If the corporate veil distinguishes a corporation as a legal person separate from the shareholders in said corporation, what do you call it when an individual exists as an investment opportunity as an IPO like a company? The transfer of legal characteristics to corporations is multifaceted issue with positive and negatives that is subject to significant conjecture. In a bit of a flip of this action, a story from a few months ago caught my attention where the concept of transferring characteristics of a corporation to an individual was proposed.

In this particular case it involves a running back for . . . [more]

“Legal search algorithm” … now there’s a phrase to make your head spin. I’ve been thinking about legal search for years, but I confess that I hadn’t given the algorithm much thought until recently. Type it into Google, and you come up with an excellent post by Aaron Kirschenfeld in the Cornell LII blog: “Everything is Editorial: Why Algorithms are Hand-Made, Human, and Not Just for Search Anymore”.

For legal publishers, ensuring that our users can find what they are looking for is one of the biggest challenges we face. I’ve never encountered legal information that isn’t incredibly dense. We . . . [more]

In my previous article, I detailed a series of reasons why traditional, scheduled (e.g., weekly or fortnightly) status/progress reports provide low value to clients. Project managers, of course, already know that they’re a royal pain to produce.

Today, I’ll describe an effective status-report format that’s easy to produce, valuable to the project manager as well as the client, and useful to (most of) your clients. Clients might even read it. [1]

It’s called the 3×3 (“three-by-three”).

It consists of three headings, each with no more than three bullet points:

1. Progress This Period
2. To-Do Next Period
3. Action Needed/Alerts

For some . . . [more]

We are a dull lot, I fear. Look around this winter and see what people are wearing. Chances are good, in cities at least, that whatever the shape or style of coat, it’s a dark colour and likeliest of all to be black. What is that about? Winter all by itself leaches colour from the environment, and though a good greyscale can be lovely in the right hands, there’s no need for us to go along with winter’s plan of severity.

Wouldn’t it be more fun — dare I say, exciting — to walk down a winter street and feast . . . [more]

Devyani Khobragade’s counsel was refused an indictment extension today, with the result that the US issued the indictment alleging her visa fraud, something that both sides had been hoping to avoid by working out a settlement.

Ms Khobragade’s arrest and strip search by US marshals has caused outrage in India, and relations between the two countries are in danger of serious deterioration. She was arrested for having obtained a visa for an Indian servant by fraudulently promising to abide by US labour laws.

The Wall Street Journal has put the indictment online. It alleges a deliberate, calculated fraud, replete . . . [more]

Cybercrime dangers are many, complex and ever-changing. Hardly a day goes by without another news report of a data breach or other cyber-related scam or theft. Cyber criminals have considerable resources and expertise, and can cause significant damage to their targets. Cyber criminals specifically target law firms as law firms regularly have funds in their trust accounts and client data that is often very valuable. This article, from the December 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, reviews the specific cybercrime dangers law firms need to be concerned about, and how they can mitigate their risks.

Many of the technology devices . . . [more]

Part 1: The failure of the Law Reform Commission of Canada’s Evidence Code

For decades experts in the law of evidence have called for comprehensive legislative reform of the law of evidence in Canada, but it hasn’t happened. The great success of the U.S. Federal Rules of Evidence (the FRE), operative from July 1, 1975 (but from Dec. 1, 2011, known as the Restyled Federal Rules of Evidence), makes Canada’s failure to enact a true code of evidence a considerable loss to its administration of justice. Almost all U.S. states have adopted the FRE as their state codes of . . . [more]

On December 23, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered an important decision on copyright infringement in Cinar Corp. v. Robinson. The Court affirmed the trial judge’s finding that Cinar infringed Claude Robinson’s intellectual property and allowed a considerable increase in the monetary relief the Quebec Court of Appeal awarded Robinson.

Introduction

As people carry out a variety of activities using computers and other digital devices, and as they inhabit a number of ‘places’ online, they develop things of value that are expressed in digital form. These ‘things’ take many forms: bank accounts, non-bank payment accounts, gambling receipts, auction holdings, virtual life empires, the list expands over time. Some of these assets are in known computer systems with known proprietors, others are in the cloud – meaning in some computer system or systems somewhere in the world, controlled by somebody in a meshwork of contracts.

So long as the power stays . . . [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.

Chasing Reputation: The Argument for Differential Treatment of “Public Figures” in Canadian Defamation Law
Bob Tarantino
(2010) 48 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 595

Excerpt: pp. 597-8; 628-30

(Footnotes omitted; they are available in the original, via the hyperlink above.)

A welcome development in some recent decisions is a movement away from describing the . . . [more]

Two articles I noticed this morning emphasize that while social media can bring its own set of legal issues, sometimes its use can have the same consequences as any other form of publication.

The first is a CBC news report that a man has been charged with criminal harassment for his tweets. He was charged a couple of years ago for derogatory and threatening messages. The case is now at trial.

The second is a post at ipblog.ca about a decision regarding an employment non-competition clause. It was alleged that the defendant had contacted customers in violation of confidentiality obligations. . . . [more]

While it’s premature to call it a trend, Winnipeg-based law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP (TDS) has once again merged with a small local law firm based in Western Manitoba, and thereby expanded its reach to Manitoba’s western borders.

Brandon-based Roy Johnston LLP operated for some 30 years, most recently as a six-lawyer firm. Managing partner Paul Roy told the Winnipeg Free Press that the merger is a response to the changing needs of firm clients who are engaged in more complex legal transactions:

“When we started out, we were doing simple farm deals and house deals. The institutions and

. . . [more]