As a number of Slaw readers will already know, Tara Calishain at ResearchBuzz digs up some great stuff. This week it was the news that the Internet Archive has added its 2 millionth free digital book.

The text chosen, Homiliary on Gospels from Easter to first Sunday of Advent, has a bit of a Canadian angle too, in that it was donated by the University of Toronto.

It was also interesting to observe that the “manuscript was copied on parchment by at least three different scribes“. The journey of the text was jumping right from . . . [more]

Today is a holiday in Canada, and for Christians a solemn holiday. I thought that it might be appropriate for this Good Friday to offer you a site about life, life in all its splendid abundance and variety (1.9 million identified species, and growing). Moreover, it’s a site that, like so many nowadays, is built through the cooperative action of us — all of us, potentially.

Sensibly, the site is called the Encyclopedia of Life — with a nice, snappy URL that’s easy to remember: eol.org. But don’t think that this is some feel-good, amateur effort: the Encyclopedia is the . . . [more]

This bit of news from Techdirt had me smiling until the truth began to dawn on me. Developers in Texas are taking a page from the sale of digital goods and trying to convince people to accept their claims to eternal payments on the basis of, it seems, creative work:

“Just like authors who write books and musicians who write songs that will be enjoyed for generations to come, those who improve property are also engaged in the creative process, and the economics of the transaction should reflect that reality,” . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has granted leave to appeal to the plaintiff in the British Columbia case of Crookes v Newton 2009 BCCA 392.

The Court blog has a summary of the facts and of the appeal judgment.

Basically, the question is whether someone who posts a link to a defamatory publication has him/her/itself published a defamation. The BCCA held 2:1 that in some circumstances the link could be defamatory — but only if in context the poster of the link called particular attention to it and indicated agreement. The majority held (as had the trial court) that . . . [more]

It was great to be quoted on the benefits for law firms of having a business plan in the April 2, 2010 Lawyers Weekly

There is great advice in this article. Unfortunately, it fails to mention that practicePRO also provides lawyers a sample law firm business plan (in Word) and a law firm budget template (an Excel spreadsheet). PDFs of both documents are also available, and all can be found on our Precedent Documents and Retainers page.

New and established lawyers alike can use these documents to plan for a more successful future.

Cross posted on Avoid A . . . [more]

What is in a date? Well if it is April 1, people might think that you are kidding. There are some really funny items floating around the legal blogosphere today.

Why would a government ever make April 1 a coming into force date for legislation? What comes into force in Alberta today?

• Gunshot and Stab Wound Mandatory Disclosure Act (pdf)
• Sections 77 and 91 of the Alberta Land Stewardship Act (pdf)

April 1, 2007 was the in force date for the Fuel Tax Act. Sections 3 to 6, 12(a), 16 to 19, 21 to 23, 25, 31 and . . . [more]

The post below may be offensive to some who believe in the majestic integrity of the law, that law is central to our civilisation and that we should not poke fun at its divine origin. . . . [more]

It has been interesting to watch the excitement and hysteria about the iPad over the last few months. I especially liked reading some of the off-the-wall comments from people who had never seen, much less touched or even used, an iPad or any other tablet device for that matter.

As we approach the big day when this long anticipated gadget is finally released to the public (that would be April 3 for those that might have missed it – unless you live in Canada where is it “late April” per the Apple.ca site – guess it takes the dog sleds . . . [more]

On March 24, 2010, the Quebec government tabled in legislature Bill 94, An Act to establish guidelines governing accommodation requests within the administration and certain institutions, which received first reading that same day. The Bill would create rules on how departments or agencies of the government can provide reasonable accommodation to citizens, certain organizations and public servants. These departments and agencies include health agencies, schools, colleges and universities, and services from child care to nursing homes. To this end, the Bill defines the concept of accommodation, asserts that the government will make any compromise to respect the right to equality between women and men and the principle of religious neutrality of the state, and provides that an accommodation cannot be granted if it imposes an undue hardship on the government department or agency. If enacted, the Bill would come into force on proclamation.

今天清晨我国政府宣布，它已购买了一个价格，他们没有透露美国公司谷歌。没有人注意到，在此之前，谷歌的巨型公司已经购买了小且活泼加拿大博客呼吁Slaw几个小时。谁的人目前Slaw工作均无法读取或写入中文。我们担心，这将是一个问题，如果这个愚人节玩笑变成现实。 . . . [more]

I continue to get daily emails and phone calls from Ontario lawyers that are finding themselves the targets of attempted frauds. The fraud attempts I am seeing are definitely getting more polished and sophisticated. In this post I want to highlight some of the changes in tactics the fraudsters are using so lawyers can better recognize the red flags of a problem deal.

A good example comes from call I got early last week from an Ontario lawyer that was in the middle of dealing with a matter that was clearly an attempt to dupe him with a bad cheque. . . . [more]

The Toronto Association of Law Libraries (TALL) hosted a Publishers’ Forum at the University of Toronto Law School last week entitled “Free Access to Legislation: How Do They Do It?”

The meeting was well attended by TALL members.

Publishers making presentations to the forum included representatives for the Department of Justice Laws website, CanLII, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario website, and Ontario e-Laws.

All four of these sites and their developers are to be applauded. Although not necessarily the intent of the session, I came away with a better sense of appreciation for their hard work . . . [more]