The Attorney General for England and Wales, Dominic Grieve gave a very interesting speech on December 1 entitled ‘Contempt – A Balancing Act: balancing the freedom of the press with the fair administration of justice’ to journalism students where he commented on his approach to contempt of court.

‘Citizen journalists’ should not think they are immune to the law of contempt, that there is a certain belief that so long as something is published in cyberspace there is no need to respect the laws of contempt or libel. While he accepts the danger posed to the administration of

The Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Committee On Legal Ethics And Professional Responsibility has just released Formal Opinion 2011-200, Ethical Obligations For Attorneys Using Cloud Computing/Software As A Service While Fulfilling The Duties Of Confidentiality And Preservation Of Client Property

As the PA Bar keeps its Ethics Opinions behind a member wall, I’ve attached a copy of it to this post. One of the Committee members has told me I am free to distribute it.

This Opinion indicates that lawyers may ethically allow client confidential material to be stored in “the cloud” provided the lawyer takes reasonable care to assure that (1) . . . [more]

Over at the Small Firm Innovation blog there’s been a number of terrific posts with some of the legal industry’s top minds sharing their thoughts on time management.

Niki Black kicks the discussion off with a discussion of how the just-released iPhone 4S’s digital assistant Siri can be used to more efficiently manage our time. Niki describes how Siri’s voice recognition facilities not only allow iPhone 4S users to efficiently and easily create appointments, tasks to help with managing their time, but how they can save time by dictating these items while we would otherwise be unproductive (such as while . . . [more]

The Federal Courts Rules Committee has asked that the Discussion Paper on a possible global review of the Federal Courts Rules should receive wide distribution to members of the public and the profession. The final version of the paper has been posted in both official languages on the web sites of the Federal Court of Appeal and the Federal Court.

For Slaw readers the most interesting issue under discussion is

advancements in information technology are encouraging more and more litigants to become actively involved in the litigation process, even if they do not ultimately seek to represent themselves before the

The OIPC BC released Guidelines for Social Media Background Checks yesterday. The Guidelines were developed “to help organizations and public bodies navigate social media background checks and privacy laws.”

The Guidelines outline the privacy risks associated with the use of social media to screen and monitor current and prospective employees, volunteers and candidates, including:

The collection of potentially inaccurate personal information;

The collection of too much or irrelevant personal information;

The inadvertent collection of third-party personal information; and

The overreliance on consent for the collection of personal information that may not be reasonable in the circumstances.

The Guidelines also provide . . . [more]

Recently, I had occasion to look at the speeches and presentations made by members of ultimate courts of appeal – the Supreme Court and its equivalents. And Canada ranks somewhat disgracefully last in terms of making the speeches publicly available.

Eugene Meehan has monitored the court too for speeches and presentations, but his pickings are similarly slim in recent years. . . . [more]

The following article by Nora Rock appears in the Fall 2011 issue of LAWPRO Magazine.

At LAWPRO, we’ve seen a growing proportion of incivility allegations cropping up in claims. For example, lawyers may find themselves personally liable to pay a party’s costs under Rule 57.07 (Rules of Civil Procedure) where the court has found that the lawyer’s actions contributed to running up the bill.

Incivility can also lead to other consequences. The client’s case may be prejudiced because the lawyer is unfavourably viewed by a jury; or a prospect of settlement may evaporate in the face of a lawyer’s . . . [more]

The Fall 20011 issue of LAWPRO Magazine features an article called Let’s Get Talking, in which LAWPRO canvassed a number of people inside and outside the legal profession on the topic of client engagement and communication. What we learned is that there is often a problem with the way lawyers communicate with their clients. Communication is integral to the client experience, and a bad customer experience often defaults into an allegation of communication failure (the source of almost half of LAWPRO claims costs).

The end of the article features a summary of tips from the experts we spoke to . . . [more]

All of the papers from the 2007 Brooklyn Law School symposium on law, science and truth “Symposium: A Cross-Disciplinary Look At Scientific Truth: What’s The Law To Do?” as published in (2008) 73 Brooklyn Law Review are are available for downloading in one pdf here.

I recommend them (for whatever that’s worth).

Any Canadian lawyer-type reading any of those pieces should also read Mr. Justice Binnie’s “Science in the courtroom: the mouse that roared” (2007) 56 UNB LJ 307. The article is available on Carswell/Westlaw and can be found here and here.

He has more to say about science . . . [more]

The following article by Tim Lemieux is from the latest Fall 2011 issue of LAWPRO Magazine. It looks at communications-related claims at LAWPRO in different areas of law and asks claims counsel how these mistakes can be prevented.

No matter what the area of practice, the number one source of claims at LAWPRO is a breakdown in communication between the lawyer and client. And those numbers are increasing.

Between 2005 and 2010, more than 4,200 communications claims — an average of 711 a year – have been reported to LAWPRO. The total cost of these claims to date is about . . . [more]

If you’re interested in defamation law you’d do well to read the recently published piece by Bob Tarantino, “Chasing Reputation: The Argument for Differential Treatment of “Public Figures” in Canadian Defamation Law,” (2010) 48 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 595 [PDF]. The author, a partner at Heenan Blaikie and a blogger at their Entertainment and Media Law Signal argues for the:

recasting the tort of defamation into two different tracks: one for public figures, who pose the highest risk of abusing the tort, and one for private plaintiffs, whose reputational interest is akin to traditional notions of reputation.

This . . . [more]