I have been very impressed with all the new columns here on Slaw.ca. Fantastic work, everyone! Hopefully others have also stopped by on a daily basis to check out the column each day in addition to the daily blog posts.

For readers looking for more, here are five other law-related blogs — by bloggers not already featured as columnists or contributors on Slaw — that I consider “must-read”:

• Michael Geist’s Blog – Michael Geist not only tracks intellectual property issues in Canada, but also he influences them. This blog is essential reading for those of us interested in copyright, digital

Let me expand on this idea: people will continue to do business with people they like. 

Seems like a pretty simple concept, doesn’t it? Yet so many people miss out on business opportunities simply because they do not come across as likeable. I’m not here to tell you to become best friends with everyone you meet, but if you present yourself as a likable person it will go along way to getting more business.

Everyday we interact with all different kinds of people from the coffee barista, to your boss or your clients. Unless you are a hobbit, you will . . . [more]

I suspect we’ll be hearing quite a bit about a new suit filed by David Cowling of Mathews, Dinsdale & Clark against two former employees of his firm. Jim Middlemiss seems to have broken the story first on the National Post, and it was quickly picked up by the huge American blog Above the Law, so I won’t repeat all of the facts here again or provide too much commentary on the case.

Although Middlemiss points out the similarities to the LaCalamita case and the George Hunter suspension, there’s one important difference. The employee here, Sarah Diebel, . . . [more]

At a session at the Fourth International Legal Ethics Conference at Stanford Law School yesterday afternoon Freddy Mnyongani Senior Lecturer of the Jurisprudence Department at the University of South Africa told us that today has been marked by the United Nations as Mandela Day, in honour of the great man’s 92nd birthday.

On Mandela Day people are called to devote just 67 minutes of their time to changing the world for the better, in a small gesture of solidarity with humanity, and in a small step towards a continuous, global movement for good. . . . [more]

At a session at the Fourth International Legal Ethics Conference at Stanford Law School this morning Laurel Terry pointed us to a very elegant model for organizing legal information. It was developed a decade ago by the Project on International Courts and Tribunals. Simon noticed the link in the post here, but didn’t drill down.

The PICT Research Matrix is the first comprehensive, systematic and holistic mapping of the international judicial system. It encompasses 18 international judicial bodies, grouped in six clusters according to their geographical scope and/or subject-matter jurisdiction. For each institution, 29 issues, grouped in five . . . [more]

I’m trying to find out why I’ve received, on my office email, last week, political spam in the form of a few messages that purported to be email from Rob Ford’s campaign, whining about his treatment by the Toronto Star.

I assume that was part of mass emailing. There’d be no reason to specifically send that form of email to me. I’m as likely to vote for Ford as would have been for, say, Jakobek. One of my partners? Maybe. Me? No.

Assuming the email is from his campaign, directly or indirectly, I wonder what list of email addresses it . . . [more]

The European Community has placed a new online front end on its law-related offerings, aiming to make it easier to find what you want amid the welter of languages, systems, and regulations. The recently launched European e-Justice Portal contains sections directed at the public, businesses, the legal profession, and the judiciary. Within the Legal Profession section are the following resources:

• Law – providing general information and links with respect to the laws of the union, member states, and international treaties
• Case law – offering links to databases containing judgments for these various jurisdictions (and notably lacking any references to WorldLII

For those who aren’t on the Federal Courts or other mailing list that provided the information, 

The Federal Courts Reports are pleased to announce that in an effort to meet the changing needs of its users, full volumes of the Federal Courts Reports are now available on its Web site at: http://reports.fja-cmf.gc.ca/eng/. The Federal Courts Reports continue to be available in print, but you can now access the same content online beginning with [2007], Volume 4, Part 1, including numerous value-added features such as a side by side (French and English) layout, the contents of the volume, and lists

A member of the Uniform Law Conference – Electronic Commerce (ULC-ECOMM) email list points out that the electronic version of the Ontario Reports is announced by an email to members with a link to the latest edition and that states:

This communication is intended for use by the individual(s) to whom it is specifically addressed and should not be read by, or delivered to, any other person. Such communication may contain privileged or confidential information.

He asks, given that the material in the ORs is all likely available on library shelves or elsewhere: “Does this make any sense?”

Presumably the . . . [more]

Happy Friday! The long awaited, new Alberta Rules of Court regulation is available.
Order in Council 256/2010 alerts us that the Rules of Court is regulation made under the authority of section 28.1 of the Judicature Act. The O.C. contains the appendix that is the Rules regulation.

As previously mentioned this document is a culmination of hard work by many in the legal community. Congratulations to all who contributed to the rules revision. . . . [more]

To date, LinkedIn has only offered a handful of sidebar applications that users can install. They’ve been very picky, and only a few are aligned with vertical industries. Even then, it’s obvious that industry apps must have a broader application and be applicable to the general business community. Late last night, the rollout began for Legal Updates on LinkedIn and it’s a huge win for my friends at JD Supra.

We’ve written about JD Supra before here at Slaw, so I won’t spell out their core offering for law firms. They are, however, a company that’s been built around . . . [more]

I don’t want to bring you down on a Friday, but for a bunch of reasons I’d invite you to look at a particular website despite its somewhat discouraging content. For one thing, it shows art as an argument, with all the power and imprecision that “artguments” can have. For another, it’s an impressive use of information technology, something that we touch on from time to time here at Slaw. Then there’s a legal connection, because the site’s in aid of a multilateral treaty. 

Enough prolegomenon.

Isao Hashimoto’s “1945-1998” shows you every nuclear explosion that took place between those dates . . . [more]