The most recent issue of The Lawyers Weekly features an article entitled Animal law: from the classroom to the real world? that describes the emergence of animal law as a serious field of study and perhaps legal practice:

“If the law schools are any indication, animal law is a growth area. University of Toronto has just become the seventh law school to offer animal law on its curriculum, after McGill, Dalhousie, University of Alberta, University of Ottawa, University of Victoria and Université du Québec à Montréal(…)”

“Just as actually practising environmental law was seen as a pipe dream of law

A tip of the SLAW hat to SLAW’s own Steve Matthews for his article called “Who Do You Think You Are?” in this month’s edition of the CBA National magazine. Among other things, Steve writes on protecting your online brand and developing an online network. Nice work Steve. . . . [more]

We’ve blogged a couple of times about Carl Malmud’s efforts to provide free access to U.S. cases and other important documents (see: Case Law Just Wants To Be Free and Carl Malmud Publishes Cases). Now Boing Boing reports that Malmud’s efforts to gain access to U.S. federal legislative histories has run into a block in the form of Thomson West. Complied by law librarians at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the histories have been scanned by Thomson West pursuant to a deal they made with the GAO; and now Thomson West claims an exclusive right to the documents.

Malmud . . . [more]

I earlier commented on SLAW on the problem of link rot on the web.

I am updating my “Doing Legal Research in Canada” guide on LLRX.com since I believe I last updated it in 2004 and it is out-of-date (my similar guide on NYU’s Globalex site is more current for now than the guide on LLRX.com).

As part of updating the LLRX.com guide, I was struck by the fact that easily more than 50% of the links were broken (and for some topics, it was as high as 90%). All within 3 years or so! And the existing links were . . . [more]

A colleague made me aware of an online Compendium of Damages Awarded in Personal Injury Actions Across Ontario (January 1999 – November 2005). It is posted on the website of the County of Carleton Law Association (CCLA) and appears to have been part of a project chaired by Mr. Justice Chadwick, with the help of local lawyers, students and law clerks.

I assume it was aimed at pro se litigants and must have been quite an effort. What I find puzzling though is that most of this data (and I assume more extensive data) is available in Carswell’s Goldsmith’s . . . [more]

We have friends whose marriages have been arranged and who find themselves far from India in new relationships. A new website provides legal information for women in that situation.

A venture of the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Extension, the Legal Resource Centre, the Alberta Law Foundation, and the Changing Together organization the website was launched last month to help educate foreign brides and immigrant women about marital relationships and the law in Canada. . . . [more]

CALL/ACBD 2008
May 25-28, 2008
Saskatoon

Tomorrow is the early bird deadline for this year’s CALL Conference.

Also, there is a terrific pre-conference workshop, the Law Library Leadership Institute being held Saturday, May 24th that is definitely worth checking out.

If you work in a law library, or are otherwise part of the law library community, I hope you will join me at the CALL conference! . . . [more]

That’s the argument in a great posting by Bob Ambrogi, which describes the history of the last quarter century of providing greater public access to the decisions of the courts.

According to Bob, it’s all over for American caselaw, as of February 11, 2008. . . . [more]

The Oxford Handbook of Business History, edited by Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin (ISBN13: 9780199263684; 736 pages; U.S.$150) “provides a state-of-the-art survey of research in business history.” A Q&A with one of the authors explains further:

Sean Silverthorne: What is the purpose of the book, and who is the intended audience?

Geoff Jones: The purpose of this book is to provide a state-of-the-art overview of business history research worldwide. It seeks to speak to researchers in management, economics, sociology, and history who want to know about the latest research in business history, as well as to a wider audience

It’s in the very early stages of its development, but I just found a new site called Booklamp, which claims to do for books what pandora.com (sadly, off limits to us) does for music: recognize patterns in the ones you like and suggest others that you might as well. The FAQ is not available yet to shed some light on how the matching is done, but it seems to employ five criteria: “density”, “pacing”, “action”, “dialogue” and “description”.

There are very few books in the database yet, so it’s more of a novelty than a useful tool, but they . . . [more]

I just came back from a meeting on the new client floor of McCarthy Tétrault’s Toronto office ((Unhappily I can’t show you the art or the layout, which McCarthys haven’t included on their website)), where there’s an interesting construction by Colette Whiten entitled “Is Technology Rewriting the Justice System?” . . . [more]

At TechShow last week, a roll-out for what I believe to be a first – a book devoted to advanced technologies for lawyers to collaborate.

The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell empowers lawyers who are just beginning to try these tools, as well as providing tips and techniques for lawyers with intermediate and advanced collaboration experience. . . . [more]