Over the next couple days Prime Minister Harper, President Obama, and President Calderon are meeting in Guadalajara [From Arabic, وادي الحجارة , “rocky riverbed”], Mexico for the North American Leaders’ Summit.

The meeting is part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, which seeks to address trade and security issues among the NAFTA partners.

From my vantage point in Guadalajara, the not-so-secret service with earpieces are overshadowed by the armed soldiers in camouflage (literally) hiding in the bushes outside my door. President Calderon is staying in my hotel (“No, yo no trabajo aquí. Soy . . . [more]

Once you remove content publishing from the equation, there are typically four major entry points into law firm websites: the homepage, practice pages, lawyer profiles and regional office pages. For this month’s web law connected column, I thought it might be interesting to offer comments on each of these pages, and issues I’ve seen from a search marketing perspective.

The law firm homepage: The firm homepage is obviously the most important entry point for a firm website and can often be a prime battleground when stakeholders are trying to ensure the strongest aspects of the firm are reflected in . . . [more]

If I were clever, this entry would be the briefest fillip yet. But… I ain’t and it ain’t. So let me go on at just a little length about abbreviation in messaging. See, there’s no real cost to my prolixity: on a blog, no one is charging me for the publication of each word. But if I were texting you I might try to compress things so that my thumbs wouldn’t fall off and your eyes wouldn’t fall out from reading on the teeny tiny screen. This is old news: who doesn’t know LOL, RU, 2NTE, TTFN, etc.?

Curiously, Twitter . . . [more]

Yet another search engine has been launched. Spezify from Sweden is essentially a meta-search tool that presents combined results from Google, Yahoo, Twitter, and other sources in a pictorial fashion, thanks to its use of Flash technology. Results are spread across a window that is meant to be larger than your open viewing port, so that to see more results you scroll (or drag) up, down, left or right. The image slice below — the results of a search for Canada and courthouse will give you some idea; click on it to see a full window screenshot.

Clicking on any . . . [more]

A Canadian, a Mi’kmaq, a man wrongfully convicted of murder. Mr. Marshall passed August 6, 2009. The CBC news has good coverage of the story. Wikipedia’s page on Mr. Marshall is also up to date.

The CBC news archive contains good links and summaries of wrongful convictions.

It should always be disturbing when justice is denied, delayed or miscarried. Fortunately or unfortunately, justice is in the hands of humans. Mistakes are inevitable, but will hopefully decrease as humans learn to live with technology. DNA testing, video surveillance, and advances in forensic science offer hope.

Rest in peace Mr. Marshall. . . . [more]

Just drawing our readers’ attention to a brand new Canadian IP law blog, Innovation and Culture.

James Gannon describes his aims as:

to update the blog daily with legal developments that have an effect on, among other things, IP, innovation and culture in Canada. While I hope to keep the focus of the blog on Canadian stories, major International stories will also be reported, especially those that may be of interest to Canadian IP scholars & laywers, authors, composers, musicians, programmers, film producers and creators of all kind.

And while we’re on new blogs, a FAQ-rich blog for SMEs in . . . [more]

InternationalProBono.com is a development of the International Bar Association aimed at providing a place for lawyers around the world who are involved in pro bono work to share reports and draw on resources provided on the site.

As you might imagine there’s an associated blog, to which you’re invited to submit a post as a guest blogger interested in pro bono work. . . . [more]

Surveillance cameras seem to be everywhere these days. They are one of the creeping invasions of privacy that raise difficult issues. Isolated cameras on private homes or businesses controlled by the owner and which retain images for short periods of time are easy to justify on security grounds. On the other hand, massive networks of connected and centrally controlled cameras that track everyone’s every move (the UK for example) and save that information for long periods of time cross the Orwellian threshold.

Some of the questions that don’t appear to have fact based answers include:
– Does camera surveillance really . . . [more]

This began as a comment, and then got out of hand. It is a response to Simon Fodden’s post on squigglies, pilcrows, and gaspers and Gary Rodrigues’ post, “The full stop in legal citation – has its time finally come?“.

Looking at a printed page in a law report, I don’t care whether the law report abbreviations have periods or not, as long as the periods are consistently there or not there. The context will almost certainly make it clear, without the periods, whether “A” is the Atlantic Reporter or an indefinite article, and whether “OR” is the . . . [more]

Doing some filing work I came across a photograph I took during a visit to the Supreme Court a couple of years ago: In one of the courtyards that bring light to inner-facing windows (see an image of the plan) there’s a badminton court. At least, I’m reliably informed that’s what it is:

click image for full view

The thought of justices whacking away at shuttlecocks is a mighty pleasing one, though I suspect that the court is used by staff or the clerks. The net seems a bit low to me, though, so maybe it’s for counsel to . . . [more]

Charon QC, the UK’s one-man blogging, podcasting and ‘zine publishing machine, has put a contract text online and made it available for free. Properly Mike Semple Piggot, he has taught contract law over the past 25 years at BPP Law School, an institution that he helped found. His text is, as he says, more of an outline, along with a collection of other resources related to contract law. On the site you’ll find up-to-date contract news; links to appropriate recent case reports are available within the text notes.

Semple plans a similar site dealing with the sale . . . [more]

Law commissions like to operate on a relatively regular schedule of making documents public, whether consultation papers or interim or final reports, especially given the insatiable demands of today’s websites. As with any organization, however, the ready excuse of “best laid plans…” naturally operates to throw off the timetable. A consultation paper scheduled to be released in April may be postponed until September for unforeseen reasons, for example. Difficulties finding a translator may mean a delay of a month in releasing a final report. Even building in some leeway in setting timetables doesn’t always address delays, just like thinking you’re . . . [more]