British Columbia, home of Bountiful, the town that boasts a sect of religious polygamists, finally bit the bullet a while back and took steps to clarify the legality of polygamy in Canada. After a false start through criminal charges against two men (see Blackmore v. British Columbia (Attorney General) 2009 BCSC 1299, the province began a reference in the B.C. Supreme Court under the Constitutional Question Act R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 68, s. 1, asking:

a. Is section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? If not, in what

There is a lawsuit and a criminal investigation underway resulting from a school outside of Philadelphia that secretly took pictures of students with webcams on laptops supplied by the school.

The idea was to use the webcams only in cases where a laptop was reported stolen. It is alleged however that school officials turned on the webcams simply to spy on the students for their own curiosity.

More details and commentary can be found on Techdirt, Boing Boing, and this AP story.

It’s hard to sort out reality from posturing, but it doesn’t look good for the . . . [more]

The Ontario e-Laws legislative website has a new look and feel to bring it in line with Ontario government website standards.

The retro avocado green-colored banner is interesting if somewhat garish. That aside, the site appears to retain the same functionality, albeit with frequently-accessed links in slightly different locations.

Presumably one thing driving this is the government’s obligations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, S.O. 2005, c. 11, to make their website more accessible to persons with disabilities (as explained here by the government).

Expect to see much more discussion in the near future in law . . . [more]

Far be it from me to give fashion advice, but I was feeling in the mood for something light this week and am well-qualified to speak on matters related to “emergency business attire.” So here is my best reflection on how to deal with a scenario all of us who wear french cuffs have faced – how to achieve reasonable presentation in a cufflink emergency.

Le Clip

If you’ve worn french cuffs for longer than a year and travel for legal work, you’ve likely tried “Le Clip.” This is because a binder clip is the most accessible piece of hardware . . . [more]

One of the big issues that Canada’s e-commerce / e-transactions / etc. legislation in the past decade was intended to resolve was the legal status of electronic signatures. At least that was the popular impression. A lot of people (not necessarily lawyers) referred to the legislation as ‘the e-signature bill’. (The Law Commission of England and Wales concluded that no legislation was needed to make e-signature valid in that country / those countries, however, and I suspect that conclusion was valid here too.)

Have there been any cases in any jurisdiction in Canada on the legal status of electronic signatures . . . [more]

♬ Every time I turn around
Something’s just not right
Just might be paranoid…♬

Lyrics and Music by Nicholas Jerry Jonas, Joseph Adam Jonas, Paul Kevin Jonas II, Cathy Dennis, John Fields, recorded by the Jonas Brothers.

An article on yesterday’s online New York Times entitled: “Cyberattack on Google Said to Hit Password System” by John Markoff sheds some further light on the cyber attacks on Google that appear to have originated from China.

The exact nature of the intrusion and theft is a closely-guarded secret, but Markoff states:

[A] person with direct knowledge of the

Last week, Ted Tjaden highlighted several great resources for Canadian tax filers and researchers. Another handy tax research tip: an online version of TaxFind will be available in May. TaxFind contains publications from the Canadian Tax Foundation, and it is currently available in CD-ROM format. An advantage of TaxFind moving online: more frequent updates to its content.

See the Canadian Tax Foundation website for more information. . . . [more]

Major announcement out of Paris this morning with Figaro and the Wall Street Journal reporting on an Open Letter (une lettre collective) to Google from La Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés. Alex Türk, the Président of CNIL addresses his letter directly to Monsieur Eric Schmidt, Président du conseil d’administration et chef de la direction, Google Inc.

The Italian authorities, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali signed on as well as the Irish Data Commissioner and other privacy and data protection authorities.

Türk’s letter starts: “We are concerned to see that too often, the . . . [more]

Someone should do the court a favour and introduce the justices to a few teenagers who might explain the technological facts of life.

That’s the only conclusion that one can draw from reading the transcript of Ontario v. Quon, argued yesterday.

As the New York Post headline put it: Supreme Court justices demonstrate extreme lack of tech savvy. . . . [more]

Like most office workers, lawyers and their support staff are increasingly struggling with information overload. Lawyering often requires deep thinking, thorough research and precise drafting, among other tasks. This time intensive work can easily get high jacked with constant distractions such as email, internet browsing, blog feeds, instant messaging, snail mail, meetings, phone calls and “twittering”.

The amount of information we receive on a daily basis has grown dramatically, but the amount of control we have over that information seems to have decreased exponentially. The Pomodoro Technique may be a good filter from internal and external distractions to keep you . . . [more]

This week in biotech, the value was all in the network. Here’s the run-down, from serious to Colbert:

I took a look at the reasons why biotech companies aren’t using social media very much, even though they should. Biotech companies seem to fall in the “late majority” of social media adopters, so those who are online now are the “early adopters” among biotechs, and without many online peers, the value is low. Critical mass is building, though.

Another kind of network — this one of expat Canadians — was spawned recently. C100 is “a select group of Canadians . . . [more]

The launch of a digital version of the Ontario Reports is a clear sign that the existing business model for the print publication that is truly the heart and soul of the legal profession in Ontario is beginning to falter. New thinking is required if the Ontario Reports are not to wither on the vine.

It is common knowledge that the Ontario Reports are funded by a combination of advertising revenue and sales of subscriptions to the hard bound volumes that are published six times a year.

With the downturn in the economy, advertising revenues have been flat at best, . . . [more]