If you’re ever in the mood to drop back a good few yards to get some perspective, you might want to take a look at the Philosophy of Law section of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP). You’ll have almost a dozen essays to choose from:

• Feminist Jurisprudence
• Human Rights
• Just War Theory
• Law and Economics
• Philosophy of Law
• Legal Positivism
• Legal Pragmatism
• Natural Law
• Punishment
• Right to Private Property

The essay on Philosophy of Law might be a good place to start, as it does a tour d’horizon of various theories of jurisprudence: analytical, normative, and critical.

The IEP . . . [more]

The federal cabinet was just shuffled. I have been waiting, impatiently, to post this. News was slow to filter my way, until I found this site, which offers live tweets. Well done Toronto Star.

For those who just want news without any commentary iPoliticsca tweets:

Kent, Ablonczy, Fantino and Menzies are the new four in Cabinet #cabshuff #cdnpoli

I suppose I could have tuned in to CPAC, but like many web video services, it doesn’t play nice at the office.

What is your favourite method for watching political news? . . . [more]

A speaker at one of our conferences a few years ago, announced that he advised young lawyers not to admit to knowing anything about IT, otherwise they would damage their career prospects at most firms. In other words … they’d get dismissed as geeks. 

That comment prompted at least two attendees to no longer bother with lawyers as a market. One of them was the developer of a reasonably popular document assembly program. He now describes himself as a marketer of legal services, and puts his development skills into building better tools for his new business rather than tools for . . . [more]

A couple of years ago I posted on the few offerings about law that were available on iTunes U, Apple’s semi-successful attempt to corral some serious podcasts and videos. I’ve had another look and find that the corpus has grown — though it hasn’t exploded in the way I imagined it might — and now contains a fair number of worthwhile lectures, both audio and video.

Searching for law in iTunes U isn’t particularly easy. There’s no category for it per se, and it’s variously plunked in other slots in the roster of topics. And searching for “law” . . . [more]

At this time of year many legal bloggers are busy making predictions about what major trends, technologies and shifts we’ll be seeing in the legal space in the coming year. Here’s a roundup of what some of the legal blogosphere thinks is in store in 2011:

• What Surprised you in 2010 (and What Should Lawyers Expect in 2011)? by Adrian Lurssen on the JD Supra Scoop Blog
• 10 Legal Tech Predictions for 2011 by David Bilinski at Thoughtful Legal Management
• 2011 Tech Trends for Lawyers by Niki Black at Sui Generis
• 10 Legal Trends for 2011 by John Wallbillich at

Last month I wrote about the recent birth of my second son as being a happy reminder to keep things in perspective and to maintain balance in my life. With the winter solstice approaching later this month, this is perhaps the most important time of year to make balance a priority. Darkness is depressing. Going to and from work in the dark makes us feel as though we’re living in a cave. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a clinically recognized phenomenon, particularly for those of us living far from the equator. Added to that are the complexities of the holiday . . . [more]

(Having allowed Simon F. the honour of the first 2011 post, not the least in recognition of all that he and the rest of the Slaw administration do to keep this place going. I trust that I am not presumptuous in thanking all of you, again.)

This isn’t quite a new year’s resolution but it will do.

Let’s hope that common sense (whatever it means) prevails this year.

Let’s hope that public (political, judicial, and other) and private reference to decisions supported by, or required by, common sense aren’t calls to the seeming authority of common sense because the conclusion . . . [more]

It’s a Sunday and the new year by a day, now, and the days have already been getting longer for nearly two weeks. Which not only pleases me but had me musing about time — clock time, that is. I wandered over to the National Research Council site only to find it was offline (the end of time?), except for its Java Clock, that told me my computer’s clock was wrong by -0.023 seconds. So over to the US Naval Observatory for some data as to the times for rising and setting of the sun. (Rise at 7.51 and . . . [more]

There is a wonderful spin-off magazine from the Economist called More Intelligent Life.

Like most other magazines, it does a year-end review of the best books of 2010.

But someone at the magazine didn’t quite check the clipart that accompanies that page:

Who actually thought that the Pacific Reporter was worth a plug? And thought that caselaw might be enhanced by snow?

Happy New Year – and a Guid Hogmanay. . . . [more]

Listen up.

This fillip’s about soundscapes. We’re all pretty familiar with those recordings of thunderstorms or surf or canoeing up a river, the ones that help us relax and, often, sleep. Strangely to some, there are city sounds that people enjoy as well, sounds for those who use their ears that are as characteristic of their burg as shots of the skyline. So think about the city sounds you like as you peruse the unorchestrated urban sonatas that follow here.

First is London, where the Favourite Sounds project seems to have had its greatest success. You’re probably best off . . . [more]

Information overload, and ways to overcome it, has been mentioned on Slaw several times. I came across this article from SSRN titled “What We Don’t Know We Don’t Know” and it reminded me of the consequences of ignorance. Although I thought the article was going to be about ways to overcome information overload, it quickly shifted to an analysis of scholarly research and the metrics used to measure it, such as the impact factor (IF). I found the use of measurement very transferable to legal research, such as the IF in a legal decision of the number of citations by . . . [more]