis of Decision . . . [more]

This is an important (though admittedly recherché) area of corporate practice, which has a great resource of background materials maintained by the ABA Business Law Section Committee on Legal Opinions.

The Canadian equivalents are (hélas) maintained behind firewalls. . . . [more]

I am humbled by the invitation to join the illustrious team that has turned Slaw.Ca into Canada’s leading legal group blog. It’s a great site and I hope that I can contribute in a positive way. My day job is privacy and technology law, with a little bit of related blogging on the side at the Canadian Privacy Law Blog. I’m pleased to have an opportunity to write a bit about “things legal” that are not necessarily about privacy or technology. (Although I’ve come to think everything is about privacy and technology.)

If I sound like I enjoy what . . . [more]

Fee Fie Foe Firm Canada is a new custom search engine in beta for searching across Canadian law firm websites.

It indexes content from all manner of law firms, big and small. This includes practice group and individual profiles, press releases, news releases, case analysis, and publications such as newsletters.

I have commented on the Library Boy blog on a few other sources for finding law firm newsletters:

• We need a central repository for Canadian law firm newsletters and bulletins (March 8, 2005)
• Tracking Law Firm Newsletters With Linex Legal (July 31, 2007)
• Mondaq – Another Service For Tracking Law