What exactly is virtualization and why is there so much buzz about it these days? Virtualization can occur in many forms, but most initially think of using virtualization to consolidate servers into a single hardware platform. Essentially, you can run multiple servers on a single piece of hardware, where each “server” has its own memory “footprint” within the host machine. Servers are the most common devices when firms embark down the virtualization path. There are many other forms of virtualization such as desktop, network and storage virtualization. Desktop virtualizations occur in the larger firms all the way down to solos. . . . [more]

or, as ever, be careful what you ask for, and from whom you ask it.

or, paraphrasing a certain English r&r band, you may not always get what you want, but you’ll sometimes get what you need.

Like the Buckley commercial says, though, you may not like the taste. (I have no idea how it tastes, since I’ve never tried it.)

Pennyfeather v. Timminco Limited, 2011 ONSC 4257 (July 13, 2011)

(Perell J.)

[1] The Defendants, Timminco Ltd., Dr. Heinz Schimmelbusch, Robert Dietrich, Rene Boisvert, Arthur R. Spector, Jack L. Messman, John C. Fox, Michael D. Winfield and Mickey M. . . . [more]

Law library consultant Nina Platt is the editor of the new PinHawk News free daily email alert service for law librarians, the Librarian News Digest.

From the inaugural issue:

Welcome to the first issue of the daily Librarian News Digest, a free digest of news from publications and blogs on the internet that focus on topics of importance to librarians. As editor of Librarian News Digest, my goal is to track pertinent news and select what’s most important to you as a librarian. Expect to see news and ideas that help you manage, acquire, organize, research, and market your

Back in May I wrote about two sets of proposals that may impact the adoption of cloud computing technology among lawyers.

The first set of proposals comes from the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20, which has issued an initial set of draft proposals addressing lawyers’ confidentiality-related obligations when using technology. The second set of proposals comes from the North Carolina State Bar in the form of in Proposed 2011 Formal Ethics Opinion 6 – Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property.

Last week the comment periods for both proposals . . . [more]

On occasion, lawyers have engaged in activities that have made them front-page news, subject to embarrassment and possibly lawsuits or discipline complaints. Not only can this kind of attention be bad for a lawyer’s reputation, it can also damage or even destroy client relationships.

That’s reason enough to be aware of and avoid activities that could lead to these types of outcomes. But there is another – equally if not more compelling – reason to avoid them: In some instances, it may be the law firm, not LAWPRO (or your own malpractice carrier if you are outside Ontario), that foots . . . [more]

Lawyers and law firms have a complex relationship with journalism and public relations, I’d say: control, reputation, social positioning — power, if you will — all these can intersect in interesting ways for this trio of influence- and word-mongers. The recent brouhaha in Britain over the News of the World and Murdoch’s News Corp. phone hacking mess illustrates some of the less happy aspects of this interaction. Normally, we here at Slaw would be more focused on the legalities; but I think it’s enlightening, for a change, to look at this scandal from the public relations point of view, and . . . [more]

As lawyers know, between the lengthy process and the various complexities that are inevitable within the traditional legal system, many people become discouraged with their attempts to obtain justice. As others have suggested, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, specifically mediation, may offer the needed solution to for this lack of efficient access to justice. Rather than aiming to replace the established system, however, these mechanisms work in parallel with it.

Many non-governmental organisations here and abroad have realized the overwhelming inefficiency of the existing traditional legal system in the countries in which they are based. This is the reason many projects . . . [more]

This week Michele Henry at the Toronto Star revealed the existence of an estimated $1.3 billion car insurance scam operating in the Toronto region,

Doctors, chiropractors and physiotherapists are unwitting dupes in what some insurers claim is a $1.3-billion scam. Fraudsters steal their credentials to make fake invoices appear legitimate. The victims of the scam are drivers across the province, who annually see their rates hiked to pay for fraudulent claims.

Insurance investigators claim more than 300 clinics loosely connected in fraudulent rings are working this system…

Tow truck drivers or paralegals direct accident victims — drivers and passengers —

Justia.com is now providing free daily and weekly opinion summaries for the US Supreme Court, all US federal courts of appeal, and state supreme courts. As well, free weekly opinion summaries are available for nearly sixty areas of practice. These, it would seem, are delivered by email; there doesn’t seem to be an RSS feature. If you’re curious, you can look at a sample daily email for the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or a sample weekly summary for the practice area of environmental law.

Needless to say, this is a powerfully impressive service and a considerable contribution . . . [more]

There’s a new Columbia research study that looks at our ever growing reliance on search engines for memory recall. Not a ton of surprises here. Yes, we’ve become more reliant, especially for certain types of information. We’re also becoming better at remembering the successful search strategies that led us to obtaining certain facts. In some cases, our memory of the search strategy is better than our recall of the trivia itself.

Oh, and three cheers for Columbia for including an embed code within their video player! So I can show you this:

. . . [more]

In a bit of tragic irony last week, I finished my post on some of Canada’s constitutional documents and hit the publish button and left Slaw to discover that Dalhousie, and indeed, Canada had suffered a terrible loss with the passing of Professor Peter Aucoin. I’m sure that many Slaw readers are familiar with the name as he was one of, if not the, preeminent scholar on Canadian government and public service; he was a key figure in many Royal Commissions and published books and journal articles of high quality, too numerous to mention here. His scholarship and contributions . . . [more]

Every so often I’m struck by how impressive the crow is. This strutting, raucous, scavenger — a “murder” en masse — exhibits the sort of behaviour that should give us pause whenever we’re feeling smug about our perch atop the smartness pole. Not that this corvid, cousin to jays and magpies, is about to solve Fermat’s theorem, perfect the hydrogen bomb, or do anything so humanly intelligent. But the bird can solve problems, recognize faces, teach others (or learn from others), and outsmart human beings from time to time.

For example, a few years back Chatham, Ontario, was beleaguered by . . . [more]