Google+ is the latest social media tool. It will take some time before we know how it will fit in with twitter, facebook and linkedin. Opinions range from it being a nuisance as it is just another thing we need to follow, to being a superior tool that will supplant other social media. But for now its growth rate has been phenomenal – 20 million users in 24 days.

So I thought it would be interesting to look at what I would have learned so far this week from Google+ if that was my only source of information. These are . . . [more]

I remain surprised at the number of intelligent, articulate, and well-read legal professionals who still use “and/or” in legal writing.

I am therefore creating this post to document a fairly complete list of authorities that support what I think is the better (if not obvious) view: never use “and/or” in legal writing (or any writing). And yes, I said “never.”

The Abomination that is “And/Or”

Although there is some support for “and/or,” the weight of authority is against its use, primarily for two reasons: (i) its use can result in uncertainty, (ii) it is not a real word.

I definitely . . . [more]

A deal’s a deal. Except where lawyers are concerned.

That’s the tough lesson learned by Alberta’s Olga Maria Nixon. Having been involved in a car crash that orphaned and seriously injured a seven-year old boy, Ms. Nixon may not engender a high degree of public sympathy but her legal ordeal set the stage for a very significant precedent handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) several weeks ago in R. v. Nixon 2011 SCC 34.

Ms. Nixon was alleged to have driven her motor home though an intersection without stopping striking another vehicle and thus causing the . . . [more]

In addition to the blog posts I put together from selected sessions at the PLL Summit on Saturday, I have also liveblogged a few of the other conference sessions I have attended:

• Barbara Tillett and John Mark Ockerbloom on Authority Control Vocabularies and the Semantic Web
  These are notes are from talk by Dr. Barbara B. Tillett of theLibrary of Congress and John Mark Ockerboom of the University of Pennsylvania.
• To Recover or Not to Recover: Trends, Solutions, and Alternatives for Taming Online Research Costs
  These are notes are from a panel discussion session with Joan Axelroth

Do flip-flops, exercise shorts, or spaghetti strap tank tops belong in the workplace? An article (in French) in Le Devoir, “Relâchement vestimentaire – Pour en finir avec la «gougoune» au travail”, attempts to answer exactly that. According to the article, Revenu Québec and The Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec (OIIQ) have insisted that their employees dress appropriately for the workplace, where exercise shorts, tank tops, flip-flops and other overly casual items do not belong. In fact, Revenu Québec sent out a memo to all its employees on the subject of office dress codes as recently . . . [more]

The Meaning of License

According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a “license” is “The permission by competent authority to do an act which, without such permission, would be illegal, a trespass, or a tort.” Also, “Permission to do something which without the license would not be allowable.” It is that license which allows us to download an e-book onto our e-book reader, upload computer software, and legally obtain music online. In fact, with digital content, licensing has become an integral part of our access to, and use of, informational, educational, and entertainment content. And yet the meaning of a license . . . [more]

I just received this information from the CALL webinar committee, and thought the SLAW community would be interested. I work with Rick – he has incredible knowledge of legislation and a wicked sense of humour. Caroline is not unknown to the CALL community – she has spoken at annual conferences before, and has always impressed me with her skill as a speaker and her encyclopedic knowledge.

This is a session not to be missed!

Thursday September 15, 2011
1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT 

Join two legislation experts in the first of a series of webinars that will share tips

Out of the blue (well to us anyway) House of Butter learnt that BAILii was teetering after it became clear that UK government sources of money were to become increasingly difficult to access as the (UK) coalition austerity belt tightened.

On 10 June we learnt from a number of UK LIS LAW posts and BAILii themselves that although they’d still receive UK government funds until March 2012 the organization would have to appeal for more funds from other parties.

Their funding page was updated with the following appeal notice a few days later

Why is BAILII appealing for funds?

BAILII’s

The South Carolina Bar Association just released an Ethics Advisory Opinion on the use of Groupon by SC lawyers.This interesting opinion dealt with the question of whether it is ethical for SC lawyers to use Groupon. The answer: Yes, but proceed with caution. Read SC Ethics Advisory Opinion 11-05 here. . . . [more]

If you’re a Mac-using lawyer, Apple’s recently released OS X Lion has a new feature that single-handedly makes the upgrade worth the $29 price of admission.

FileVault 2 enables whole-disk encryption for OS X Lion computers with just a few clicks of the mouse. Whole disk encryption ensures the contents of your drive are only readable when you provide a valid username / password combination to the operating system. This means your entire computer’s hard drive will be encrypted, and thus unreadable, should it fall into the wrong hands.

I consider whole disk encryption a best practice for all lawyers, . . . [more]

There is a trend that is causing me great consternation, and I think its impact is only just starting to hurt our users and budgets. It is the decision being taken by some publishers of electronic versions of journals and law reports to remove their titles from the aggregators, such as Lexis or Westlaw, and to build their own platforms and then sell the titles /access separately to consumers at a rate they think is achievable.

I admit to my fair share of cynicism in relation to legal publishers; many – though thank goodness not all – have always seemed . . . [more]

Sunday at the AALL 2011 conference in Philadelphia about 200 people attended the Cool Tools Cafe, a 75 minute session in which we could visit 5 minute demos of new tools at any of 17 tables. I managed to visit about half. I was particularly impressed by DRAGNET, a legal search tool from the New York Law School demonstrated by Terry Ballard, Assistant Director of Technical Services for Library Systems of Mendik Library.

DRAGNET (Database Resource Access Using Google’s New Electronic Technologies) is a search tool created with Google custom search which we have mentioned a few times over . . . [more]