After a judicial decision is completed by a judge and filed with a court, a legal editor may add a headnote to the decision. A headnote is normally prepared by an editor employed by a publisher. 

The main purpose of a caselaw headnote is to save a searcher time in finding a point of law. A headnote should be an index to a judicial decision. For example, a headnote can serve a searcher so that only a portion of long decision has to be read.

Comment and opinion should not be part of a headnote.

What are the elements of . . . [more]

Last weekend Premier Dalton McGuinty approved mixed martial arts (MMA) fights in the Province of Ontario, after years of resisting its introduction. Ontario will be the seventh province in Canada to allow MMA fights.

One of the major obstacles has been a provision in the Criminal Code banning what is termed as “prize fights,” with a specific exception for boxing,

Engaging in prize fight
83. (1) Every one who
(a) engages as a principal in a prize fight,
(b) advises, encourages or promotes a prize fight, or
(c) is present at a prize fight as an aid, second, surgeon, umpire,

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, was reportedly charged with rape and sexual molestation in Sweden on Saturday. He was, as the Swedish authorities put it, arrested in his absence. Naturally, conspiracy theorists were abuzz with the prospect that this was a smear campaign in retaliation for his recent publication of thousands of U.S. military memos. See, e.g., the Mashable story.

Later that same day — today — Swedish authorities announced that:

Chief prosector Eva Finné has come to the desicion that Julian Assange is not suspected of rape. Considering that, Assange is no longer arrested in his absence.

Now conspiracy . . . [more]

I know this will interest a number of us here at Slaw. From David’s blog post:

I’ve got a new job: I’m co-director of the Harvard Library Lab, a part of Harvard Law School. I’m excited.

The Lab (the name is going to change) was created by John Palfrey a year ago when he became head of the Harvard Law Library (and Vice Dean for Information and Library Resources at the Law School). JP had been executive director of the Berkman Center. The key thing to understand is that the Lab was established by someone with a commitment

The VPD’s own Internal Report (described by the Victoria Times-Colonist here) looks to seal the deal on whether there will be an inquiry into how the Police handled the disappearance of so many women in Vancouver. The T-C also supplies a timeline of problems in the investigation that have been reported. . . . [more]

““It won’t be possible to reform the law of defamation without ensuring there is some protection for privacy. You can’t wholly separate them.” Sir Alan Beith, MP (UK). Story here.

I read Sir Alan’s comment to focus on the reform element more than on the current law element (though of course it arose because Britain does not have any general statutory right to or duty to maintain privacy. There are some court decisions, including from the European Court of Human Rights.)

English and Welsh law on defamation (I know nothing about the Scottish law on the topic) is quite . . . [more]

Colleague Katharine Thompson has provided me a list of some of the changes she noticed in the new, just received 7th edition of the McGill Guide, known more formally as the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, edited by editors of the McGill Law Journal and published by Carswell.

This is the leading legal citation guide in Canada, its counterpart in the US being The Bluebook and the more recent ALWD Citation Manual.

The biggest change to me in the new 7th edition of the McGill Guide is the aversion to periods (albeit, presumably they remain acceptable . . . [more]

It is now one day short of a month till International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and in the Slaw tradition of preparing you well for upcoming challenges, today’s fillip takes us back to the days of piracy some two hundred years ago and more. Thanks to a recent online release of old books of piracy trials in the nineteenth century by the Law Library of Congress, we can brush up on what it meant to be a pirate back then.

And it’s not a pretty picture.

Take, for example, Joseph Baker, a Canadian pirate hanged in Philadelphia in . . . [more]

Earlier this week, I presented the CCCT IntellAction Working Group selection of principles that should guide the design and organization of court web sites. In this post, I further explain the next three principles:

• Principle #4: Notification
• Principle #5: Content Organization & Search
• Principle #6: Security

Comments and suggestions are welcome! . . . [more]

UPDATE: I’ve been informed that the papers are reserved for those who attended only. Please, then, treat this simply as a list of papers that were in fact given. Presumably, a request to the author or the the CBA might result in your obtaining a copy with permission.

The CBA’s 2010 Canadian Legal Conference in Niagara Program Papers are available via the conference website. Below the fold is a linked list of all the nearly 40 papers currently available (more may be added to the CBA site), arranged simply in the order in which they appear on the program. . . . [more]

There is no doubt that residents of rural communities in Canada face greater access to justice limitations than their urban dwelling counterparts. In the last column we explored one such limitation, being reduced access to legal advice and legal advocacy due to a comparatively smaller number of lawyers practicing in rural areas. As we discussed, this is a trend that is forecast to get even worse in the near future. In addition to challenges in regards to legal advice and legal advocacy however, rural communities face additional challenges in another important access to justice factor, that being access to legal . . . [more]

The Virtual Chase, an online website for U.S. legal research founded by law librarian Genie Tyburski, is now powered by Justia.

Virtual Chase was launched in 1996 by Tyburski, a law librarian at Ballard Spahr LLP in Philadelphia. It was a popular destination for law librarians and legal researchers but was closed down a few years ago.

It is now back with a redesign and new content sections:

• Legal Research: guides to U.S. federal and state law, and links to subject-specific guides
• Community: links to law librarian blogs, Twitter feeds, the Law-Lib listserv, etc.
• Law Libraries: