I was surprised to read in a recent piece in the Times Online that in the UK lawyers are eligible for jury duty. The author, a senior commercial solicitor, gives an interesting picture of how it feels to be a juror in a criminal trial, complaining that much of the explanation given to jurors about their duty is “pitched at a primary school audience.”

If you imagine a class of seven-year-olds being told about an operating theatre (“here are some big knives, and this is where the man called a ‘surgeon’ cuts the patient, then after that they sew him

From time to time, two news-worthy stories intersect in such a way that they just cry out for comment.

Much has been made in the media these past few weeks of the high-profile arrests of several prominent members of the Toronto Humane Society (THS). These accuseds have been vilified in the public consciousness and stained by the ultimate mark of shame for any animal lover — charges of cruelty to animals.

Reams of ink have been spilled outlining the deplorable conditions and poor state of health many of the animals were found in yet the central tenet of this investigation . . . [more]

Logging in this week to my so-called virtual life, one constant and growing buzz is over privacy in social media and targeted marketing. I had meant to blog about something else, but the noise is too just to loud. While the Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s findings on the CIPPIC Complaint against Facebook are by now old news, the afterburn continues. Polices and practices adapt, and at the end of the day consumers want what they want. Who’s pwning who? Today’s choice updates from the world o’ privacy:

1. Facebook Asks More Than 350 Million Users Around the World To Personalize Their . . . [more]

While we have been receiving great feedback on the various articles on social media in the latest issue of LawPRO Magazine, the surprise front-runner for most popular article in this issue has had over 300 downloads in the first four days – Yvonne Diedrick’s article on the Apology Act, 2009. Perhaps not a real surprise as many Ontario lawyers I have talked to are not familiar with this new legislation.

The Apology Act came into force in Ontario on April 23, 2009. It allows the communication of expressions of sorrow or regret without worrying that the comments can . . . [more]

If Tiger Woods isn’t yet inspired to write his own tune about celebrity and privacy, he may at least want to kick back to the blues standard Ain’t Nobody’s Business. Or if that’s not enough to give Tiger some comfort in these trying times, he could also put on some Michael Jackson or Pink Floyd.

This post is about music with a link to privacy. I’ve compiled a list of ten songs and albums that offer some comment on privacy – from the standard lament for loss of privacy by celebrity pop stars, to deeper comments on privacy in . . . [more]

I am currently taking a three day Advanced Civil Mediation course, taught by Gordon Sloan and hosted by CLEBC.

Reviewing the course materials led me to this wonderful online resource: Conflict Resolution in Peacebuilding: A Selected Bibliography, edited by Catherine Morris of Victoria, BC.

This searchable bibliography with more than thirty topic areas is intended as a starting place for research on conflict resolution or dispute processing. It is regularly updated and includes references to books, articles, definitions of alternative dispute resolution, links to support for trainers and links to other research resources including book reviews and annotations. . . . [more]

The Cross-Border Biotech Blog had a very blawg-y week this week with three posts on legal issues affecting the biotech world, thanks in part to my lovely and talented legal writer/spouse/editor/CMO Audrey Fried-Grushcow.

I kicked things off with a post on three need-to-know Canadian patent decisions that impact pharma, biotech and generics companies, pulling together three Ogilvy Renault bulletins into one executive-summary-level overview of key recent developments.

Audrey picked up the legal theme with a post noting oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court for a case under the False Claims Act (FCA) in which amici curiae PhRMA and . . . [more]

Simon Fodden’s recent tweet about Wikipedia deserves some greater scrutiny. The linked paper discusses how and when Wikipedia should be used in court, some of the controversies attached to it, and even citation guidelines.

The most recent controversy around Wikipedia, and there are plenty to come I’m sure, surrounds Ron Livingston, an actor in Office Space who starred briefly in Sex in the City. Well it’s Livingston’s sex, or rather his sexual orientation, that is at the center of a current dispute with Wikipedia.

Livingston married Rosmarie DeWitt last month, and yet his Wikipedia entry has been repeatedly . . . [more]

While some lawyers are very tuned into social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, many have yet to realize the communications potential of these tools. The newest issue of LawPRO Magazine aims to change this.

Here’s a sample of the topics covered:

• Social Media: Why? An overview of how social media are changing the legal landscape;
• Social Media: What? A guide through the many social media available PLUS inteviews with five lawyers who walk the social media talk;
• Social Media: How? A primer on social media as marketing and networking tools in law practice; and
• Social media pitfalls to

Another story from the U.K. today.

The British High Court ordered the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to reveal the information of an editor who made two entries on Wikipedia that would reveal private and confidential information about a woman and her child. The identity of the editor is allegedly a co-worker the woman is in a dispute with.

Justice Michael Tugendhat indicated the woman had good reason to believe she was being blackmailed. . . . [more]

I’ve joked previously that the Google crowdsource traffic feature was a free ambulance chaser application.

A British firm has developed a iPhone application specifically intended to document all the details necessary for future litigation, the iPhone Car Incident Assistant application (iCIA). The Times Online reports:

It appears ambulance chasing has gone digital after Bott & Company, a law firm in Manchester that specialises in personal injury claims, has developed an application for the iPhone that prompts people involved in an accident to record insurance and witness details, take multiple photographs, store GPS information and click through to a

I don’t know how long this has been going on, but some courts are sending judgments to CanLII with hyperlinked tables of contents. Plain old text TOCs are nothing new, of course: long — long, long. . . — judgments pretty much demand them. But courts seem to have discovered that, because they create and submit their judgments to CanLII in MS Word format, it’s fairly easy to construct a hyperlinked table of contents.

A search for [table of contents] turns up recent “hot” TOCs from Newfoundland and Labrador, British Columbia, and Ontario.

This is, of course, . . . [more]