Do you know where the greatest risks of a malpractice claim come from? More importantly—did you know there are simple steps you can take to reduce the risk of a claim being made against you?

The July/August issue of Law Practice Magazine is devoted to helping you avoid the dreaded allegation of legal malpractice, as well as other dangers to your law practice.

LAWPRO’s claims statistics indicate that four out of five lawyers will face at least one claim during the course of their careers. So the odds are you have already experienced a claim or two—and if not, you . . . [more]

China confirmed earlier today that it will renew Google’s license in the country for another year, after a month-long stand-off between the two. Google had publicly claimed on Friday that an agreement had been reached.

David Canton, David Bilinsky, Simon Fodden, Michel-Adrien Sheppard and I all commented on the standoff previously here on Slaw.

In January 2010, Google ceased omitting search results deemed by the Chinese government as subversive or pornographic, after complying for the past 4 years. The decision was made after allegations of Chinese hackers attacking Google’s server to obtain information about anti-government activists. ISPs . . . [more]

Today marks the opening of the Calgary Stampede with the annual Stampede Parade. Prime Minister Harper attended. I have always wondered how public figures, like the Prime Minister, balance security with openness. Our Calgary office closes on parade day so I won’t wear my boots until I visit next week.

The Stampede Parade is an exciting kick-off to ten days of good ol’ fashioned western fun. Led by our own World Champion Calgary Stampede Showband, the parade showcases floats, bands, riders, cultural entries, and many more! Downtown streets are closed from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., so get your

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I have in the past hoped for good (or better) interfaces to the massive amounts of older Canadian legal materials being digitized on the Internet Archive.

While that hope still remains (since I think there is a need for it), I was pleasantly surprised this morning that by simply searching the words “ontario AND regulations AND 1979” in the “Canadian Libraries” database, the result came first and it was relatively easy to get to the particular regulation I was looking for by choosing the PDF format of the document (although the PDF file was a bit large at over . . . [more]

Although I was going to blog at some point on using the iPad for legal work (e.g., including the useful tip to use the “two finger swipe technique” to properly scroll pages when using the Safari browser on iPad when searching Westlaw or Lexis – see video here for the technique, which works), the reality is that the iPad has been for me an entertainment device.

While I was successfully able to use the iPad in place of a laptop on a recent 1-week business/pleasure trip (with the business-side of things largely being checking email, taking notes and doing some . . . [more]

Concerns over privacy issues with Facebook are not new, but the more recent changes did create expectations of intervention through the Privacy Commissioner.

I’m not sure if anyone expected a class action lawsuit in Canada.

Not surprisingly it’s the Merchant Law Group LLP that is heading this claim “for improper handling of confidential information and privacy issues.”

Tony Merchant said,

What Facebook is doing is a bait-and-switch process. The bait is that they wanted to be able to do demographic sales targeting, and the switch is that to do that, they needed to get into people’s personal information.

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This is a short note with some links related to cyberbullying, starting with one to the June 27th New York Times feature article, Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray. Reporter Jan Hoffman details how American school administrators are dealing with the pressure to intervene in cyberbullying cases despite challenging questions about the scope of their power to deal with “off campus” student conduct.

The pressure for intervention is understandable because the prospect of taking on a cyberbully through the courts can be daunting. Whether this cost should be mitigated by protective orders is the issue in a Nova . . . [more]

The following is the text of a Fraud Alert sent by LAWPRO to Ontario lawyers on June 29, 2010. Due to the response we received from our previous alert on June 17 we felt it was important to make lawyers aware of new details we’ve learned about this scam.

Last week’s fraud warning e-blast on the collaborative family law agreement fraud prompted dozens of calls and emails to LAWPRO. At least 30 Ontario lawyers indicated they had been recently targeted or were in the middle of dealing with a matter involving this exact fraud. These calls and emails have helped . . . [more]

At the OLITA workshop Digital Odyssey 2010 – Going Mobile, Sally Wilson from Ryerson University Library and Archives gave a great overview of QR codes and some innovative ways in which they can be used in libraries to provide timely services and information. Some innovative examples include:

• Using QR codes in the catalogue’s bibliographic records. Students can have the record information sent to their mobile devices.
• Add QR codes to current periodicals on the shelves. The QR codes will tell students what the other holdings are in the catalogue.
• Add them to the library staff’s business cards. They will

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Canadian biotech funding came from diverse sources this week.

Even deals that looked traditional, such as Aquinox’s $25 million raise, included corporate venture capital funds (in this case J&J and Pfizer). These pharma-backed venture funds continue to play a big role in supplementing traditional VCs’ coffers.

In B.C., the government put money towards research on and medical isotopes, while the Ontario government’s OETF isn’t attracting qualified investors as quickly as some would like.

Other government agencies disbursed some funds as well, with Alberta’s Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation joining FONDACTION, Innovati0n PEI, the U.S. Navy . . . [more]

As you might know, investigations against Google Street View are now underway in Canada, the United States and at least 17 other countries. The investigations aim to determine whether Google engaged in “unfair and unlawful collection of data” as well as “invasion of privacy and individual liberties”.

I mentioned in the previous post on the earthquake how useful it was to be able to get automatically updating reports more or less as soon as they were posted, thanks to Google’s real-time search results. You’ll likely know that all you need to do, once your Google search results are returned, is click “latest” in the menu to the left, to get time-ordered results that are dynamically refreshed, i.e. with no need to reload the page in the browser.

Even easier is to use the bookmarklet created by Marshall Kirkpatrick, the lead writer at ReadWriteWeb.com. You can find . . . [more]