A report to the United Nations from special rapporteur Frank La Rue suggests that the Internet is a key means for individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression. The document is Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (May 16, 2011).

The report references Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and

There are 320,000 inhabitants of Iceland, a country about twice the size of Nova Scotia. But small in size doesn’t mean small in thought. They’re in the process of revising their constitution at the moment, and one feature of the process is the invitation to the public to comment on committee drafts as they’re presented online. To get the widest possible involvement, they’ve established a Facebook page and a Twitter account for the purpose, as well as the basic web page.

As the official page states:

The Constitutional Council is eager to make sure the public can be up

Most attorneys say that their business comes through word of mouth or referrals. But how do you keep those referrals coming? How do you establish and maintain relationships with referral sources and potential clients? Through effective networking. In the internet age, that means networking online as well as off.

A lot of the lawyers I speak to are still lost when it comes to using social media and networking online. It doesn’t have to be complicated. The same rules apply whether you are networking in “real life” offline or using social media and other tools online. 

Here are some of . . . [more]

As many of you know, the right to freedom of expression is firmly entrenched in both our charters and human rights acts.

The Québec Labour Code contains a sections which have been held in the past to legitimately restrict an employer’s right to full and freely express his or her opion. This is particularly the case with regard to sections 12 and 13 of the Code by which an employer is prohibited from interfering in the activities of a union and/or intimidating employees regarding their union activity. Recently, some commissioners from the Québec Commission des Relations du Travail has taken . . . [more]

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]