While researching articles discussing virtual worlds (including both Internet-based games and social networking spaces) I came across an upcoming conference on virtual law. The Virtual Law 2008 Conference is being held April 3 – 4, 2008 in New York City in conjunction with Virtual Worlds 2008 which is running concurrently.

You would think by now these things don’t surprise me, but I have to admit being a bit “gob-smacked” when I came across this conference. Are there really enough lawyers practising in this area to build a whole conference to address it?

Digging a bit further, I learn that the . . . [more]

Apart from a glancing mention by Ted Tjaden in his recent post, Ozmosys – An E-mail, Website and RSS aggregator, we haven’t talked about Lexology on Slaw. That may well be because everyone already knows about it. But just in case there are one or two of our readers who are unfamiliar with it, I’m going to give you a brief description.

Lexology is a free (upon registration) re-distribution mechanism for law firm publications on particular topics. Some hundreds of firms are shown as being involved. This in itself would be handy, but what makes it an even more . . . [more]

I don’t generally pass on pointers to academic articles in the Social Science Research Network database, because there are plenty of others on the web who are doing that. But a recent paper (Guthrie, Chris, Rachlinski , Jeffrey J. and Wistrich, Andrew J., “Blinking on the Bench: How Judges Decide Cases” . Cornell Law Review, Forthcoming Available at SSRN [PDF here]) caught my eye and so I’m mentioning it here.

The authors tested a sample of U.S. trial judges, seeking to find out whether the judges used their intuition (making mistakes) or deliberated (getting things right) when solving . . . [more]

When talking about free / open source software, I am often surprised at the number of people today who still say to me – “if it is free it cannot be of any value”. Or those who ask – “what exactly is open source software?”. If you pardon the shameless use of the phrase, “long live free software” (or “vive le logiciel libre!”) ought to be the battle cry of the free software movement. Indeed, although not put that way by most proponents, that is the general sentiment.

What is free software? The Free Software Foundation maintains a definition of . . . [more]

My temporary return to teaching has got me using PowerPoint again, now de rigeur in today’s law school classroom, and it’s reminded me of my like-hate relationship with that tool. I’m certain that if anyone with serious presentation chops looked at our academic slides they’d be horrified, because we probably make every mistake in the book. But doing it right two or three times a week for hours at a stretch isn’t easy; it’s the rare bird who can combine personal passion with restrained verbiage on the big screen and get the timing right as well.

I’m sure our readers . . . [more]

It’s show time! You bring the popcorn — and the willingness to look behind the silver screen, as it were. DigitalDomain is a special effects company that’s been part of a host of movies you’ve seen, and probably more ads than you wished. It works magic with bits and bytes and shows you how they’re integrated with the rest of the scene’s analog (i.e. real) actors and scenery. It’s all here — in movies, natch.

It probably makes most sense to start by viewing the “Company” reel, which contains a montage of what DD has done. And then you . . . [more]

Tuesday night I gave a presentation to Toronto Wiki Tuesdays about the use of wikis in law firms. On Monday, to get some additional ideas, I posted a message to Slaw asking for any new examples of wiki use in law firms since I wanted to present more than just wikis I had a hand in myself. The next day a very interesting discussion ensued on Slaw about whether wiki use is suitable for firms. This was a fantastic discussion, starting to really get at the heart of whether a firm should be using wikis and what really works. So . . . [more]

For all the buzz about the new India, it’s quite charming to see that the old India hasn’t quite gone away.

Today’s Times of India has an extraordinary story about a wannabe library peon. . . . [more]

The world’s largest legal vertical search engine launched yesterday according to a press release. The Public Library of Law (pLoL) has partnered with legal research provider Fastcase, Inc. It may be more of a directory than a search engine, even though Fastcase CEO Ed Walters claims it makes”first-time legal research as easy as using Google.”

What is available on PLoL?

* Cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals
* Cases from all 50 states back to 1997
* Federal statutory law and codes from all 50 states
* Regulations, court rules, constitutions.

“Unlike other free resources,

Here is a new development in the hostile Yahoo-Microsoft saga: Yahoo is now in talks with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. about combining their Internet properties under a single unit. This move would bring together Yahoo and MySpace.com, two of the most visited websites in the US.

See Globe and Mail article . . . [more]

I have prided myself from time to time on introducing Slaw readers to fairly arcane resources, but this may take the cake of abstruseness. The Visigoths, famous for sacking Rome, spread throughout Western Europe in the second half of the first millennium, reaching as far as what is now Spain and Portugal in what is known as the Kingdom of Toulouse. I confess I’d always thought of Goths as folks who wouldn’t bother much with law. Turns out I was wrong.

You can examine the Visigothic Code (in an English translation) on the Library of Iberian Resources Online, . . . [more]

[Note of disclosure: I do not have have any formal connection or relationship with Ozmosys, the company discussed below. However, while drafting this post I remembered I am part of a LexisNexis Canada advisory group and Ozmosys has partnered with Lexis. Clearly, though, that has not (and would not) influence me and LexisNexis generally invites all types of feedback, whether positive or negative. Despite the foregoing, I thought some SLAW readers might be interested in the product; hence this post.]

Yesterday I hosted for Toronto law firm and law library colleagues a demo at my firm by Ozmosys, a . . . [more]