What is the point of all that time-consuming and expensive study of and training in law, jurisprudence and rational thinking if, once into the real world, it is all thrown aside in favour of feelings and emotions, fairground fortune-telling, astrology, belief in the power of positive thinking and gambling like a sad addict?

It seems to me that people attempting to influence serious lawyers or sell to them should realise that the latter are sometimes cautious and risk-aware for the very good reason that they are supposed to rely primarily on evidence and logic before making judgments. While, obviously, the . . . [more]

On behalf of the BC Family Justice Innovation Lab, I’m lucky enough to be part of a team that is working with families and family-serving agencies and services in Kamloops BC to improve the family justice system. We call the initiative “Pathfinder” and it is a collective of people, organizations and government supported by Access to Justice BC. We are using a human-centred service design approach that tries to see the system from the perspective of the families who are transitioning through separation and divorce. I hope to share more about this fascinating initiative in a future post. . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. R v Vader, 2018 ABQB 1

[21] Applying that test to this case, leads to these conclusions. In this case, the evidence as found by the trial judge supported the inference that the Accused possessed both items as weapons. Again, on the evidence found by the trial judge, the possibility that the items were possessed for a non-violent use was not . . . [more]

Any legal tech company or firm that tries to systematize legal agreements have faced the challenge of finding that perfect agreement as the precedent for automation. That perfect agreement, be it shareholder agreement, employment agreements, or a master service agreement that all lawyers can agree on, that will be the perfect epitome of that agreement. Without such a thing, firms and legal technology companies alike are left with little hope of standardizing and automating a key legal task: the drafting of legal agreements.

There are many reasons law firms and legal tech companies would want to identify a model agreement: . . . [more]

Attend any conference on digital justice and you’ll hear about smart systems, expert systems and solution explorers, you’ll be told that eBay’s automated dispute resolution program resolves over 65 million cases each year. Access to justice, 24/7, in your pyjamas. Modern and efficient, it gives people what they want.

The future’s so bright, you better wear shades.

Then come the Q and A’s, and someone asks about individuals who don’t have computers, who aren’t computer literate, who won’t be able to effectively represent themselves no matter the amount of online information. “Of course” comes the standard response, “we will need . . . [more]

Over the winter break, I was able to catch up on many podcasts gathering cyberdust on my iPhone’s chips. With 2018 upon us, this may be a good time to review some of my favourite commuting companions and feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments below. In no particular order…

The Docket

Listening to Michael Spratt@mspratt and Emilie Taman @EmilieTaman chat about Canadian legal issues, their family and anything else that catches their attention is just like pulling up a chair into their family room. The tone is casual. The topics are timely and the banter . . . [more]

Several mass media pundits currently argue that change is accelerating and that technology is mostly responsible. Such change is affecting employees and persons about to enter the job market.

I feel that these changes are due in part to the “creative destruction” of the capitalistic system.

Do commercial firms become less efficient as they increase in size and grow older?

I submit that over time a firm is challenged by both growth and technological change. History shows that only a few firms are able to survive these challenges.

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune . . . [more]

Everywhere I go during the holidays I seem to be surrounded by Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google’s Assistant. While these computers don’t yet talk the way do, it did have me thinking about the expression rights that might be protected by the Charter.

In 1996, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in Daniel J. Bernstein et al., v. United States Department of State et al. that software source could be protected under the American First Amendment,

…the particular language one chooses change the nature of language for First Amendment purposes. This court can

No, not the author’s reputation. The subject’s.

In early December, the Americans celebrated legal blogging with the ABA Journal Web 100, and on December 31^st, Canada did likewise with the 2017 Clawbies. In between, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPCC) posted a summary of submissions received in its ongoing study into the privacy issues surrounding Online Reputation. Legal blogging wasn’t explicitly mentioned, but it’s hard to see how the subject can be avoided.

The original consultation document notes that “dating sites, sites that re-post court and tribunal decisions, and, overwhelmingly, the so-called . . . [more]

Winter has arrived here with cold (for us) temperatures and some icy snow. But there is good news coming from some U.S. government information sources. In October the Law Library of Congress, where I volunteer, announced a new chatbot service.

“We are excited to announce the release of a new chatbot that can connect you to primary sources of law, Law Library research guides and our foreign law reports. The chatbot has a clickable interface that will walk you through a basic reference interview. Just click “get started,” respond “yes” or “no” to its questions, and then click on the . . . [more]