A legal advisor to the European Court of Justice has advised that it is illegal to charge different premiums to women and men for life insurance and car insurance, merely because women live longer and have fewer accidents.

The differences are not inherent in women and men, and therefore are discriminatory.

This advice is not binding on anyone, but the ECJ usually goes along with its advisors.

Does this make sense to you? or is it just too politically correct for words? . . . [more]

Further kudos to Melissa Kluger and her staff at Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style. I remain impressed with the ongoing quality and content of her magazine (note of disclosure: I know Melissa from when she was a law-school student and I believe my firm also advertises in the magazine).

It seems they have also now launched The Precedent A-List, a site for lawyer announcements and career postings.

As stated in their news release:

The site will be devoted to career announcements — such as who has made a move, made partner or gone in-house —

. . . [more]

Esquimalt may join New Westminster in adopting a living wage policy for all employees. That would make it only the second municipality in the country to take the step.

The Tyee story linked above, outlines how it was not an easy sell in New West., but in the end has been a popular choice. Councellor Jaime McEvoy says municipalities pay their executives well, and always look carefully at the salaries for councilors and mayors, but

It’s only for the group of people at the bottom that we don’t worry about what they’re making or how they’re doing.

The living wage . . . [more]

The following is a guest post from Eva Warden, Citations Editor at the McGill Law Journal:

“Please note that adoption of the McGill Guide to Uniform Legal Citation by Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal and Court of Queen’s Bench is not specific to the 7th edition. Only new additions to the list of institutions that have officially adopted the Guide were consulted prior to the publication of the 7th edition, and although the SKQB and SKCA have adopted previous editions, their adoption of the 7th edition is still pending until the courts review and approve all changes. Until they do so, . . . [more]

Should companies have to tell people what the companies can be sued for?

You’ve seen him: he’s the soft-voiced Englishman who pushes a vacuum cleaner around on TV. He’s also a very wealthy man, thanks to that vacuum cleaner and his other inventions (you may have used his Air Blade, a truly tornadic hand dryer). He’s James Dyson, of course. And his foundation offers an annual £10,000 prize to the student or group of students who invent the best “something that solves a problem.”

In four days time, the foundation will pick the 2010 winner from the 15 semi-finalists. Have a look and place your bets.

It’s hard to choose. There’s the . . . [more]

It is well known in this industry that clients want more out of the firms they work with than ever before. In years past you could take a client out to dinner a couple of times per year and that would be enough to hold onto that healthy retainer. Today, however, it is all about extras – the “value-adds”.

One of the most effective value-adds is a knowledge transfer event. This type of event provides an opportunity to meet face to face with several clients and prospects at the same time, while providing lawyers an opportunity to showcase their knowledge . . . [more]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) based in Strasbourg has published a series of Factsheets that deal with various themes such as the situation of the Roma, the rights of homosexuals, prison conditions and environmental rights. They include both decided cases and pending applications before the Court.

The full list of Factsheets:

• Case-law concerning the European Union
• Child protection
• Data protection (English version in progress)
• Detention and Mental Health
• Detention conditions and treatment of prisoners
• Dublin cases (which European state is responsible for asylum applications)
• The environment
• Expulsions and extraditions
• Forced labour and trafficking
• Homosexual rights
• Homosexuality: criminal aspects

. . . [more]

On September 28, 2010, the Superior Court, without deciding whether or not there is a constitutional right to sell sex or the right policy model (criminalization, regulation or abolition), agreed with the plaintiffs’ arguments, ruling that the Criminal Code provisions relating to prostitution contribute to the danger faced by sex-trade workers in Ontario.

Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker for September 27th contrasts the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the US with social media ‘activism’ today. He says that social media are great for sharing information widely, for exploiting weak ties for low risk, low commitment actions. However, they are not good for working strong ties towards high-risk, disciplined activity.

He says that the reports of the usefulness of Twitter at the time of the Iranian election and in Moldova were greatly exaggerated.

The drawbacks of networks scarcely matter if the network isn’t interested in systemic change if it just wants

. . . [more]

It has occurred to House of Butter that in 2010 there now appears to be a singular lack of imagination at senior management levels at the major legal publishers.

Plenty of the usual tinkering and re-imagining of existing content and products and more of the we’ve bought this and look at the our latest JV with one or other technology based company to help “streamline” content management and flow at law firms. Woop de doo.

HOB wonders if this lack of imagination has its roots in fact that both Lexis and West currently see themselves as “content” database storage and . . . [more]

The esteemed Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, LEAF, has launched a website “to monitor developments in equality law.” Equality Rights Central is to be:

… a place to find cases, commentary, trends, news and facta about equality and discrimination issues, in law and policy.

This site is for advocates, academics and practitioners involved in equality rights, to monitor and advance the development of equality law in Canada.

Funded by LEAF and several provincial law foundations, ERC ( — Their acronym; not mine. Not particularly felicitous. — ) will offer updates on key issues as they move through the court . . . [more]