I wasn’t much of an articling student. I worked hard, but not smart: my learning curves were more like sheer cliff faces. I’m sure I wasted a lot of clients’ money and lawyers’ time during my year of service, and the firm was right not to ask me back.

In retrospect, I can see many things I should have done differently. But at the time, I was seriously peeved that no one had prepared me for this, that I hadn’t the first clue of what the practising Bar required. That’s been a pretty common experience for many new lawyers before . . . [more]

There is an interesting little discussion happening over on the law blog of Frédéric Rolin about what exactly the proper French equivalent of “law blog” should be.

English. Simple: law blog or blawg. Sounds easy.

But in French?

Here are some of the suggestions by Rolin and by people who sent comments:

• Give in to worldwide Anglo-Saxon linguistic imperialism and just call blawgs “blawgs” – Rolin does write that French blawgers who are on Technorati all seem to use the tag “blawg” (ha! vendus!)
• bloig (blog + loi=law or statute)
• juriblog – my favourite
• blex
• bleg
• droig (from droit=law)
• jurnal

Maps may not be our usual fare, though Simon’s posts on graphical representations of data are always interesting. Still, I remember a law firm library in Toronto that had a beautiful collection of extremely detailed maps of Ontario bound in large format.

Plus, there are a couple legal shadows falling over this picture… so this quote from a map librarian:

As of January 2007, Natural Resources Canada will discontinue the printing of paper topographic maps and will close the Canada Map Office. Our government wants to get out of the business of producing printed maps.

Many Canadians place a priority

There’s an interesting article on everyone’s favourite web company, Google, in the recent Fortune magazine, available online at CNMoney.com. “Chaos by design: The inside story of disorder, disarray, and uncertainty at Google. And why it’s all part of the plan. (They hope.),” by Adam Lachinsky, takes you inside the sprawling (1.3 million square feet) headquarters of the giant (annual income: $10 billion; worth: $125 billion) baby (age: 8). The punchline:

With so many moving parts, it’s natural to wonder if Google is truly a company for the ages — or whether it’s the next Galaxy, that fast-moving, arrogant,

As someone who still pays his bills with a chequebook and stamps, I’m a little reluctant to address the whole question of technology in the legal profession. But here we go anyway:

To get a sense of the degree to which the law is still a pen-and-paper profession, listen to the language that lawyers use. “Paper the other side,” articling students are told. “Note up the case. Write a memo to file. Docket your time.” In our mind’s eye, it seems, we’re working in the age of bound ledgers and three-ring-binder timesheets, and the phrases we use unconsciously reflect that. . . . [more]

Google is 8 today. How time flies when you’re looking for stuff! This means that Slaw has just under 7 years to go to get 30 billion hits a month. Tell your friends to visit us. Spread the word. . . . [more]

On September 21, I posted a request for caselaw and articles discussing transnational electronic data exchanges for discovery/disclosure or in the business management context. Not surprisingly, up to now, it has received no answer.

In fact, to most people and country, this remains a useless topic of no interest. However, being the e-information geek that I am, how can I not wander, in a world of virtual data/documents, how to get e-information from a party or third person residing in a foreign country?

Nowaday, it is so easy for a multinational corporation or anyone, for that matter, to keep its . . . [more]

Interesting post in Law.com about how the first year law students appear to an experienced law librarian, and what their attitudes are to books and paper materials, and to legal research assignments.

This is the start of the so-called Millennial Generation who have been told that they are:

Special: have been told they are special all their lives.

Sheltered: kept from harm’s way and have highly structured lives.

Confident: see special; they expect good news and believe in themselves.

Conventional: accept social rules.

Team-oriented: they like to work together and keep in contact with

We’re building a ‘current affairs’ collection in the library at Osgoode Hall Law School – or more accurately a collection of major daily newspapers and weekly and monthly magazines for general browsing and a break from reading the law. I’d be interested from hearing from SLAWers for recommended titles for addition to this collection, some of which were mentioned during our ‘grey lit’ week. We currently get the NYT, International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Globe and Mail, National Post and Toronto Star. In magazines we get the Spectator, New Yorker, Harpers Bazaar, Atlantic Monthly, McLeans and The . . . [more]

I’ve been a lawyer in Toronto now for four years. Over this time, a lot of law magazines, newspapers and newsletters have crossed my desk. Even though these are publications for lawyers, I never feel like they are really talking to me. They always feel a little old, a little earnest and, well, a little boring.

That’s not me talking — these are the words of Melissa Kluger, Editor-in-Chief of a new blog titled “Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style.” It’s pretty good — entertaining and thoughtful, and that’s a tough combination to pull off. Hers is another . . . [more]

Nous l’avons vu, trois questions se posent sur cette affaire passionnante actuellement en cours devant la Cour suprême: 1) la clause a t-elle été consentie par le consommateur? 2) la conciliation «arbitrage» versus «recours collectif» penche de quel côté? Sur cette question, sur laquelle nous reviendrons, lire sur le site de mon collègue Bachand le Factum auquel il a participé à la rédaction pour l’intervenant London Court of International Arbitration.
3) qui du juge ou de l’arbitre devait statuer de la question? Commençons par celle qui nous rejoint plus naturellement relative à la qualité du consentement.

D’abord, il convient . . . [more]

As Simon F mentioned on Friday, I had the great fortune to attend the annual meeting of the College of Law Practice Management in San Francisco earlier this month. The topic of the day was at the heart of 21st-century lawyering: innovation. Specifically, why lawyers aren’t very good at it.

One of the delegates made an important distinction at the start. When it comes to actual legal work, lawyers can innovate like crazy. Corporate lawyers have designed some of the most innovative (and profitable) financial instruments around; litigators are always finding new angles from which to argue cases, and so . . . [more]