A new book called Sorcerers’ Apprentices focusses on the role played within the US Supreme Court by law clerks. You can read the first chapter online

Written by two acedemics, Artemus Ward and David L. Weiden, the book is built upon Supreme Court archives, the personal papers of justices and other figures at the Supreme Court, and interviews and written surveys with 150 former clerks.

Sorcerers Apprentices is a rare behind-the-scenes look at the life of law clerks, and their role in agenda setting, opinion writing, and decision making. The authors suggest that seemingly unrelated institutional changes such as circulating . . . [more]

The Slaw Hall of Fame

This is the first obituary in Slaw, but it’s a tribute to a figure whom many Slaw readers may not have known but who was very significant in the development of a distinct Canadian legal culture. Dr. Peter Oliver of York University was not a lawyer, but his work catalyzed the production of a corpus of Canadian legal history.

Peter died of cancer two weeks back, after a tough illness. He was a History Professor at York University, author of five books, Editor-in-Chief of The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, and Associate Editor of . . . [more]

I stumbled on a page constructed by Susan Law dedicated to the architecture and design of Osgoode Hall. If Slaw readers have never had the treat of visiting the great library, this site will whet your appetite.

Nothing to do with the Ministry of the Attorney General or the Law Society of Upper Canada.

The one thing it can’t capture is the fine – and cheap – food available in the Dining Room.

But it’s a nicely done site, and it would be good to have similar guides to the county court houses which are often such dignified additions . . . [more]

Seems that web publishing company O'Reilly and CMP are claiming that “Web 2.0” is their trademark.

In a recent decision, the Sixth District Court of Appeals (California) has afforded bloggers the same kind of protection usually reserved to journalists. Here is an extract from the judgment:

The trial court denied the motion on the ground that the publishers had involved themselves in the unlawful misappropriation of a trade secret. We hold that this was error because (1) the subpoena to the email service provider cannot be enforced consistent with the plain terms of the federal Stored Communications Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2712); (2) any subpoenas seeking unpublished information from petitioners would be unenforceable through contempt

. . . [more]

From June 21st to June 23rd, at the Government of Canada Conference Center in Ottawa, there will be a Retreat for selected legal officers (military lawyers) in Ottawa. On the morning of Day 1, the schedule has the following two sessions:

• Practice and Case Management 101 (30 mins)
• Web Trends & Technologies 101 (30 mins)

Is there anyone interested, preferably but not necessarily a lawyer in private practice from the National Capital Region, in offering these two sessions? We are trying to vary the speakers during this Retreat. This is a nice occasion for networking. If you are interested or . . . [more]

1. Ontario Ministry of Transport Driver Handbook: highway signs
2. Canadian Association of Law Libraries
3. SOQUIJ
4. SOQUIJ: Quoi de neuf: L’excellence de SOQUIJ récompensée
5. CALL/ACBD: Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing
6. Hugh Lawford
7. Quicklaw
8. Elections Nova Scotia
9. Members of the Nova Scotia Legislature
10. Nova Scotia Electoral Districts
11. Elections Nova Scotia: forming a new party
12. Nova Scotia Elections Legislation
13. Nova Scotia Green Party
14. Nova Scotia Liberal Party
15. Nova Scotia NDP
16. Nova Scotia PC Party
17. CBC Nova Scotia Election Coverage 2006
18. Halifax Chronicle Herald
19. Chronicle Herald Election Coverage
20. Halifax Daily News
21. The Coast
22. Nova Scotia Newspapers
23. CBC Nova Scotia Election Coverage 2003

. . . [more]

Though not the worst of its kind, this “signed post” is a visual equivalent of certain portions of the Income Tax Act. On a Friday morning at 8 a.m. with a couple of kids in the car and only two spots to choose from…

Yet signs like thse are the only way to go if you have to have microscopically small jurisdictions. Most of that spot legislating happens in neighbourhoods and on roads. The Ontario government, like the rest, I assume, puts the drivers’ handbook on line, with its pages on road signs. Like an Interpretation Act, the page on . . . [more]

This year the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD) presented its annual award for legal publishers at its conference in May to Québec-based online vendor SOQUIJ. One highlight that stuck out in my mind is that SOQUIJ is now making some of the Québec case law available translated into English. From the SOQUIJ website:

Parmi les raisons pour lesquelles SOQUIJ a été choisie, on trouve notre forte présence sur Internet, la traduction récente de certains jugements en anglais, Le Citateur et l’appui important que nous avons reçu de nos clients.

. . . [more]

Here on the east coast we are in the throes of a provincial election campaign with the big day coming on June 13th. Here are some resources if you are interested in looking into it. No reports of rum bribes as of yet, however one of the candidates was buying hot dogs outside of the SUB yesterday….

NS Election Info

Elections Nova Scotia

Members of the Legislature

Electoral Districts

Forming a new party in NS

Nova Scotia Elections Legislation

Parties

(in alphabetical order)

NS Green Party

NS Liberal Party

NS NDP

NS PC Party

Media

CBC NS Election Coverage 2006

. . . [more]

I stumbled upon this post and I’ve been twisting my head back and forth trying to absorb and understand this. I haven’t had much time to really sort it out but something tells me it’s worth knowing about. While I’m putting this on my personal back-burner, maybe this speaks to someone more immediately and maybe someone will make it clearer to me before I start digging.

Eric Lease Morgan writes:

SRW/U is used for searching indexes (, and to some degree databases as well). It is possible to use it to search just about any list of stuff you have.

. . . [more]

Why didn’t I know I could do this until now? Did you? If so, why didn’t you tell me?!!

I just had an advanced training session with our new WeC learning consultant, Sebastian Stella. He showed me this little trick that I have already posted on our firm’s internal blog. It’s SWEET and I can’t believe I didn’t figure this out on my own since I use this right-click feature all the time otherwise.

Okay … here it is …

You can right click on any link within WestlaweCARSWELL and choose to open it in a new window! And you

. . . [more]