As of January 1, 2011, Ontario lawyers are now required to complete at least 12 hours of continuing professional development (“CPD”) in “eligible educational activities.” At least three hours must relate to “professional responsibility, ethics and practice management,” and must be obtained from a program that is accredited from the Law Society of Upper Canada. The nine hour balance must relate to “eligible educational activities.” This is on top of the 50 hours of self-study that every Ontario lawyer is expected (but is not required) to fulfill every year.

“No problem,” I thought, “I regularly keep updated on new legal . . . [more]

In a previous blog post I discussed the recent Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision on whether marriage commissioners—as civil servants—can opt out of performing same-sex marriages. The Court found that legislative amendments, which would have allowed Saskatchewan’s marriage commissioners to refuse to perform same-sex marriages on religious grounds, were discriminatory and unconstitutional. A discussion from the post ensued, and John Gregory’s comments into how civil marriage ceremonies are provided in Ontario required me to delve deeper into the issue.

After some research, I found out that the following statement I made is not quite accurate:

Saskatchewan Justice Minister Don Morgan

The administrative control of court web sites can be a sensitive issue, because it often cuts across the independence of the Judiciary and resources of the Executive. In consideration of this issue, we felt that our guidelines had to address the issue. The following text is our draft on topic. . . . [more]

This year’s Legal IT conference will be held on Monday, April 4 at the Centre Mont-Royal in Montreal. An initiative of the Young Bar Association of Montreal, it’s a do-able single-day affair, and the program is jam-packed with presentations in both English and French on information technology and its impact on law. For example, you’ll hear Richard Granat on “eLawyering for Competitive Advantage: How to Brand Your Law Firm in a Networked World,” David Gold of Spindlelaw on “Crowdsourcing the Law” and Slawyer Omar Ha-Redeye on “Reputation Management Law.”

The full program is available online, of course. . . . [more]

Law firms deal with some of the most confidential and sensitive data in society and yet so many of them have such lax policies on information security. There are some simple things you can do to dramatically improve your information security and they don’t require you to purchase expensive gear.

Keep Your Passwords Your Own

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a firm and heard an attorney come out of their office and say “Patty, I’m going to Phoenix for a couple of days to meet with Acme Co. Check my e-mail while I’m away; my . . . [more]

Earlier in the month (the other) Simon alerted us to IBM’s development of a natural language savvy (and trivia stuffed) machine that ran rings around the human competitors in Jeopardy.

But no sooner had the victory occurred when lawyers started thinking … what if.

What if they hadn’t cleared copyright on the encyclopedias they stuffed Watson with?

But the best analysis is contained in a provocative and imaginative piece by IBM GC Robert Weber in the National Law Journal, summarized in the ABA Journal.

“Imagine a new kind of legal research system that can gather much of

The Technology Review published by MIT offers up some great food for thought via Tweets of article headlines. The publication fills my need for a quick review of what is up with science and technology since I rarely read in this area. Occasionally, there is an excellent business oriented article thrown in the mix.

An article titled Trusting Data, Not Intuition is a worthwhile read. The main point of the article is that for technology related business decisions, nothing beats testing.

Studies of the software industry indicate that when ideas people thought would succeed are evaluated through controlled experiments, less

On Monday an agreement was concluded between the Teslin Tlingit First Nation, the federal government, and the government of Yukon, according the First Nation the power to pass certain laws and to administer justice on its lands. Yukon has signed a number of self-government agreements with First Nations, the Teslin Tlingit among them, but this is the first justice agreement, and the first in Canada. According to the CBC report, the new justice system will apply to the First Nation’s citizens, wherever they may be in Yukon, and also to non-citizens who are on Teslin Tlingit lands.

The text . . . [more]

I attended a webinar today by the CBA entitled Safeguarding your Client’s Confidential Information – Tips and Traps. Presented by David Fraser and Dominic Jaar.

 Here are some of the highlights.

Quote from security expert Bruce Schneier:

“Hardware is easy to protect: lock it in a room, chain it to a desk, or buy a spare. Information poses more of a problem. It can exist in more than one place; be transported halfway across the planet in seconds; and be stolen without your knowledge.”

This is primarily a people issue – requires training and understanding. It’s not just about technology. . . . [more]

Although my current work focuses more on knowledge and information management, I have in the past worked more formally as a research lawyer and I currently work with and know many others who work as research lawyers.

Based on recent discussions with colleagues on the role of legal research lawyers, I thought I would re-visit the topic and update my thinking in light of the changes in the economy and technological developments.

Just over 5 years ago here on SLAW, I posted Legal Researchers in the Year 2020 (30 November 2005). In that post, I discussed the likelihood that technology . . . [more]

Readers of SLAW will undoubtedly be readers of the Financial Post’s Legal Post.

Word comes today that lawyer/journalist/blogger Jim Middlemiss will retire from his blog posts at Legal Post and his Behind the Bar Columns but will instead continue to write a column for Canadian Lawyer magazine, “stick his toes in the corporate waters” and “maybe one day get that Twitter account figured out, assuming I have something relevant to say in 140 characters” (his words).

Drew Hasselback will continue as Legal Post editor.

Congratulations to both Jim and Drew. I find the Legal Post an excellent source for . . . [more]

Over the years I heard from librarians that case law publishing should be regulated. I heard from lawyers who suggested that governments should publish case law reports. I heard a chief justice in Saskatchewan complain about the duplicate publication of judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada.

In the 1970s decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada were published by the Government of Canada in the Supreme Court Reports but many times it took up to two years for a case to be published. In response to a need for the timely publication of Supreme Court of Canada cases our . . . [more]