Last week, as I was preparing for our joint Windsor Law and EPICentre conference “Disruptive Technology: AI and Its Impact on the Legal Profession and the Automotive Industry – What Path(s) for Regulation“, this article flew by:

Jackie Davalos, Dina Bass, and Bloomberg, “Chatbots Keep Going Rogue as Microsoft Probes AI – powered Copilot that’s giving users bizarre, disturbing, even harmful messages” (Fortune, February 28, 2024). The original Reddit post shows a variety of outputs that interested users received.

First of all, some of them did acknowledge that the whole thing could be a hoax. However, Microsoft’s response, . . . [more]

As a general principle, citations in scholarly works have two purposes: to prove that the point is supported by evidence, and to allow the reader to find the evidence that the author is citing to. The pain of citations comes from the requirement that these citations be made as brief as possible by painstakingly utilizing a series of standardized abbreviations. The requirement to abbreviate arises mainly from a historical limitation: the scarcity of paper and ink.

I hear from other scholars that readers increasingly choose to read scholarly works in electronic formats and it seems likely that this trend will . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Le juge de première instance a eu raison de conclure que l’accusé avait contrevenu à l’ordonnance prévue à l’article 161 (1) a) C.Cr.; c’est à bon droit que le juge a retenu que le parc dans lequel l’accusé avait été interpellé correspondait à un «parc public» et . . . [more]

Access to justice applies to everyone. However, most formal access to justice initiatives focus (rightly) on people who are especially vulnerable due to poverty or very low income. IAALS (the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System) has just launched a new, organized network of individuals and organizations across the U.S. and in Canada who are committed to improving A2J for the “middle-class”.

It is called the Above the Line Network (ATLN).

The idea is to create a collaborative community to share ideas, resources and learnings and work together on innovative ways to meet the needs of this . . . [more]

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Justice Henry S. Brown must have been on tenterhooks for a chance to condemn the Prime Minister (PM) and the Minister of Justice (“the Minister”) for their failure to fill what are far too many judicial vacancies. And then Yavar Hameed came along and gave him the opportunity. In Hameed v. Canada (Prime Minister) (“Hameed”), Brown J. issued declarations that he expected to address the problem.

Hameed, a human rights lawyer, had a case adjourned because, as the Ottawa Superior Court of Justice Trial Coordinator explained to him, “'[T]he court is experiencing a lack of judicial resources as . . . [more]

Good morning Colleagues!

La version française suit.

We are writing to you on behalf of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries AI Working Group (WG).

The WG is responsible for developing guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in legal technologies, including both commercial and non-commercial databases. The databases anticipated to be covered would be those that use legal information sources (statutes, regulations, cases, commentary, and other sources) as their primary data source.

At this time, we are soliciting feedback from the legal profession.

Your feedback is important to the process, and will be used to help frame our final . . . [more]

The winning strategy of being one of one drives value and growth.

Leading law firm. Full service. Client focused. These throw-way platitudes are hallmarks of those who are indistinguishable in the legal services market and, as a result, are doomed to compete.

Be distinct. Stop competing. Own your market.

These are the hallmarks of smart and sustainable business.

Be Distinct

Distinct means being different from something else of a similar type.

According to the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, “Canada’s 14 provincial and territorial law societies govern over 136,000 lawyers, Quebec’s 4,200 notaries and Ontario’s 10,600 independent paralegals…” . . . [more]

In my last blog post “The Robots (AI) Are Already in Control (Part One)” I reminded users about the headaches involved with system migrations. Our working lives are already controlled by technology. This was to set the stage for the next part of the conversation.

Before I go down that rabbit hole, let me say that I appreciate technology, but I am a late adopter. I’d rather let everyone else pour time and money into sorting out new technology issues, and then adopt after the kinks have been worked out. Automating my working life is a fun question that I’m . . . [more]

As a lawyer who wears many “hats” in my work, I like to relax by watching movies.

Recently I watched a movie called “Hector and the search for happiness”.

The title intrigued me.

As a lawyer, mediator, wellness coach, I am always looking for ways to be happier. In fact, I believe that this has been the human condition for generations, wherein people have been striving to find happiness. I hope that this piece will give you some time to ponder ways in which you can increase your happiness and decrease the stress that is omnipresent within the legal profession. . . . [more]

If you need to monitor changes to a website, one option is VisualPing. 

VisualPing allows you to monitor either visual changes or changes to the text; if you’re monitoring text, you can limit alerts to when specific keywords are added or deleted. You can also specify the degree of the changes (e.g. “tiny (1%)” or “gigantic (50%)” which, depending on the frequency of changes to the page, can be extremely helpful.

If the website you are monitoring requires specific actions to retrieve information (e.g. fill in a form or click on a button), VisualPing has the ability to do . . . [more]