The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal recently found that when a Chinese Canadian employee was terminated from his employment, he was discriminated against on the ground of place of origin, and partly because of his lack of English proficiency.

The annual International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) conference was held in Nashville last month. (See Kate Simpson’s posting last year her take on last year’s conference in Las Vegas: http://www.tangledom.com/ilta-2013-in-fabulous-vegas/.) I find the ILTA conference to be very fulfilling. Not only are there a plethora of good, substantive sessions (50 or more every day, for four days), but the conference also provides an opportunity for me to have good, in-depth conversations with my counterparts in large US and Australian firms.

For those who are members of ILTA, audio recordings of five of the six knowledge management (KM) sessions have . . . [more]

Anyone who wants the latest and greatest tablet is in luck.

Google just announced the release of its new Android 5.0 Lollipop OS, and a new Nexus 9 tablet, Nexus 6 phone, and Nexus Player streaming media player. Lollipop will be available for existing Nexus 5, 7, and 10 devices “in the coming weeks.”

If you are an Apple fan, Apple is launching new iPads and other devices tomorrow.

I think I “need” a Nexus 9. My iPad 2 is getting a bit slow and tired, and it would be a better companion to my Nexus 5. . . . [more]

Manitoba Courts has just recently posted a number of videos to assist self-represented litigants (SRLs) and other justice system participants on its website. The videos released to date include:

• What to expect when attending court
• The Manitoba Provincial Court
• The Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench
• The Manitoba Court of Appeal
• What to expect at jury selection
• How to fill out a Petition or Petition for Divorce

Along with each video is posted a list of links to other relevant resources.

The site notes that the next phase in the video development will focus on videos that are more tutorial in . . . [more]

In September the third conference on the Cape Town Convention took place at the Law Faculty in Oxford. This treaty deals with international interests in mobile equipment, and was adopted in late 2001. There are three protocols, dealing with aircraft and aircraft engines; rail and space. The details of dates and entry into force can be located on the Unidroit site. The CTC is one of the most successful commercial treaties, having been ratified by 60 countries already.

My interest in the Convention comes about from the project that is associated with it – the Cape Town Convention Academic . . . [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. Law Society of Upper Canada v. Hamalengwa, 2014 ONLSTH 187

HAMALENGWA – Findings of Professional Misconduct – While representing a difficult client who was charged with first degree murder, the Lawyer was eligible to bill the Ministry of the Attorney General for fees and disbursements pursuant to a Fisher order – The Lawyer’s accounting, billing and docketing systems were deplorable and . . . [more]

It seems Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) version 4.0 could be more than it appears. If you thought it was just an innocuous little digital rights management tool for balancing intellectual property interests with your modest entitlement to enjoy downloaded ebooks from public libraries and vendors in rustic peace and seclusion, you might think again. Last week news started to spread that Adobe Digital Editions version 4.0—released about a month earlier in September— was actually an overactive and prolific snitch, reporting back to Adobe on a daily basis about every ebook title you downloaded, every ereader device you used, every page . . . [more]

The Legal Sourcery Blog reported recently that the three Saskatchewan Courts now have a practice directive in place that requires the use of the Citation Guide for the Courts of Saskatchewan.

The purpose of this Guide is to provide a standard set of citation rules for the courts of Saskatchewan. It covers all of the basic citation structures. For citation questions not covered by this Guide, the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (the McGill Guide) should be consulted. Where this Guide and other style guides differ, this Guide prevails.

A Notice to the Profession outlines some of the . . . [more]

I’m current reading (and loving) the book “What if?” by Randall Monroe of xkcd fame. The subtitle tells you what the book is about: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. As with xkcd itself, the beauty of the book is the depth of thought and extrapolation beyond the facile that goes in to answering such questions as “what would happen if everybody on earth jumped at the same time” or “what would happen if a baseball pitcher threw the ball at 9/10 the speed of light”? I’m inspired in this column to pose my own “what . . . [more]

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

Hootsuite Power User Tip: Create Templates for Regular Message
Dan Pinnington

Most of you will say that typing 140 characters isn’t a big deal. But typing the same thing over and over again can be taxing, even if it is only 140 characters. And why type things unnecessarily if you can avoid doing so? Hootsuite has a really neat feature that lets you save templates of tweets that you . . . [more]

Paul Lippe and Daniel Martin Katz offer “10 predictions about how IBM’s Watson will impact the legal profession.”

They note in part:

“Many imagine Watson might displace lawyers for legal reasoning. We believe that systems like Watson are very unlikely to displace the reasoning processes of lawyers. But it’s equally true Watson may illuminate how rare it is that lawyers have to solve “bespoke” reasoning problems, and how common it is to apply “proven” approaches in slightly different contexts. But Watson doesn’t have to displace legal reasoning to have an impact.”

Which made me think of . . . [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. Susan on the Soapbox  2. Employment & Human Rights Law in Canada 3. First Reference Talks  4. Canadian Securities Law  5. Clicklaw Blog

Susan on the Soapbox
194 ABCs and Why They Matter

The other day on the campaign trail I met a Bearded Dragon. He was curled up . . . [more]