I got new lenses in my glasses this week. They’re called progressive, and I’m therefore trying my best to look at this sign of aging as a positive step forward.

As a first-time wearer of progressive lenses, I received a few helpful tips at the fitting:

• Point with your nose – in other words, look with your whole face, not just your eyes or your view will be distorted
• Keep your head vertically aligned or you’ll lose focus.
• Avoid the sidelong glance – you’ll be looking outside the field of focus
• When you look down, lower your chin so you

I’m egregiously late on this, but on the “better late than never” theory” I’m finally reporting that the Farber Financial Group has produced a smart phone app for insolvency lawyers. RESOLVE comes in Android and iOS versions, and there’s a web-based version that should run well on a BlackBerry. In fact, if you want to check it out before you download, give the web-based version a try and you’ll see most of the features it offers.

The features are described on the Farber website as including:

• Searchable, portable Canadian, US and Global Bankruptcy Statutes and Regulations (e.g. Bankruptcy & Insolvency

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Canadian National Railway Co. v. McKercher LLP 2013 SCC 39
   

   [1] Can a law firm accept a retainer to act against a current client on a matter unrelated to the client’s existing files? More specifically, can a firm bring a lawsuit against a current client on behalf of another client? If not, what remedies are available to the client whose lawyer has brought

Although personally it seems relatively recent, it was as long ago as in the mid-1990s that I was first asked to write on legal and professional publishing, by way of a chapter in a book entitled Book Publishing in Britain, (J. Whitaker & Sons, 1995). Pondering both forward and back around 20 years each way, one has a sense of the scale in which so much has changed, while at the same time there are areas in which things have remained the same. I was amused recently to be told with pride by a seasoned business owner, that their . . . [more]

Many lawyers entered the profession because of a desire to do good, to help people, to support the rule of law. That’s their motivation.

Once in the workplace, though, their primary incentive is the need to make a living. That space between motive and incentive can create some cognitive dissonance for those lawyers who can’t take on the cases they’d like to tackle, particularly if it’s a question of the would-be client’s inability to pay; or the fear that the return would not justify the investment of the lawyer’s time.

Richard Susskind, in a paper prepared for the CBA’s Legal . . . [more]

A press release shared that William S. Hein & Co. and Fastcase announced a publishing partnership today. Hein will share federal and state case law to subscribers via links provided by Fastcase. Fastcase will integrate HeinOnline’s law review and historical legislation. The press release goes into greater detail about the linkages and even discusses how customers will see this material.

This is pretty exciting news. I am looking forward to hearing the reactions of AALL Members at the American Association of Law Libraries 106th Annual Meeting and Conference which kicks off this coming weekend. . . . [more]

Around for more than thirty years and often mistakenly* called “listservs,” email lists were for a long time the most productive way for groups of people to argue and exchange ideas on the internet. We’ve touched on them on Slaw a number of times, particularly in the writings of Lyonette Louis-Jacques, the “queen” of law lists, her most recent contribution on the subject being A Few Good (Email) Lists. 

As Lyo says in that piece, we might imagine that this tired old format is “pretty much dead.” But in fact, she came up with a dozen or so email . . . [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

Use Shift+F3 to Quickly Change Case of Text in Microsoft Word
Dan Pinnington

If you do a lot of writing or editing in Word, you will often find yourself wanting to change the case of selected portions of text – perhaps to upper case or to title case. You can do this manually of course, but there is a much faster way. First highlight the text you want to . . . [more]

If you’ve flown to Europe or Asia, you know that the flight path, viewed on a “normal” map, looks far longer than it should. The plane flies what appears to be thousands unnecessary kilometers on a route that curves up near the North Pole, rather than flying in a straight line.

Appearances are deceiving, as you probably have realized. The earth is not flat, and that so-called normal map, usually a Mercator projection, greatly distorts distances at higher latitudes. Trace a route from Toronto to Tokyo on such a map, and it appears to pass about 700 km south of . . . [more]

. . . is a game. You’re an alien who has crashed on Earth and must collect bits of things from a farm to repair your spaceship. It’s fairly sophisticated for the sort of animation you get on a Goodle. Try waking up the kid. I gave up too soon.

. . . [more]

The Ontario Bar Association’s Working Group on Lawyers and Real Estate has established a sub-committee to consider the work undertaken in the purchase of a condominium.

The Subcommittee is working on various documents to assist real estate lawyers and their purchasers in a resale condominium transaction and intend to consult with and obtain a broad range of comments and suggestions from Ontario lawyers.

They have released for review the first document, a Master Chart of items to be addressed. The Master Chart is meant to bring to purchasers’ mind the items of concern and whether or not their lawyer will . . . [more]

Are there rules in Canada about, or practical examples of, judges or tribunal adjudicators being ‘friends’ on Facebook or otherwise connected by social media with counsel or parties to a dispute before them? What should be done?

The American Bar Association has an ethics opinion that is summed up in this high-level principle:

A judge may participate in electronic social networking, but as with all social relationships and contacts, a judge must comply with relevant provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct and avoid any conduct that would undermine the judge’s independence, integrity, or impartiality, or create an appearance of