On 31 May 2011 Justice David Brown of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice delivered a paper under this title. His central thesis is that until certain obstacles are removed, and assuming a fixed judicial complement, little significant improvement can result from the changes to the rules of civil procedure that came into effect in 2010, or any future changes to the rules.

Brown J. identifies two sacred cows and two stumbling blocks.

The sacred cows are:
1) that the administration of the courts must remain under the control of the executive of the government;
2) that unlimited judicial resources . . . [more]

Last week Apple released iCloud, a new cloud-based service for syncing documents, calendars, e-mails, photos, music and more across your desktop, laptop, iPad, and iPhone.

iCloud represents one of the most important and risky strategic shifts Apple has ever taken. Prior to iCloud, Apple’s “digital hub” strategy promoted the PC as your central data store, with the various “spokes” of the digital hub – your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, etc. – synchronizing with your PC. With iCloud, the PC has been, in Jobs’ words, “demoted” to just another device – with the cloud taking its place.

The shift . . . [more]

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) focuses its research on access to justice and legal services. The justice system in Canada is not, of course, one united system but a set of institutionalized processes with overlapping provincial, territorial, and federal jurisdictions. There are civil, family, criminal and administrative divisions and both substantive and procedural laws that must be applied to each situation. Courts and Tribunals attached to this system are increasingly dealing with problems arising from Canada’s failure to solve resistant social problems. Yet, to achieve access to justice for all Canadians, legal services must be delivered as part . . . [more]

Significant numbers of law firm partners are nearing retirement age. Many firms are facing the daunting question of how to smoothly transition their clients and practices to the next generation – and most firms have taken few if any steps to tackle the thorny issues this transition can raise.

Look to the May/June 2011 issue of Law Practice Magazine if you need help with building a succession plan for your firm. It has several articles that will help you with transitioning clients, practices and leadership.

Marcia Pennington Shannon’s A Short Course in Succession Planning article gives you a snapshot of . . . [more]

I was interviewed recently on the topic of opening my own office. I had run a solo practice for years until mid-2010 when I accepted a position as in-house counsel, and had spoken and written about the advantages and disadvantages of running one’s own shop many times in the past.

In the interview, I mentioned that (more or less) many lawyers feel the need to have an assistant out of sense of ego, and that they feel that a lot of clerical-type work is either an inefficient use of their time or, quite simply, beneath them. I took a (justifiable) . . . [more]

Nineteen people graduated today in Philadelphia at the annual conference of the Special Library Association (SLA) with a Certificate in Copyright Management (CCM). The graduates included one Canadian, some rights managers in publishing positions, and many librarians in a variety of positions from pharmaceutical and engineering companies to law firms and financial institutions and academic institutions. One thing all had in common was a desire to understand domestic and international copyright issues, Web 2.0 and other digital copyright issues, special library provisions and fair use/dealing, as well as educating others about copyright and licensing. Canadians in the program are required . . . [more]

Social media users are up in arms this week with the revelation that Facebook is using facial recognition software to provide tagging suggestions. Of course the primary objection is that users feel that they were not provided adequate notice that the feature was being deployed.

Natasha Lennard at Salon recently asked, Is Facebook’s facial recognition tool as creepy as it seems?, and said,

Heidi Boghosian, the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, a bar association that works on civil rights and activism issues, told Salon:

Corporations have a history of sharing personal information with the government, especially when

A few of us here at Slaw have been giving testimonials to our tablet experiences and I am going to follow the trend today, I am very early in my iPad relationship, you could even call me a Pad-awan, if you will. I am currently using the iPad 2 as a test project to try and determine the applicability of the iPad as tool in legal education. In this post I’m going to try to focus on specific apps and why I use them and attempt not to reiterate the specifics of previous posts on this topic. I expect . . . [more]

So what’s this?

It’s not the barcode for a box of Froot Loops. Neither is it the barcode for the Rainbow Six video game. In fact it’s the barcode of an Arctic warbler (a.k.a. Phylloscopus borealis).

And what makes this LBJ (“little brown job”) so special is its inclusion, along with more than a hundred thousand other species, in the International Barcode of Life data system, a Canadian project out of the University of Guelph.

The planet is host to a vast number of animal species, many of which we’re just discovering now. And figuring out which beast belongs . . . [more]

There was a time when many lawyers, settled in their ways, thought that they could ignore alternative fee arrangements. That day is clearly gone. The 2010 Fulbright Litigation Trends Survey announced that 51% of the corporate counsel responding to the survey were using some form of alternative fee arrangements.

Why? They cite lower costs first, then predictability, and then risk sharing. So what kind of AFAs do they favor? It’s a very mixed bag with fixed fees, conditional or contingent fees, blended rates, capped fees and performance/reward-based fees. Clearly, there is a lot of exploration going on and a lot . . . [more]

BAILII, the British And Irish Legal Information Institute, reports that its future is at risk because of a funding shortfall.

Like its Canadian counterpart CanLII, BAILII seeks to make access to primary legal materials free to everyone via the Internet. They are members of the Free Access to Law Movement which seeks to ensure free, open publication of legal information throughout the world.

According to exchanges on the UK-based LIS-LAW listserv, a few major sponsors have withdrawn financial support and further support from the Ministry of Justice is “under review”. . . . [more]

One of the inventors of the electric guitar, Les Paul, is honoured by Google’s doodle today. And it’s a doozy: an interactive guitar you can play with your mouse or keyboard, and the ability (only in the US!? pity!) to record your tune and send it to a lucky friend. Click the small keyboard and then you can play a scale with any of the rows of letters starting from the left.

Here’s the official explanation:

For the next 24 hours on the Google homepage, you’ll find an interactive, playable logo inspired by the guitar developed by the