Baseball scouts dream of finding up-and-coming five-tools players. These rising stars hit for power, hit for average, speed around the bases, throw accurately, and field their positions well. Every position player in the major leagues has solid grades on at least a few of these tools, but only a handful have mastered all five.

Legal Project Management, as well, has five tools, each corresponding to one of the five areas you can manage:

• Manage the project, starting with the project charter.
• Manage the client, starting with the Conditions of Satisfaction.
• Manage time, starting with the Off Switch.
• Manage money, starting

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Here’s another post under the “social media law” umbrella—this time about what intelligible advice, if any, lawyers can bank on when it comes to directing their own clients to “clean up” social media accounts. It’s not the first time this has been canvassed here on Slaw, as John Gregory’s post from earlier this year attests, but since I recently prepared materials for a webinar on social media as evidence, and in the course of that started a trial run of X1 Social Discovery (which is what the Department of Justice, RCMP, and at least two major Canadian law firms are . . . [more]

At the heart of ancient Palestine is the region known as the Shephelah, a series of ridges and valleys connecting the Judaean Mountains to the east with the wide, flat expanse of the Mediterranean plain. It is an area of breathtaking beauty, home to vineyards and wheat fields and forests of sycamore and terebinth. It is also of great strategic importance.

This is how Malcolm Gladwell begins his new book, released last fall, David and Goliath.

The Shephelah, Gladwell notes, was where John Hyrcanus of the Maccabees fought the Seleucid Empire (he calls “Syria”), before forcibly converting the inhabitants . . . [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:
Conflict of Laws / Libel and Slander / Criminal Law / Evidence / Civil Rights

. . . [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.

RECOURS COLLECTIF : Le recours collectif des abonnés de Bell Canada et de Bell ExpressVu à qui l’on a facturé des frais obligatoires supplémentaires ou des tarifs supérieurs à ceux qui leur avaient été indiqués pour leurs services est autorisé.

Intitulé : Charland c. Bell Canada, 2014 QCCS 2667
Juridiction . . . [more]

It has always been a challenge in suing someone for defamation that the lawsuit may draw more attention to the defamation than it had previously obtained. A fortiori in cyberspace… This seems to have happened (again) recently in France, where a restaurant’s suit against a critic whose negative review featured high in Google’s search results about the restaurant has now replaced the review in the rankings… “In typical Internet style, Google searches for the restaurant now prominently feature articles about it suing [the author].“

The exercise of a right to be forgotten in Europe under the CJEU’s ruling on the . . . [more]

After more than a decade in one place, I’ve recently moved to a new neighbourhood — which means new eyes for what’s around me. And because it’s summer and near beaches, I’m seeing a lot of families with children, noticing, as I do every so often, how children move, how they get from point A to point B, eventually.

If there’s a low wall they walk on top of it. If the surface is relatively level, they skip. If it’s rainy, they wade straight through the middle of puddles. If there’s interesting stuff around them — and when is there . . . [more]

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Wal-Mart Canada Corp. violated Quebec’s labour laws when it shut a store in Jonquière almost a decade ago, just after its employees organized a union.

In 1978 China abandoned a planned economy that the government thought could facilitate productive forces and would guarantee fairness. Li Yining, a professor of economics at Peking University stated that China was wrong on both counts. See How China’s Leaders Think (2010), by Robert L. Kuhn, page 98.

Professor Li states “After several decades under the planned economy, the facts tell us that enterprises and people are not motivated – and without motivation, productive forces cannot develop. Under the planned economy, there is no competition, no equal opportunities, and no freedom to relocate. ….. After the Cultural Revolution, China’s economy . . . [more]

My blog posts have been fairly serious, dealing with issues we face as information professionals at a time of constant change, ranging from exciting digital futures to confronting publishers to saving endangered species (ie, books). However, even librarians and lawyers need to have some time out.

As I have spent a lot of time on planes this year, I thought I would go through some of the ‘must take’ podcasts I listen to on the long flight home. Listening live via the internet is marvellous, but sometimes when there is no wifi, this is just impractical – in the sky, . . . [more]

Have you ever used an app – whether on a phone, tablet, or desktop, and found them lacking?

Developers creating app versions of existing desktop software or online services face a dilemma. Apps are generally slimmed down versions of the original as they need to be used on touch interfaces, and the code needs to be smaller.

So app developers need to decide what features are important, how the app might be used differently in that context, and what can be left out. Even though desktop software is often bloated with features that are rarely used, deciding what to leave . . . [more]

We’ve all had experience with vexatious employees (not to mention vexatious colleagues) but we employment and labour lawyers often deal with vexatious litigants who happen to be former or current employees. I’ve personally had experience with employees filing similar claims for similar incidents before the Human Rights Tribunal, Superior Court, the Workers’ Compensation Board and the Employment Standards Office. These claims can often by filed for free or minimal charge to the employee but generate huge cost for employers. Additonally, employees (particularly those who are self-represented) often file multiple pointless motions with each of those forums.

Thankfully, as chronicled here . . . [more]