A great video recently made the rounds in which a Canadian doctor handily defended the Canadian health care system when it was criticized by a partisan U.S. senator. While some in the U.S. may look northward to the Canadian health care system for inspiration, it is exactly the opposite when it comes to comparing the U.S. court system with Ontario’s.

In the U.S., court documents are easily accessible by PACER. PACER means “Public Access to Court Electronic Records”, giving access to over 500 million U.S. federal court documents, including a listing of parties involved in the litigation, . . . [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

Be a YouTube Power User With These Keyboard Shortcuts
Dan Pinnington

Most people wouldn’t think of using keyboard shortcuts as they watch videos on YouTube. However, there are actually several really helpful YouTube keyboard shortcuts that everyone should know and use. . . .

Research

Watch the Law Library Blog
Shaunna Mireau

The Law Society of Saskatchewan has a new blog. “Legal Sourcery helps you navigate through the jumble . . . [more]

The buzzword bingo I played during LegalTech NY and ReInvent Law was won by the word “change”. It was an amazing firehose-of-information week, and getting off the plane I was committed to picking up Kotter’s Leading Change book (again), plus I ordered Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations book. But the February blues of a Toronto winter got the best of me and I ended up reading Switch instead. (It was an easier and happier read as it turned out.)

I came away from New York with the (rather obvious) thought that: change will be slower if solutions don’t make things easier, . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a Superior Court Judge’s decision to set aside a default judgment obtained by the plaintiff and allow the defendant the opportunity to enter a defence.

The plaintiff provided various crop services to the defendant for a number of years. The defendant would routinely pay the plaintiff’s invoices late. This was not necessarily problematic since the plaintiff trusted the defendant and its invoices were usually paid, albeit late.

As the defendant got older, his son took a more active involvement in the defendant’s operations. While the plaintiff trusted the defendant, it did not trust . . . [more]

The following is a guest post by Lynne Yryku, Managing Editor, CCCA Magazine:

Under the general theme of women in law, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin opened the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association’s National Conference in Calgary this morning. Her colleague and friend, former Supreme Court of Canada Justice John Major had praised her ability to maintain harmony and collegiality in the Supreme Court of Canada as way of introduction, and her open and frank style of discussing such a hot topic lived up to expectation.

The Chief Justice began by reviewing the great progress Canada had made over the past . . . [more]

The Conservative government in Ottawa introduced the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights last week.

Canada is not the only country where such legislation is topical, and interestingly conservative politicians are not the only ones promoting it.

The Victims’ Task Force, founded by the UK Labour Party, will be meeting victims groups and justice representatives in London today. The Labour Party has committed to a “radical change in approach”. If a law is passed it will be the first in Britain’s legal history.

On both sides of the Atlantic and on both ends of the political spectrum, the same conclusion . . . [more]

The newest offering from CanLII, CanLII Connects launched on Friday. The site is meant as a place to gather case commentary on Canadian court decisions. From the site:

CanLII Connects was created to make it faster and easier for legal professionals and the public to access high-quality legal commentary on Canadian court decisions.

We bring together lawyers, scholars and others with professional competency in legal analysis to share their insights and form collective opinions.*

The site is being launched with 27,000 pieces of content and is expected to grow significantly. To submit content, add comments, or vote up commentary . . . [more]

Microsoft will no longer be supporting Windows XP SP3 (Service Pack 3) and Office 2003 (SP3) as of April 8, 2014. After this date, there will be no new security updates, non-security hotfixes, support or online technical content updates from Microsoft for these products. Your computer will still operate, but if you continue to use Windows XP or Office 2003, you will become more vulnerable to security risks and malware infections. Undoubtedly, cyber criminals will target computers that are still using these programs.

For this reason, you should immediately start planning to migrate to more current versions of Windows and . . . [more]

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Susan On The Soapbox   2. First Reference   3. Official Clio Blog   4. À bon droit    5. Employment & Human Rights Law in Canada

2014 started off with a bang in the legal marketing world when Georgia lawyer Jamie Casino ran a two-minute local television ad during this year’s Superbowl that includes (and I’m hardly scratching the surface here) biblical references, allegations of a cover-up by the area’s chief of police in the death of Casino’s brother, and a sunglass-clad Casino wielding a flaming sledgehammer to smash his brother’s tombstone while a pounding heavy metal soundtrack plays in the background, all of which apparently provides the backstory for Casino’s decision to move from criminal defense to personal injury law as his preferred area of . . . [more]

We usually hear about the attempted use of social media by the opposite side to discredit a party. But what about the use of social media to bolster a defence in anticipation of litigation?

Andrew Jarvis, a Pennsylvania architect, was concerned the Department of Revenue would audit him and ask him to pay additional taxes once he opened up an office in New York, where he spent a considerable amount of time.

The State changed the domicile requirements in 2012. They conduct residency audits because residents are subject to tax on worldwide income, whereas non-residents are only taxed for the . . . [more]

This week's summaries concern: Public utilities & rates / Expert evidence: