The Law Society of British Columbia has published a warning to members concerning a species of malware known as CryptoLocker Ransomware. The malware, thought to originate in Eastern Europe or Russia, infects your machine in the usual way, e.g. when you open a dodgy email attachment or other file; but then it proceeds to encrypt most of the files on your computer, eventually denying you access. The malware operators then contact you with an offer to decrypt your files if you pay a certain amount of ransom—often demanded in untraceable Bitcoin. Payment can result in the release of your encrypted . . . [more]

As the courts in Canada continue to struggle with difficult issues relating to the enforcement of arbitration agreements and the enforcement of arbitral awards, it is worth looking at how courts in other common law jurisdictions see the relationship between the courts and arbitration.

The Hon James Allsop, Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia, gave a very thoughtful address at 2013 Clayton Utz University of Sydney International Arbitration Lecture (29 October 2013).

Like others, he sees serious problems with the trend in many countries toward “over-elaborate, over-lawyered, and slow and costly [arbitration] hearings. …[R]ecalcitrance and excessive demands for . . . [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

All the Accounts You Should Enable Two-Factor Authentication on Right Now
Dan Pinnington

I have given this tip before, but it is worth giving again (thanks to the nudge in this LifeHacker post): Two-factor authentication is one of the best things you . . .

Research

Attend Vendor Delivered Training
Shaunna Mireau

The people who know most about what features a product has are the people who made it. . . . [more]

This article by Nora Rock, corporate writer & policy anylist at LAWPRO, appeared in the December 2013 edition of the LAWPRO Magazine. All Magazine articles can be found at www.lawpro.ca/magazinearchives

Our readers should now be well aware that problems with lawyer-client communication are the number one cause of malpractice claims. Managing communication takes patience and effort: at one extreme of the spectrum, responding to calls and messages from clients who want constant contact can be frustrating; while at the other end, trying to get absentee clients to update instructions or produce necessary documents can be time-consuming. How can you get . . . [more]

Much of what I heard from self-represented litigants in my 2011-12 study – and continue to hear in the mail we receive daily at the National Self-Represented Litigants Project – centred on what type of assistance they really wanted and felt that they needed.

How SRLs want help

SRLs want help – that is loud and clear. On-line resources get them part of the way – sometimes. But they want face-to-face help too.

Almost all of them say that they want lawyers. But they cannot afford to use a lawyer for every step of their case.

They want help to . . . [more]

The Commons on the photo sharing site Flickr has brought together institutions from around the world to share their images (photographs, illustrations and the like) that are either in the public domain or available for open use.

I was surprised to notice last week that a Law Society of Upper Canada Archives is part of The Commons.

According to an undatec LSUC press release:

The Law Society Archives is pleased to announce that it has been admitted to The Commons on Flickr, a grouping of institutions from around the world that contain archival photograph collections which are available on

. . . [more]

The Court of Appeal has unanimously ruled that a private school’s decision to expel a student is not subject to judicial review.

In September, 2012, the Divisional Court quashed Appleby College’s decision to expel a student on his last day of high school for smoking pot in his residence. A quick refresher on the facts of the case can be found in a post I wrote last November.

In a nutshell, Mr. Setia was caught smoking pot in his residence at Appleby College (a prestigious Ontario private high school) on the day before his final exam of high school. . . . [more]

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Canadian Legal History Blog   2. ABlawg.ca   3. BC Injury Law Blog   4. Rule of Law    5. Le Blogue du CRL

The CBA Legal Futures Initiative has sparked a lot of great discussion and writing over the past few months about innovation. Monica Goyal has bound up a lot of the must-reads on this topic in one simple post on Slaw as a precursor to a Tuesday Twitter Chat organised to discuss innovation in the legal sector. A summary of that CBA Futures chat is worth reading here if you missed it.

What struck me reading this summary is that if we want innovation in our industry, we need to actively support and foster innovation as other industries do.

Mitch Kowalski, . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled this week that Rafferty should receive publicly funded legal aid in preparation of his appeal as part of a s. 684 application.

Public anger towards Michael Rafferty is perhaps understandable. As I commented last year, Rafferty was referred to as a “monster” even by the judge presiding over his sentencing for his horrific murder of Tori Stafford.

The parties agreed that Rafferty did not have means to retain counsel, and had limited ability to do so himself as he has a grade 9 education, is imprisoned in segregation, and does not have . . . [more]

This week's summaries concern: Search & seizure of computers and cell phones / Suing government agency created by treaty:

Pénal: Une ordonnance de non-publication rendue en vertu de l'article 517 C.Cr. n'empêche pas la publication de l'information obtenue d'une autre source; en l'espèce, la publication et la diffusion de la dénonciation caviardée ainsi que du rapport d'exécution de la perquisition ayant eu lieu chez les intimés, sauf quant aux éléments expressément prohibés, sont permises.