It’s awards season in the law library community. Associations are asking us to nominate our colleagues for excellence in writing, marketing, service, leadership, and law librarianship in general. We have occasion to reflect on who among us is deserving or has stepped up to the plate. And who we want to encourage to lead us. It’s caused me to ponder why being chosen, recognized, and praised on large and small scales is important to the health of the legal information profession. 

Mainly, it inspires us. We are professionals. We all strive to provide excellent service, but it’s nice when our . . . [more]

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Le Blogue du CRL   2. University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog   3. LeeAkazaki.com   4. Official Clio Blog    5. Library Boy

On March 6, 2014, several legal organizations are coming together to host a charity event, Flip Your Wig for Justice, to support of access to justice.

The seven organizations behind the event include:

• Association in the Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (AIDWYC)
• Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA)
• Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO)
• The Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC)
• Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN)
• Pro Bono Law Ontario (PBLO)
• Pro Bono Students Canada (PBSC)

Participants will raise funds by wearing a wacky wig or a judicial wig. I signed up today and I hope . . . [more]

Now that I’m a good many years distant from any actual connection to legal education, I feel free to divest myself of a curriculum, or at least an approach to a curriculum, that I’ve mulled over for a long time and that in my view would approach an ideal of sorts.

My notion doesn’t address directly the somewhat tiresome business of skills training vs. theory or doctrine (or whatever the “non-skill” side is now called). I have nothing against skills, which are fine things; I do have some concern, however, that the inculcation of skills that are seen as important . . . [more]

La Cour d’appel autorise sept recours collectifs de personnes qui ont acheté une garantie prolongée sur un bien en se fondant sur les représentations des intimées, à savoir que, si elles n’achetaient pas cette garantie supplémentaire et si un bris survenait après l’expiration de la garantie de un an du manufacturier, elles devraient supporter le coût des réparations ou du remplacement.

This week's summaries concern: Joint bank accounts / Right to vote:

As many of you know, the US National Institute on Standards and Technology (NIST) recently published its Framework on Critical Infrastructure Security. Here is one of many articles about it that gives a good summary.

Does Canada need something similar? If so, who would be the appropriate authority to issue it? Will the US framework spill over in any event to Canada, to set a civil standard of care for cybersecurity practices?

A number of American lawyers are advising that boards of directors of ‘critical infrastructure’ operations — a very broad class — have to be aware of these guidelines, . . . [more]

Check out Google’s new Map Gallery.

Sourced from various governments, nonprofits, and businesses, this newly launched service works as a jumping off point to locate historical and resource-based map collections. Once a map of interest is identified, the user can click in and see that map as an overlay, layered together with Google maps. See the examples below to get a better idea:

• 1814 published map of the Lewis and Clark expedition
• Ecological and cultural features and areas of northern Vancouver Island and the Central Coast (Living Oceans Society)
• 1995 Heart of the Rockies Map
• Bylaw Infractions – City

. . . [more]

What sort of skills would you like to see besides “traditional lawyer skills” included in new lawyer training? That was the first question asked in the CBA Futures Initiative’s afternoon Twitterchat Wednesday, hosted by Sarah Glassmeyer, Director of Content for CALI, the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, in Chicago, in a wide-ranging discussion on how, what, and where to train new lawyers.

One of the first responses came from Karen Dyck, a freelance lawyer in Winnipeg and member of the Legal Futures Initiative’s Steering Committee. “Essential is communications, i.e., listening, restating, clear writing and speech, avoiding miscommunications.

“Interesting that you . . . [more]

By the time you read this, it will have been long decided. But whether, as BuzzFeed claimed, the loser of the Canada-U.S. men’s semi-final Olympic hockey game “gets to keep Justin Bieber” could take some time to emerge. That’s fine by BuzzFeed, which will have moved on with nary a backwards glance, relentlessly retailing its highly popular olio of entertainment disguised as news and news disguised as entertainment.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned that BuzzFeed has a style guide. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked: a multi-author, multi-million-dollar publication is a serious matter, regardless . . . [more]

Justice reform is a hot topic in Canada these days. In particular, we have the benefit of the CBA’s Envisioning Equal Justice Summit and report and the final report of the National Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family matters. These follow a long series of reports federally and provincially that include many of the same recommendations for change including BC’s Civil Justice Reform Working group report and the CBA’s 1996 report. In fact, in 1919 Reginald H. Smith identified delay, court costs and fees and the expense of counsel as the three primary defects in the . . . [more]

A recent piece in University Affairs profiles Toronto lawyer Arshia Tabrizi and his academic community engagement start-up, Vidoyen. The name, the article explains, blends “video” and “doyen.” But I’m not sure how many Deans, if any, are on the roster: The site does, though, boast “academics, scholars, experts and thought leaders.”

The site features two-minute video mini-expositions falling in a range of categories. In a quick look through the categories, I don’t see any law professors or practitioners, other than Mr. Tabrizi himself. The slate of advisors includes Former Mayor David Miller and David Cohn, the Director of News . . . [more]