I am an Olympics fan-girl, and have been absorbing as much television coverage as possible. What I find new this Olympics are all the references by reporters to blogs written by athletes. I was a bit surprised that the athletes would be into blogging, but in a CBC interview following his Olympic competition this weekend, Kyle Shewfelt said that he likes to write and he finds writing about his day of training to be a good way to unwind and “let it all out”.

And write he does! I had a look at his personal blog, simply called Kyle Shewfelt . . . [more]

One of the more interesting parts of Guy Joubert‘s recent interview with the Canadian Lawyer is his observation that there is only scant accurate and current statistical information on the Canadian legal profession. We encountered this in drafting a background chapter of the CBA Conflicts Report in which we discussed trends within the population of Canadian lawyers and access to justice. . . . [more]

I’m chuffed (is that a peculiarly British expression?) to have been invited onboard Slaw as a contributor and will aim to provide a UK slant to some of the the core issues Slaw addresses surrounding legal information in the digital age.

I have been fortunate to have been involved at first hand in the entire modern publishing revolution. When I first started out in law publishing, authors produced copy on manual typewriters, editors used pens and literal cut and paste to hack it into shape, typesetters set the copy in movable lead type or “slugs” and made it up . . . [more]

I’m a devoted reader of the Law Librarian Blog, a source of useful insight on new publications, trends, tips and tricks in research/instruction/tools, and best of all, pointers to great cases like this one. . . . [more]

An article in yesterday’s New York Times, “Goodbye, Passwords. You Aren’t a Good Defense,” by Randall Stross, talks about the need for a new way of authenticating users at sites that require a login. Passwords, as we all know, can be cracked, stolen or simply guessed. The coming prodedure, it seems, involves “identity selectors.” These are applications that live on your computer and manage your “identity cards,” which in turn are, so far as I can tell, bits of code that “talk” to paired bits of code on sites you want to log in . . . [more]

It had to happen. . . . [more]

Last week, in my first posting on Slaw, I wrote about what appears to be some sort of unnamed force that draws certain people into law school and then into law firms with little conscious agency on the part of the individual. Years after this process has pushed the lawyer onto a certain path, the lawyer will look up from his or her desk and wonder how they got there and why they are miserable in their chosen career.

I also suggested in my last posting that I have an answer to this problem. “Answer” may be too strong a . . . [more]

You might have read the title of this post and supposed that it was going to be about fundamental legal principles, but as so often is the case, the title is misleading. (I confess to having fun with the creation of titles to posts.) But actually this is about food, the organic kind. You might have noticed the organic section of your local grocery store seems to claim more and more space every time you visit and you may also have noticed all the different claims being made and attached to food: organically grown, made with organic ingredients, organic . . . [more]

[Slaw editor’s note: John Gregory is, among many other things, a Slaw member and also the manager of a highly successful and interesting private email list, ULC_ECOMM, on e-commerce and related matters. He is kind enough to allow Slaw to republish his provocative contributions to that list. We hope that, as they do on his list, they will stir up some discussion here on Slaw.]

Internet Law News today tells us this:

YALE STUDENTS NAME ALLEGED HARASSER IN WEB LIBEL SUIT [Boston.com]
Two female students at Yale Law School who say anonymous, defamatory comments were made about

First, two confessions: I’m not a fan of the Olympics. And the problem raised in today’s fillip had never once occurred to me before today. I know which of the two is the more shameful as far as I’m concerned.

I find the nationalism in the Olympics more than I can handle. If I were Kronos or Zeus — or even just the Dactyl Heracles (the daemon who founded the games) — I’d have everyone compete wearing orange jumpsuits, or perhaps nothing at all, and punish any mention of a country with one of those great olympian spells that . . . [more]

A piece in yesterday’s New York Times talks about the results of a soon-to-be-published study which finds that in most cases (61%) where plaintiffs refuse to settle and go to trial they wind up with less than the proposed settlement would have given them. That settlement is good is hardly news: according to the authors of the study somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of cases in fact settle; but the study hopes to raise questions about the reasons for going to trial in the 2054 disputes studied. The study, “Let’s Not Make a Deal: An Empirical Analysis of Decision . . . [more]

Although EISIL (Electronic Information System for International Law) has received a glancing mention here on Slaw, we haven’t pointed at it directly until now. From the “About” page:

EISIL offers the international law expert the depth of resources for sophisticated legal research. At the same time, EISIL can provide the novice researcher with the information needed to undertake a successful search. The comprehensive scope of EISIL enhances its potential as a research and teaching tool.

The search page is organized into the following main topic heads, each of which offers links to “basis sources” in the area and appropriate sub-topics . . . [more]