Though we frequently mention New Jersey, we haven’t mentioned the Channel Islands – and their unique local laws and language. The local BBC news on Jersey mentions today that the Jersey Legal Information site was according to the BBC designed by Richard Susskind and that Richard is leading a conference on the use of social media within law, and how social media might enhance a legal information institute portal.

The event will look at using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to provide legal information for lawyers and citizens alike.

Richard notes that smaller jurisdictions may be . . . [more]

This week the Quebec government opened public hearings on euthanasia and assisted suicide. The National Assembly selected the Select Committee on Dying with Dignity to travel to 11 towns and cities in Quebec to canvass public opinion on the various issues surrounding euthanasia and assisted suicide.

An article in last Monday’s edition of The New York Times called “A Sign of the Court’s Polarization: Choice of Clerks” described the increasing tendency for U.S. Supreme Court judges to hire clerks of like-minded political ideology. For example, each and every clerk hired by Clarence Thomas over the past 20 years – all 84 of them – first trained with an appeals court judge appointed by a Republican president. The article then quotes Professor Garrow of Cambridge University who says that “we have created an institutional situation where 26-year-olds are being given humongous legal authority in the . . . [more]

The flip side of copyright is the public domain, of course. It’s by far the larger field, though you wouldn’t know it from the attention we lawyers pay to the rights side of the coin. But because copyright is time-limited, that smaller field of rights is the one that trails most closely behind us, is nearest to us; and so the works under copyright are those we are more aware of and those more closely pertaining to the issues of the day: if copyright originated on our yesterday, the public domain is what we find when we look back to . . . [more]

Many Ontarians cannot afford a lawyer. Chief Justice Winkler said that “an expanding group of Ontarians are finding that the system is often too expensive, too complicated and too slow in assisting them with their legal problems.” Chief Justice McLachlin has said the options for “average middle-class Canadians,” ineligible for legal aid, are “grim.”

In response to this, one initiative has involved the appointment of amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) in mental health appeals and family law disputes. In a decision called Bhajan v. Ontario (Children’s Lawyer), the Ontario Court of Appeal recently described . . . [more]

Ontario Regulation 34/10 to the Insurance Act became effective on September 1, 2010, along with several other significant changes affecting personal injury and motor vehicle collision practice in Ontario.

The Law Society of Upper Canada and the Ontario Bar Association hosted a session to discuss these changes, The New Auto Insurance Regime – Practical Strategies for Radical Change, with John A. McLeish and Dale V. Orlando of McLeish Orlando LLP. A paper provided by Patrick Brown and Rikin Morzaria, also of McLeish Orlando LLP, outlined the changes.

Roger G. Oatley and James L. Vigmond of Oatley, . . . [more]

There was an amusing Federal Court of Canada decision last week covered today by The Star. In Mackay v. Canada (Attorney General), Justice Harrington ruled that a thesaurus is an educational textbook or supply not subject to the $1,500 limit on personal property for inmates.

Here are the best parts:

[1] “Don’t make a federal case out of it!” means “don’t make a mountain out of a molehill” or don’t make a “big deal” of a small matter.

…

[20] According to Lewis Caroll, “[w]hen I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it

. . . [more]

On Tuesday, August 31, 2010, the Canadian Press reported that a Montreal man filed a motion for leave to bring a class action suit against the Community of the Clerics of St. Viateur in Montreal and the Raymond-Dewar Institute (also known as the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb) and its priests. Serge D’arcy claims to have been a victim of abuse by pedophile priests while attending the institute between 1967 and 1972.

The World Treaty Index began life in 1974 and has been in more or less continuous development since that time, as the output of the database moved from print to various electronic formats. Now it’s managed by researchers from the University of Michigan who have given it a new web interface. (See also the explanatory article on Computational Legal Studies.)

The WTI contains only metadata, as it were, about the treaties, and not the texts themselves, which likely can be found in other online databases, such as the United Nations Treaty Collection. Even so, the database is large . . . [more]

One of my favourite funny memories of time spent in Germany is of a moment in the square of a small town when a chant went up from among the layabouts that decorate these public spaces: “Johnson! Johnson! Johnson! . . . ” And, lo, here came Johnson strolling from behind some building naked as a jaybird. Hausfraus — it was shopping time — turned away, moved away, and this Moses parting the bourgeois sea, not acknowledging his claque, which kept up the chant, sauntered free. But as he approached the fishmongers, where I was watching from, (with some uneasiness, . . . [more]

We didn’t get around to noticing the Law Library of Congress’ new blog In Custodia Legis, which explains its name and aim here.

Today, it featured a new post on the developments at Thomas to make legislative information more accessible. There aren’t a lot of comments yet, but it’s early days.

The high spots for me were on Social Media and a Legislative Map at the State level, which looks simple but is only simple to use.

Social Media Box

In addition to easier access to the Library’s social media, there is a new box to highlight ways . . . [more]

Legal Watch blog recently reported that Apple has applied for a patent on technology that, among other things, would allow Apple to identify and punish users who “jailbreak” or unlock their iPhones or who otherwise tamper with their devices against Apple policy.