Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on research and writing, practice, and technology.

Research & Writing

Split Infinitives; Or, Star Trek, You Have a Lot to Answer For
Neil Guthrie

The infinitive of a verb is the form with ‘to’ in front of it. As in, to be or not to be. A split infinitive is a verb in this form, but with something stuck between to and the main bit: to not be, by way of example. …

Practice

10 . . . [more]

Social Media Camp is the national conference on social media that attracts international speakers and attendees. At this year’s event, virtually all presenters agreed that images and video are taking over the internet. What do they mean by this? Consider the following:

• YouTube is now the second largest search engine – just behind Google – and may soon surpass it. (Don’t feel badly for Google as they own YouTube).
• Google is now building four-story data centre buildings to house the servers required to support increased data space needed on the cloud for things like images and video. These guys plan

I was delighted to see the announcement that Catherine Best’s fantastic work at legalresearch.org will continue on under an excellent editorial board after her retirement. Catherine generously donated the site to CanLII and the site has been renamed The Canadian Legal Research and Writing Guide.

What a fabulous legacy.

The Best Guide is one of those resources that act as a starting point for fresh legal researchers, a reminder for the occasional researcher, and a review for the experienced. It is a frequently referred to resource in student training programs, including the Edmonton Law Libraries Association HeadStart program, which, . . . [more]

This post is by Nora Rock, corporate writer and policy analyst at LAWPRO

Pro bono work is something nearly every lawyer does occasionally. Here’s one practical tip for avoiding some pro bono pitfalls: open a file for every matter you handle.

By “open a file”, we mean treat the work like you would any other work. Run a conflicts check; diarize deadlines; document the client’s instructions, your advice and the steps you take; and docket your time (even if you won’t bill it).

Treating an “off-books” matter like any other case makes it less likely that you will skip steps, . . . [more]

Recently, the Virginia State Bar Council voted to adopt changes to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The changes were based on the American Bar Association’s modifications to the Comments of Rule 1.1 respecting Competence (“…a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with technology…”) and Rule 1.6 respecting Confidentiality (“(c) A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the unintended disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.”)

What’s reasonable? The Comments go on to list relevant factors:

1. the sensitivity of

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from seventy recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog  2. FamilyLLB 3. SOQUIJ  4. Canadian Class Actions Monitor  5. Law of Work

University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog
Obama JAMA

Nope that is not the title of a new hit single jingle, but rather an allusion to the fact that . . . [more]

Diversity matters. Not just for the optics of it, or because it’s the right thing to do.

Having diversity at the heads of our social institutions, especially our judiciary, actually helps them do a better job. Diverse experiences, as a Canadian and as a lawyer, provide unique insights that other judges simply do not have. If you dispute that notion, it’s better saved for another day.

Today we’re dealing with a government that has made a commitment to diversity in the judiciary. The problem is that those commitments already appear contradictory.

Although the lack of racial diversity in Canada . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

FAMILLE : Le père ne peut, dans son propre dossier de divorce avec la mère, exiger l’intervention de l’intimé, qui a été marié à cette dernière et qui aurait agi in loco parentis auprès de l’enfant adopté par les parties, pour diminuer ou annuler sa propre obligation alimentaire envers son . . . [more]

Last fall, Leader of the Bar and former Chief Justice of Quebec, Mtre Michel Robert, gave a lecture on the language of judgments. His remarks were reported in the February 2016 edition of the Journal du Barreau. Upset about the lack of visibility of Quebec case law outside this province, Mtre Robert claimed that the reputations of the Quebec Court of Appeal and Superior Court suffer disastrously because their judgments are not translated.

I think these remarks deserve a closer look, one that takes into account the joint effort of the Quebec judiciary and SOQUIJ to promote Quebec case . . . [more]

The Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. published a report a little while ago about Miranda Warning Equivalents in more than 100 countries around the world, including Canada.

In the United States, so-called Miranda rights are named after the US Supreme Court decision of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966) that determined that a person detained by law enforcement and interrogated must be made aware of the right to remain silent, the right to consult with an attorney and have the attorney present during questioning, and the right to have an attorney appointed if they can’t afford one. . . . [more]

The past few months have seen some inspiring firsts for access to justice in Ontario. Ryerson University’s Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) launched the Ontario Access to Justice Challenge with support from the Ministry of the Attorney General. The challenge brings an entrepreneurial approach to access to justice improvements by offering seed funding to six start-up companies that “are building products and solutions that challenge the status quo of legal services” in Ontario. It’s exciting to think about this new terrain of “start-up justice” and encouraging to see government take such a proactive role in its advancement.

Lakehead University’s Bora Laskin . . . [more]

It seems that dubbing major sporting events the “largest social media event ever” is even trendier than the social networking platforms themselves, and Rio 2016 is no exception. All hype aside, the Rio Olympics haven’t reinvented the wheel, and seem to impose similar restrictions as their predecessors.

The IOC describes appropriate uses and prohibitions in their Social and Digital Media Guidelines. All accredited individuals (athletes, coaches, and officials) who are not accredited as media are allowed to “share their experience at the Games through internet or any other type of social and digital media, provided that it . . . [more]