One doesn’t normally expect a Blog quite as focused as the Huffington Post to spend much time on the legal publishing industry but Peter Schwartz’s post on the Reinvention of Legal Research is worth a bit of attention.

A couple of extracts:

When online legal research platforms were proprietary, online publishers imposed per-minute and per-use pricing structures. This pricing model facilitated client cost-recovery and allowed publishers to use law firms as information wholesalers. Because information is now a commodity, law firm clients will no longer pay for online legal research. New flat-rate pricing models for online research products reflect this

I like to look for patterns. Not for handicrafts like one of my knitting pals, but rather patterns in data.

I recently had the ~opportunity~ to look for patterns in lobbyist registrations. Unfortunately for me, there are almost as many registries as jurisdictions. The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada is the federal government registry. It has an excellent database with great search functionality and many options for accessing this information:

* Recent Registrations
* Search the Registry of Lobbyists
* Search Monthly Communications Reports
* Statistical Reports
* Multimedia Tutorials
* Login
* Guides to registration . . . [more]

The Legal Resource Centre (LRC) recently launched a new blog: Blogosaurus Lex.

The LRC is the publisher of the magazine LawNow and of the legal information website Access to Justice Network.

It was registered as a charity in the late 1970s and its mandate is “to contribute to, advance and promote the legal knowledge and education of the people of Canada.” It is based in Edmonton, Alberta.

According to the initial post on June 22, 2009, the blog will feature:

• new happenings at the Legal Resource Centre (LRC)
• community engagement with other public legal educators and sharing

Well, I can confirm that this past week conformed to my expectations for excitement, and not just because the Toronto garbage strike ended. In fact, confirmation was in the air:

• Most notably, the U.S. Senate confirmed three high-profile nominees: Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Francis Collins was confirmed as the director of NIH, and David Kappos was confirmed as the director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
• Two other U.S. developments confirmed the trend towards adoption of electronic medical records: 1) The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) was

According to CBC News and The Canadian Press, a newer type of email scam has taken advantage of a Toronto-based medical professional. The fraudster hacks into the person’s email account, changes the password so the person cannot access it, and then sends email to that person’s contacts. The fraudster, posing as the email address owner, claims to be stuck in a foreign city and needing financial assistance to get home. He or she asks for a modest sum, enough to purchase a plane ticket home, and has it transferred via a Western Union account. Out of 400 people contacted . . . [more]

The latest issue of LAWPRO Magazine – Changing Direction: Thinking Differently About Your Law Practice – is in the mail and on the web. Download entire magazine here (PDF format, size: 3.27MB)

Our cover stories this month all ask the question: Which kind of lawyer will you be? Legal guru Richard Susskind describes the five lawyer types he predicts will be in future demand. Karen Bell examines how some lawyers are innovating and resetting the legal services model. This article also contains a series of checklists to guide lawyers on the new skills and tools lawyers can use. In Strategic . . . [more]

Yet another search engine has been launched. Spezify from Sweden is essentially a meta-search tool that presents combined results from Google, Yahoo, Twitter, and other sources in a pictorial fashion, thanks to its use of Flash technology. Results are spread across a window that is meant to be larger than your open viewing port, so that to see more results you scroll (or drag) up, down, left or right. The image slice below — the results of a search for Canada and courthouse will give you some idea; click on it to see a full window screenshot.

Clicking on any . . . [more]

Just drawing our readers’ attention to a brand new Canadian IP law blog, Innovation and Culture.

James Gannon describes his aims as:

to update the blog daily with legal developments that have an effect on, among other things, IP, innovation and culture in Canada. While I hope to keep the focus of the blog on Canadian stories, major International stories will also be reported, especially those that may be of interest to Canadian IP scholars & laywers, authors, composers, musicians, programmers, film producers and creators of all kind.

And while we’re on new blogs, a FAQ-rich blog for SMEs in . . . [more]

This week was for introductions:

• At the Cross-Border Biotech Blog, we introduced a new science writer! Richard Chan started off with his first Friday Science Review and he covered a lot of ground, from obesity to toucans to sushi.
• Direct-to-consumer genetic testing was introduced to Canada this week  and we’ll continue to follow the trend worldwide, all the way to Gattaca if neccesary.
• The Globe and Mail introduced its readers to Canada’s longest-running biotech takeover battle, the JLL-Patheon bid, which has been constant fodder for the blog’s Monday Deal Review since January.
• The Ministry of Research and Innovation

Anne Foster Worlock’s comment reminded me of how far we have come in the technology of legal research.

And we had furious debates in the Eighties comparing this to the Walt. There would be a dedicated terminal for legal research in each library. And we had to remember commands like . . . [more]

Wrapping up a week of Guest Blogging from Heenan Blaikie lawyers across the country, we’re going to end by focusing on big changes at Heenan Blaikie’s Toronto offices.

After nineteen years at Royal Bank Plaza, the firm is moving 400 metres up Bay Street to the new Bay Adelaide Centre.

The move presents all sorts of practical and logistical challenges. Soon to join us at Bay Adelaide will be Goodmans and Faskens. They’ll be watching carefully to see how we move the Library. Physically packing and transporting an entire law library is not a trivial undertaking. Here is a . . . [more]

A colleague informed me about an email notice to me regarding my preferred RSS reader Newsgator. After my gasp of dismay, I loaded the site to check my feeds and wham:

NewsGator’s Online Reader will no longer be available for consumer use as of August 31, 2009.

In conjunction with the release of our latest versions of NetNewsWire and FeedDemon which synchronize with Google Reader, NewsGator will no longer be supporting our online reader for consumer use. Paid customers who utilize the online reader or our online platform will continue to be supported.

For free versions of the latest