We were recently made aware of a September 2013 news release from the FBI, stating that a lawyer-targetting fraudster had pleaded guilty and received hefty fines and a prison sentence. Nice to see a victory in the struggle against online scams. The number of law enforcement agencies involved shows how international these scams are, and how much cooperation is required to bring the fraudsters to justice.

Here is the text of the release:

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a Nigerian national charged in connection with a multi-national scheme that bilked more than

. . . [more]

One of the ideas that surfaced in the lively discussions at the OBA’s Civil Litigation program which I co-chaired last week, was the importance of “face time” between counsel, as a means of improving communication, reducing hostility and keeping lawyers focused on the efficient and economical resolution of disputes.

The view was expressed that counsel sometimes adopt a tone in emails that they would not use in person. Someone has described this as “courage from a distance”.

At the break I was introduced to a California practitioner in the audience who informed me that the rules of procedure in that . . . [more]

It always makes me happy when I see law library folk reaching out to other communities to explain the work we do. Law library technicians and librarians work in a wide range of settings and take on a lot of different responsibilities depending on the setting and their roles. The library community in Ontario know that January is “SuperConference” month since the Ontario Library Association puts on its annual conference in Toronto at the end of January. Brenda Wong and Karen Sawatzy of Library Technician Dialog blog fame (among other great accomplishments!) made the trek from Saskatchewan and Manitoba to . . . [more]

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Legal Feeds   2. IP Osgoode   3. Canadian Appeals Monitor   4. Canadian Legal Research Blog    5. Official Clio Blog

The Supreme Court recently addressed the approach to assessment of copyright infringement in the case of Cinar Corporation v. Robinson, 2013 SCC 73 (CanLII) and thereby provided some important guidance to courts facing similar difficult determinations. 

As a basic principle the public domain provides the rich soil from which new works can be created. The Court reaffirmed that the role of copyright provides “a balance between promoting the public interest in the encouragement and dissemination of works of the arts and intellect and obtaining a just reward for the creator” and that copyright does not provide a monopoly over . . . [more]

 In 2011, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the former Liberal Member of Parliament for Etobicoke Centre, lost his seat to Conservative candidate Ted Opitz by a mere 26 votes. Convinced that procedural irregularities on Election Day had robbed him of victory, Wreznewskyj challenged the result in court.[1]

The case reached the Supreme Court of Canada.[2] Wrzesnewskyj lost.

“The right of every citizen to vote, guaranteed by [Section Three] of the Charter, lies at the heart of Canadian democracy,” wrote Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein and Mr. Justice Michael Moldaver, for a majority of the Court.[3] As a consequence, the . . . [more]

I suspect we will all be talking about Heenan Blaikie for a while, on Slaw and elsewhere.

Both Mitch and Gabriel have weighed in on this some more already, so I’d like to add here to my previous post on the subject and my brief interview with Drew Hasselback in the Legal Post.

Much of the commentary has tried to figure out what went “wrong.” Hasselback’s most recent article suggests that it was not strictly financial,

Just a month ago, things were looking good. Billings had hit a near-record $35-million for the month of December. And the full-year financial

. . . [more]

It seems to me that we’ve been in something of lull so far as IT development is concerned. Perhaps I’m just imagining it because I welcome the break from continual novelty and the learning it invites. However, I’ve recently made note of four developments of possible interest to Slaw readers, and I thought I’d pass them on now. None, I think, is begging to be incorporated into your firm’s canon of essential apps. Indeed, none is likely of direct application to your work. But it’s from such trial efforts that tomorrow’s killer app may emerge, and, more important perhaps, one . . . [more]

À la lumière du test de Wigmore, il y a lieu de reconnaître le privilège de confidentialité existant entre le chercheur et le participant à la recherche en ce qui a trait à une entrevue de l'accusé réalisée dans le cours d'un projet de recherche quelques années avant l'inculpation de ce dernier pour meurtre au premier degré.

This week's summaries concern: Warrantless search and seizure / Class actions and standing :

With the first seven top-level domains going live on January 29th, and more new TLD domains becoming available each week throughout 2014, trade-mark holders may wish to grab some protection through ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse.

For $150/year per Trade-mark, the Clearinghouse will warn potential domain squatters that they are attempting to register a domain against an existing trade-mark.

What’s unique about this service is that they will do this for all the incoming new TLD domains, and I assume, make these warnings available through all the domain registrar companies.

One of the questions I’m frequently asked is, “Should . . . [more]

Listening to Roy Heenan give his spin on the demise of his law firm, I couldn’t help but hear the strains of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend” in my head.

It will be some time before the full back story of this debacle will be known. But in my view, Heenan Blaikie died from a combination of greed, poor management and failed leadership wrapped together in an antiquated business structure ill-suited to “more for less” client demands in a marketplace gradually filling with non-traditional competitors.

As I have said repeatedly, the Canadian legal profession is now entering the . . . [more]