I promised Jane Griesdorf that I would post on legal writing sites and then became too busy.

The Advocates Society each year runs a two day workshop on Factum Writing at Osgoode’s Professional Development Facility, which has been the occasion for some extremely helpful presentations on effective written advocacy – Ontario Court of Appeal Justice John Laskin’s piece being typical.

But for those who can’t attend, where to go?

Courtesy of David Stratas, here is a wonderful feature that Bryan Garner the editor of Black’s Law Dictionary has assembled on his LawProse website.

It’s a great set of . . . [more]

Those of us who have ever been part of a group trying to design a law firm website should check out a wonderful new law firm website launched to coincide with a book by the great law firm blogger Jeremy Blachman – not a familiar name? Well he does have a straight blog, but you’ll likely know him better as the author of the satirical Anonymous Lawyer, the popular blog that mocks large-law firm life.

I particularly liked the Blog’s take on The Meaning of Life, and the wonderful law firm biographies, which hit too close to the . . . [more]

Ken Thomson died this morning. He was 82. We remember Thomson as not only owner of the Globe and Mail, but also chairman of the Board of The Thomson Corporation which owns Carswell and West among other services that have been a significant part of our working lives. He was Canada’s wealthiest man, and one of the richest in the world.

Excerpt from the The Thomson Corporation website:

Kenneth R. Thomson, former Chairman of the Board of The Thomson Corporation, and its controlling shareholder, died this morning at the age of 82 (DOB September 1, 1923).

Thomson became

. . . [more]

Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.

From Google Labs for those of you with two computers and Firefox on both. For more info see the FAQ. . . . [more]

1. FIFA World Cup 2006
2. FIFA
3. Times Online: Lawyers get World Cup fever
4. Times Online: World Cup impossible to stage without lawyers
5. WilmerHale: Developments in German Law Regarding Gifts of World Cup Tickets to Government Officials
6. Yahoo News: England looks to the law for peaceful Cup
7. Mark D. West, University of Michigan Law School: “Legal Determinants of World Cup Success”
8. Soccerphile: Germany’s Beer Law
9. e-consultancy.com: FIFA has sent a pre-emptive warning letter to a popular blog re: streaming rights of World Cup Games
10. Deutsche Welle: FIFA Faces Legal Action Over World Cup Image Rights
11. Deutsche Welle: McDonald’s, Coke Run Afoul of

. . . [more]

I just want to clear something up before we begin this Friday’s Fillip. No worries: not a philippic. More of a prolegomenon really. It has to do with birds, as you might imagine, and more to the point, with a seeming interest in birds. See, the thing is that some people think that birding is the natural result of being retired, along with sporting Tilley hats and acquiring RVs. Isn’t true. I know lots of people who noticed birds even before they retired. And another thing: I know I’ve posted about birds before in the Friday Fillip spot, but that . . . [more]

As today is the kickoff for the FIFA World Cup 2006 (football or soccer for you non-sports fans, and “football” or “soccer” depending on where you are and what your inclinations are, perhaps even “futbol”.) I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of the legal aspects of the World Cup. It seems that is not just the world cup of futbol, but also for lawyers. Some of the primary legal areas include: Employment law (all those getting sick around the time their favourite squad takes the pitch), the sex-trade (some countries have legalized, others have not and issues . . . [more]

The International Internet Preservation Consortium -- netpreserve.org -- hasn't found its way on to Slaw yet.

I get a thrill when I look at a letter written over three hundred years ago — like the one excerpted just above. It’s one of the documents in the Canada-France Archives: Nouvelle France, Horizons Nouveaux / New France, New Horizons, a repository of historical documents that I think we haven’t pointed to before on Slaw. Their own description is as follows:

This database contains descriptions and reproductions of documents related to New France (correspondence, reports, maps and plans, and drawings) included in fonds and series conserved at the Centre des archives d’outre-mer (Aix-en-Provence), the Centre historique des Archives

. . . [more]

Dear Slawer-friends –

The Ottawa Citizen (main newspaper of Canada’s National Capital Region) featured today a full two page story in the tech weekly section, written by Peter Hum, on Government 2.0 Think Tank (“G2TT”), a private association dedicated to open source government. This marks the official launch of G2TT. More information on the association can be found in the G2TT Charter.

Aside from the interesting aspects of implementing web 2.0 in governments, I suspect that Slawers may be interested by one of the challenges identified in the first G2TT project – Project Eureka: Uninformed Copyright. By uninformed . . . [more]

Slaw readers know the value of a taxonomy.

This new blog is an example of how narrow the topics can be, and yet how much can be contained in the discussion. Apparently Ken Adams (US) is somewhat of an expert on drafting contracts, and he’s just started up a blog on the topic. Here’s what he says about the blog:

[The blog] has a specific function. Even after a couple of books and a dozen articles, I still have lots to write about. I’ll continue to use articles to lay out my thoughts on bigger topics, but that leaves plenty of tricky smaller issues of contract language. The . . . [more]