Does tinkering with our long-standing parole system actually increase public safety?

In Oliver Stone’s recent sequel to the classic film Wall Street, we are treated to a scene of Gordon Gekko standing in line awaiting his release after years in jail. The camera is focussed tightly on Gekko’s soft but slightly wrinkled hands as he accepts the return of items in his property bag that were seized from him two decades ago when he began his incarceration. “One watch. One ring. One gold money clip with no money in it,” the desk officer intones. The camera then pulls out . . . [more]

Last week the New York Times featured Vitaly Borker, an online retailer who deliberately abused his customers so they could complain about him online. Some of Borker’s behaviour was completely outrageous, and included alleged threats of litigation and violence, both physical and sexual, against disgruntled customers.

The complaints by customers actually helped his Google ranking, which in turn helped him secure top search placements and more business, . . . [more]

♫ O how I wish I could sing like an Angel
I’d sing carols so high and sweet
O if I had the voice of an Angel
I’d be singing that sweet Child asleep…. ♫

“Christmas Angel”: Music and Lyrics by Corlynn Hanney, performed by the Argyle Alumni Choir.

My annual Holiday Greetings (photographs set to music) are on my blog at:
http://thoughtfullaw.com/2010/12/06/2010-seasons-greetings/

At this time of year I would like to take a moment and wish each and everyone the Best of the Holiday Season and a Wonderful and Happy New Year and I hope you enjoy my . . . [more]

The Law Society of Upper Canada is currently reviewing the ethical and procedural issues relating to the “unbundling” of legal services, otherwise known as “limited scope representations” or “limited scope retainers.”

Unbundling is the concept of taking a legal matter apart into discrete tasks and having a lawyer or paralegal provide limited legal services or limited legal representation, that is, legal services for part, but not all, of a client’s legal matter by agreement with the client. Otherwise, the client is self-represented. While the Law Society’s Rules of Professional Conduct and the Paralegal Rules of Conduct do not prohibit such . . . [more]

Much ink has been spilled about the diplomatic cable leak facilitated by WikiLeaks. Almost as interesting as the leaks themselves, however, is the information war that is being waged against WikiLeaks, and the measures the site has had to take just to stay accessible.

Over the course of the last week, the site has suffered from a sustained Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. In such an attack, a group of computers – sometimes numbering in the millions – attempt to saturate a target host with a flood of requests, thereby consuming all of the hosts’ computation resources and . . . [more]

While of course legal scholars consult the current version of the text, both the Senate and the Cour de Cassation held parties and conferences recently to celebrate the fact that the legislature passed the original Code pénal on February 12, 1810, and it entered into force on 1 January 1811. This is of course six years later than the even more influential Code civil.

You can see the original text on Google Books.

Here is an audio discussion by Yves Mausen, Yves Jeanclos and Yves Mayaud of the background to the history of the Code.

The celebration . . . [more]

December 6th is an on odd date in history with many tragic events; odd that it is also St. Nicholas Day, and the 2010 version of December 6th brought with it a storm surge/weather bomb that few expected in this region. December 6th is the anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique Massacre in 1989. Those of us who remember that time likely have vivid memories of it, so much so that I don’t feel that I am able to do that event justice in this forum; I will focus on another event which December 6th marks the anniversary. Actually, I’m . . . [more]

If your researches take you into the area of human rights, you might want to avail yourself of a relatively new topical search engine, HuriSearch. One of the projects of the interesting HuriDocs, HuriSearch offers you a fairly sophisticated front end, allowing you to query any of four types of source (NGOs, national human rights institutions, academic institutions, and intergovernmental organizations), search in any of sixteen languages, and use word variations if you wish. As well, search results can be filtered by facets: source type, source organization, country, and document format.

Better yet, you’re offered a permalink to . . . [more]

The 2010 CLawBies–or Canadian Law Blog Awards–are now open for nominations.

How to Nominate in 2010:
This year’s nominations deadline is Tuesday, December 28th, and the methods remain the same as in previous years. Publicly nominate a Canadian-authored law blog using ANY of the following:

1. Tweet your endorsement on Twitter.com with the hashtag text: #clawbies2010. We’ll be monitoring!
2. Email your favourite blog, including a couple sample posts or any other notable highlights, to Steve Matthews at steve@stemlegal.com. We’d prefer a public nomination, but this is still acceptable.
3. Write a blog post about three other Canadian law blogs

There is an old adage that goes: “a good arrangement between parties is one where the contract can be put away at the end of the negotiation and never looked at again.” And who can complain with the apparent wisdom of this adage? It implies that the parties are so sufficiently well aligned and cooperative that a written contract is merely a formality, and that any circumstances can be accommodated through rational and cooperative behavior. I’ve never met a businessperson who did not subscribe to this adage. And I myself never questioned its apparent wisdom until the past 24 months . . . [more]

Stem Legal has relaunched the Canadian Law Blogs List at Lawblogs.ca started by Steve Matthews in September 2005. The List is an open directory of Canadian blogging lawyers, law librarians, marketers, IT professionals and paralegals (essentially anyone blogging in the legal industry in Canada).

Along with a new look, the new site features:

• browsing by practice area, by province, by industry topic, and latest additions
• subscription to LawBlogs.ca by RSS feed or by email to be notified of blog additions to the site
• a sample of recent blog posts from the various blogs on the front page

The Canadian Centre for Court Technology is looking for a new chief executive officer. Dominic Jaar — a former blogger on Slaw — who held the position of CEO for two years, has resigned to become associate partner in charge of Canadian e-discovery and information management practices at KPMG, the company that bought out Jaar’s consulting firm, Ledjit.

The CCCT position announcement, from board member Chris Walpole, is available in both HTML and PDF. The role is currently considered half-time and requires the following abilities, among others:

You must be bilingual, possess a post-secondary education, and have knowledge