A research team at IBM is working on an application called Dogear that brings social bookmarking to large enterprises. Just as with del.icio.us (I never know where to put the first period), the idea is to let others benefit from pages you find interesting and that you tag this way and that; only here the others are folks in your firm. IBM’s software is typically sophisticated, and Dogear won’t be an exception, it seems: the front end lets you search by tag (natch), lets you see a list of those who’ve bookmarked a particular page, and gives you a list . . . [more]

John Gregory’s list-serv this morning brought to our attention a new study by Dalhousie profs, Steve Coughlan, Robert J. Currie, Hugh M. Kindred and Teresa Scassa entitled Global Reach, Local Grasp: Constructing Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in the Age of Globalization. This is part of the Commission’s Global Governance project that we’ve discussed before.

Teresa summarizes her team’s work:

The study explores the concept of extraterritorial action and develops a nuanced view of extraterritoriality. It considers the various means by which extraterritorial action may be taken, and examines the policy justifications that have primarily motivated Canada to act

Months back we referred Slaw readers to the excellent inventory of firms involved in the outsourcing of legal services, prepared by Joy London and Ron Friedmann. It’s recently been updated and could be a helpful guide to tone down some of the more extreme statements that are being made on the topic.

Speaking of outsourcing the Canwest news story that occasioned so much comment on the CALL-List-Serv has now been reprinted by the Times of India and by the Hindu (in Chennai). It’s a story indeed that Slaw originated for the Canadian market. . . . [more]

Every so often I find I’ve stepped back a couple of paces from my daily work and from that unfamiliar remove catch sight of law in all its lunacy. On this occasion I purchased a .ca domain and, so, was required to complete the registration process stipulated by CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. The heart of this process is an “agreement” that the registrant must accept in order to obtain the right to a .ca domain and at the bottom of which is the standard box to tick to indicate acceptance — and understanding! — of this “click-wrap . . . [more]

Great set of links to law-related blogs from all over the world in one of the best and most thoughtful legal blogs.

And Slaw.ca gets a mention in the North American section too. . . . [more]

Because there are likely to be those who read Slaw but aren’t subcribed to the CALL email list, I thought the following exchange on outsourcing from that list might be of interest. (I also hoped it might encourage more CALL list subscribers to read Slaw, where they would have learned about outsourcing to India quite some time ago.) I should add that these emails are being reproduced with the permission of the writers.

1. Susan Crysler
McCarthy Tétrault LLP

There is an article in the Vancouver Sun today (CanWest News Service) with the headline “Canadian lawyers outsource work to India

Donna Scheeder of the Law Library of Congress (and a past president of SLA) recently announced that the LLoC has launched the Global Legal Monitor. This new service covers legal developments around the world. The site is arranged topically under broad subject heading. The sources are news services and official publications. From my quick overview it looks quite useful.

You can check it out at http://www.loc.gov/law/public/law.html. . . . [more]

I was doing some historical research on the law of India today. This library is well off for old law reports but many are not and I wondered if any SLAWers had thoughts about agitating to see more of this material made available online. India is of course the largest Commonwealth federation with a constitution similar to that of Australia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Nigeria (between coups anyway) and of increasing reference in comparative constitutional research, among other fields. Although recent Indian cases and legislation are increasingly well covered online there’s not much historical depth. As anyone who has tried to . . . [more]

ALM has published a nice summary & survey on Law Librarianship for 2006.

It’s good to see an article like this… The length isn’t so overwhelming that it couldn’t be passed along to others. The quotes seem well reasoned and balanced, it covers a good range of topics, and it includes optional survey results at the end for further detailed reading.

On the Canadian side of the fence, the CALL/ACBD Law Library Statistics Committee have the next edition of the Private Law Libraries/Corporate Law Libraries Operations Survey in the works. This survey only gets compiled every three years, so there’s . . . [more]

As a possible alternative to Westlaw and Lexis, a pay as you go service announced this morning:

Fastcase and Peppercoin Bring Legal Research to the Masses

Peppercoin enables Fastcase to build its business through added payment options

WALTHAM, Mass., July 11 /PRNewswire/ — Peppercoin today announced that Fastcase, IncFor a three year old evaluation of Fastcase and a more recent article. ., is using Peppercoin’s Small Payment Suite to grow revenues by adding payment flexibility and capturing new customer segments for its new, affordable a la carte legal research service that expands public access to the entire American . . . [more]

I’m currently in St. Louis for the American Association of Law Libraries conference. There are a dozen or so Canadian law librarians here, plus a handful of our vendors, amongst the 3,000 delegates.

It has been exciting to meet a number of American fans of Slaw. And last night I attended the blogger meetup and met some people whose work I have been following, Bonnie Shucha who maintains the definitive list of law librarian bloggers and lawyer bloggers Matthew Homan and Dennis Kennedy. It was a thrill to meet these people whom I’ve been reading and corresponding with.

I haven’t . . . [more]

Two bits of reading that came across my desk, each charged with pointing out, from the perspectives of practising lawyer – and law firm librarian – where so many young lawyers fall short on legal research matters.

From Scott Stolley, a piece from the Defense Research Institute on The Corruption of Legal Research;

and from two senior librarians at Cadwalader, the most establishmentThough having said that, at the LMA Your Honor Awards in February, we gave them first place for an announcement regarding the New York office move to One World Financial Center and the Real Deal . . . [more]