In a slick marketing move (and I mean that in the best sense of ‘slick’) to demonstrate the raw computing power of its Web MD product, Sun Microsystems has moved the Internet Archive into one of its modular data centers – or as they aptly describe – the Internet in a box.

They’ve also produced an interactive tour of the product, complete with IA founder Brewster Kahle describing the bi-monthly copying of more than “three petabtyes of information”. The press release kindly explains those three petabytes as “roughly equivalent to about 150 times the information contained in the Library . . . [more]

I received an email a while ago informing me of the European Counsel Awards.

The International Law Office, with the support of the Association of Corporate Counsel Europe, has conducted in-depth analysis of in-house lawyers and legal departments worldwide for its second annual European Counsel Awards. Over 3,000 individual nominations from corporate counsel and law firm partners make the European Counsel Awards unique in clearly identifying those in-house counsel, both teams and individuals, who excel in their specific roles. Our primary aim is to recognize lawyers for demonstrable achievements across the full spectrum of in-house responsibility, not simply those who

Google Docs has just introduced a feature that lets you insert a drawing that you can create using their own in-browser tool. While this isn’t exactly momentous — especially for a profession where a thousand words are preferred to a picture — it can be a useful feature if you need to create a diagram on the fly, for instance.

The actual program works really well, having all the expected features such as grouping and rotating and colour fill, with a roster of ready-made shapes to suit most purposes.

Doodle on. . . . [more]

The Ontario E-Discovery Implementation Committee (EIC) has just released eight model e-discovery precedents, as well as additional e-discovery best practices documents.

The EIC is a joint committee established by the Ontario Bar Association and The Advocates’ Society. It is composed of litigators from both the private and public sectors, and members of the judiciary in Ontario. The mandate of the EIC is to implement best practices with respect to electronic discovery within the Ontario court system and litigation bar. One of the keys tasks of the EIC is to inform and educate lawyers and the judiciary regarding the “how” . . . [more]

From Eagan today, an announcement of a free podcast featuring Justice Scalia and Bryanb Garner who wrote the excellent Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges.

Justice Scalia and Garner, editor of Black’s Law Dictionary, led a CLE seminar at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. last July. All profits from the event were donated to Legal Aid. . . . [more]

The Harvard Law School Library today announced the creation of the Morris L. Cohen Fellowship in American Legal Bibliography and History.

The fellowship will help scholars travelling to consult the Library’s special collections. Slaw readers will recognize that it was named in honour of Morris L. Cohen, the Librarian at Harvard Law School from 1971 to 1981, and a pioneer in teaching legal research and bibliography.

David Warrington, Librarian for Special Collections, said: “The Library is particularly pleased to offer the fellowship in Professor Cohen’s name. Morris has spent his career in facilitating scholarship in American legal history, not only . . . [more]

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of a piece in the Economic Times entitled Lawyers-from-US-UK-find-jobs-in-India.

It reports on “a flood of US/UK lawyer CVs to India”. “One out of every 10 lawyers in the US is said to have been laid off”.

Mindcrest recently hired five senior US lawyers. It’s planning to hire another 10 American lawyers this year.

Pangea3, another Mumbai-based LPO firm, recently hired three American legal professionals , while another two are expected to join the company within a month.

Some say the recession in the US legal market will mean a 100% growth for the

I find collaborative writing hard — too much of a control freak, I guess — which means it’s probably a really good thing I didn’t go into practice, where the art of collaborative writing is an important skill. When I must marry your words with mine — and hers and his — I find the commenting features of Word essential but confusing at times. Now TextFlow offers a new way to display, compare and accommodate the variety of edits that can result when you all give me feedback on my draft. TextFlow is an application built on Adobe’s AIR platform . . . [more]

As we move deeper into 2009 one thing I know for sure is that many lawyers, law firm staff members and clients are facing deep uncertainty. So many of us feel we have lost control; that larger forces are at work. At this time more then ever it is important to come to grips with what we can influence and impact.

We all have a leadership role to play in our organizations. When we catch ourselves complaining about the system, about how decisions are made and how things are done it is a good time to come to grips with . . . [more]

Cory Doctorow writes on Boing Boing about the latest anti-terrorist campaign in England.

His entire post is a worthwhile read – but to get a flavour of it:

The London police have bested their own impressive record for insane and stupid anti-terrorism posters with a new range of signs advising Londoners to go through each others’ trash-bins looking for “suspicious” chemical bottles, and to report on one another for “studying CCTV cameras.”

Essentially, this redefines “suspicious” as anything outside of the direct experience of the most frightened, ignorant and foolish people in any neighborhood.

So in addition to being . . . [more]

James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, appeared before the Standing Committee on Official Languages yesterday to address Bill C-232, a private members bill introduced by NDP caucus whip Yvon Godin, the simple aim of which is to require that all Supreme Court judges be fluent in both official languages.

Bill C-232 reads in English as follows:

1. Section 5 of the Supreme Court Act is renumbered as subsection 5(1) and is amended by adding the following:

(2) In addition, any person referred to in subsection (1) may be appointed a judge who understands French and English without

I had the pleasure again to guest lecture in FIS 2133 – Legal Literature and Librarianship at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, being taught by John Papadopoulos and Sooin Kim. The topic was knowledge management (KM) in law firms.

Two broad themes emerged (albeit slightly unrelated): (i) their concern over the job market for future law librarians / knowledge managers, and (ii) my continued proselytizing for an integrated approach to information in law firms by merging library functions with KM and continued “convergence” with library and KM and other administrative functions in law firms, including training, marketing and . . . [more]