The US Senate has passed a bill against ‘libel tourism’, essentially barring the enforcement of defamation judgments from places that the US deems to protect free speech insufficiently. In what has become a widespread but still unfortunate practice, the bill’s name is an acronym: the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act (viz the SPEECH Act).*

Out-law.com has this story and more official information is available on the Govtrack.us site. (It does not show the bill as passed as of July 14.)

Is such a bill necessary? Would not a rule like the Canadian . . . [more]

What to do with print now that so much is online, and discussions of what’s the point of print are taking place well beyond the posts on Slaw. Working in a Legal Deposit library means I have had to take a step back, look at the issues, and accept a much more conservative approach than I might have done otherwise.

Before I start on legal deposit, I know two good reasons why print is important, and they are both to do with personal experience. Firstly, when there is an electricity blackout you cannot access the internet. Mostly this is not . . . [more]

I was browsing Alberta case law posted to CanLII today using their funky RSS feeds and an interesting tidbit caught my eye. In Alberta (Justice and Attorney General) v. Yousif, 2010 ABQB 478, solicitor and client costs were awarded against the Minister.

[8] This matter was instigated by the Minister who was the principal architect of the legislation under which the action was taken. As I indicated in the last judgment, the objective of the legislation is that proceeds and instruments of crime may be used for the benefit of victims of crime. It gives the Minister broad

. . . [more]

Increasing legal complexity threatens even the social myth of the rule of law.

I recently read a biometrics-related article on CNET News (I am obsessed with the subject) indicating that a group of Japanese railway companies has installed 27 facial recognition-enabled billboards in subway stations around Tokyo as a one-year pilot project that will collect data on passersby in order to tailor advertisements to them in real time.

Intriguing news from the ABA’s 2010 Legal Technology Survey Report: 14% of lawyers reported that they ran a virtual law office, working with clients over the Net and rarely meeting them in person. We thought that statistic was fairly amazing.

Though the term virtual law office (VLO) has been around for a while, the definition has been morphing. In fact, as we went to research the definition, we found a wide range of definitions many of them at odds with one another.

After comparing what we found, we settled on a definition proffered by virtual lawyer Stephanie Kimbro, who . . . [more]

Last Friday Google announced it will be discontinuing its Google Nexus One phone sales online,

This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers.

Guess who got one of the last orders in and received their Google Nexus phone in the mail today?

. . . [more]

Various news outlets picked up the story over the last week that “authorities” had shut down a free blogging site, Blogetery.com, that, according to its owner, was home to 73,000 blogs. (The New York Times blog Bits has a good account.) Two things make this story interesting to me.

First, it has a cross-border aspect: Blogetery is — or, rather, was — an outfit run by a Torontonian; and the server on which its blogs were hosted was run by BurstNet Technologies, which seems to be located in Pennsylvania. This might be a lesson for some website owners about . . . [more]

In these past months I’ve been very busy facilitating the strategic planning process for a number of major firms. In every instance the firm has selected a number of well-intentioned partners to serve on their Strategic Planning Committee. And in nearly every instance I have witnessed these Committees, at some point in the process, being inflicted with one of a number of disabling symptoms of what I have come to label as ‘strategy viruses.’ Here are six of the most common:

Inside In. 

This is the tendency to focus on ‘what we do’ and not on ‘what the client . . . [more]

We pause to salute Mr Tech Tips, Dan Pinnington, whose eminently practical post takes Slaw to its six thousandth post.

From Simon’s initial post on July 8, 2005, let’s look back at what happened on July 20 each year. Start with Connie on corporate filing services, then to Heather Acton’s post on O’Brien’s forms four years ago, Ted Tjaden on the Simpsons and Legal Research, Agnes in 2008 on Animal Law, Gary on how lawyers can help feed the hungry a year ago, this has been an eclectic ramble to say the least.

Thanks . . . [more]

As most people use their mouse or touchpad as their primary Windows navigation tool, it is worthwhile to spend a few moments learning how to work more efficiently with this simple tool.

Few things annoy me more than sitting down to help someone with a computer problem only to find that I have to move the mouse about three feet across the desk to get the cursor to move just a few inches across the screen. Good exercise perhaps, but how can these people get any work done?

On a laptop, the equivalent is moving your finger across the touchpad . . . [more]

♫ Into the spotlight and out again
Come and get your 15
Your 15 minutes of fame…♫

Lyrics and Music by: Tommy Shaw, Jack Blades, Ted Nugent.

Ahh fleeting fame. It seems that advertisers are pouring over themselves to add accolades to lawyer’s resumes, blogs, web sites, CVs and bios. Consider this excerpt from an email from one of those ‘who is’ directories:

We are pleased to inform you that your candidacy was formally approved June 20th, 2010. Congratulations.

Of course the only minor problem with this is that I don’t ever being asked to submit an application. Ever. . . . [more]