Last Thursday, Ryerson University hosted a symposium entitled “Exploring the Future of E-mail, Privacy and Cloud Computing at Ryerson.” It was co-hosted by a Ryerson administrative committee and Ryerson’s Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute for the purpose of seeking input on Ryerson’s own plans to upgrade its e-mail and collaboration systems, including its open consideration of cloud based services. Ryerson was kind enough to open the event to individuals outside of its own community, and attracted a number of interested observers from other Ontario post-secondary educational institutions, many of which are also intrigued by the clear benefits of outsourcing to . . . [more]

This posts continues to expose on Slaw the draft Court Web Site Guidelines produced by the CCCT IntellAction Working Group on court web sites. In this post, we present recommendations 1 and 2 contained in Part IV of the guidelines, together with related context information. The context information is taken from Part I of the guidelines.

In short, the CCCT IntellAction Working Group on Court Web Sites recommends to courts using the same Web Content Management System (WCMS) to power their public, internet web sites and to power their internal, intranet web site.

A Web Content Management System is . . . [more]

Google has announced a change in its algorithms that will clear out some of the link-farm spam generated by over-zealous SEO operators:

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

Some description and commentary here: Reuters GMSV. Google also recently announced personal blocklists, which can also cut down on the . . . [more]

The European Union has begun a public consultation on online authentication in the context of its review of its Electronic Signature Directive of 1999.

An early assertion in the press release is this: “difficulties in verifying people’s identities and signatures are a significant factor holding back the development of the EU’s online economy.”

Is this true, in your view or in your experience? How often is identification of the other party to a transaction, or authentication of an identity one already knows, a concern, compared to, for example, the solvency of the party, the quality of the goods offered, the . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a Special Edition of its Bulletin of Proceedings containing a statistical overview of its activities for the period 2000-2010.

There are stats for cases filed, applications for leave submitted, appeals heard, judgments (including number of unanimous vs. split decisions), and average time lapses (time lines in the life of a case at the Court). . . . [more]

There may be times when you’re be tempted to think that science has a lock on who we are and how we work. But just consider that some of the most basic things that make us human, that play important roles in our lives, remain rather mysterious. We don’t really know why we laugh, cry, dream, sleep — or how we smell the scents around us.

Smell is a loaded matter. Gets right to the heart of things, often things that we don’t generally talk about in “polite society” — which might, for that reason, be called “smell-blind” society. (Curious, . . . [more]

Many of us have a book living inside just waiting to get out if only we could find the time, energy and courage to write it. Recently, I discovered that someone else has written my book. The book is titled “Women on Top – The Woman’s Guide to Leadership and Power in Law Firms” by Ida O. Abbott. (Available on the National Association of Law Placement website for $80.00.) 

The American author is a well-known writer on many law practice management issues including “The Lawyer’s Guide to Mentoring”. She is also a co-founder and director of the Hastings Leadership Academy . . . [more]

by Emir Aly Crowne*

This is a response to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s remarks at the University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law given on February 11, 2011. It is appropriate that the Minister’s initials are j/k, because had I not known better, I would have taken them to be a joke. But his remarks are from it. In fact — and quite ironically — his remarks strike at the very values that we, as Canadians, prize: freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Audrey Macklin and Lorne Waldman have already addressed some of these issues in their op-ed . . . [more]

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]