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According to exchanges on the UK-based LIS-LAW listserv, a few major sponsors have withdrawn financial support and further support from the Ministry of Justice is “under review”.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

. . . [more]

A guest drowns in the hotel pool. Does the hotel need to report the fatality to the Ontario Ministry of Labour under subsection 51(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act? According to a decision by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), the answer is “yes”.

Earlier this week, Gartner offered up a press release that identified 5 myths of collaboration. If you have an interest in collaboration, it’s worth reading; but to summarize, those myths are:

1. The right tools will make us collaborative
2. Collaboration is inherently a good thing
3. Collaborating takes extra time
4. People naturally will/will not collaborate
5. People instinctively know how to collaborate

The explanation given for #4 was something that particularly caught my interest:

Depending on their level of cynicism, people believe that humans naturally collaborate, or naturally don’t. While there are individuals at each end of the spectrum, most are somewhere

. . . [more]

At one time, only the public sector issued requests for proposal (RFPs) for legal services. Now, the financial services sector, publicly traded companies, and not-for-profit institutions are all issuing RFPs for legal work. In my last column, I talked about debriefing after responding to RFPs, whether you win or lose. There’s a lot to be learned from both successful and unsuccessful proposals. 

Another essential piece of record-keeping for proposals is finding out whether you won or lost. This is akin to closing a file properly after a deal or a case. Seems like a keen grasp of the obvious? You . . . [more]

Do yourself a favour and spend a minute or two on CNET’s Reporters’ Roundtable page. The topic was those complex, prolix, and tricky software license agreements, a.k.a. End User License Agreements. To spice things up a little, they asked actor Richard Dreyfuss to read portions of Apple’s iTunes EULA. The result is a license in four parts, each in a different voice. Lovely.

It makes you think that these things on the web should all have an audio version — done by someone with talent, of course.

[via @privacylawyer] . . . [more]

I had the pleasure of attending an internal presentation at my firm today by two of our partners, Eugene Meehan, QC, and Scott Maidment, on the topic of “Civility as a Strategy in Litigation: Using It as a Tactical Tool.”

The topic of civility in the legal profession has in fact been raised on SLAW in the past, including a great post by Connie Crosby called Civility in the Law, a post that prompted a lot of Comments.

However, it appears that no mention has been made on SLAW of Eugene’s writing on this topic, including an . . . [more]

Legal Project Management Quick Reference Guide, 2d ed
by Jim Hassett
contributing authors Steve Barrett and Mike Egnatchik
published by LegalBizDev, 2011
price: US $49.95

“A practical reference guide on legal project management that includes both commentary and useful sample tools and templates.“

The second edition of Jim Hassett’s Legal Project Management – Quick Reference Guide that my firm purchased arrived last week to compliment our growing collection of materials on this topic.

Hassett’s first sentence in the book – “Please do not read this book” – is consistent with his pragmatic approach (he assumes instead that lawyers . . . [more]

This is World IPv6 day – a day that Wired calls the Nerdiest Holiday ever. 

Many organizations – including Google and Facebook – are trying out the new IPv6 protocol today. The current addressing scheme for the internet uses IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). But we are running out of addresses. An IP address is the numerical address for devices on the internet (such as computers or smartphones) that allow them to communicate. The concept is similar to the telephone number for your landline phone using POTS (plain old telephone service). IPv4 uses a 32 bit address, which allows . . . [more]

Whenever I think about the effort that is required to go into implementing your firm’s strategic plan, I’m reminded of a particular business book title that grabbed my attention when I first saw it . . . Hope Is Not A Strategy! To effectively transform your best intentions into best practices, there are several common hurdles that you need to overcome. Thinking through the following will help you make the leap.

1. Move seamlessly from strategizing to implementing.

This is, from my experience, the most significant hurdle. Planning is not doing. Unfortunately, some partners believe that implementing the strategy and . . . [more]