Add this one to our long list of scams: some Canadians have received letters (both by email and Canada Post) supposedly from the Canada Revenue Agency indicating they are owed money, but that the government does not have sufficient information on file for them to forward the outstanding amount. A form is included with the letter. Fill in the form, return it and voila, your personal information is handed over to a stranger for the purpose of stealing your identity. Although the letter and T2 form look like photocopies, they look quite legitimate. The RCMP and CRA are warning . . . [more]

Links to a lengthy interview with Richard Susskind (parts 1 and 2) who continues to provoke with his explanations of how the English market for legal services is dramatically different from that in the United States, and how the Legal Services Act presages the future on this side of the Atlantic too.

One of the unplanned advantages of federal systems appears to be the way in which they militate against reforms of professional monopolies.

Good plugs for The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the nature of legal services , Richard’s book which will be imminently published by OUP.

The most . . . [more]

Bucking the trends of the global free access to law movement, our friends in Eagan have unveiled an ambitious interface to Chinese law.

We’re back to East of Eagan: . . . [more]

Ever since Thomson took over the Lawyers’ Co-operative Publishing Company in Rochester and acquired West Publishing in Eagan and St. Paul, there’s been apprehension about what the new owners might do to high-paying editorial jobs in both towns. If Indian outsourcing is affecting legal information, could it also affect the production and processing of legal information?

At the same time that Toronto’s Globe and Mail was printing an upbeat story about silver linings in economic clouds, the local papers in Rochester and Eagan were reporting about seventy editorial and production jobs that are heading east to India and the Philippines. . . . [more]

About eighteen months ago I posted about various online mind-mapping tools, MindMeister among them. Updated not too long ago to include several new features, including the ability to attach files, notes, tasks and links to nodes, MindMeister offers a series of accounts from free to $6 a month for a business edition. Worth a second look, I think, if you don’t already do all your mind mapping work with the high end and expensive MindManager or the free but surprisingly good FreeMind — and maybe even if you do. . . . [more]

Those interested in European law or in freedom of expression might want to take a look at documents from “The European Protection of Freedom of Expression: Some Recent Restrictive Trends”, a recent seminar at the European Court of Human Rights, which was directed at the question: “Are recent developments in the Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights case-law undermining adequate guarantees for freedom of expression?”

Here’s a partial list of papers available in PDF, to give you a sense of what’s there:

Freedom of Expression and Article 10 ECHR – Summaries of 20 recent

It’s not the first time a city or location is suing for intellectual property in its name. But it’s probably the first time a major blockbuster has been the target of the lawsuit.

The city of Batman, located in eastern Turkey, is named after the river by the same name that flows into the Tigris. Both the river and the oil-producing city derive their name from the adjoining Bati Raman mountains.

Batman is known around the world for a much more popular comic book character, turned into blockbuster film. The $1billion box office sales for the Dark Knight . . . [more]

I spoke with Mandy Ostick, Manager, Virtual Library, Courthouse Libraries BC about their new beta web library catalogue built with Aquabrowser.

Mandy shared that Courthouse Libraries BC chose Aquabrowser because it is a web interface for data from their existing Integrated Library System (Horizon). The implementation process for Aquabrowser took about a year. Aquabrowser is a rapidly growing company which presented some time frame challenges. Mandy finds there is great potential for adding more information pieces like Federated Search and having all those tools play nicely for a one stop shop that would include the wide range of knowledge pieces . . . [more]

TMA=Too many Acronyms.

Google’s (Goog) agreement with the Association of American Publishers (AAP) is summarized by the US’s Association of Research Libraries (ARL) with special emphasis on the implications of the agreement for libraries, and especially large US research library systems. A press release is here.

With it’s special deference to commercial incentives, US copyright law differs from Canadian, so the terms of this agreement may be irksome to Canadian libraries, should the AAP or other US bodies try to apply it here.

via Stephen’s Lighthouse . . . [more]

Take a seat.

Not just any seat, of course. One that suits your needs and, well, that part of you. Ever since human beings discovered that they could bend in the middle, proper seating has been a matter of considerable importance. If you happen to be a court, sittings are even more significant, but that’s a whole nother business, as they say. This is about plain old citizenry sitting and, more precisely, the chairs that enable it.

Those of you who work at firms likely have ergonomically correct (or at least adjustable, so the instructions promise) chairs, like the Aeron . . . [more]

A recent story from Nova Scotia has focused a lot of attention on pre-employment screening and the use of polygraphs. Hopefully, it will encourage a larger discussion on both sides of the issue.

According to media reports, anybody applying for a job that falls within the purview of the Halifax Police Service and Fire Service is required to pay for a polygraph examination that includes a range of questions, some of which have been considered to be objectionable. (See the full questionnaire here (pdf).)

Others have objected to the use of a polygraph, as many assert it is not . . . [more]

I am always very surprised to see and hear that there are still some lawyers, judges, CIOs and other officers who don’t know what Electronic Discovery is. Actually, this is not true. I am not surprised, and why would I be about something that we are only forced to learn when we are exposed to it. Most people learn about e-discovery when they are involved in a lawsuit. Why would I be interested in it if I am not involved in a lawsuit? Well, there are 2 reasons: I want to make money from it, which is a very good . . . [more]