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

Find Your Lost Android Phone With Android Device Manager
Dan Pinnington

Most of us have lost a phone at some point, even if only temporarily at home (between the couch cushions or in another room). Always frustrating when that happens, especially if you are rushing out the door or have absolutely no clue where your phone is. Finally (as of just yesterday) Android users now have what iPhone (Find . . . [more]

My last post, about alternative fee arrangements, generated a lot (relatively) of comments from both private practice and in-house lawyers. It seems that there is a desire on Slaw to discuss the often hidden world of interactions between private practice lawyers and their in-house counterparts. Having recently made the switch myself, I’ve found that part of my job to be incredibly interesting and rewarding.

While I don’t plead cases anymore, I am still involved in complex legal issues, but am focused more on providing business-orientated advice – making sure that I enable my colleagues to accomplish their mission rather . . . [more]

In the September 2010 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, we asked our claims counsel about what they feel are the biggest malpractice hazards in each area of law based on the claims files they work on every day. Here is an excerpt from that article that discusses criminal law, which while not a large source of LAWPRO claims, still has its dangers. Click here to read the full article “Practice Pitfalls”.

Criminal law has not traditionally been a fertile source of malpractice claims, notes LAWPRO Claims Counsel Karen Granofsky, but “ineffective assistance of counsel” claims are a growing trend.

For example, . . . [more]

I am impressed with the sharing aspect of Canada’s legal community, and the generosity everyone shows in blogging. Every day we see great new examples of this with both thought leadership and informational blogs. On Friday members of the CALL-L listserv received a note from the CALL/ACBD Website Editorial Board chair Michel-Adrien Sheppard reminding us about the blog on the Canadian Association of Law Libraries/L’Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit website.

Even as a CALL/ACBD executive board member I didn’t quite realize how much blogging was going on inside the members’ area! Fortunately now members have the option of . . . [more]

You’re probably wondering what presents LexisNexis are doling out at this time of year.

Well being LN it’s the surprise that they usually roll out at yuletide for a percentage of their employees: the wonderful state of unemployment.

This time though they’ve decided to roll Christmas according to reports on Above The Law and The Dayton Daily News.

Here’s what Marc Osborn their spokesman told the Dayton Daily News this past week.

LexisNexis continuously reviews its needs, operations and other factors to identify what resources and services are necessary to optimally support our customers and improve business operations. As

. . . [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. SOQUIJ | Le Blogue   2. First Reference   3. Canadian Securities Law   4. Rule of Law    5. Lee Akazaki: SQP avocats | virtual mentor for lawyers

The Canadian Bar Association’s Access to Justice Committee has released a new summary report today, Reaching Equal Justice: An Invitation to Envision and Act. The report explains why fundamental change in the legal system is necessary, exploring issues like the growth of unrepresented litigants, the role of technology, and potential partnerships between private practices and public resources.

The report emphasizes greater public education over the law, and approaching law as an essential life skill given that over the next three years given that 45% of the Canadian population will encounter some problem with a legal component to it. One . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week's summaries concern: Constructive trust / Enforcement of arbitration clause:

It has been six years since I posted the article below and August 16th has come around the horn and landed on my Slaw posting day again. As described below Aug 16 is an auspicious day for a variety of reasons and because of that I felt that it was worthwhile to repost The King, the Babe and the Books, scheduled for reposting in 2019

August 16th is an auspicious day for any number of reasons, the death of the King and the death of Babe Ruth being just two. Whatever cosmic forces make August 16th such an auspicious . . . [more]

The issue of the degree of protection for the privacy for personal information of an employee stored on devices (usually information technology tools such as laptops, smart phones, etc.) of the employer has been considered by the Courts. The Supreme Court in R. v. Cole[i] addressed such a case. In R. v. McNeice[ii], the British Columbia Court of Appeals had the occasion to add their own thoughts in a similar case in which they applied the Cole principles. McNeice further illuminates the considerations in such cases.

It is noteworthy that the examination of the protection for the . . . [more]

Across Canada, this year has brought severe storms, floods, wildfires and other catastrophic weather. As people in Calgary, Toronto and other hard hit areas try to rebuild their lives, most of them expect that someone should help them pay for the damage. Oil-rich Alberta has promised $1 billion to support the first phase of recovery and reconstruction. (The actual cost is likely to be much more.) But most people, in most places, need to rely on insurance when disaster strikes. What will happen when they cannot get it?

For the last decade, property insurers have been leading business voices about . . . [more]

As people who work in law we’re used to squeezing every last drop of significance from a fact or a word, framing it this way or that way so that a particular facet glints. Even the presence, absence or location of a single comma can be a matter of moment (though the significance of the curls in “comma cases” is exaggerated by the disingenuously wondering press). So we know the importance of the small in ways that others might find hard to appreciate.

For example, in these times of political disaffection (are there ever other times?) you’ll hear people say . . . [more]