Because PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii are due out today and Sunday, respectively, I thought it might be appropriate to make a very brief visit to one small aspect of an internet subculture. Gaming is not something I do — though I suspect that within it lies much of all our digital futures, law people’s included — so I’m going to deal only with a part of gamer language — “leet” or “leetspeak”.

What is it? Leet is a kind of cant or jargon designed to create a community in the know and to exclude all others, rather like law, . . . [more]

Aside from “Law Librarian” and “Slaw contributor” one of my alter-egos is a Minor Hockey Referee in the Hockey Canada system. I have always been somewhat amused by the dichotomy between my days and my evenings. In one pursuit I research, organize and provide access to legal information; in the other pursuit I act as judge, jury and executioner (if you will allow my to coin that phrase), enforcing the rule book (penal code) of Hockey Canada. In one pursuit I deal with a lot of whining and players who just cannot believe that they can do anything wrong, in . . . [more]

I’m a fan of cheezy science fiction movies, so when I saw this subtitle on The National for October/November I was intrigued enough to pick it up and browse. It has a lot of short articles and sidebars relevant to the postings on slaw, including an short piece by one of our contributors, Dominic Jaar. Its worth a look at.

Of course, this being Friday and all, if you want to check out some weird sci-fi take a look at The 5.000 Fingers of Dr. T. Something of major cultural event when I was growing up on Vancouver Island . . . [more]

In an interesting case of ‘people as brands’, and employees walking out the door, Danny Sullivan, the founder of Search Engine Watch (SEW), and a pioneer of the search engine news scene, is starting up shop across the road. On December 11th, Danny, along with Chris Sherman (his long time No. 2 man), and Barry Schwartz (another big name in web search), will be starting Search Engine Land.

This site is sure to be a great resource for anyone interested in search engines, or web marketing generally, but the interesting thing to me is how the loss of these . . . [more]

Pourquoi?

J’invite par le présent billet les employés et membres du CAIJ, c’est-à-dire pour ces derniers, les membres du Barreau, à m’expliquer pourquoi ” À compter de janvier 2007, le mot de passe sera obligatoire pour accéder à JuriBistroMD TOPO.”, tel qu’on le lie sur la page d’accueil de Juribistro|Topo?

J’ai beau ressasser dans ma petite tête tous les motifs pouvant justifier une telle décision et chacun des arguments semblent s’effondrer aussitôt.

Le seul semblant de raison serait que les membres payent pour ce service et seuls ceux-ci devraient pouvoir y accéder: . . . [more]

The SANS Institute, a leading information security organization, has released its Top 20 Internet Security Attack Targets (2006 Annual Update) report. The report is a consensus list of Internet vulnerabilities that require immediate attention and remediation. Its developed by leading security experts, security software vendors and consulting firms, university security programs, the Internet Storm Center, and other user organizations. According to the report, the Internet’s top 20 hacker targets include:
-Microsoft Internet Explorer
-Windows libraries
-Microsoft Office
-Mac OS X
-P2P file sharing applications
-media players
-instant messaging
-VoIP servers and phones
For each target, the report provides . . . [more]

I’ve found a Canadian law firm that specializes in legal research. OnPoint Legal Research Law Corporation is a B.C. firm that also has an office in Alberta. It seems that although they have physical offices, much of their work is arranged by phone or email. The lawyers are mostly young, which leads me to wonder whether this portends something for legal practice in Canada.

(Someone should tell them that their lovely Flash enhanced website doesn’t have a page title for its home page — which may be one of the reasons they’ve had to pay for Google preference.)

Are there . . . [more]

Our own Simon C. is featured in an interesting article available here from Law Times. The article, provocatively entitled “Judges Hijacking Law Firm Business”, discusses the challenges law firms face on handling conflicts of interest and the costs and problems when conflict issues are required to be resolved by the courts.

Simon’s picture is available and was front page in the print edition.

A link is also provided to Simon C’s brief online 20 question survey on Conflict of Interest in Canadian Law Firms, available here. . . . [more]

In light of Michel-Adrien’s very interesting note, here are some materials I found recently.

This diagram is from a 1979 paper on the elements of legal research and analysis.

I wonder how this would compare with a model of current practices.

I discovered it at MIT’s Dspace repository. Here is a link to the record:

https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/1948

But the most interesting thing about the search process was searching techxtra for “legal research.” This service searches multiple specialized sources and provides results in a very legible way.

It is, BTW, a great example of GL, complete with a typo on the front . . . [more]

Earlier this week, Queen’s University researchers released the results of a survey of 9,000 people around the world about their experiences with surveillance and privacy.

“This is believed to be the first cross-cultural study of its kind that explores relationships between attitudes and experiences, and how much people trust corporations and governments to handle personal information, including the sharing of such information with third parties, the researcher says… the survey included nearly 50 questions on participant’s attitudes about issues like consumer surveillance, racial profiling at airports, national ID cards, media coverage of surveillance issues, workplace privacy, knowledge of privacy

Elizabeth M. McKenzie, law professor at the Suffolk University Law School in Boston, has published the findings of an empirical study on how the use of full-text online legal resources has changed the way lawyers conduct legal analysis and how they write.

From the abstract of Computers in Law: Changing the Way Lawyers Think:

“Using textual analysis, the author empirically measured changes in legal practice brought about by the use of computers. The author compared briefs and decisions with an issue of first impression from a decade before computers entered the practice of law and again, a decade when

Following on from my post about the website use agreement at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Rob Hyndman, lawyer and blogger, was kind enough to show me what he uses for his “legals”. I think the contrast is great and Rob’s work should be made more visible. So, with his permission, here’s the Hyndman offering:

Legal Notices

This notice governs your use of my websites and any materials or feeds provided on or by them (the “Sites”). In general, I believe that website terms and conditions are too complicated and are drafted without a common-sense appreciation of the real risks