The Canadian Legal Information Institute, CanLII, has just announced that it will be introducing an API (application programming interface) in mid-March. This will allow developers and others to obtain direct access to the CanLII database in order to use the resulting data within their applications or web pages.

This is very good news indeed — and a very smart move by CanLII. If you’re in the “business” of giving data away, as CanLII is, you want to make the transfer as easy and enticing as possible. As the announcement says:

We hope law schools, legal information and legal aid resources,

♫ Cause I feel like I’m in love with a technology…♫

Music, lyrics and recorded by Jessie J.

The BC Ministry of Justice has released its White Paper on Justice Reform, part Two.

The Report is broad and far-reaching. It is also innovative. It is aimed at providing a transparent, timely and balanced system. For example:

“The justice system must be transformed to that of a service culture, where citizen’s needs and outcomes are the focus, and investments in justice service align with best practices.”

There are five key themes of the report. These are:

1. Timely and

The Supreme Court today issued a unanimous decision in Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott, found here.

A series of human rights complaints were filed against William Whatcott under the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code for various flyers that he had been distributing in the community, expressing his dismay at the presence of “sodomites,” “filth and propaganda,” and “buggery” at local schools. Mr. Whatcott sought to challenge the constitutionality of the human rights complaints, arguing that they were incompatible with his Charter right to freedom of expression. A right that Mr. Whatcott believes in so fervently, by the way, that . . . [more]

The tragic loss of Aaron Swartz on January 11, 2013 has given rise to a thoughtful swell across the blogosphere and news media on information rights as well as crime and punishment. His life has been rightly celebrated for his contributions to a more open and free exchange of knowledge, just as the federal prosecutors have been excoriated for the mishandling of the alleged charges against Aaron of illegally downloading over four million scholarly and previously published articles from JSTOR. In the aftermath of this tragedy, what comes to mind, for me, at least, is how the law contributes to . . . [more]

The wireless industry has a trade show this time each year in Barcelona. Cellphone manufacturers announce their newest tech at the show. 

Phablets are a big trend. Several are included in this CNET slideshow of phones that were introduced. Phablets are smartphones with screens between 5 and 7 inches that are half way between a phone and tablet. So think of them as either smartphones with huge screens – or small tablets that can make phone calls.

Many people ridicule phablets by saying that you would look stupid holding it up to your ear to make a phone call. But . . . [more]

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 the week of February 19 – 26:

1. R. v. McKay 2013 ABPC 13
   

   [1] The accused is charged under s. 253(1)(a) and 253(1)(b) of the Criminal Code. The accused has a filed a Notice pursuant to the Charter s. 24(2), to exclude evidence obtained arising from alleged breaches of the accused’ rights pursuant to s. 7, 8 and 10 of the Charter. In particular, the accused

Proposed amendments to The Public Schools Act in Manitoba are causing concern among many supporters of Manitoba’s funded independent schools. Bill 18, The Public Schools Amendment Act (Safe and Inclusive Schools) formally defines bullying activities and requires school staff or supervisors to report incidents of bullying, including cyber-bullying to the school principal. The amendments also mandate school boards to put in place “respect for human diversity” policies.

The Bill was introduced by the majority government as part of its Anti-Bullying Action Plan and received First Reading on December 4, 2012. Modeled after Ontario’s 2012 amendments to the Education Act, . . . [more]

Over the past year, Google has made a number of significant changes to its delivery of search engine rankings. In light of those changes, law firms that employ various aggressive search marketing tactics need to reconsider them. In this column, I want to highlight some of the major web-spam filters that Google has created and offer some important (and ethical) lessons for maintaining a strong search engine presence.

Let’s start by discussing a couple of those changes.

Penguin and Panda

Major alterations to Google’s ranking methods tend to be given nicknames, kind of like hurricanes — but for some businesses, . . . [more]

… sometimes.

For some lawyers, anyway.

EG’s clients lost completely. They didn’t have much on their side apart from EG. Assuming (for argument’s sake) the cab rank rule applies in Canada, a strict application says that EG was obliged to take the gamblers’ case provided they met his fee.

I wonder, though, what else it means that it wasn’t BG on the appeal.

“Frank”ly speaking, that is.

Moreira v. Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, 2013 ONCA 121. You can read about it in the papers. The short summary is: Gamblers lose; house wins. Again. Go figure.

  . . . [more]

The US government is sensitive about matters of national security. One of the expressions of this sensitivity is its unwillingness to have certain kinds of work performed by citizens of countries that the US considers likely to be hostile – e.g . Iran, Cuba, Yemen. etc. Thus it is forbidden by US law for companies doing certain kinds of work for some agencies of the US government to hire nationals of those countries for that work.

Canadian law prohibits discrimination in employment on the ground of national origin, among other things. This is governed by human rights codes and employment . . . [more]

The methods for producing the results of research have been on the top of my to-do list. Perhaps my knowledge management hat is shading my outlook. I believe that an efficient, sustainable and reusable work product is a very important aspect of legal research.

My staff and I create memos to document our research output – not memos analyzing legal issues as that is a lawyer task, memos that contain a report of what information we find, how we found it, and often permanent links to that information. One problem that has evaded solution is the ability to link to . . . [more]

Yahoo has decided that as of June of this year, workers who had been previously telecommuting will have to report to the office for work, as discussed on many news sites. The type of collaboration, communication and creative energy that can only be achieved face-to-face seems to be a driving factor.

It is no surprise that employees directly affected by this new policy are unhappy. In fact, employees are not the only ones reacting to this; the internet is buzzing with criticism over this decision.

Telecommuting is considered one of the more flexible ways employers deal with an increasing . . . [more]