It has been suggested to me, at a couple of levels of hearsay, that that “the US government had to implement a provision to require the financial institutions to accept electronic signatures on agreements of purchase and sale [of land] for the purposes of financing.”

Can anyone tell me what is behind this statement? I have several questions, besides this general one:

• ‘had to implement’ – meaning ‘as a condition of validity’? or ‘to make some particular policy effective’?
• ‘to require the financial institutions to accept e-signatures’ – really? Mandatory acceptance of e-signatures? *Any* e-signatures or only those with

Auditions are currently open until December 6th for students who would like to participate in the third Twitter Moot taking place on Friday, February 28th. Unlike a traditional moot held in a courtroom type facility, a Twitter Moot takes place online via Twitter (hashtag #Twtmoot).

From the West Coast Environmental Law website:

On Friday, February 28th, 2014 at 10am PST (1pm EST), students from law schools across Canada will argue an appeal over Twitter about the duty of Canada’s governments to consult First Nations on mines development.

The appeal, to be heard before three judges of the

Having spent the last 3 weeks in Australia and Hong Kong, I will be using Slaw to discuss some of the ideas and the firms that I met while out in the Wild East. *** Listen for the audible sigh of relief from everyone at the Law Society of Upper Canada as they learn that I won’t be throwing any more daggers at them – this year ***.

Australia is a beautiful country with a legal market not that dissimilar to Canada. Although with a population of about 20 million people and about 37 law schools, Australia is ripe for . . . [more]

Nearly 30 legal professionals – and who knows how many lurkers – participated in Tuesday night’s Twitterchat about legal technology and access to justice.

What if it were this easy, wondered Casey Hall from Thomson Reuters Legal, to pool time to answer those in need?

That strikes straight to the heart of the access to justice conundrum: everyone has lots of ideas about what the basic problems are and what could be done to fix them, but there appears to be more eagerness to discuss the issue than to deal with it.

That there are areas of overlap in the . . . [more]

It will be no surprise to anyone that one of the reactions to the NSA/Snowden revelations would be attempts to evade spying. Many organizations have looked at their systems to determine where the vulnerable weak points are. For example, even if certain internet communications are encrypted, there may be points along the chain where it becomes unencrypted and vulnerable.

This article talks about efforts by Microsoft and others to encrypt more than they have before. Those interested in this topic can learn more by following Bruce Schneier and the EFF.

The EFF, for example, recently published a chart that . . . [more]

I recently attended two jointly run conferences, KM World 2013 and Taxonomy Boot Camp 2013. Enterprise Search Summit and SharePoint Symposium also run concurrently with the other two although I did not attend those.

The folks in the Knowledge Workers Toronto meetup group (which I co-organize) invited me to share some of my take-aways from the conferences. Below are my slides that put that summary together.

It was my first time at Taxonomy Boot Camp. I was impressed with the range of content (from introductory to advanced technical)–highly recommended if you are working in the area of taxonomy or . . . [more]

Upon reading one of today’s Slaw posts, How Technology Will Change the Practice of Law, it strikes me that many of the commentators place an extremely high value on technology as a driver of efficiency in legal work. In some cases, there’s almost a worship quality to their vision.

Don’t get me wrong, I think technology has a lot to offer. And admittedly, there is the occasional firm that is so backwards in its adoption that one can see how they are at a distinct disadvantage for not changing their ways. However, do we really believe that “technological efficiency” . . . [more]

“It’s hard to take law and technology seriously when they still have a typewriter at the courthouse – and a pen remains the judge’s weapon of choice.”

That statement from Ottawa lawyer Bryan Delaney neatly sums up the paradox faced when talk turns to incorporating new technology into legal services – some may be riding technology’s cutting edge, but other parts of the profession are still tootling around in granddad’s jalopy.

Tuesday night’s CBA Legal Futures Twitterchat, hosted by My Legal Briefcase founder Monica Goyal, featured participants representing a full range of practitioners, from traditional to tech-based. There seemed to . . . [more]

This week I’m attending my first Dreamforce conference, the annual Salesforce.com “user conference.”

I put user conference in quotes because, although that’s where Dreamforce started, over the years it has evolved into something much, much larger. There are nearly 100,000 attendees and over 1,000 sessions covering topics ranging from starting up a new company to collaboration to meditation. Keynote speakers include Marissa Meyer from Yahoo and Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook. Green Day and Blondie are playing a concert for attendees. The breadth and depth of the topics is simply mind-boggling.

The vibe and energy at the conference is amazing. . . . [more]

Judge Denny Chin of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York today dismissed the copyright violation lawsuit that US author groups had launched against Google.

The search giant has been digitizing tens of millions of books to create a massive online library / bookstore but the project was opposed in a lawsuit by US publishers and author organizations that started in 2005. The publishers’ group split off and settled earlier.

The judge wrote that the ambitious project respects authors’ rights and is a case of “fair use” (equivalent to fair dealing in Canadian copyright . . . [more]

“I know lawyers who are very innovative and lawyers with very traditional practices. The latter seem to make much more money,” says Noel Semple, a self-described “lapsed lawyer and aspiring professor.”

And there, in a nutshell, appear two of the biggest impediments to innovation in the legal field: the idea that if it ain’t broke, it doesn’t need fixing, combined with the real possibility that the innovation will fail – or at the very least, that the innovator will be scrambling for money until the idea catches on.

Innovations in the legal sector – and the impediments thereto – were . . . [more]

The October 2013 issue of Connected is available online. The bulletin covers news about the impact of new social media on courts.

Most issues cover news from the United States, but there is occasional coverage of other jurisdictions.

In this issue:

• Courts and QR Codes
• Justices from 12 midwest states consider implications of evolving technology on the courts
• Australia’s Supreme Court of Victoria launches new social media initiative
• Ohio explores haunted courthouses across the state

The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers. . . . [more]