The Canadian Centre for Elder Law marked World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (June 15) by publishing a discussion paper entitled Moving From Scrutiny to Strategy: An Analysis of Key Canadian Elder Abuse and Neglect Cases.

The Centre is affiliated with the British Columbia Law Institute.

The discussion paper “reviews a number of recent elder abuse and neglect cases that have been recorded in Canadian court decisions – largely criminal cases. The cases serve as a backdrop for highlighting social dynamics at play in elder abuse cases, comparing relevant legislation across the country, clarifying legal obligations to respond to elder . . . [more]

In the wake of the 2011 edition of the Vancouver riots, a new website called Identifyrioters.com was quickly assembled to publish scraped photos from social media. Users are encouraged to identify individuals, log into their Facebook accounts, identify the person in question, and then relay the assembled information back the the VPD. It’s also worth noting that this is a citizen led effort, and not a production of the VPD. It will be interesting to see how effective it is.

Unlike the ’94 edition of the riots, things have changed dramatically in how digitally inclined our society has become. Being . . . [more]

Most Canadian jurisdictions (except PEI and the Territories) have Class Actions statutes and our courts are increasingly having to deal with the complex issues that class litigation presents. One of the most difficult issues is the co-ordination of litigation that involves class members in multiple jurisdictions. Because our federal courts (with a statutory jurisdiction) have not the sort of diversity jurisdiction that facilitates the consolidation of multi-state proceedings) our courts must fashion solutions within the structure of provincial superior court primacy over civil litigation.

The defects of the current system have been described as follows:

Overlapping, multijurisdictional class actions

A New York Times article from Monday has been prompting some comment on the blogs and blawgs. In “Justices Turning More Frequently to Dictionary, and Not Just for Big Words,” Adam Liptak wrote about the considerable frequency with which U.S. Supreme Court Justices refer to dictionary definitions in their opinions, much to the concern — not to say derision — of linguists and lexicologists. This should come as only a mild surprise to lawyers, perhaps, who are used to the various and contestable ways meaning in statutes is determined and justified by judges.

As the linguists point out, . . . [more]

You can’t swing a dead cat [Fn. 1] on the Internet these days without hitting a lawyer or law librarian complaining about the never ending escalation of prices for legal content (print or digital), the unscrupulous business practices of certain legal publishers, and the ineptitude of member associations to address these problems (and more). [Fn. 2] And while all of this may seem new, it isn’t.

I don’t know when the distrust between lawyers and law librarians and legal publishers actually began, but the late Professor Roy Mersky once stated that lawyers’ displeasure with the tools . . . [more]

I have made some updates to my legal research and writing website:

1) Knowledge Management

I have added on my website a page devoted to Knowledge Management that provides some basic information on knowledge management in the legal profession, along with links to various resources. When I wrote the third edition of my book last year, I added what was a brand-new chapter to the book on knowledge management. It was only during my presentation last week at the New Law Librarians’ Institute (see my previous post) did it dawn on me that the accompanying website lacked information . . . [more]

In my last column, I discussed the convergence between the SaaS contracting model and the outsourcing contracting model. In this column, I wish to explore a strongly related topic: the increasing trend of using cloud elements in outsourcings.

There is some overlap between software-as-a-service (SaaS) services and cloud services. Before the cloud became the marketing buzzword we know and love today, a SaaS service referred to a contracting model where software features were provided over the Internet. From a legal perspective, there was not much of a difference between SaaS and the application service provider (ASP) model that preceded . . . [more]

Loads of people writing, speaking, blogging and consulting on search engine optimization or SEO. Some of them even have good advice, but often in snippets. They just don’t give the big picture on all the things that go into SEO.

Thanks to Bob Ambrogi who tweeted about the Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors. As a one-time student of chemistry, I think using a periodic table layout is a brilliant way of grouping very different but related things in a logical way. And don’t be scared off if the last time you saw a periodic table was when you . . . [more]

I’m an unabashed fan of TED. I’m not referring to Mr. Tjaden, although there is much to admire about the new Treasurer of CALL, but rather to the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference. This has been a source of inspiration, challenge and new ideas for me for years, and I’m certain that many of the SLAW community hold it in similar regard.

Imagine my delight when I learned that the University of Toronto will be hosting a TEDx event! The details on the speakers have been emerging over the last couple of weeks, and registration opens tonight at . . . [more]

My sense is the the inaugural New Law Librarians’ Institute last week in London, Ontario, sponsored by the Canadian Association of Law Libraries/L’Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit (CALL/ACBD), was very successful.

It was a 5-day event, with sessions on substantive law led by various University of Western Ontario law professors, combined with sessions by various law librarians, including me.

Sessions included, for example, a Thursday morning session by Professor Sam Trosow on property law for law librarians (including a session on copyright law), followed by a session by UWO Law Librarian John Sadler on researching secondary legal literature. There . . . [more]

I’ve had an iPad for about a month now. I remain convinced that the tablet format is a game changer. There are pros and cons and fans and detractors for various devices. In the long run it will be interesting to see how the market shakes out. There is of course the iPad, various Android devices (the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 just coming out now is highly anticipated), and the Blackberry Playbook. And don’t count out Microsoft. They will be late to the game, but their Windows 8 concept may gain some traction.

I’ll give some examples of how I have . . . [more]