The old adage is that there are three things that matter in real estate; that being location, location and location. But a recent item here in Nova Scotia caught my attention for turning that axiom around a bit. That being the story of a man who is appealing his property tax assessment due to the availability of high speed internet access or more specifically the lack thereof. The linked story contains most of the details but I’ll try to impart the readers digest version (or perhaps we should change that axiom to “the blog version”) here. In short, his house . . . [more]

Stewart Butterfield, a co-founder of Flickr, has taken his communication tool Slack out of beta and opened it up to the rest of us. So far as I can gather, the idea is that if you’re working with a team (however defined) you might wish to have all your communications in one searchable place, whether they originated as emails or SMS texts. Slack is meant to provide just such an all-purpose communication function. The story in Gigaom will explain it better than I can, because I’ve not had a chance to try it yet.

Functionality depends on subscription level, but . . . [more]

We were recently made aware of a September 2013 news release from the FBI, stating that a lawyer-targetting fraudster had pleaded guilty and received hefty fines and a prison sentence. Nice to see a victory in the struggle against online scams. The number of law enforcement agencies involved shows how international these scams are, and how much cooperation is required to bring the fraudsters to justice.

Here is the text of the release:

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a Nigerian national charged in connection with a multi-national scheme that bilked more than

It seems to me that we’ve been in something of lull so far as IT development is concerned. Perhaps I’m just imagining it because I welcome the break from continual novelty and the learning it invites. However, I’ve recently made note of four developments of possible interest to Slaw readers, and I thought I’d pass them on now. None, I think, is begging to be incorporated into your firm’s canon of essential apps. Indeed, none is likely of direct application to your work. But it’s from such trial efforts that tomorrow’s killer app may emerge, and, more important perhaps, one . . . [more]

With the first seven top-level domains going live on January 29th, and more new TLD domains becoming available each week throughout 2014, trade-mark holders may wish to grab some protection through ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse.

For $150/year per Trade-mark, the Clearinghouse will warn potential domain squatters that they are attempting to register a domain against an existing trade-mark.

What’s unique about this service is that they will do this for all the incoming new TLD domains, and I assume, make these warnings available through all the domain registrar companies.

One of the questions I’m frequently asked is, “Should . . . [more]

Listening to Roy Heenan give his spin on the demise of his law firm, I couldn’t help but hear the strains of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend” in my head.

It will be some time before the full back story of this debacle will be known. But in my view, Heenan Blaikie died from a combination of greed, poor management and failed leadership wrapped together in an antiquated business structure ill-suited to “more for less” client demands in a marketplace gradually filling with non-traditional competitors.

As I have said repeatedly, the Canadian legal profession is now entering the . . . [more]

The January 2014 issue of Connected is now available online.

The bulletin covers news about the impact of social media on courts. Most of the items are about the United States, but there is occasional coverage of other jurisdictions.

The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers.

In this issue:

• Florida judge removed from divorce case after sending litigant friend request
• Two new jury resources from Reynolds Courts and Media Law Journal: “Jury Instructions Cautioning Against Use of the Internet and Social Networking,” developed by The American College

The LegalTech Day One Keynote with Jason Thomas of Thomson Reuters was intriguingly titled “TOR, Bitcoin, Silk Road and the Anonymous Web: Drugs, Bombs and Murder-for-Hire”. If that wasn’t enough to bring me into a crowded conference room filled with legal technology types, there was also tasty coffee.

All kidding aside, Mr. Thomas’s presentation was a great start to the 34th annual ALM Legal Technology show. Jason Thomas is the Chief Innovator at Thomson Reuters.

Jason started his session with a William Gibson quote: “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.”

He asked the crowd to raise . . . [more]

Cybercrime dangers are many, complex and ever-changing. Hardly a day goes by without another news report of a data breach or other cyber-related scam or theft. Cyber criminals have considerable resources and expertise, and can cause significant damage to their targets. Cyber criminals specifically target law firms as law firms regularly have funds in their trust accounts and client data that is often very valuable. This article, from the December 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, reviews the specific cybercrime dangers law firms need to be concerned about, and how they can mitigate their risks.

Every law firm has huge . . . [more]

The Internal Revenue Service of the United States has recently denied charitable status to an organization that promotes a knowledge of internet security to bloggers and civil society groups, notably those in foreign countries whose freedom of expression may be threatened by state bodies.

As one US commentator wrote:

The IRS denial, in short, hinges on the applicant’s activities looking too much like a for-profit trade or business and also the following not qualifying as “charitable” – (1) preserving the fundamental human rights set forth in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (b/c it is a declaration, not

“Adjectives on the typewriter, he moves his words like a prize fight-er.”

I cannot proclaim to understand the meaning of the Cake song Shadow Stabbing but I do love that line. It seems particularly appropriate for a thought that has long percolated in my head regarding online communication, that being that context is so often lost. I have found it in contributing to this blog and in other online fora. How many times have you written an email with several points to which the response you receive only addresses one of those points. Or, if you engage in blogging or . . . [more]

A post earlier this week on In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress in Washington, explained that the Australian federal legislative website ComLaw and the New Zealand legislative website were offering official versions of their laws.

In other words, the sites guarantee that the text that a searcher finds there (usually the PDF version) is a correct statement of the law and is admissible as evidence in court. Traditionally, only the print version of legislation from a government printer is official.

Many people are surprised to find out how few electronic versions of laws . . . [more]