Last Thursday, the Edmonton Law Libraries Association welcomed Mark Diner, Chief Advisor, Open Government and Transparency, Service Alberta to give a presentation on Alberta’s Open Data initiative. Mark is best introduced with a blog post he wrote this summer about the, then new, Open Data Portal.

The Alberta Open Data initiative is supported by an Open Government Licence. Individuals are free to:

3.Copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, distribute or otherwise use the Information in any medium, mode or format for any lawful purpose.

The idea of having access to data that would otherwise be costly (or impossible) to . . . [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

To Avoid Corruption – Formatting a Memory Card Is Better Than Erasing Images on It
Dan Pinnington

With DSLRs, it has become very easy to fill your SD or memory card to capacity. Many of us have will have found ourselves deleting pictures when we run out of space. Doing this in the middle of a photo shoot is fine. However, if you are taking a bunch of pictures . . . [more]

I did not to go to Law via the Internet 2013 held on the Island of Jersey September 26 and 27, because the dates were not close enough to my planned trip to England in October to be able to do both. You can get a taste of what the conference was about from their web page and this statement:

It is 11 years since the Declaration on Free Access to Law was signed at Montreal and the Free Access to Law Movement (FALM) was founded. Since then the movement has grown to include organisations from more than 50 countries

. . . [more]

The deadline for program submissions for the Canadian Association of Law Libraries conference to be held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, May 25-28, 2014 has been extended to November 1st (this Friday). Submissions can be made by anyone; you do not have to be a member. If you have an idea but have been wondering if you should submit, now is your chance!

Details and links below.

2014 Annual CALL/ACBD Conference

CALL FOR PROGRAM SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE EXTENDED: November 1st, 2013

Submissions for the 2014 Annual CALL/ACBD Conference program are open! The conference is an exciting opportunity to explore and learn about emerging

. . . [more]

The real estate lawyer’s job is more than just conveying title, and not every matter will be straightforward. Communication errors and inadequate investigation are the biggest causes of real estate claims at LAWPRO, respectively 41 per cent and 26 per cent of claims reported between 2001 and 2011. Busy, high-volume practices often lead to situations where the lawyer is not taking the time to communicate with the clients properly.

Lawyers need to take the time to speak to clients to ensure they’ve gathered all the relevant information.

Here are five questions lawyers should be asking their clients or themselves on . . . [more]

A few months ago, my son-in-law showed me the simple-word explanation of a Saturn 5 rocket (the up-goer space car). It can be found at http://xkcd.com/1133/. More recently, there was a discussion on the ULC Listserv concerning Google’s terms of use, with an allegation that they are harder to understand than Beowulf. David Ma, who is one of my favourite IT lawyers, pointed to the Up-goer Five explanation and it got me thinking that it might be possible to use a limited number of words – namely the 1000 most common words in American English – to write a . . . [more]

In previous columns I have written about the fact that Canada’s approach to implementing its international human rights obligations is rather a shambles. I have written of the pressing need for action to address violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada. And I have highlighted the mystifying failure of the Canadian government to sign on to a UN torture prevention treaty that is more than a decade old.

Those all came together in a very significant way earlier this fall. Sadly the disappointment and shortcomings have only deepened.

2013 has brought Canada’s second turn through the UN Human Rights . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada's award-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from forty-one recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Rule of Law   2. Michael Geist   3. Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog   4. Slater Vecchio Connected    5. Off the Shelf

The Ontario Court of Appeal released a decision this month involving a dispute between physician residents and the University of Ottawa which again emphasizes the level of deference the courts are willing to offer educational institutions.

The plaintiffs in Aba-Alkhail v. University of Ottawa were physicians from Saudi Arabia who were completing their postgraduate medical residency at the University of Ottawa. All received some form of discipline or complaints which they attributed to discrimination based on their national origin. The university Senate dismissed the residents’ appeal of their dismissal from the medical program.

Complaints were brought before the human rights . . . [more]

International : La permission d'appel n'est pas accordée à des compagnies étrangères qui exercent leurs activités dans l'industrie du tabac et qui sont poursuivies en vertu de la Loi sur le recouvrement du coût des soins de santé et des dommages-intérêts liés au tabac au Québec, leur exception déclinatoire ayant été rejetée en première instance.

One Sunday each month OnPoint Legal Research provides Slaw with an extended summary of, and counsel’s commentary on, an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

DETLOR v. BRANTFORD (CITY), 2013 ONCA 560

1. CASE SUMMARY

Areas of Law: Municipal law; Aboriginal law; Constitutional and Charter law

~Bylaws containing specific reference to identifiable individuals in their preamble, and affecting Aboriginal people, will not be held to be invalid if they are of general application and do not touch on the “core of Indianness”~

Background: The Haudenosaunee people claimed unsurrendered rights to land in the . . . [more]

When lawyers say they can’t afford their own services, you might have an access to justice problem.

Regina lawyer Alex Shalashniy said during the CBA Legal Futures Initiative’s Twitter chat Tuesday night that he’s heard lawyers admitting they would be unable to pay their own fees if they needed a lawyer – something he calls a “telling illustration” of the access to justice problem in Canada.

A number of people participating in the third weekly Twitter chat, this one dealing with how legal services can be changed to increase access, pointed to cost as a barrier.

Corinne Boudreau, owner of . . . [more]