Nothing legal here, but even so, perhaps on this historic day I can have some off-topic license to give you this snippet of a story that I find heartwarming:

Khoi Vinh, who is the Design Director for NYTimes.com, runs a blog, Subtraction. As he reports there, he noticed today while at work that a line was forming outside the New York Times building, people queueing to get a copy of that day’s paper announcing Obama’s victory, and he proceeded to take some (beautiful) photos of the lineup. He says:

I ran down to a lower floor where I

I just read a column from yesterday’s National Post by Duncan Stewart, “Microsoft will be stung by Intel’s Atom“. It talks about the “netbook” market in low-end laptops, some running Linux. I’ve been thinking that my next computer would be something like this. I’m curious to know if any SLAWyers have experience with these, particularly in conjunction with a Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Stick. . . . [more]

Google has pulled out of its proposed advertising deal with Yahoo! due to fears of government antitrust litigation. Details are available here on The Official Google Blog. . . . [more]

Further to Simon’s introduction of Dan Pinnington as a contributor to SLAW, I see from this month’s Law Practice magazine that Dan has a great article on Blackberry tips. There is an HTML version available here.

I thought I knew most of the tips but Dan has mentioned a few I did not know; his article is one of the more extensive on this topic. . . . [more]

♬ Do I know you
Do I know you…♬

Words and music by: Delon Dotson, recorded by:Realtime.

The New Client ID and Verification Rules are coming into effect across the country. In some cases, they are already in effect. These new Rules place new professional obligations to lawyers to ‘know the clients’ for whom they are acting.

Surveying the implementation of the model rule as put forth by the Federation of Law Societies [PDF] sets forth the following: (all dates taken from the respective Law Society’s web sites):

Newfoundland – Rules came into effect Oct 31, 2008: http://www.lsuc.on.ca/link.cfm?lid=12052

PEI: . . . [more]

Further to an earlier SLAW posting on blogs by library technicians, I wanted to mention the Library technician dialog blog by colleagues Brenda Wong and Karen Sawatzky that I had previously overlooked. Recent posts cover such topics as lifelong learning, Twitter (on my “to do” list, long overdue, but I remain skeptical) and library operations and procedures. Thanks Brenda and Karen for your perspectives. . . . [more]

WikiBooks was mentioned here sometime ago on Slaw.

I recently stumbled across the site and see that there is some more development, including some law-related books.

For example, an “Introduction to Canadian Law” has been started here (but is still very bare) and there is a start on Canadian legal citation here.

There is more US content, and some topics tagged with a “green box” indicate comprehensive coverage/treatment. There were 3 such titles:

US Copyright Law

US Patent Law

US Trademark Law . . . [more]

With all the exposure we get these days – including published articles, speaking engagements, blogs, websites, twitter, facebook, linkedin, flickr, … – when do we actually “meet” someone for the first time?

When we meet someone in person, we may very well have seen them in those places, or even had a conversation with them in those places. And because us humans have imperfect memories, when we “meet” for the first time in person, there can be that puzzling “haven’t we met before” thought, look, or conversation. And perhaps we have met before – but just not in a . . . [more]

Hi everyone. I’m very pleased to become a member of the SLAW community.

For my first post I want to talk about conflicts of interests claims. They are a key area of risk as I detailed in an article I recently penned on The Biggest Malpractice Claims Risks for LAWPRO Magazine. LAWPRO provides legal malpractice coverage for the 21,800 lawyers in private practice in Ontario. Over the last eleven years in the LAWPRO claims portfolio, conflicts of interest claims ranked fifth by both count (1,322 claims) and cost ($6.0 million), accounting for 6.4 per cent of claims reported and . . . [more]

The Amsterdam Law Forum, an online law journal from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has just released its first volume, which focuses on the theme, “Inclusion and Exclusion in Western Immigration.”

The A.L.F. strives to offer an online platform for legal and policy commentary articles, with an academic character, yet accessible to a broader public , and furthermore serve as a forum for academic publications by young legal scholars…

The student-managed journal is not peer-reviewed at the moment, though they plan to become so in the future.

Not only is the ALF open access, but it’s also published using open source . . . [more]

In the Video Your Vote project, YouTube and PBS are asking U.S. citizens to video their polling stations today. They are hoping for citizen journalism-style updates as well as recording of problems at polling stations.

From the Video Your Vote website:

“Wait – are you really allowed to take video at the polls??”

Most states do allow you to film at your polling place. However, some states expressly prohibit videotaping and others have strict rules about how close you can tape near a polling place. For information on your area, visit http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/documenting-your-vote

In any location, basic rules of decency apply

I’m pleased to be able to report that Dan Pinnington has joined Slaw as a regular contributor. Dan is the Director of practicePRO at the Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Company (LAWPRO) in Toronto, an important initiative to give lawyers the tools and resources to avoid malpractice claims. Dan practiced as a litigation lawyer for a number of years and has extensive experience with legal technologies, having been Manager of Information Systems at his firm.

Dan writes and speaks on risk management, technology and law practice management issues, and is currently editor-in-chief of the ABA’s Law Practice Magazine. As well he . . . [more]