Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

OUTPERFORM THE COMPETITION: BUSINESS STRATEGIES FOR THE SOCIAL LAW FIRM
Guy Alvarez & Joe Lamport
Ark Group, 2014

Excerpt: Executive Summary

Executive summary

PERHAPS THE most important new trend to emerge in the business world over the last decade has been the concept of the “social business”. CEOs of large corporations have realized . . . [more]

The CBA’s Equal Justice Report
The Canadian Bar Association’s Access to Justice Committee issued its final report in December, entitled Equal Justice: Balancing the Scales (disclaimer – I am a member of the committee). The committee proposed 31 targets to achieve access to justice in Canada. The report can be found here: http://www.cba.org/CBA/equaljustice/main/.

What isn’t well known is that some of these access to justice targets involved Canadian law schools. They provide an opportunity for law faculties to modernize their curriculum while playing a significant role in the biggest legal issue of our generation.

Last fall at the University . . . [more]

The Atlantic reported this week on the outcome of a 1997 cargo ship spill. The story was picked up yesterday by CBC’s As It Happens (listen here). Here’s what happened as described in The Atlantic article:

It started in 1997. On February 13 of that year, a rogue wave hit the New York-bound cargo ship Tokio Express while it was only 20 miles off Land’s End, on Britain’s southwest coast. The ship stayed afloat; some of its cargo, however—62 shipping containers—were thrown overboard as the vessel pitched. One of these containers contained Legos. Tons of Legos—many of them,

One of the challenges for legal librarians is making sure that library users get the most out of the resources available to them. There is an incredible amount of legal information available, but if a researcher cannot find the information he or she needs, the information might as well not exist. Fortunately there are a number of tools out there to make the process easier. On a wider level, these tools include library catalogues and bibliographies, and on a narrower level these tools include tables of contents and indexes.

A good index can be worth its weight in gold, helping . . . [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. Dennis v. Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, 2014 ONSC 3882

[64] Where theft by an employee is suspected the outcome of criminal charges is not determinative for employment purposes. An act of theft by an employee may be provable on a civil standard that falls short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

[65] In the particular circumstances of this case, including . . . [more]

On May 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru sailed into Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet, carrying 376 passengers of Indian origin. However, the passengers on board the Japanese steamer were denied permission to enter Canada. Fears over Asian immigration at the time led the Canadian government to adopt a series of racist exclusionary policies against Chinese, Japanese and Indian migrants.

For two months, passengers of the Komagata Maru sought to defy the Continuous Journey Regulation, adopted solely to exclude them. While the passengers were not allowed to disembark the ship, supporters in Vancouver challenged the regulation on their behalf in court. Ultimately unsuccessful, . . . [more]

When a key partner in a large law firm moves to a competitor, do his or her institutional clients tend to leave too? The answer might depend on how much internal conflict there is at the firm left behind.

Michelle Rogan of INSEAD recently published ground-breaking research of the relationships between large, multi-unit advertising agencies and client firms. These relationships are very similar in structure to those between law firms and institutional clients, where services in several areas of professional expertise are provided through personal connections developed over time.

Most of us believe that the more ties between people at . . . [more]

Quoting from the notification:

Today, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory announced the sale of the Canadian Legal Products in Canada to LexisNexis, a part of the Reed Elsevier organization. This includes all English and French Legal products except Municipal Law and our Aliform product in Quebec. This in no way affects our Tax & Accounting Division nor any Tax publishing products, software, or Tax assets of any kind. Our Tax law products remain with Wolters Kluwer CCH in Canada.

Why was this divestiture made?

Wolters Kluwer continuously examines its global portfolio of products to ensure that corporate investments are aligned

Every once in a while a lawyer will ask a law librarian to find the source that establishes that a point of law is well established. Personally, I hate getting these questions. It is frequently time consuming and difficult to find a reputable, cite-able source for something everybody knows.

Sometimes the best method to answer these question is searching cases for the phrase “trite law” in proximity with keywords for an issue. There is a new website in development that does just that. Check out WellSettled.com. Thanks to Bob Ambrogi at his LawSites blog for sharing this service. . . . [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

Create an if Found Lockscreen Message on Your Portable Devices
Dan Pinnington

I know your smartphone and iPad already have their device access passwords enabled (meaning anyone picking up your device can’t access the information on it without punching in a password). And if they don’t – sit down right now and turn the access password on. Otherwise the information on the device is accessible to anyone that happens . . . [more]

The Ontario election is over and municipal elections are on the horizon. The Ontario election was a heated one and included the rare participation of police officers in the election campaign. Police officers have a “voice” outside of the institution of policing, since they are unionized. Adjudicators in the justice system do not have this external “voice”. (Although there are organizations of adjudicators, their main focus is continuing education and skills development). Adjudicators, like judges, are restricted from active participation in elections, even though they (like police officers) can have an interest in the outcome. Unlike judges, adjudicators (in Ontario) . . . [more]

There has been much debate about the federal government’s decision on June 17^th to give a green light to the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline project. And there is obviously much more ahead. This will certainly be a summer of discontent in the communities along the pipeline’s proposed route and elsewhere in British Columbia and across Canada; with plans for rallies, protests and blockades already coming together. There is much to come in the courts as well, with several legal challenges already underway and others soon to follow.

There is, to say the least, much fodder for both protests and . . . [more]