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 technology, research and practice.

Technology

Protect Your Data by Putting a Password on Your Screensaver*
Dan Pinnington

Activating a password-protected screensaver is a simple and very effective way to prevent an unauthorized person from rifling through the data on a computer or other device that’s been inadvertently left on or lost. All versions of Windows and Apple operating systems allow you to add a password to a screensaver….

Research

When You Can’t Find a . . . [more]

I once asked a senior woman lawyer how she was adjusting to working in a small boutique firm after spending most of her career at a large national law firm. She laughed and said the difference wasn’t the number of lawyers but the fact that her new firm had all female partners and mostly female associates. I asked her what difference that made. She summed it up in a way that I immediately understood. She said, “It’s like practicing with my girlfriends.”

Most women (at least those who value having women friends) will understand immediately what that means. Relationships, and . . . [more]

A recent decision  provides another reminder of why prudent homebuyers should always insist on a home inspection.

The buyers agreed to purchase the property without making the sale conditional on a home inspection. However, the contract did include the right for the buyers to have two more viewings prior to closing.

During one of those viewings the buyers brought a family member with them who had experience in the construction industry to function as a home inspector. During the visit the family member, based on what he saw and was told from the seller and her partner, wondered whether there . . . [more]

The Attorney General of Ontario today reintroduced the Protection of Public Participation Act, now Bill 52, which as Bill 83 in the last session of the Legislature completed second reading but died when the election was called. Here is the news release.

The bill – if passed – will provide a fast-track motion by which a court could decide if a case involving expression on a matter of public interest should continue. Cases (such as defamation actions) will be allowed to continue if there are grounds to believe that they have technical merit and if the harm caused . . . [more]

While the adversarial system has its strengths, few would argue that its impact is particularly positive in the lives of children after separation.

When I practiced a mix of civil and family litigation, a mentor of mine often said that “law is a substitute for warfare.” Bellicose terms like “A Litigators Arsenal” abound in the world of litigation, and comparison between legal and martial strategy and theory can get pretty deep (e.g. think Antonin Pribetic and his paper on strategic functionalism and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which preceded his award-winning blog, Trial Warrior). But . . . [more]

I was just reminding myself of this project and thought others might be interested. Digging into Linked Parliamentary Data was one of fourteen projects funded by the 2013 Digging into Data Challenge. This is a collaborative project including the University of Amsterdam, the History of Parliament Trust, the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, King’s College London, and the University of Toronto. . . . [more]

Justice David Brown delivered a paper on 21 November 2014 at the Carleton County Law Association Annual Meeting in which he sets out a 5 point action plan for moving the judicial system towards achieving its fundamental goal – the fair, timely and cost effective determination of civil cases on their merits.

You can read it here: 2014.Carleton.Cty.LA.final.Mt.Tremblant.nov

This is “Part 2” to the paper Justice Brown presented last June at the OBA end of term dinner on creating a sustainable civil justice system. (My post on it is here.)

It offers some concrete solutions to some of the . . . [more]

The holiday season is here, and that means most of us will be doing a lot of networking, whether formally or informally, at office holiday parties, bar association events, family functions and get-togethers with friends, neighbors and colleagues.

While attending these festivities, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the spirit of the holidays is really all about giving to others and being thankful for our blessings. Keeping these seasonal sentiments in mind can improve your networking.

Be a giver: Focus on others and how you can help them

Successful networkers know that the basis of solid relationship building . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty 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. Canadian Appeals Monitor 2. BC Injury Law And ICBC Claims Blog 3. FamilyLLB 4. DroitDu.net 5. Clio Blog

Canadian Appeals Monitor
What tangled webs we weave: The BCCA provides guidance on the tort of deceit and exclusion of liability clauses

The British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision in Roy . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Evidence – Practice – Actions – Contracts – Courts – Criminal Law

Tuck v. Supreme Holdings Ltd. et al. 2014 NLTD(G) 131
Evidence – Limitation of Actions – Practice
Summary: The plaintiff commenced an action against the defendants on February 28, 2012, to recover damages allegedly sustained in a motor vehicle collision that occurred . . . [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.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : L’accusé échoue à démontrer que la peine minimale de quatre ans prévue au Code criminel pour l’infraction de vol qualifié avec utilisation d’une arme à feu est cruelle et inusitée au sens de l’article 12 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés.

Intitulé : Caron . . . [more]

We may not all like Ezra Levant, but we do have a lot to thank him for. As a defendant, I cannot think of a single individual who has developed the jurisprudence of online defamation more than him.

The judgement against him in Vigna v. Levant, and the related costs decision, has for several years now been the best authority on which blog content may be defamatory, and what may not be. However, the modest damages award in this case, and others, have still made online defamation a challenging area for plaintiffs.

Not one to disappoint, Levant was . . . [more]