There’s an interesting post over at Language Log, “Language skills and the law” by Mark Liberman, that sets a conundrum a bit like those strange criminal law exam questions profs are supposed to love. In this case, set out by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the issue involves a person arrested for smuggling a large quantity of drugs from Mexico into the United States as a “mule” for a well-known gang. The problem with what would otherwise be a sad but routine matter is that the defendant has minimal language skills: he is profoundly hearing impaired and seems never . . . [more]

So, congratulations on the merger and keeping a lid on the news until recently. I didn’t see one leak of this news. It’s quite a feat keeping the media at bay. I know; I’ve worked on two mergers. They get one whiff of merger negotiations and they pounce on your most vulnerable chatterbox. I would bet you had plenty of partners who were DY-ING to tell the story. Those of us on the marketing side of law… well, we like a little drama and plus, we can be controlling too.

Media can be relentless. They try all points of entry . . . [more]

Writers from Canadian Lawyer and Law Times magazines have co-launched the Legal Feeds Blog. And with close to 40 posts in their first four weeks, it’s great to see such strong early volume and blogging enthusiasm! [and yes Gail, I was hoping a Clawbies mention would inspire everyone to keep up the early pace!]

One attribute that really stands out for me, and it’s really more about editorial approach than anything, is the mixed delivery styles for their blog content. Whether it’s an early preview to the day’s story, a roundup of newspaper headlines, or a short opinion . . . [more]

In the wake of last weekend’s mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, I thought it might be useful to see what kinds of gun control laws exist in that state.

According to a number of sources, in the state of Arizona, pretty much anyone can buy pretty much anything that shoots. No questions asked.

The Legal Community Against Violence is a California-based public interest law centre dedicated to preventing gun violence. Last July, it published Gun Laws Matter: A Comparison of State Firearms Laws and Statistics. All 50 states were ranked according to 25 different polices. Arizona came last: . . . [more]

The Consumer Electronics Show is one large convention. Preliminary numbers after the first two days of the conference had 132,000 people in attendance. Attendees can be found at hotels up and down the strip (hotel prices skyrocket during the convention period). The convention centre itself showcases thousands upon thousands of square feet of exhibit space, not to mention the space used for keynotes, sessions, and other events.

One of my goals was to spend time wandering the exhibits looking for products that are both cool and useful for legal practice. I only spent a few minutes looking at the items, . . . [more]

My colleagues at the Canadian Association of Law Libraries / L’Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit (CALL/ACBD) are reminding us to get ready for that group’s annual conference meeting, this year held in Calgary from May 14-18, 2011.

The Conference website now has an ever increasing amount of content.

Early bird registration is March 16th.

The theme of the Conference is “Scaling New Heights” / “Ascension de nouveaux sommets”

Judy Harvie and her planning commitee are to be congratulated for their hard work in getting the conference ready and win the award for most puns possible on the theme of . . . [more]

If you have a moment right now, tune into the Livestream of the Acting Register of U.S. Copyrights Maria Pallante speaking at World’s Fair Use Day in D.C.

10:20 am update: Maria just finished her presentation in which she reviewed some key U.S. copyright cases. She completed her talk referring to fair use: “Embrace it, respect it and celebrate it.” There was no question period. . . . [more]

Can an employer fire a white employee for using the n-word if it lets black employees say it?

Those who get Slaw’s entries by RSS or email may not regularly read comments to our posts and so might have missed a rather important, laconic comment to my entry yesterday on the New York Times’s deep linking feature. Lexum’s Ivan Mokanov wrote in to say that CanLII now has anchors at the paragraph level in judgments. They’d just not got around to announcing it. And they’re planning to build further functionality around it.

The illustration Ivan gave makes the point clearly and simply. This link
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2010/2010scc63/2010scc63.html#par14
will take you to directly to paragraph 14 of the judgment in question . . . [more]

It is widely recognized by educational institutions that associations provide a very positive influence in the lives of students. Other than making students feel as though they are not alone in what can be a stressful environment, being a member of an association has many advantages, such as making valuable contacts and meeting other people who obviously share the same interests.

The Black Law Student Association of Canada (BLSAC) is an association that is committed to supporting and enhancing the academic, professional and networking opportunities for Black law students. As Omar Ha-Redeye, a fellow Slaw member, once said in a . . . [more]

From time to time I bug the good folks at Lexum about introducing paragraph level anchors into the court decisions they publish: it would be very handy indeed to be able to make a hyperlink that went right to a paragraph within a judgment. And, of course, this feature, like many others, is on the crowded Lexum/CanLII agenda, and will have to wait its turn.

But in the meanwhile, the New York Times has just released a new version of its paragraph level linking tool, Emphasis. There’s a good article, “Emphasis Update and Source,” by Michael Donohoe, that . . . [more]

The anti-spam bill – Bill C-28 – was recently passed, and is expected to be in force sometime later this year.

If you think it won’t affect you because you don’t send mass emails trying to sell random products, and don’t infest other people’s computers with spyware, you would be wrong.

It applies to the sending of commercial electronic messages that many of us would not consider to be spam. An email to just one person that you consider a potential customer or client who you met at an event may fall into the prohibitions. And it applies to . . . [more]