When families split apart, they don’t always stick around in the same province. Sometimes that gives rise to challenge circumstances for resolving proceedings or updating support orders.

Justice Pazaratz examined a interprovincial motion to change support in Chree v. Chree. The judge, who is now known for his writing style, started with the following:

 

1. There’s an old saying: “Two Heads Are Better Than One”.

2. But not when it comes to trial judges.

…

6. Two judges. Each hearing different parts of the case. On different dates, many months apart. Having to make decisions on the same case.

7. It

In the 1989 movie, Back to the Future Part II they time traveled to October 21, 2015. (The move was produced by Neil Canton – no relation as far as I know.)

Articles abound today comparing the 2015 depicted in the movie to today’s world. While we don’t have flying cars, and hoverboards have not proceeded beyond some proof of concept demos, drones and flatscreens and a few other things are here.

Another prediction that didn’t come true is the quip that the justice system works swiftly in the future now that they’ve abolished all lawyers.

Wearable tech was . . . [more]

I’m sure many of you keep track of cases pending before the Supreme Court of Canada. What is your preferred method for doing so? I had been hoping to find an RSS feed (or something similar) on the SCC docket page. I suppose I could use a website tracking tool to track the particular docket page that I am interested in. But I was hoping there would be a nice easy-to-use tool already set up for me to do that! I tried QuickLaw and came up with a somewhat clunky work-around (I set up a scheduled search for the SCCA . . . [more]

Microsoft announced new products last week, including the Surface Pro 4 tablet, and its first ever laptop – the Surface Book hybrid. Tech press reviews have been very positive. We ordered a Surface Pro 4 the day of the announcement, which is going to replace my desktop and tablet.

Windows 10 has been very well received. Microsoft has been touting its enterprise security features. Our IT Manager is impressed with the potential of its productivity improvements over Windows 8.1.

Microsoft is also transitioning its products into the cloud and into subscription models – which is where we are all headed. . . . [more]

One of the many excellent presentations that I attended at Legaltech TO on September 24 focused on a couple of ways to deal with BYOD in legal. Steve Heck, Regional CIO at Microsoft Canada offered the ‘make everything securely accessible from any device’ option. Eugene Cipparone, Director, Professional Support at Goodmans LLP offered that firm’s strategy which I will sum up here as ‘educate and enable’.

Both of these perspectives have value. On one hand, mobile devices are only used to access what is secured by two factor authentication on the web. Because the content resides and can be used . . . [more]

I don’t usually write “how-to” posts, but I wasn’t aware of this restore feature in Windows and thought others might find it useful. Last week I accidentally saved a file and ended up replacing another file in the process. This can easily happen when you click on ‘Save’ instead of ‘Save As’ for example. In my case I was exporting a file from a software application and saving it to a directory on our network drive.

Normally the file is exported and then saved over a template or place-holder file. Usually not a problem: easy to do and maintains consistent . . . [more]

The Indian Supreme Court is to deal with a challenge to evidence of the complainant in a rape case that was taken by Skype. The complainant is Irish and is now in Ireland, and does not want to return to India for the trial.

The accused submits that the quality of the recording is not good enough to admit the evidence.

Does anything about the use of Skype in this case, or in general, make you uncomfortable?

Can there be a firm rule about the admissibility of private (or quasi-public) systems of video evidence, or should it depend on the . . . [more]

Yesterday was a busy day in the tech/geek world.

Edward Snowden got a twitter account yesterday. His profile includes “I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public.” As I write this he has just under a million followers. At least he has a sense of humour – the only twitter account he follows is the NSA.

Tesla announced the long awaited Model X SUV, complete with falcon wing doors and a “bioweapon defense mode” button on the air filtration system.

Google announced new updated phones, the release of their new Marshmallow OS, . . . [more]

F=ma. Sir Isaac Newton, in his second law of motion, tells us why it is so hard to get the legal profession to adopt new technology.

Newton’s second law says that for any force you apply to an object, the amount of acceleration you get is inversely proportional to the mass of that object. That means that the larger the object is, the smaller the acceleration you will get (for a given force). This is called “inertia”.

Lawyers have a lot of mass. I don’t mean that they are physically massive people; rather I mean that, as a body of . . . [more]

Last week there was an interesting post by Xeni Jardin on Boing-Boing concerning the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Jardin cites a New York Times article by Jim Dywer called, “Volkswagen’s Diesel Fraud Makes Critic of Secret Code a Prophet” published earlier in the week.

This is the bit that caught immediately my attention at Boing-Boing:

“Proprietary software is an unsafe building material. You can’t inspect it.”

That quote comes from a talk Columbia Law School professor Eben Moglen gave to the Scottish Society for Computers and Law about 5 years ago, “When Software is in Everything: Future . . . [more]

I am happily attending excellent educational sessions at Legaltech Toronto. Follow the hashtag #IN_LegaltechTO to see the collective notes.

Four sessions in and I am very glad to be here even with the red eye flight with a 10 month old baby on the next seat.

Three screen shots of slides illustrate why:

This is the reason that I am at #IN_LegaltechTO listening to @FredHeadon pic.twitter.com/RDkLGLFaIw

— Shaunna Mireau (@smireau) September 24, 2015

Cipparone #IN_LegaltechTO #greatslide #greatmessage pic.twitter.com/vvv9ozRVmQ

— Shaunna Mireau (@smireau) September 24, 2015

@BAlarie #IN_LegaltechTO thicker #law – an opportunity to allow cognitive computing to give value answers

Most risk management advice is based on how to avoid bad things through taking proactive and preventative steps. For example, use checklists on every file to avoid missing crucial steps. Document the advice you’ve given, particularly if your client isn’t likely to follow it. Use retainer letters to set clear expectations for your clients.

Other advice is based on avoiding risk through knowing when to leave well enough alone. The best is example is the axiom that a lawyer should never sue for fees because that’s a frequent trigger for a legal malpractice claim or law society misconduct complaint.

But . . . [more]