Montreal is currently playing host to the Canadian Association of Law Libraries’ 2013 conference, completing our celebrations of the 50th anniversary year of CALL/ACBD. Information and research professionals from across the country are connecting, sharing and learning in an intense 3 1/2 days.

Awards were handed out during today’s luncheon and–among other deserving winners–we applauded the University of British Columbia Press. They have won the prestigious Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing for their Canadian Yearbook of International Law–itself marking a milestone with the 50th annual volume about to be published.

Michel-Adrien Sheppard has . . . [more]

We at LAWPRO have occasionally cautioned lawyers who specialize in one area of law about the dangers of dabbling in another, unfamiliar area. As a refreshing twist on that general advice, we’re reminding lawyers that while dabbling can be dangerous, KNOWING the law in another area is never a bad idea. When it comes to the intersection between wills and family law, it is essential that wills and estates practitioners maintain a basic working familiarity with family law issues so that certain drafting pitfalls can be avoided.

From a family law perspective, the greatest potential risk for a will-drafting lawyer . . . [more]

Globalization. Technology. Economy. Unbundling. Alternative billing. Offshoring.

A CBA-commissioned survey of the state of the research into the future of the legal profession suggests that while these words come up again and again in the thousands of pages of text devoted to the subject, that is where it ends. While there is a near-consensus on the forces driving change, and how law firms might adapt to the new normal this change will bring, there are few recipes showing how best to implement the ideas, and fewer cases still of them actually being implemented.

The American Bar Association held its first . . . [more]

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Gandhi’s words could be women lawyers’ “call to arms.”

Over the past few months, the conversations regarding the challenges that working women face have been loud… but maybe not so clear. Articles like… Atlantic Magazine’s, “Can Women Have It All?“ and The Wall Street Journal’s, “The Tyranny of the Queen Bee”, seemed like the opening act for the launch of Sheryl Sandberg’s well-publicized book, “Lean In“.

Unfortunately, the message is often lost on those complaining and whining—and even Sandberg’s encouragement is . . . [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. Environmental Law and Litigation 2. Entertainment & Media Law Signal 3. University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog 4. Human Rights in the Workplace 5. Kelly Santini LLP’s Employment Law Blog for the Suddenly Unemployed

Environmental Law and Litigation
Kawartha Lakes appeal heard by Court of Appeal

The City . . . [more]

The practical skills gained through legal education help young lawyers service the public more effectively. However, the burden of legal tuition may prevent lawyers from entering these areas of practice until they’re already in mid-career, if at all.

Many undergraduate students evaluate their options after graduation, and consider doing graduate work or professional education like law school. At this point most students are already burdened with debt but are still interested in increasing their employability in the long-term.

New studies by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) explore the opportunities for graduate students in the province:

Doctoral enrolments

. . . [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:
Trade Regulation / Implied terms:

. . . [more]

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, I put around two thousand lawyers through a hands-on computer course on how they could use a PC themselves. For a few years, one lawyer returned annually. Turns out that his motivation was to re-assure himself that his colleagues were still luddites when it came to IT, and that he had nothing to fear with respect to their catching up to him.

I suspect that he had a good 3 decades start on most. However, one would have to say that now tech is finally being accepted as playing an important role in . . . [more]

I’m sure I’ve confessed here before to being what others might call a “prescriptivist” where English usage is concerned. (I’m actually all for freedom of choice; it’s just that I would prefer it to be an informed choice.) But I have a healthy respect for the power of practice to normalize things, including the way we speak. Like Canute, the eleventh century king of Denmark, England, Norway, Sweden, etc., I might as well try to hold back the tide as to buck the way things get said.

And King Canute, or Cnut, is a good way to broach what I’m . . . [more]

The April 2013 issue of Connected is available online.

The bulletin covers the impact of new social media such as Twitter and Facebook on court proceedings, the ethical implications of judges and court staff using new media, and court policy issues relating to these technologies. Most of the stories are about the United States.

In this issue:

• Oregon juror jailed for texting during trial
• AOCs [administrative offices of the courts] and high courts using social media: an update
• Courts on Yelp
• Michigan launches latest video in Court Stories series

The bulletin is published by the Virginia-based National Center for State . . . [more]

The Canadian Bar Association is running through its CBA Legal Futures Initiative which ostensibly looks at allowing outside investment into law firms, the so-called, Alternative Business Structure (ABS). This initiative should be of interest to all lawyers, but most particularly to younger lawyers, as it may determine the course of their careers – perhaps for the worst.

Younger lawyers should take note of the behaviour of the CBA and various law societies in the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s around Multi-Disciplinary Practices (because of backward-thinking individuals in the CBA and in provincial law societies, MDPs have been regulated into . . . [more]

Since 2009, and most recently last December at the United Nations Sixty-seventh General Assembly Plenary, various countries—particularly Iran and North Korea—have raised various challenges to Canada's human rights record. However, on April 30, 2013, it was reported that members of the United Nations Human Rights Council have formally challenged Canada's human rights record, with 83 countries making recommendations for enhanced rights protections. This challenge refutes Canada's status as a human rights leader and indicates that Canada must take immediate action on socio-economic disparities.