We recently tried something new with our consultation process and we’ll likely do it again. Lauren Bates, head of our project on developing a coherent approach to the law as it affects persons with disabilities, participated in a web based consultation with the assistance of Citizens with Disabilities – Ontario. Citizens with Disabilities provides on-line conference rooms that can accommodate various size groups for meetings, courses and interviews, among other uses, through their on-line Conference Centre. Apart from the convenience of format, there is the obvious advantage of accessibility. . . . [more]

The CRTC hearings we reported on previously were supposed to have finished yesterday, but according to the CBC actually continued today. See: Internet throttling benefits customers: Rogers, Shaw (cbcnews.ca, July 13, 2009). The CRTC apparently postponed Bell Alliant’s appearance at the hearing until this morning.

Additional sources are listed on my previous post here. . . . [more]

The office of the Ontario Privacy Commissioner has released a document praising Gmail for making connection via SSL available for all communications through their website. “If You Want To Protect Your Privacy, Secure Your Gmail” [PDF] points out that when you communicate with your email server over a public wifi network, your communications are vulnerable to interception unless you encrypt them. SSL, or “secure socket layer,” is a cryptographic protocol in fairly common use — you’ll have seen it in operation if you do internet banking or make payments over the internet, and you can recognize . . . [more]

While our India readers are doubtless aghast at the Law Commission’s bold reforms on stamp duty – you can pay any transaction/court fee by demand draft/cash/postal order/banker’s cheque instead of through non-judicial stamp papers or special stamps – and at the breakneck speed of Indian Commissions of Inquiry – less than two months for a J&K fatality inquiry, and at Stalin’s announcement of a financial city – our North American readers will be puzzling over the implications of stories in today’s Evening Standard in London and the American Lawyer in New York. . . . [more]

Things were heating up in the world of biotech this week!

Hot deals — some of the biggest numbers Canadian companies have seen this year:

• Bioniche licensed its Urocidin product to U.S.-based Endo Pharmaceuticals for $20 million up front and the potential for over $110 million more; and
• Allostera raised $17 million in venture capital.

Hot entrepreneurs — new sources of capital and new training bode well for a fresh crop of companies:

• Teralys Capital opened the doors to start spending its $700 million fund; and
• Two new initiatives — one in Waterloo and one in Ottawa

A sign of the times: for those who have been let go at work but feel too intimidated by the potential cost of a lawyer to seek legal assistance, comes the new service FiredWithoutCause to fill the gap. Have a read through the description below. I’m curious to hear from lawyers in the audience whether you see this type of service complementing or competing with your work?

From FWC’s social media press release (SMPR) from July 10, 2009:

FiredWithoutCause.com is a confidential online service that helps people understand their legal rights and maximize their severance package. The service provides:

• a 

The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s confirmation hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to be associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court begin Monday morning. She will be on Capitol Hill undergoing questioning by the senators during the next week.

Of all the news outlets planning coverage, perhaps the most interesting is Associated Press. Their plan is to have live coverage via Twitter feed @AP_Courtside. They will be taking it a step further by taking questions and directions on coverage for their blog from their readers via Twitter, according to their blog post yesterday at Yahoo! . . . [more]

Yahoo Search has just launched a notepad that’s aimed at helping you do research on the web. It is, in effect, a replacement for the Notebook that Google killed a few weeks ago, and Yahoo hopes it will draw searchers into using their engine.

It’s a fairly simple but smart application: when Yahoo senses from your queries that you’re doing research, it will make Search Pad available in the upper right hand corner of your Yahoo Search window, along with some suggestions as to how your searches might be glossed. Search Pad will automatically capture the bones of your searches, . . . [more]

Frustrated consumers and lawyers alike often threaten to take complaints to the press in an attempt to get satisfaction for an alleged wrong. After all, the “headline risk” of being perceived in a bad light by the public can sometimes be a sobering reality check on whether the entity is not treating a consumer fairly, or whether the complianant is just off base.

Earlier this week, this video was placed on Youtube – was viewed over 150,000 times in its first 2 days – and resulted in United coming to the table to resolve it.

According to the story/song, the . . . [more]

The venture capital press have announced that

Thomson Reuters, the leading financial news and business information company, has acquired Indlaw Communications Pvt. Ltd., a Delhi-based legal information company, for an undisclosed amount. Indlaw runs a legal, tax and regulatory information database website called www.Indlaw.com.

For a limited time, ABA Publishing is offering a special 20% discount on all ABA titles. Do your shopping before July 24, 2009 as this offer expires on that date. To get this special pricing order online and enter source code PEP9MJPM

The 20% discount applies to all ABA books and you can find a complete listing of them at www.ababooks.org. Non-ABA members get 20% off of list price. ABA Section members get 20% off the special reduced member price of any section they belong to, and 20% off the list price for books from sections they aren’t members . . . [more]

A small Canadian legal venture announced itself recently, going public in its very early stages. LexPublica, using the .ca domain so that the URL is lexpubli.ca, aims to be both a business and an online source for free legal instruments and information. At the moment LexPublica is only a blog, where the two founders, Martin Ertl (a McGill grad who has worked at Davis LLP) and Zak Greant, a techie, explain what they hope to do, which seems to be akin to what JD Supra is doing in having lawyers post their material for display and use by . . . [more]