We’ve looked a poetry before on Slaw — “Law Firms Sponsoring Poetry“, “The Lawyer as Poet“, “Creative uses for law reports“, and another Friday Fillip about doggerel — so I thought that this might be of interest to the poetasters among us. I got on to the Poetry Foundation because of a piece in the recent New Yorker, “The Moneyed Muse” by Dana Goodyear. The article talks about Ruth Lilly, the old reclusive woman who was heir to the Lilly drug company fortune, and who gave a big chunk of her billion . . . [more]

A neat video explaining the importance of preserving an open and neutral, fully accessible Internet.

Enjoy and Spread the Word . . . [more]

There is no surer sign that Spring is around the corner than spring training opening up in Florida and Arizona. This spring opens with one of the more revered records in Baseball on the verge of falling, career home runs. For those of you who are baseball fans, I’m sure you are well aware of this story, and for those who are not you have probably heard Barry Bonds referred to on occasion. Some feel that the chase for the record is tainted by the implications that are out there in regards to Mr. Bonds alleged usage of performance enhancing . . . [more]

French-Law.net is a blog by Nicolas Jondet, a PhD candidate and research assistant with the AHRC Research Centre in Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the University of Edinburgh. He’s also the web manager for the Franco-British Lawyer Society.

Despite its broad name, the blog focuses on IP/IT law.

[A shift of the old chapeau to Howard Knopf’s Excess Copyright for spotting this one.] . . . [more]

In a unanimous decision written by the Chief Justice The Supreme Court ruled in Charkaoui et. al. that the security certificate scheme violates section 7 of the Charter and is not saved by section 1. . . . [more]

That’s the slogan for a fund-raiser for the public library that some of the Bay Street firms are supporting.  The idea is – Can you spare a Toonie for the Library?  Why not? — since Lawyers Love Libraries.

February is Keep Toronto Reading Campaign month. As part of this campaign, throughout February, Toronto Public Library is asking Torontonians for loose change to help fund library services. The Chief Librarian explains it all.

It’s strictly a loose change campaign – so no tax receipts. Each $2 donation helps the Toronto Public Library Foundation enhance library collections and services.  A number . . . [more]

From the Supreme Court:

Judgment in the following appeals will be delivered at 9:45 a.m. EST on Friday, February 23, 2007:

Adil Charkaoui v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (F.C.) (30762)

Mohamed Harkat v.Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, et al. (F.C.) (31178)

Hassan Almrei v.Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (F.C.) (30929)

Hyperlinks are to case summaries on the SCC website.

The security certificate system is unanimously struck down The judgment . . . [more]

Today’s Information Week has a provocative piece in which a Sweet & Maxwell executive talks about Web 2.0 and the legal marketplace.

A few choice quotes:

“The challenge to publishers is how we put our content into new and meaningful contexts,” says Peter Lake, managing director of legal information provider Sweet & Maxwell , which after 207 years of serving the same marketplace could certainly be accused of being a traditional publisher.

Lake understands the need to adopt Web 2.0 themes for his digital services, but is at pains to point out that some markets present real challenges. “The problem

The digitization effort continues. And with it comes the problem of serving text (or audio and video) up to users. Two services have come to my attention recently:

Digital Book Index provides links to more than 130,000 title records from more than 1800 commercial and non-commercial publishers, universities, and various private sites. About 90,000 of these books, texts, and documents are available free, while many others are available at very modest cost.

Many Canadian Universities are involved, along with a host of other suppliers of online data. I browsed under the topic of History: Canada: Law, at first getting . . . [more]

Nostalgia is a funny thing — how it fixes on a past of a certain age, and only on certain aspects of that past. For example, I fondly remember writing on early computers, particularly on a Kaypro with a tiny screen that was black on which amber or green letters glowed.

Now this experience can be yours, but on the widescreen of your modern monitor. Dark Room (an avowed copy of the Mac program WriteRoom) commands your whole screen, paints it black and lets you focus on your writing free of the discractions of menu bars, desktop icons etc. . . . [more]

McGill University organized a conference last week on the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Osgoode Hall Law School site The Court has listed some of the media coverage for the conference (see bottom of the article).

There are other conferences this year to mark the 25th anniversary of the Charter. Some of the key ones are:

• 25th Anniversary of the Charter – A Tribute to Chief Justice R. Roy McMurtry (Law Society of Upper Canada, April 12, 2007, Toronto): “Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Charter and honour Chief Justice R. Roy McMurtry’s pivotal

Of late I seem to have been duplicating previous postings, but I’ve looked through recent postings and searched previous ones, and to my surprise nobody on SLAW seems to have put in a direct plug for the upcoming CALL/ACBD Conference from May 6-9 in Ottawa. The conference organizing commttee has put together some impressive conference sessions, including some members of SLAW.

Of course a chance to stay at the Chateau Laurier ain’t bad either. I love the art deco pool! . . . [more]