A post on the Strategic Librarians LinkedIn Group led me to the Cooperative Intelligence blog where Ellen Naylor (CEO of The Business Intelligence Source, Inc.) posted about templates for win loss analysis.

As more and more legal work filters to law firms through procurement groups, RFPs, and RFIs, I wonder about the use of sales methods in law firms. As a librarian, I worked with legal information suppliers selling information to my organization. I also sold the services of the library department to my internal clients. In my new role of process improvement, I will likely use techniques . . . [more]

Next week, the CBA will release Futures: Transforming the Delivery of Legal Services in Canada, our report on the future of legal practice in Canada. Over the past two years we have heard from the legal community in Canada –and abroad – and the clients we serve. Futures: Transforming the Delivery of Legal Services in Canada sets out our vision for how we might educate and regulate the profession differently. Our objective: to ensure that Canadians benefit from a vibrant and relevant legal profession. Our recommendation: innovation.

The report calls for some significant change. We hope that the CBA . . . [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

Use Proper Dimensions to Make Photos Posted on Social Media Profile Pages Look Better
Dan Pinnington

Photos are a major part of the profile pages on all the major social media sites. There are profile photos (usually your picture) and header or cover photos (the big photo that usually appears across the top of your profile or homepage). As these photos play a big part in making a good . . . [more]

What’s a lawyer good for?

This isn’t a new question: the role and value of the legal profession has long been a subject of discussion. It does seem, however, that this question is now being raised with increasing frequency in a variety of forums. As technology continues to advance, important questions continue to be raised about what tasks still require the input of specially trained (and often expensive) legal professionals. Growing concern with access to justice has inspired similar types of questions. As Malcolm Mercer has argued in his recent Slaw column: “If we cannot find ways to effectively . . . [more]

This month’s Canadian Lawyer has its annual Top 25 Most Influential in the justice system and legal profession ranking, and I’m delighted to announce that three members of the Slaw community, Malcolm Mercer, Colin Lachance and Adam Dodek have been honoured. Congratulations. Here’s what the magazine says:

Adam Dodek
Vice dean, University of Ottawa
Faculty of Law, Ottawa

Dodek is emerging as a Canadian champion for legal professionalism and legal ethics. He writes and speaks widely on the subject and has been very involved in issues surrounding professional regulation and legal education. Dodek has published several legal books, with his

The legal profession has many noble archetypes: dedicated advocates pro bono publico, champions of significant (not always popular) causes, and unswerving guardians of the court whose instincts shine bright as a sword against much larger opponents.

John-Paul Boyd broke the mould he was casted in quite early on. He’s not so much a noble archetype as a force of unnatural origins who continues to drop jaws with his superhuman ability to drop knowledge.

To say he is one of a kind, is not enough. The best I can do is describe him like this: 

Hawaiian creation myth relates that

The Linked Data Platform (LPD) is a thing now. It was recently given “Candidate Recommendation” status by the W3C. That means that it has moved up from a “Working Draft” (mentioned in an earlier post) and the developers are satisfied that the standard does what is meant to do.

And what it is meant to do is this:

Provide a set of best practices and a simple approach for a read-write Linked Data architecture, based on HTTP access to web resources that describe their state using the RDF data model.

The LPD is described in . . . [more]

There are plenty of good reasons for choosing sole practice, or for transitioning into sole practice after practising with a firm. You may have chosen to practise in a small community; you may have opened a sole practice because you couldn’t find the right fit with a firm in your chosen area of practice; or you may be a person with a naturally independent work style and a desire to be your own boss. Whatever a lawyer’s reasons, sole practice is a choice that can be profitable and personally rewarding.

Practising solo, however, presents special challenges. From a risk management . . . [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. All About Information 2. Combat Sports Law 3. Precedent 4. Michael Geist 5. Employment & Human Rights Law in Canada

All About Information

BC court strikes privacy breach claim as being within OIPC’s exclusive jurisdiction

On July 14th, the Supreme Court of British Columbia dismissed a privacy breach claim . . . [more]

 A special political-activities audit of charities by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has been under scrutiny recently. The special CRA probe, backed by $13 million and created in 2012, looks at whether charities are following laws which limit their political involvement. But critics claim not all charities are being treated equally, and the majority of the 60 charities under investigation have had a tumultuous relationship with the federal government.

The Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (NFP Act) came into effect on Oct. 17, 2011, however, corporations incorporated under Part II of the Canada Corporations Act (“CCA”) continue to be governed . . . [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.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS : Un homme de race noire s’étant vu refuser l’accès à une boîte de nuit reçoit une indemnité de 5 000 $ pour les dommages moraux subis ainsi que 1 000 $ à titre de dommages exemplaires.

Intitulé : Commission des droits de la personne et des . . . [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:
Labour Law / Civil Rights / Criminal Law / Constitutional Law / Indians, Inuit and Métis