I recently had the pleasure of addressing the Edmonton Law Office Management Association, a chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators, on the topic law librarians and the services they provide to law firms. Law librarians most often serve lawyers in firms. I think it is pretty important that the business managers of law firms understand what law librarians do.

Here is a PDF of my presentation on Private Law Libraries. . . . [more]

The day is not far off when the providers of free legal information services will be able to match the services provided by Lexis, Westlaw and Wolters Kluwer.

There was a time when I would have said that this was not possible. My belief was based on the idea that the free services would always be playing catch up to a moving target, as the major legal publishers continued to enhance their products with high quality content and product innovation.

The scenario that makes the seemingly impossible possible is the “attack” on all things “Editorial” in the major legal publishing . . . [more]

Manitoba’s Law Reform Commission is currently seeking input into potential reforms to the environmental assessment process that takes place pursuant to the provisions of The Environment Act.  

A discussion paper, Manitoba’s Environmental Assessment and Licensing Regime, was issued late in January for comment. The paper sets out 18 key issues or propositions for consideration:

Issue 1: Should The Environment Act be amended to establish more direct links between the environmental assessment process and principles and guidelines of sustainability provided in The Sustainable Development Act? Are there particular developments for which sustainability principles are most relevant? How would this change

Commiserating on the demise of giant Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie in a Letter to the Editor to The Globe and Mail of February 7, 2014, retired lawyer Stephen Barker took issue with referring to the legal profession as the “law industry.” He adds that most “industries” have low standards of public service. 

This is not new news. The law industry, is in fact, an industry; every industry has its own peculiarities.

More importantly, every industry is subject to the laws of economics (laws of supply and demand, market cycles), competition (and competitiveness), and the 4-stage marketing cycle. The fourth . . . [more]

The purposes for which lawyers engage on social media include: boosting visibility, increasing engagement, marketing your services, providing valuable content to your audience, building connections with other lawyers and potential clients, gathering and sharing information about the law and practice. To be a successful social media user, you’ll need to provide content that is valuable, use the right headlines and ‘shareable’ words, include images, vary your post style, and undertake other activities to boost your engagement. But timing your posts properly is another important element of your overall social media strategy.

Ideally, you’ll want to schedule content to post . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Borowski v. Canada (Attorney general) [1989] 1 SCR 342
   

   SOPINKA J. — This appeal by leave of this Court is from the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, reflex, [1987] 4 W.W.R. 385, which affirmed the judgment at trial of Matheson J. of the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench, reflex, [1984] 1 W.W.R. 15, dismissing the action of the plaintiff (appellant in this Court). In

Two weeks ago, I suggested that Ontario’s courts will need to implement serious change if they intend to carry out the Supreme Court’s directive to facilitate access to justice through summary judgment.

Lawyers undoubtedly need to change too. Historically, there have been many amazing advocates like J.J. Robinette and G.A. Martin that all lawyers should strive to emulate. I wonder whether the next generation of amazing lawyers will be cut from the same cloth. It goes without saying that every effective lawyer obviously needs strong advocacy skills. But when “most Canadians cannot afford to sue when they are wronged . . . [more]

A group of law students has drafted an open letter to the Benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada calling for the repeal of the fee levied on licensee applicants in order to fund the LPP. According to a communication from Christopher Rudnicki, a third year student at Windsor Law:

As discussed in a previous post on Slaw, the Law Society of Upper Canada sent licensee candidates an invoice last week for $3,164 on top of the $1,695 already required to write the bar. The additional fee was levied to fund the LSUC’s new Law Practice Program, an

There has been quite a bit of controversy in the past few years about the use of experts in court, the appropriate role of experts in assisting judges, the subject matters upon which experts may testify and the ever-present problem of experts being hired by parties yet having to remain neutral in the search for the truth.

Recently, this issue has been debated outside legal circles. In the wake of high profile crimes such as that of Guy Turcotte who killed his two young children in 2009, the media has grabbed hold of these questions and asked how it is . . . [more]

Trilogies seem to be all the rage these days. Did a book a fraction of the length of The Lord of The Rings trilogy really need to be bisected into a bloated three-part epic about a band of short-statured heroes on a quest to slay a dragon? Probably not but it will be at least another year before we see the end of the newly expanded Hobbit theatrical release. So what to do with this, the fourth in my annual Crime & Punishment retrospective? A prologue seems out of place…does anyone really want to hear my predictions for criminal justice . . . [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

Use the TAB Key to Move From Field to Field in an Online Form
Dan Pinnington

If you buy something online, you will likely have to enter various details into a form of some sort (e.g., name, address, phone number, email, credit card TAB-keynumber, etc.). This can be a tad tedious if there are many fields on the form – you type a few characters, stop, reach for the . . . [more]

On January 23, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the case of Hryniak v. Mauldin, in which it signaled a fundamental shift in the way that summary judgment motions are to be handled in the Province of Ontario.

A scheduling decision, released last week by Justice Brown of the Commercial List in Toronto, provides the first insight as to how summary judgment motions may be changing on a practical level.

Justice Brown noted, correctly, that it is conceivable that parties may end up having to make up to three appearances in connection with motions . . . [more]