If you’re summoned for jury duty in Florida keep your thoughts on your civic responsibilities and leave your personal electronics at home.

Many of you have cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices. Even though you have not yet been selected as a juror, there are some strict rules that you must follow about using your cell phones, electronic devices and computers. You must not use any device to search the Internet or to find out anything related to any cases in the courthouse.
Between now and when you have been discharged from jury duty by the judge, you

There’s a new kid on the block, the block owned by Google. A search engine named Blekko launched mere minutes ago and I think you’ll want to try it out.

Search engines come and search engines go, as we learned most dramatically from the case of Cuil. Bing may still hang in there, but it seems as though Yahoo! is in decline.

So how do you find a place in a world dominated by Google? You differentiate yourself by offering different sorts of results. WolframAlpha is perhaps the extreme example of this, positioning itself as a “computational knowledge engine.” . . . [more]

The Uniform Arbitration Act (1990), in force in six provinces (and passed years ago in PEI but never proclaimed in force), sets out what were then modern rules for the conduct of arbitrations, with powers of arbitrators spelled out in default of agreement by the parties, and with restrictions on court intervention in the proceedings, as well as enforcement provisions. So far as I know, it works fairly well. (Ontario had a bit of controversy a few years ago about its application to family arbitrations conducted under religious law, and the statute was amended to better harmonize with family law . . . [more]

Have you come across a QR code yet? See this as an example:

All you need is a QR code reader built into your mobile phone – either natively within Android phones, or a free QR app for the iPhone. Then scan the code, and instantly your phone will execute one of a number of predetermined tasks:

• hotlink the phone’s browser to a URL – scanning the above image, for example, takes you to the homepage our blog at Stem;
• initiate a phone call;
• display an image, business card, etc;
• download a v-card;
• or display a simple text message, to

My assistant came across this YouTube video. It had me laughing out loud. The comments in it are hilarious, and biting. It is worth a look.

. . . [more]

When LexisNexis announced its new Lexis for Microsoft Office (LMO) product this past February, Simon Chester briefly discussed this new product here on SLAW.

The foregoing LexisNexis press release describes the product as “a new set of research capabilities that will enable legal professionals to access content and services from LexisNexis and other sources while operating directly within Microsoft Office applications.” LexisNexis has more info here. The product was formally launched earlier this summer in the United States with the company now exploring introducing it in its other markets.

Earlier today I attended a lunch / demo by . . . [more]

Is anybody – any international body – studying the legal basis for jurisdiction over personal information as it crosses national borders, or considering the law that should be applicable to such PI?

This could be thought of as ‘law applicable to the cloud’ in these days of cloud computing, though I don’t think it’s limited to that.

The Hague Conference on Private International Law in April 2010 noted [PDF p.18] as an ‘additional subject’ for work, more I think in the lines of a watching brief:

The Council invited the Permanent Bureau to continue to follow developments in the following

The Law Times has a longish story on a Kingston Ontario judge who allowed service on a family law defendant by Facebook. It is not clear in the story how much of an effort the plaintiff had to make before getting permission to serve that way. The judge seems to have given retroactive blessing to the method when it was shown to have worked (because a reply was received).

The judge gave a talk to a conference about how well this had worked. Other commentators discuss why such service would be a good idea, and at least as a method . . . [more]

Ethics committees across North America are, as always, in the process of examining issues of great importance to lawyers in the US and Canada. As part of process of establish new ethics opinions and rules, ethics committees typically hold hearings or publish proposed opinions for comment, seeking input from practicing attorneys.

Unfortunately, these hearings and requests for comment are often met with silence from practicing attorneys. Vendors and other interested parties respond in force, but the group that will ultimately be most impacted by ethics committees decisions have, apparently, nothing to say.

For example, only one practicing lawyer signed up . . . [more]

Perhaps not an entirely new concept, considering how well traveled the roads to co-ownership are, but nonetheless, here’s and interesting look at the law of what is becoming easier to do with people you know less well: sharing. . . . [more]

There has been a lot of press over the Privacy Commissioner’s decision that the Google Street View collection of information from unprotected wifi signals breached PIPEDA. See the press release, and the decision. See examples of press reports by the CBC and CTV. The CTV report says that Spanish regulators announced they were filing a lawsuit against Google for the incident, seeking millions in fines.

I know nothing more about this than I read in the press – but I think we need to put Google’s actions in perspective here. Yes, it should not have collected that . . . [more]