When work gets busy, many of us put certain non-mission-critical tasks on hold. But it’s important to remember that “on hold” should not be allowed to turn into “lost in the mists of time”. Lawyers must develop the discipline of regularly returning to and addressing the non-urgent details of their practice when opportunities present themselves.

You will know best what needs addressing in the course of your spring cleaning, but if you need some inspiration, here are our suggestions:

• Bill your files, and send reporting letters for matters that you’ve completed.
• Identify languishing files, and take the next step in

. . . [more]

As reported by Robert Richards on the Legal Informatics Research Network, Roland Vogl and Michael Genesereth have released their spring 2014 lectures for the Legal Informatics course at Stanford Law School. The course intends to provide an “overview of how technology is used in today’s legal practice and how it will be changing the landscape of the legal profession and the law more broadly in the foreseeable future.”

The course is organized into three modules with eight video lectures ranging from an hour and a half to two hours in length:

1. Legal Document Management (including electronic legal research,

. . . [more]

Lower courts in both Canada and the US have been deeply divided on the application of their respective Supreme Courts’ precedents on whether the police need a warrant to search the contents of a smart/cell phone seized during a lawful arrest. On June 25, 2014, the US Supreme Court unanimously settled US law in Riley v. California, No. 13-132. The court found that privacy interests at stake outweigh any legitimate governmental interest, absent any “exigent circumstances”.

The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution provides protection against unreasonable search. A common law exception to the protection under the Amendment . . . [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. Precedent 2. Canadian Securities Law 3. Western Canada Business Litigation Blog 4. SOQUIJ 5. ABlawg.ca

Precedent
Reinvent your style in 4 steps

Well, readers, the countdown is on: in one month, I’ll be back at at work, trading play dates and toys for contracts and coffee (oh, wait — . . . [more]

Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) is funding 10 hours for the negotiation and creation of separation agreements as of July 3, 2014. The move is intended to reduce the number of unrepresented parties in family law, as well as promote non-adversarial dispute resolution.

The advantage of this initiative is that it provides avenues to resolve family disputes without resorting to litigation, which is often the only way that many eligible for legal aid can receive funds. The downside may be that 10 hours may not be nearly enough to cover all the areas of assistance covered by the funding:

• obtaining and

. . . [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: Afin de leur permettre de préparer adéquatement leur défense, des accusés obtiennent un allégement de leurs conditions de détention.

Intitulé : Béland c. Girard, 2014 QCCS 2822
Juridiction : Cour supérieure (C.S.), Québec, 200-01-182166-144
Décision de : Juge Louis Dionne
Date : 24 mars 2014

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — . . . [more]

Here’s a pair for your ears.

I enjoy injecting sound into the stream of fillips from time to time, because sound has no intrinsic meaning — unlike the words we wield every day — and despite or because of that it can be beautiful and intriguing.

Today you get to compose, or at least to set free a small program that will run its musical course and either fall into repetition or modulate into endless variation, rather like the Game of Life I pointed to a great many years back and that demonstrates how complexity can emerge from a very . . . [more]

Either limit the regulatory monopoly or provide for the efficient and effective delivery of legal services for all legal problems

Access to justice and legal services is a central challenge both for society and for the legal profession. The extent to which members of the public are unserved, under-served or inefficiently served is a difficult issue for lawyers being both a challenge to existing practice and an opportunity for innovation.

As suggested in earlier columns, it seems to me that this access question raises central ethical questions. If there are some legal services which are not provided by lawyers[i] . . . [more]

Legal researchers too often overlook law reform commission reports as sources of vital information and analysis.

Law commissions consult widely with stakeholders, sometimes compare how other jurisdictions have dealt with the same problem and they frequently dig into the history of an issue.

Here are a few reports released in the past few weeks.

• British Columbia Law Institute Report Proposes Franchise Act : The report recommends that British Columbia become the 6th Canadian province to adopt franchise legislation. The report analyzes franchise legislation in force in Canada, the U.S., and elsewhere, and contains a detailed legislative proposal with commentary. Alberta,

. . . [more]

On July 1, 2014, in a final judgment that cannot be appealed, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of S.A.S v. France (application no. 43835/11), validated French Law no. 2010-1192, which prohibits concealment of one’s face in all places open to the public in France and found that the law does not violate the applicant’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

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.

Editors note: This week’s thinkpiece was timed up to publish concurrently with Judy Gaskell’s review of the same book. Slaw wishes to thank Carole Levitt and Judy Davis for extending such a significant excerpt, along with Judy Gaskell for her review.

INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH ON A BUDGET

by Carole A. Levitt and . . . [more]

This month I chose to write a brief book review of an extremely useful new book – Internet Legal Research on a Budget: Free and Low-cost Resources for Lawyers by Carole A Levitt and Judy K. Davis (2014, 321 pages, $89.95USD). Published by the Law Practice Division of the American Bar Association, the main focus of the book is on United States law. However several of the chapters, such as that on Foreign, International and Comparative Law, could be relevant for any legal practice. I am reviewing the print edition of the work and cite to it, but an ebook . . . [more]