This paper begins by considering the important role information plays in the law. It then notes the increasing industry concentration that has occurred over the last 10-15 years among legal and other publishers. This industry concentration is believed to have contributed to significant price increases for scholarly journals generally. This industry concentration has potentially significant implications for questions of access, particularly in the current environment of increasing electronic dissemination of legal information. In addition to examining characteristics of the legal information industry, this paper also looks at the role of dominant players such as Lexis and Westlaw and the ways

. . . [more]

Thanks to John Swan , for a lead to a mindboggling comment made by Grant Campbell J. (London, Family Court) regarding the proper way (from a costs perspective) of doing legal research. In Biggin v. Maloney For parallel cites.

In reviewing a bill for legal services submitted in respect of an order for costs in Biggin v. Maloney, Grant Campbell J. of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice observed:

“Although some case-law research was necessary, and although Mr.Hopkins did indeed produce several relevant and persuasive cases… I cannot understand how Mr.Hopkins could invest 10 1⁄2 hours obtaining and reading

. . . [more]

The speaker is Patrick Clawson, the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; the topic is U.S. policy towards Iran; and the reporter is the renown Seymour Hersch, writing in the New Yorker (“The Iran Plans: Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?”).

1. Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
2. Robertson v. Thomson: Order from the Supreme Court of Canada (April 7, 2006)
3. Robertson v. Thomson: Case information from the Supreme Court of Canada website
4. Robertson v. Thomson: Ontario Appeal Court (lower court) decision
5. Baigent and Leigh v Random House
6. Toronto Star: Students Draft Ontario Legislation
7. Jurist: French labour law standoff
8. CBC: Harper willing to re-open Constitutional debate
9. Canoe: Da Vinci Code triumphs in court
10. CBC: A black eye on the practice of law, from NB
11. CBC: Legal Aid issues in NL
12. Berkman Center conference: Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship
13. The Filter: Special In-depth

. . . [more]

Spring is...

The Robertson v. Thomson case, heard December 6, 2005, has been ordered for a re-hearing. See the Order from the Supreme Court of Canada (April 7, 2006).

This well-known copyright case regards a freelance writer whose articles were published in the newspaper and then subsequently reproduced in three electronic formats (online, CD-ROM, and electronic index), which she said were not covered by her copyright agreement. When this case first came out in the Ontario courts, I believe news publishers pulled articles by freelance writers from their online services until such time as an updated copyright agreement could be put . . . [more]

The entire judgment is available but most will be happy with Baigent and Leigh v Random House: summary of judgment

Neutral Citation Number: [2006] EWHC 719 (Ch)

Case No: HC04C03092

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Date: 07/04/2006

Before :

MR JUSTICE PETER SMITH

Between :

1. Michael Baigent
2. Richard Leigh
Claimants

and

The Random House Group Limited
Defendant

Mr Jonathan Rayner James QC and Mr Andrew Norris (instructed by Orchard Brayton Graham LLP) for the Claimants

Mr John Baldwin QC and Mr James Abrahams (instructed by Arnold . . . [more]

Quick News on the last day of classes here at Dal….

Students Draft Ontario Legislation. (Toronto Star) Is this the beginning of a trend? Think of the possibilities. Kurtz had something to say about that didn’t he?

Speaking of students. (Jurist) If you are going be age-ist, go all the way.

Harper willing to re-open Constitutional debate. (CBC) Whoo-hoo, life has been far too boring lately! You see the burning technological issue in my mind is that it remains very difficult to convey sarcasm via the web.

Da Vinci (Canoe) Does anyone else find the timing of all this rather . . . [more]

Two items of interest from Harvard's Berkman Center: “Bloggership: How Blogs Are Transforming Legal Scholarship,” a conference to be held April 28 in Cambridge.

The recent post in DigitalKoans features three open source, low-cost systems for publishing e-journals: Hyperjournal, Simon Fraser’s Open Journal System, and DPubS, soon to be released by Cornell. With a system such as these you can receive, review, edit and publish submissions in a format that is professionally respectable with little knowledge of IT.

It’s unlikely — though not impossible — that law firms would wish to publish journals (it may be a better format for some writings that firms put out than blogs or ordinary websites, however); but such a system might prove useful if bent . . . [more]

The British Institute of International and Comparative Law fosters a number of research initiative, of which the Digital Evidence Research Programme is one, with the broad aim of researching:

the practical and legal issues that accompany the inclusion of digital evidence into judicial proceedings. The IT industry provides products on a global scale, and IT has now become ubiquitous. Information technology affects us all, even though we may not appreciate how it affects our daily lives. It also affects human relationships, and in turn, documents created by IT systems are the subject of evidence in legal proceedings.

The IT industry

. . . [more]

Under the aegis of the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center, the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library:

houses…more than twenty-three thousand core human rights documents, including several hundred human rights treaties and other primary international human rights instruments. The site also provides access to more than four thousands links and a unique search device for multiple human rights sites. This comprehensive research tool is accessed by more than a 175,000 students, scholars, educators, and human rights advocates monthly from over 135 countries around the world. Documents are available in six languages – Arabic, English, French, Japanese, Russian,

. . . [more]