Patricia told us this morning about the LCO’s dialogue about law reform, through Wednesday’s symposium.

This is a live post on Michael Tilbury’s Public Lecture entitled “Win-Win” or “Who Will Rid Me of this Turbulent Priest?” The Relationship between Law Reform Commissions and Governments . . . [more]

Science writer Simon Singh included this passage in piece he wrote for the Guardian:

The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

The Association sued Singh for libel. Evidently in British libel law, a judge must rule as to whether the statement in question was a “comment” or a “statement of fact.” If it is ruled the . . . [more]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has published on the web a set of “Legal Tools” for use by members of the public:

They equip users with legal information, commentaries and an application to work more effectively with core international crimes cases (involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide). The Tools serve as an electronic library on international criminal law and justice. They comprise at present over 40,000 documents in several databases (the “Legal Tools Database”), together with four legal research and reference tools developed by lawyers with expertise in international criminal law and justice: the Case Matrix,

The media are slowly picking up on the number of court cases that are requiring disclosure of Facebook and other social network pages in litigation. SunMedia has a story today — see, e.g. “Social networking plays out in court” in the North Bay Nugget, and yesterday there was a story on Canoe Technology, “Facebook content showing up in lawsuits.” [See also “An Obligation to Discuss Facebook During Discovery,” from a couple of months ago on Slaw.]

Ian Kerr of U of Ottawa is quoted in the Sun Media story as saying this:

“The courts

First, a quick plug for the LCO’s Public Lecture this evening at 5:30 in Convocation Hall at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West. It’s all about the complex relationship between law reform commissions and governments and delivered by a man who has been close to the action as a commissioner with the New South Wales Law Reform Commission for many years, Michael Tilbury.

And tomorrow is the Symposium: registration at 8:15 am, starting at 8:45 am, going until 4:30 pm. Lunch included. This is a chance to engage with people who have written about, influenced and engaged in law reform . . . [more]

As we said in launching the Slaw Scavenger Hunt contest, we always knew that the List that the two Simons had assembled was going to be partial, and we’ve been gob-struck at how we could have put a list together and missed dates as significant as the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen from 1789, which led to so many other developments. Duh!

But we’ve been overwhelmed by the variety and the erudition of what our readers have suggested should go on the list. So here is the list that our reader contestants have put together: . . . [more]

Last week LAWPRO e-blasted 20,000 Ontario lawyers in private practice with a warning about a bad cheque fraud scam targeting lawyer trust accounts.

That e-mail blast prompted several Ontario lawyers to call us and we have gathered further information about these frauds. It now seems clear to us that there is an organized scheme underway to defraud Ontario lawyers in and around the Greater Toronto Area using matters involving small business equipment loans. These matters all share the same basic timeline and circumstances, and in some cases, the same purported individuals or entities (a lender from Halifax or Montreal). These . . . [more]

Evernote, the great cross-platform, syncing, note-taking tool is now available for BlackBerry users. I’ve been using it on my desk machine and on my iPhone, and I’m a fan; so if you like the idea of taking notes (via photo, sound recording, or text) anywhere and having those notes available anywhere, get yourself this app. You’ll be glad you did. . . . [more]

Okay – here are all of the dates that have been successfully identified by the contestants in the Slaw Scavenger Hunt, designed to see if we could supplement the entries in the World Digital Library. We listed fifty dates, and in two days our readers have spotted over half. . . . [more]

Did you ever do these visual word puzzles in school? Well, here’s the style over substance edition of This Week’s Biotech Highlights:

Style:

• The Globe & Mail revealed a preference for Doom & Gloom over good news, giving Page 1 treatment to a southbound scientist, but short shrift to new Ontario genomics funding.
• In light of increasing evidence that this round of Human Swine Influenza is not that bad, interest has turned to deciding what to call it. Pork producers don’t like “swine flu,” Mexico is not a fan of “Mexico Flu” and “H1N1” is just plain

The European Journalism Centre has put together a Custom Google Search engine that will search all of the pages of Europa, the portal for the European Union. Search Europa lets you refine your search to pages related to law, to blogs, and to documents in PDF or Word. . . . [more]

I just came across the CBA PracticeLink article A Recession Coping Guide for Canadian Law Firms by Janice Mucalov (April 2009). I like the thoughtful, careful, but yet strategic approach taken in this guide. The focus is on the client relationship, keeping up morale within the firm, and thinking long-term. Here is item #4 on keeping up morale:

Feeling uncertain is inevitable. But rumours, job anxiety and money worries can impair productivity. Reassure your lawyers that you are doing everything prudently possible to lead the firm through this recession.

Remind people how your firm weathered the last downturn – provide