Well, not yet neuromancy, William Gibson notwithstanding: we can’t yet hack our heads enough to predict the future. But neuroeconomics, yes, apparently.

I’m no big fan of economists and have long wondered why law, and legal academics in particular, give them and their theories such (or, indeed, any) credit. I’m convinced that it’ll turn out to be one of the great mysteries as to why in this era we all allowed economics to be mistaken for what is most important in society — but that’s verging on neuromancy.

Vox, a European site, offers “Research-based policy analysis and commentary from . . . [more]

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to the INF 2133 Legal Literature and Librarianship class at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto on the topic of knowledge management (KM) in law firms.

The course is taught by law librarians John Papadopoulos and Sooin Kim. There was, I think, some interest in the topic of KM since many of the students were aware of the importance of KM and some had taken Professor Choo’s courses, some of which discuss KM.

Two things arose that I thought I would mention here:

Records management

In basing my talk on . . . [more]

For all the tax researchers out there:

The Tax Court of Canada’s Current Appeals Docket is now online. Finally. . . . [more]

Luigi Benetton gives some tips on how to properly go paperless at The Lawyers Weekly,

If a clean desk is a clean mind, what do the papers on your desk say about your mind?

Increasingly, lawyers answer that question by replacing piles of paper with that most prominent of paperless-office machines, the scanner.

While critics argue that you’ll find paperless offices when you find paperless restrooms, the misnomer hasn’t prevented people from reducing the amount of paper they use, nor from sharing their experiences and lessons learned along the way.

Electronic Evidence in Canada 
by Graham Underwood and Jonathan Penner
published by Carswell 2010-1-30
price: $120.00
ISBN: 978-0-7798-2263-8

“A helpful reference for those dealing with issues arising from the production and use of ESI in litigation process.”

In the preface to the book, Penner and Underwood point out that guidance about the admissibility of electronic evidence is currently lacking in Canada and set out to remedy this situation with an commendable textbook on the nature of electronically stored information (ESI), its management both before litigation and once litigation commences, and its admissibility as real, documentary and demonstrative evidence.

 Government lawyers . . . [more]

A New York court has struck the patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. for BRCA1 and BRCA2 which have been linked to breast and ovarian cancer in Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.

Parties including The American Civil Liberties Union, Public Patent Foundation, and Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law argued that the patents were unconstitutional. The decision challenges the famous quote about patentable subject matter from Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303 (1980),

…a person may have invented a machine or a manufacture, which may include anything

Earlier today Marcia Ramírez spoke at Huron College (at the University of Western Ontario) about her pending suit against Copper Mesa Mining Corp., a Canadian mining company operating in her home in Ecuador. The plaintiffs claim that activists opposing the company there were threatened and assaulted.

You can read the statement of claim here (pdf), which requests damages against both Copper Mesa and the TSX. Earlier this year the TSX delisted the stock. The defendants are both requesting a dismissal motion.

The case is interesting given that Bill C-300 -An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, . . . [more]

I just came back from a very successful ABA Techshow and had the opportunity to present on virtual law firms and technology for the traveling lawyer. Cloud computing received a lot of coverage at the conference, with both supporters and detractors alike.

As a cloud computing supporter, I mentioned that even a couple of years ago, the idea of achieving full in-office productivity over the internet seemed difficult to imagine. The laptop, smartphone, cloud infrastructure, and internet access technologies simply weren’t capable or ubiquitous enough to match in-office facilities and resources. Now, the confluence of advances in these technology areas . . . [more]

Well it may have been a quarter century or so since our friend the late Hugh Lawford put the ORs on what was then known as QL Systems, but an announcement from Lexis this morning (curiously absent from its website) reveals that:

After more than a century in print, the Ontario Reports is going digital.

Beginning in April, members will enjoy:

* Immediate access to the full content of the latest Ontario Reports

* The convenience of a digital report that looks identical to the printed version

* An innovative format that is easy to read, navigate and

At the end of the reasons for judgment in Alberta’s first electronic trial in 1159465 Alberta Ltd. v. Adwood Manufacturing Ltd.the Honourable Mr. Justice A.W. Germain of the Court of Queen’s Bench provided a schedule to the reasons for judgment in which he reflects on the process and some of the legal issues to have cropped up. It’s at page 61 of the PDF of the judgment. . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released an interesting decision involving that funny-sounding concept, mootness. Indeed, the case involved a “stale” matter arising from a non-adversarial process where ultimately there was no actual lis between the parties. Not the sort of thing our legal system is accustomed to dealing with every day.

The factual framework in Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene v. Ontario, 2010 ONCA 197 was this: a person detained at the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene (MHCP) as a person found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder had a disposition hearing before the Ontario Review Board (which . . . [more]

This week saw a series of new ideas in the world of biotech, ranging from regulatory irregularities to corporate suicide by securities. 

Health Canada kicked off the week with a novel thought: caffeine guidelines for 4-year-olds. To be fair, it was in the context of expanding the types of soft drinks that can have added caffeine; so I suppose that some 4-year-olds who have been guzzling 7-UP might have to moderate their intake (or at least watch the label). The guidelines for adults are (I hope) more relevant and are worth reviewing.

The FDA had a new idea too: . . . [more]