I gave a presentation yesterday to some friends at the CBA Alberta Research Lawyers North subsection on using social media sources for legal research. My definition of a social media site is web delivered information that invites dialog. Perhaps my definition is over broad, but I include publicly available legal texts, like Mike Semple Piggot’s Contract Text that we have discussed at Slaw.

Lady luck was on my shoulder yesterday.

I rarely have an opportunity to research matters relating to criminal law. Perhaps if I had more experience in the area, I would know about Romaniuk’s Search Warrants Considered . . . [more]

ACJNet from the Legal Resource Centre Alberta has long been a mainstay for Canadian legal researchers. This resource has now been relaunched as three new portals for the public and those who work with the public:

• LawNet Canada
• LawNet Français
• LawNet Alberta

The press release from the Legal Resource Centre:

LAWNET IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Friday, January 7, 2011

The Legal Resource Centre is pleased to announce the launch of LawNet, three web portals that will help you find the legal-related information you need: LawNet Alberta, LawNet Canada, and LawNet Français.

What can LawNet do for you?

LawNet

. . . [more]

Glen Greenwald on Salon has a thrice-updated story on the U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to obtain from Twitter as much information as possible about a number of people associated with Wikileaks. On December 14, 2010 a U.S. Magistrate Judge made a sealed order requiring Twitter to divulge:

A. The following customer or subscriber account infomation for each account registered to or associated with Wikilcaks; rop_g; ioerror; birgittaj; Julian Assange; Bradley Manning; Rop Gongrijp; Birgitta Jonsdottir for the time period November l, 2009 to present:
1. subscriber names, user names, screen names, or other identities;
2. mailing addresses, residential addresses,

. . . [more]

A year ago, when the Libel Reform Campaign was launched only the Liberal Democrats strongly endorsed the need for change.

Now the Rt. Hon. Nick Clegg, as Deputy Prime Minister will announce a major reform project on Friday, which we’ll link to as soon as it is released. . . . [more]

I recently read that the publisher of Mark Twain’s books Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer will release a new combined edition of the books that will replace the word “nigger” with the word “slave” in an effort not to offend readers. The new versions without the “N” word are scheduled to be published in February 2010.

The federal cabinet was just shuffled. I have been waiting, impatiently, to post this. News was slow to filter my way, until I found this site, which offers live tweets. Well done Toronto Star.

For those who just want news without any commentary iPoliticsca tweets:

Kent, Ablonczy, Fantino and Menzies are the new four in Cabinet #cabshuff #cdnpoli

I suppose I could have tuned in to CPAC, but like many web video services, it doesn’t play nice at the office.

What is your favourite method for watching political news? . . . [more]

(Having allowed Simon F. the honour of the first 2011 post, not the least in recognition of all that he and the rest of the Slaw administration do to keep this place going. I trust that I am not presumptuous in thanking all of you, again.)

This isn’t quite a new year’s resolution but it will do.

Let’s hope that common sense (whatever it means) prevails this year.

Let’s hope that public (political, judicial, and other) and private reference to decisions supported by, or required by, common sense aren’t calls to the seeming authority of common sense because the conclusion . . . [more]

Louis reported earlier this month on the story of a US federal jury which awarded $2.5-million in punitive damages and $90,000 in actual damages to each of two law professors who said that Thomson West had put their names on an annual supplement to a leading Pennsylvania practitioners’ text, even though they had refused to update the supplement when their pay was unilaterally halved.

Surprise to no-one – Thomson West will be back in court next month seeking an injunction to restrain what they say is prejudicial publicity – and we suspect, saying that the punitives are excessive.

We . . . [more]

David Canton has kept Slawyers abreast of developments concerning Canada’s anti-spam legislation: FISA – New Anti-Spam Bill Introduced; Plethora of Pending IT Legislation. But we neglected to report that Bill C-28 passed third reading on December 14 and received Royal Assent a day later. Evidently, it won’t be proclaimed in force until September of 2011, to give us all time to get our acts together.

The text of the statute is available here [PDF].

I’ve been coy about naming the beast (78 pages in the official version), because the name it goes by appears nowhere in the act. . . . [more]

There has been much in the news on stranded airline passengers due to the recent blizzard in the North East. A newspaper story here from Russia describes a fairly grim situation at airports in Moscow.

I too was affected, after having spent a great time in New York City over the Christmas break. We were due to return via Newark International Airport on Monday (with the heart of the blizzard striking Sunday evening). The iPad came in very handy to constantly check the status of our delayed flight, which was eventually cancelled and re-scheduled to Tuesday (we made it out, . . . [more]

My mother used to say something to the effect that “gentlefolk do not read each others’ mail.” Of course, she didn’t reckon with spies or spouses in distress. It comes as no surprise to me, a one-time family law prof, that, as the Huffington Post reported yesterday, a Michigan man at odds with his wife got hold of her password and read her emails in order to confirm her affair. Very much a “dog bites man” story, you’d think.

Not so, apparently — thanks to prosecutor Jessica Cooper, who has charged the husband with “felony computer misuse,” which has a . . . [more]

Okay a seasonal quiz question – in which work of art do a law library and a complex question of estate litigation feature prominently?

Okay – a big hint. It’s opera. . . . [more]