For the return of Tips Tuesday in the new year, we’re presenting the top tip from each of the three areas — technology, research, and practice — as chosen by the editors of those areas. “Top” might mean editor’s or readers’ favourite, one that’s considered most useful, or one that got the most attention or garnered the most tweets. But for more than a year’s worth of great, use-ready tips, simply go to SlawTips.

Technology – Dan Pinnington Editor – DAN’S PICK: 

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

I have given this tip . . . [more]

The urge to mark, to record, to make art, is a very powerful one in us human beings. We doodle fanciful images on napkins, we write notes to ourselves on bathroom mirrors, we tell the owners of dirty cars to “clean me” — and we draw on flesh. The mix of human tissue and art can lead to legal problems of a somewhat unusual nature. There’s the whole matter of permission, the base position being “no art on — or in — me, without my say-so”. Which some surgeons, it seems, have trouble respecting, like the gynaecologist who burned “ingrid” . . . [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.

Long gone are the days . . . [more]

Usually, each Monday we present you with excerpts from five randomly chosen Canadian law blogs that have been recognized in recent Clawbie award lists. This Monday we’ll do something a little different, because the list of 2013 Clawbie winners just came out and introduced over twenty Canadian law blogs that were not on our lists already. From these we’ve chosen, again by random (random.com), ten to introduce here. Because we’ve not had a chance yet to ask their permission to reproduce excerpts, we’ll resort to linking to a recent post and telling you a little about what you’ll . . . [more]

We need to change our primary focus. Too often, we focus inward on how the system operates from the point of view of those who work in it. ….. The focus must be on the people who need to use the system. … Litigants, and particularly self-represented litigants, are not, as they are too often seen, an inconvenience; they are why the system exists. … Until we involve those who use the system in the reform process, the system will not really work for those who use it.
National Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, . . . [more]

Back in 2012, at the end of the Stratford Festival’s season, the CBC arranged to have a mock appeal by Shylock of his conviction in Merchant of Venice, argued under current Canadian law and before an august court of lawyers and judges. Now the CBC’s Sunday Edition has released a 22 minute audio file of that hearing. Given Omar’s post today on the BCCA judgment about a fee arrangement, I thought this might be apt.

The five-person bench was stellar: Patricia Jackson, Justice Ian Binnie, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Earl Cherniak, and Mayo Moran.

As were the counsel: Sheila . . . [more]

The Court of Appeal for British Columbia released a scathing judgment in Mide-Wilson v. Hungerford Tomyn Lawrenson and Nichols on New Year’s eve, upholding a Supreme Court decision earlier in the year which had reduced legal fees in a contingency arrangement from nearly $17 million to $5 million, in the interest of maintaining the integrity of the legal profession. The decision has implications for the understanding and application of contingency fee arrangements, which should be reviewed for contingency lawyers when evaluating the monetary worth of work in progress on their files.

The matter dealt with the million dollar estate of . . . [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.

Long gone are the days . . . [more]

This is not an uncommon story, as one in three of us in Canada will be affected by cancer in some form or another in our lives. What is uncommon is that by and large we do not seem, as . . . [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.

Changing the default settings for . . . [more]

When my voice broke it sort of didn’t. I’d been hoping for one of those giant stomach-flipping plunges you’d get at the county fair’s Turbo Drop, where at the end I’d step out of the chrysalis as a basso profundo — or even (just) a plain old baritone. The universe has a peculiar sense of humour, of course, and so I emerged as a pretty decent first tenor, which meant I actually had to use this high singing voice — and make the first of a number of emendations in my definition of masculinity.^*

Voice. Hearing. Say what . . . [more]

During two weeks in mid-December the U. S. Government Printing Office (GPO) held a virtual meeting, “Expanding the Forecast Framework: Engage & Discuss,” which focused on ways to map the future of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). GPO has been distributing federal documents to a variety of libraries, including law libraries, since the program was established by the Depository Library Act of 1962. Currently there are over 1,200 libraries participating in the program. 

Over the years the FDLP has shifted from distributing only print publications to some microfiche and finally to digital formats. Now print distribution is limited to . . . [more]