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Archive for ‘Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions’

New Paper on Collegial Decision-Making at the Supreme Court of Canada

University of Toronto law professors Andrew Green and Benjamin Alarie have posted a new paper on the Social Science Research Network entitled Should They All Just Get Along? Judicial Ideology, Collegiality, and Appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada:

“Over the past 25 years, the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada have not exhibited the divergent policy views along party lines that have been characteristic of the justices of the United States Supreme Court. This apparent lack of partisan polarization in Canada may at first give rise to smugness about the appointments process in Canada; after all, our

. . . [more]
Posted in: Practice of Law, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

Judging Judges Judging Cases

I don’t generally pass on pointers to academic articles in the Social Science Research Network database, because there are plenty of others on the web who are doing that. But a recent paper (Guthrie, Chris, Rachlinski , Jeffrey J. and Wistrich, Andrew J., “Blinking on the Bench: How Judges Decide Cases” . Cornell Law Review, Forthcoming Available at SSRN [PDF here]) caught my eye and so I’m mentioning it here.

The authors tested a sample of U.S. trial judges, seeking to find out whether the judges used their intuition (making mistakes) or deliberated (getting things right) when solving . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

Legal Vertical Search Tool Unveiled

The world’s largest legal vertical search engine launched yesterday according to a press release. The Public Library of Law (pLoL) has partnered with legal research provider Fastcase, Inc. It may be more of a directory than a search engine, even though Fastcase CEO Ed Walters claims it makes”first-time legal research as easy as using Google.”

What is available on PLoL?

* Cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals
* Cases from all 50 states back to 1997
* Federal statutory law and codes from all 50 states
* Regulations, court rules, constitutions.

“Unlike other free resources,

. . . [more]
Posted in: Legal Information, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions, Technology

20th Anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada Morgenthaler Decision on Abortion

I wanted to make sure we acknowledge Michel-Adrien Sheppard’s excellent post 20th Anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada Morgenthaler Decision on Abortion at the Library Boy blog. He includes links to and summaries of related commentary from a range of viewpoints. . . . [more]

Posted in: Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

Re-Launch of the Guide to Ontario Courts

The announcement below was sent out today. Louise Hamel, Manager at the Judges’ Library, tells me there is new content which has also been translated into French. The real news, though, is the official new design of the site. Congratulations to the Judges’ Library!

I am pleased to announce that the Guide to Ontario Courts www.ontariocourts.on.ca has been re-launched.

This revitalized website was reorganized and updated in response to user feedback on content and design, and in consultation with the Office of each court. We have developed what we hope will be a more user friendly = website with each

. . . [more]
Posted in: Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Practice of Law, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

In Memoriam Gerald Le Dain

Sad news from the Supreme Court today of the death of Gerald Eric Le Dain, law teacher and judge. He was educated at McGill University and the University of Lyon, where he became a Docteur de l’Université in 1950. He practised law with Walker, Martineau, Chauvin, Walker & Allison in Montreal, and taught at McGill University, before becoming dean of Osgoode Hall Law School in 1967.

On a personal note Gerry gave both of the Slaw Simons their first academic jobs.

For Canadians of a certain age, his name will be associated with the Commission of Inquiry into the . . . [more]

Posted in: Education & Training, Education & Training: Law Schools, Practice of Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

Carroll’s “the Hunting of the Snark”

In ebook form, with wonderful public domain illustrations, the full text of Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”, here. Carroll’s is far more entertaining, far better than mine. More educational, too.

Anyway, this place supposedly being about things related to law, here’s an excerpt from “Fit the Sixth – The Barrister’s Dream”. The full text of “Fit the Sixth” follows after the break, together with the illustration that accompanies it.

He dreamed that he stood in a shadowy Court,
Where the Snark, with a glass in its eye,
Dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending a pig
On

. . . [more]
Posted in: Education & Training: CLE/PD, Miscellaneous, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

PDF Imaged Copies of Case Law in Online Databases

At last week’s monthly meeting of Toronto legal research lawyers we discussed the availability of online PDF’ed versions of judicial decisions that have also been published in print by the publisher.

In the States, for example, decisions from the West National Reporter Series are available online on Westlaw in a text/HTML format, and – for an extra charge – as PDF versions which are exact copies of the print version.

In the U.K., there is Justis.com that provides PDF versions of the official U.K. Law Reports, in addition to HTML versions (and their HTML versions are great because they insert . . . [more]

Posted in: Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

US Case Law Freed

Here’s an announcement that 1.8 million pages of US case law are soon to be available online for free under a CC licence, and will be explicitly marked as public domain. The database will be a

free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754.

This via Library Stuff, Open Access News, and BoingBoing . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

Nino Scalia Meets Bullitt

Fast car chases are a staple of every action film ((I leave it to the dweebs to debate whether Bullitt, French Connection or Ronin takes the medal.)) What is unusual is for the US Supreme Court to be confronted with such a clip. If this doesn’t work, try Youtube 1 and Youtube 2

The case was Scott v. Harris

All but one of the nine justices viewed the tape of the chase before the hearing, and they were entranced by it, discussing it for most of the hearing. Most of the court seemed attracted to the plaintiff’s claim he . . . [more]

Posted in: Practice of Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions, Technology

Wiki Wha Hae – the Scots Are Here

Today’s Glasgow Herald reports on a new service called CaseCheck, which is built on an open source blog platform. The service sprang from an innovative on-line dispute resolution service.

CaseCheck is a free online archive of decisions by the Scottish courts and industrial appeals tribunals launched on October 1. What makes it unique is the ability of readers to annotate the summary report of each decision, commenting on utility and coherence ((Family lawyers in Canada will remember that this was the service that the late J.G. MacLeod of UWO performed as he edited the RFLs)).

The next step is

. . . [more]
Posted in: Legal Information, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions, Technology

Hal-Law-Ween

In trying to get into the Halloween spirit, I have conducted a small search for ghouly related material in various Canadian legal fields. However; the only mention of Halloween in Canadian Legislation is in the Proclamation Declaring October 31st of each year to be “National UNICEF Day”. Vampires do get mentioned in the Wild Animal and Plant Trade Regulations but there is no mention of werewolves, zombies, mummies,or dracula. Mummy’s do get mentioned quite often in caselaw but that is a different type of mummy than what is associated with Halloween. Some of the other ghoulies mentioned previously come . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions