It’s safe to say that most Slaw readers are familiar with the concept of Stare Decisis in the common law tradition. From the Latin, “to stand by things decided”, the concept of a legal system in which lower courts are bound by the determination of higher courts concerning questions of law leaves little room for the lower courts of a single jurisdiction to influence appreciation of the law across the country.

As Master in Chambers Funduk famously observed in a 1989 ruling:

[51] Any legal system which has a judicial appeals process inherently creates a pecking order . . . [more]

A good lawyer, with knowledge of how and when to use the right tools, has a competitive advantage. Those tools might be varied, and are not limited to IT.

Jordan Furlong’s article “The Law of the Pencil – Innovation and Client Service in the New Millennium”, mentions the urban myth of NASA spending millions on a “space pen”, while the Soviets used a pencil. Law firms (and others) have also been known to blow millions on IT that could have been spent more wisely.

The humble pencil might be far superior to alternatives in certain circumstances, ie to . . . [more]

Okay, this one’s a little odd.

It consists, essentially, of two links to YouTube videos. Together these offer you a seven-hour train ride from Bergen to Oslo, as seen from a camera installed on the front of the locomotive. That’s it.

Only in Norway, you say. Well, you may be right. That country’s been in the blogs recently as the source of some pretty peculiar film and television. The one that’s caught commentators‘ (caustic) imaginations the most is the 12-hour TV show of logs burning to ash in a fireplace.

This train ride is somewhat more lively, I assure . . . [more]

On February 11, 2013, an adjudicator of the Alberta Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner decided that Alberta's Legal Aid Society is subject to the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), with consequences for all non-profit organizations that conduct activities with a commercial character.

David and I both touched on Google Glass in April of last year, the company’s new project to push computing technology into our eyewear. A new video, released yesterday, offers some additional insight into what it might be like to wear such a product. [embedded below]

These video clips are obviously targeting the capture of lifestyle moments, but with respect to lawyers, I’ve been wondering if there could be any value in the courtroom? In particular, whether enhanced “team communication” could be had when larger teams are involved. We sometimes see the second chair role using laptops, exchanging email, . . . [more]

In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress in Washington, has an interesting post on Canonical Rules on the Resignation of a Pontiff, and the Election of a New Pontiff (part 1 of 2 posted yesterday).

It is written by by Dante Figueroa, Senior Legal Information Analyst at the Law Library of Congress:

Since the last papal resignation was nearly 600 years ago, this month’s announcement took the world by surprise and resulted in many questions. I will address several of the most important juridical questions arising from Pope Benedict’s resignation, for which there are responses

. . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

PUTTING THE WAR IN CYBERWAR: METAPHOR, ANALOGY, AND CYBERSECURITY DISCOURSE IN THE UNITED STATES
Sean Lawson
First Monday, Volume 17, Number 7 – 2 July 2012

[
Footnotes omitted; they are available in the original via the hyperlink above. This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. ]

. . . . [more]

As a first post on legal ethics, it seems appropriate to ask “what exactly are we talking about”. The answer isn’t as simple as one might think given the number of different perspectives involved.

Courts set (or reflect) legal ethics in cases involving lawyers. Law Societies set legal ethics in codes of conduct and in discipline cases. Legal scholars posit appropriate legal ethics, either as a matter of formal legal reasoning or from varying philosophical perspectives. Practising lawyers develop their own sense of legal ethics in part from these other sources and in part from their participation in the legal . . . [more]

First off, we understand that our position on this subject might not be popular with our colleagues in the legal profession, some of whom might have more faith in the institutions we work within. But today we feel the need to voice it nonetheless.

Events of the past few weeks have once again raised the question of the value of anonymous reports regarding experiences of police violence. Last week Human Rights Watch (HRW) released an 89-page report that documents the failures of, and abuse by, the RCMP in Northern British Columbia as recounted by 50 aboriginal women and girls they . . . [more]

Fans of interpretation — especially constitutional construction — will enjoy the extended analysis in “The Recess Appointments Clause (Part 1)” by Neal Goldfarb on his blog LAWnLinguistics (Not about the linguistics of lawns). Much in the D.C. Circuit appellate decision in Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board hinges on the “the” found in the Recess Appointments clause in Article Two of the US Constitution:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

. . . [more]

I was involved recently in a demo of a product that a vendor was trying to sell to our firm. I won’t identify the product or vendor, because this is not about the product itself. The vendor did two things that did more harm than good.

The first problem was the vendor’s approach. They were quite proud of the product, and launched directly into its advanced and cutting edge features. But they ignored the basics. So anyone observing the demo who was skeptical of the product in the first place, or not comfortable with change, or felt the cutting edge . . . [more]

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” ― Frederick Douglass

February is I Love to Read month in Manitoba and this week, a number of Manitoba lawyers are practicing reading aloud while collecting pledges and gathering books to donate as part of Lawyers for Literacy.

The 3^rd annual Lawyers for Literacy event on February 23 is sponsored by the Law Society of Manitoba, in support of the work of West Broadway Youth Outreach. WBYO is a small non-profit operating in Winnipeg’s West Broadway neighbourhood to provide after school and evening recreational opportunities to local . . . [more]