Stepping outside legal subject matter for a moment, did you know that top reviewers on Amazon are publicly listed? Amazon values this group’s contributions enough to maintain a Hall of Fame, and cultivates further engagement through its Vine program, where members are given a box of free samples (once or twice a month) in exchange for delivering a couple online reviews.

NPR has an interesting post about the amount of free samples that simply show up “out of the blue” for Amazon’s top reviewers. This despite the fact that “Vine reviews have fewer stars, on average” within . . . [more]

The announcement yesterday of the newly minted LeClairRyan Legal Solutions Center should provide another shockwave to an American legal profession that is already in distress.

National law firm of LeClairRyan (22 offices and 350 attorneys) and LPO UnitedLex (1,100 attorneys engineers and consultants), will now collaborate to provide “a wide range of support services and incorporate best-in-class technology and quality control processes which will be uniquely integrated into the law firm’s litigation and transactional practice areas….[allowing clients to obtain]….more comprehensive, value-based services at a lower and more predictable cost.

“The LeClairRyan Legal Solutions Center is an important part of . . . [more]

The business case for diversity is a strong one, says Omar Ha-Redeye, but paradoxically it rarely encourages change.

The issue of diversity – or the lack of it – extends across most spheres but studies have shown the legal profession to be a particularly noted offender; Dr. Arin Reeves, speaking at the 2013 CBA Legal Conference in Saskatoon this summer said this is the case no matter the country.

Diversity was the topic of the fifth weekly CBA Futures Initiative Twitterchat Tuesday night. Moderator Ha-Redeye encouraged participants to discuss the reasons for the lack of diversity in the profession, and . . . [more]

One to watch — but not spy on, perhaps: the Dark Mail Alliance is aiming to develop the software to enable email that has end-to-end encryption in order to frustrate government efforts to read your post. At the moment the alliance with the name that only Darth Vader could love comprises Silent Circle and Lavabit, though the invitation to join them is extended to any others who share their mission to develop and:

 . . . to open source the protocol and architecture and help others implement this new technology to address privacy concerns against surveillance and back door threats

. . . [more]

Instead of calling a fall election, the Parti Québécois government has decided, among other things, to devote resources to fighting the federal government over a court challenge to An Act respecting the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Quebec people and the Quebec State (commonly called Bill 99), the provincial law that outlines Quebec's rules for secession from Canada.

I preface this comment by saying that I know nothing about the evidence in the Law Society of Upper Canada’s prosecution of Torys LLP lawyers Darren Sukonick and Elizabeth DeMerchant, other than what is disclosed in the reasons for judgment of the Hearing Panel dated October 17, 2013 [Ed. note: http://canlii.ca/t/g10k2 & http://canlii.ca/t/g10k5]. I have not seen the documents relied on by the Law Society, nor did I attend any part of the hearing.

As has been widely reported, the Hearing Panel dismissed all six of the charges against Mr. Sukonick and Ms. DeMerchant for conflict of interest stemming . . . [more]

In my last Slaw post I explored how lawyers can assist their clients through effective mediation advocacy and by providing mediation coaching. In this post, I would like to explore another combination of legal services and mediation that has enormous potential to create affordable and accessible dispute resolution opportunities for clients.

Unbundling (or limited scope representation as it is commonly referred to in the U.S.) is becoming more recognized and highlighted as a key tool to increase access to justice, particularly for those who do not qualify for legal aid services but cannot afford full representation (the CBA, NAC . . . [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.

Justice for Profit: A Comparative Analysis of Australian, Canadian and U.S. Third Party Litigation Funding
Jasminka Kalajdzic, Peter Kenneth Cashman and Alana M. Longmoore
American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2013

III. Canada . . .
C. Ethical Concerns

As a result of Strathy J.’s decision in Dugal [2011 . . . [more]

I recently heard a respected lawyer comment that if the legal profession allows disputes to be resolved outside of traditional legal systems, then we cannot ensure that proper attention will be paid to basic legal principles of fairness, justice and the rule of law.

That got me wondering, do lawyers have a monopoly not only on legal practice, but also on fairness, justice and rule of law? Are we the sole keepers of these ideals, delivered to us by governments who wisely recognized that only those called to the profession of law could meet the responsibility of ensuring adherence? (And . . . [more]

David Canton in his post today praised the IT.CAN conference. I, too, attended, and I agree: it’s the one to catch for IT/IP folks. Among the many things that caught my ear was a small reference to sound marks — that is, trade marks for the ear rather than the eye.

These are new to me, and relatively new to Canadian jurisprudence, though when I thought about it for a moment I realized that they were a perfectly sensible addition to the IP roster. (For some support for that conclusion, see a 2010 post on IP Osgoode — and . . . [more]

I attended the Canadian IT Law Association annual conference last week. It is IMHO consistently the best continuing ed program for IT law.

Some general conference observations:

1. Pay attention to speakers even if they are covering topics you are familiar with. No matter how well you know the topic, something new / useful will come up.
2. Conference materials in the cloud are the way to go. Much more convenient than on physical media.
3. Hotel / conference centre AV equipment won’t always display your presentation the same as on your work computer, especially if it includes animation or video. It’s a

. . . [more]

The phenomenon of organized pseudo-legal commercial arguments (OPCA) being used to advance claims not recognized by law has received a great deal of attention in the past year. From last year’s judgment of Associate Chief Justice Rooke in Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, to the recent occupation of a Calgary apartment by a Freeman-of-the-land who claimed it as an “embassy”, OPCA litigants have disrupted the functioning of legal system while attracting public attention and interest. In this column I argue that the defining indicia of OPCA are also present in the activities of some lawyers; specifically, in lawyers . . . [more]