Should judges only speak through their judgments? Does silence truly enhance the public’s perception of the judiciary?

In “Revisiting the Limits on Judicial Expression in the Digital Age: Striving Towards Proportionally in the Cyberintimidation Context” Karen Eltis and Yigal Mersel explore these issues. Despite the various arguments against expression, they argue that the digital age demands that we question the belief that judicial silence is always best.

They write that “judges have a duty to speak out to protect judicial institutions as the guardians of democracy… to safeguard the rule of law … Recommending unconditional silence, erroneously assumes . . . [more]

Aside from a robust knowledge in anatomy and physiology or radiation physics, there’s not much I can use my background in nuclear medicine technology in the practice of law. Which is why in 2009 I noted here the growing and emerging use of diagnostic imaging in sentencing and trials.

Since that time there has been quite a bit of developments in diagnostic imaging and its use in medico-legal work. One of the newest developments is its use for chronic pain. The economic costs of chronic pain are estimated to be over $600 billion in the U.S. Part of the challenge . . . [more]

This blog post is entirely written by Christina Catenacci, BA, LLB, LLM, for First Reference Talks. Christina is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Western Ontario with a focus on privacy law.

On August 21, 2017, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released an informative piece regarding cookieless identification and tracking of devices. Interestingly, there is a new technique called, “fingerprinting”, which can work to enable website operators, advertising companies, and other organizations to track users – even when they clear their cookies. The document explains the implications and what people can do to protect their . . . [more]

Though change is afoot and disruption is underway, many practitioners wouldn’t know it from their day to day practice. Although we would all love to see more technology and innovation in law school, for those of us who may have passed the bar some time ago that simply isn’t an option.

Earlier this summer, UofT launched 3 new streams for their Global Professional LLM. The stream in the Law of Leadership will seek to prepare the future decision makers in law, the Canadian Law in a Global Context stream will look at the effects of globalization, and the Innovation, . . . [more]

Lots of lawyers have been worried about having their digital devices inspected at the U.S. border in recent years, and more so under the current administration – but there are other countries that are not generally trusted either.

The New York City Bar Association has issued an ethics opinion telling lawyers they need to take special steps to protect confidential and privileged client information in such circumstances – possibly including using ‘burner’ phones or laptops (ones with no confidential info, and that the owner can burn or otherwise just throw away after coming back from the country in question).

The . . . [more]

Artificial Intelligence is going to have a disruptive effect on the legal profession. The question is how soon, how much, and what areas of law come first. This kind of disruptive change builds up slowly, but once it hits a tipping point, it happens quickly.

Futurist Richard Worzel wrote an article titled Three Things You Need to Know About Artificial Intelligence that is worth a read. Here are some excerpts:

Every once in while, something happens that tosses a huge rock into the pond of human affairs. Such rocks include things like the discovery of fire, the invention of the . . . [more]

In Tomorrow’s Lawyers, leading scholar Richard Susskind envisions the future of legal practice. He argues that with the introduction of new technologies there will be a dramatic change in the jobs that lawyers hold. In particular, he predicts a sharp decrease in the number of traditional legal practitioners, along with the emergence of new jobs for lawyers.

Susskind names eight new types of jobs. They are:

1) the legal knowledge engineer

2) the legal technologist

3) the legal hybrid

4) the legal process analyst

5) the legal project manager

6) the ODR practitioner

7) the legal management consultant

8) . . . [more]

In March I wrote about Transport Canada’s overly restrictive drone rules. A few weeks ago they lightened those rules a bit.

Transport Canada just released draft permanent rules for comment. They propose a complex set of rules that vary among 5 different categories of drone. While the proposed rules will make commercial use a bit easier, they are not friendly to personal use.

MobileSyrup details the proposed rules and comments that: “The new rules, if approved, would dramatically reduce the paperwork burden on both Transport Canada and commercial drone operators, but they would also increase the costs for all . . . [more]

Virtual reality has arrived. And it has the potential to revolutionize the way we learn, the way we conduct business, the way we interpret medical imaging, the way we litigate, and so on.

If admitted into evidence, virtual reality can change the way we present medical imaging and present expert testimony in the courtroom. Additionally with virtual reality, jurors/judges can view in 3D crime scenes or even experience events reconstructed in 3D.

However, the technology has the effect of skewing perceptions. Merely showing the experience from one side would be highly problematic. And could give a dishonest interpretation of the . . . [more]

OK. Not all lawyers are obsessed with the legal tech revolution.

Not all self-identify as early technology adopters, participate in hackathons, or call themselves lawyerpreneurs.

Some have maybe never even heard about TechLaw, TechReg, BankTech, CoinTech, LoanTech, PayTech, SecTech, TradeTech, InsurTech, InterTech, GovTech… or SmartTech, TechRisk, FinRisk, FinReg, SuperTech, ResTech, SupTech, or even NonNet. (Not you, of course… I’m talking about them.)

Some (presumably) haven’t even heard of Richard Susskind, or read his 2013 book Tomorrow’s Lawyers that predicts radical changes in the legal sector over the next decade due to three main drivers:

1. Increased pressure to

UNCITRAL has now adopted a model law on electronic transferable records. See the press release below. The full text will be available online shortly at the URL shown at the end of the document.

Canadians showed little interest in this project while it was being developed, so Canada’s attendance at the working group meetings was intermittent.

Does it sound more interesting now that it is final? Would your clients benefit from an internationally accepted law on the topic? This UNCITRAL text is the best that will be available in the foreseeable future.

Should steps be taken to implement it here? . . . [more]

The key to improving ease of use is to erase assumptions. 

That’s important when aiming to improve website usability, generally, but it’s not always easy when you’re dealing with an esoteric culture of users (such as lawyers) who are used to finding information according to old patterns.

Calling all BC residents – help @theCLBC improve usability on its website and enter for a chance to win https://t.co/TRptSQsUDt #BCLegal pic.twitter.com/hRammoMW7C

— Clicklaw (@Clicklaw) June 26, 2017

Luckily, tools like Treejack, offer “tree testing” as a “usability technique for evaluating the findability of topics in a website.” This is a structure . . . [more]