. . . which might have made an excellent Friday Fillip if I’d remembered in time. But here are a couple of things even so to brighten your Friday and bring the week full circle.

First up, a great series of columns on the elements of mathematics by Steven Strogatz from the pages of the New York Times back in 2010, making the bugbear quite cute and approachable. And one of those elements, of course, is Π, that mysterious fruit of circles. Strogatz explores an aspect of that in this column on infinity and calculus.

Then, if you’re intrigued, you . . . [more]

This topic was inspired by Lyonette Louis-Jacques’ post on Homebrewing Laws Worldwide. Shortly after reading her post, I found an article about a Wisconsin law in effect in the 1930’s that required restaurants to serve a small amount of butter and cheese at every meal. This law was probably meant to support dairy farmers recovering from the Great Depression and was only in effect for two years. Since I am a part-time Wisconsin Cheesehead, I set out to do some research on the law of cheese and cheese making. Prior research had confirmed that cheese and beer are . . . [more]

As lawyers, we are trained to be adversaries, but more and more we are also trained to work collaboratively. Litigation is expensive and time consuming. Alternative dispute resolution is almost always a preferred method of dealing with a dispute, and in that vein, we have all read the book “Getting to Yes” by Roger Fisher and William Ury. The book promises a:

proven strategy for coming to mutually acceptable agreements in every sort of conflict – whether it involves parents and children, neighbors, bosses and employees, customers or corporations, tenants or diplomats.

There is good reason this book is almost . . . [more]

I’ve used Wikipedia since its inception but only came across its portals the other day. Remember portals? They were like books — no, more like books of notes for books — in which the portaler structured a topic and linked out to webpages chosen to be relevant and interesting (“curated” we would have said last year). I suppose that they fell into disuse for a bunch of reasons, two of which would be Google and link rot: In a somewhat scary way, a Google search result is a kind of portal, especially when supplemented by a Knowledge Graph, itself . . . [more]

On the first day of class at University of Calgary Law School this week, one of the first things I wrote on the white board was one word: Why?

Of course, I got a number of eye-rolls from students.

But as the course has continued, “why” has become a common part of the class lexicon.

Can we “five why” this issue?

Why do law firms do what they do?

Why are they structured as they are?

Why did Heenan Blaikie disintegrate?

Why are partnerships difficult to govern?

Why can’t outsiders invest in law firms?

Why am I in law school? . . . [more]

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) has posted the list of keynote speakers and concurrent sessions at its upcoming annual conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Among the keynote speakers are:

• Mitch Kowalski, author of Avoiding Extinction: Reimagining Legal Services for the 21st Century on “From Law Librarian to Integrated KM Professional – The Future’s So Bright You’ve Got to Wear Shades!”
• Justice Murray Sinclair on “Mandate, methods and results of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission”
• Greg Lambert of 3 Geeks and a Law Blog fame

The conference takes place May25-28, 2014 under the theme of “The Confluence: Knowledge Meets Inspiration/Au . . . [more]

Quebec’s new Code of Civil Procedure received royal assent with amendments on February 21, 2014, and is expected to come into force by proclamation in fall 2015.

Increasingly law librarians are asked not just for help with legal research but also with business research. One of the most frequent requests is to find information on a company. There are some fantastic paid databases that you can use for this kind of research, but not all legal professionals have access to these resources. Fortunately, there are also a number of free online resources that can used to research Canadian companies.

Step 1: Determine what information are you looking for

The first thing to determine is why are you looking for company information? Are you looking for this information . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Data & Diversity in the Canadian Justice Community
Sabrina Lyon & Lorne Sossin
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2389410, Draft January 21, 2014

Part One: Diversity & the Judicial Appointment Process

Judges in Canada are no longer simply selected behind closed doors. While serious gaps in transparency remain with the appointment process both provincially and federally, all judicial . . . [more]

This week is the 25th anniversary of the creation of the Internet a.k.a. the World Wide Web. Yesterday Google shared a message from the Internet’s Web’s inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee. In March 1989 he shared a proposal for “a ‘web’ of notes with links between them” or a non-linear system using “hypertext” which I remember (as someone who used the precursors of the Internet) as a hot topic at the time.

Berners-Lee takes the opportunity to ask some important questions in urging us to keep the Internet open and free:

So today is a day to celebrate. But it’s also

. . . [more]

I came across a new research paper today via SSRN titled, “What Makes Lawyers Happy? Transcending the Anecdotes with Data from 6200 Lawyers“.

The legal profession has done a much better job of addressing (or at least discussing) the issue of lawyer well-being in recent years. And thank-goodness for that! We are all very aware of the unfavourable statistics regarding mental health, substance abuse, and the general unhappiness that can show on some faces. So the idea of quantifying these factors — both positive and negative — cited by practitioners seems like a practical piece of work. . . . [more]

The announcement comes in a communication from David A. Wright, Chair of the new Law Society Tribunal:

I am delighted to announce that with the formation of the Law Society Tribunal today by Bill 111, the Modernizing Regulation of the Legal Profession Act, 2013, we are launching our new website. The website is designed to provide lawyers, paralegals, the public and the media with easy and transparent access to information about the Tribunal. Many resources may be found here, including legislation, rules and forms, guides for self-represented licensees, notices to the profession and a “reach out” to stakeholders. I

. . . [more]