We haven’t seen an update on Carl Malamud’s Law.gov project in quite a while. There is much to report. To start, here’s a reminder of what the project is about:

Law.Gov is an idea, an idea that the primary legal materials of the United States should be readily available to all, and that governmental institutions should make these materials available in bulk as distributed, authenticated, well-formatted data. To make this idea a reality, a series of workshops were held throughout the country, resulting in a consensus on 10 core principles.

In June the project completed its consultation phase, which included . . . [more]

Lawyers aren’t allowed to hit people in order to win cases (at least not since peine forte et dure was abolished in the UK in 1772 — a mere 238 years ago!). I used to remind my students of this when encouraging them to pay more careful attention to their writing, their true tool of persuasion. That, and their thinking, of course. Which brings me to brains and the perpetually surprising fact that they can be so easily fooled.

We’ve all seen optical illusions, where this looks longer than that although they’re really both the same length. If you’d like . . . [more]

There have been a couple of blogposts recently that are worth noting – the first one marks the impending breaking of the $1 billion mark for e-books – posted on James McQuivey’s blog – and a related post a few days earlier on Law Librarian Blog about the release of 40,000 e-books by Springer without any DRM (Digital Rights Management) restrictions.

Our library is like many others – we have purchased e-books to provide the best range of resources to our academics and students. These are in addition to the paper, because we are lucky and for the UK at . . . [more]

There’s an interesting online book just out that explains all those things about browsers and the web that the average person doesn’t know they don’t know. But Slaw readers — who mostly know what they don’t know, right? — should take a look at “20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web” anyway; they might learn a thing or two, and more important they’ll see what can be accomplished simply with HTML5, the new, coming standard — and no plugins. And who knows, you might just find yourself one day having to explain cookies or DNS to . . . [more]

My good friend Reid Trautz just published his always popular annual gift holiday guide for lawyers. And regardless of whether you are giving loved ones hints for yourself or are looking for gift ideas for your favorite lawyer spouse, partner or friend, Reid’s annual gift guide can help make sure you don’t find yet another scales of justice tie under the tree this year.

Reid always has an interesting list of serious and not so serious gifts. The obvious ones are there – yes an iPad is on the list. And there are some great suggestions that are not so . . . [more]

I confess: I love law reform commission reports. I find they are wonderful sources for legal research. Many of the reports provide historical background on an issue and you can often find comparative information about how other jurisdictions have responded.

In the past few days, by pure coincidence, I have come across a wealth of new reports by law commissions in New Zealand, Ireland and Australia:

• New Zealand Law Reform Commission Introductory Issues Paper on Law of Trusts : this is primarily a background paper. It traces the development of the trust from its origins in medieval England through to

This year, Quebec’s highest court had to decide if common-law couples residing in Quebec were victims of discrimination based on section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. Quebec’s Civil Code does not afford common-law partners access to alimony, the sharing of family property and the protection of the family residence, among other rights that married or civil union couples enjoy (see sections 585, 401–430, 432, 433, 448–484 of the Code).

The Quebec Civil Code, which governs relations between private persons, treats common-law spouses as two independent individuals, regardless of the length of their union. It . . . [more]

So, what are the other firms doing? 

How many times have your heard that? It seems in this industry we are only concerned with what everyone else is doing – looking back rather than ahead.

Let’s look at an example that was shared with me recently. In a meeting discussing an important, and potentially problematic client issue, it became apparent that the lawyers in the meeting were focused solely on what other firms were doing to deal with the same issue. 

On the plus side, the practice group understood that being proactive and providing solutions is exactly the type of . . . [more]

I had the pleasure of going to Japan for the last 8 days or so on vacation with my wife. Overall, we had a wonderful trip that included visiting friends and family, eating good food, and trying a few different “onsen” (Japanese spas). And while I had thought about posting from Japan, my schedule and Internet access did not really permit it. As such, I thought I would post a few comments now that I have returned.

1) WiFi Access: In retrospect, I should have likely brought my notepad (which has an ethernet port). My iPad was less useful . . . [more]

In my previous columns I’ve argued that lawyers who close their eyes to the use of courtroom technology may be negligent, I’ve encouraged lawyers to try courtroom technology and I’ve tried to sell the idea of using PowerPoint with little or no text. With me so far?

For the next few columns I’ll illustrate a few basics for assembling a PowerPoint for evidence presentation.

Persuasive litigation in my mind should have a strong visual component. Talking head witnesses are so 1970’s. The 2010’s call for visual engagement of the trier of fact, whether judge or jury.

That visual engagement is . . . [more]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote up Three Bits of Tech. Thanks to the ever fertile world of the web, I’ve got another three for you today. They may not be the sort of stuff that sets the hearts of the big firm IT teams a-flutter (though you never know), but they might just meet a need for those of us who usually act as our own IT support. See what you think.

1. / BridgeURL

The folks who bring you short URLs now offer you the chance to bundle a number of URLs together and locate . . . [more]