I have been thinking for some time on the need for a legal innovation and competitiveness think-tank in Canada; so when a few of my students at University of Ottawa Law School independently suggested that Canada needs something like that, I decided that I was not completely crazy.

Surprisingly no Canadian business school, Rotman is the first to come to mind, has picked up on this obvious green field and neither has something like the Institute of Competitiveness and Prosperity.

What I mean by a legal innovation and competitiveness think-tank is a body that would take a serious look . . . [more]

Firstly apologies to all of you who were waiting with bated breath for that final pre-Christmas missive from me with some incisive comments about legal publishing in 2012.

Unfortunately (and very unlike me I should add ) I had absolutely nothing to say about the state of legal publishing in 2012. It has to be said that, for me at least, it was without doubt the dullest year in the industry that I can remember.

Even now, sitting here with my thinking cap on. I can’t really remember one event from the legal publishing calendar last year that immediately springs . . . [more]

In reading about Aaron Swartz after his death, I came across a website/program, Image Atlas, he built for his friend Taryn Simon, as part of an art exhibit. It’s simplicity itself: using search terms of your choice, you call up the top images from Google in a wide variety of countries. The images are displayed in strips, one above the other, so that you can see at a glance how countries differ in their use of graphics on the web. (I should not that of course your search terms are translated into the languages of the countries you’re . . . [more]

This week, the UK Supreme Court launched a YouTube channel that highlights short summaries of judgments.

According to a press release published by the Court:

“Video of the five-minute summary given by the lead Justice in each appeal as they deliver their judgment will now be posted on the popular video-sharing website YouTube shortly after delivery in court. The move follows the success of the Court’s live web streaming of proceedings provided in partnership with Sky News (…)”

“The Justices’ summaries aim to explain briefly the background to the appeal in hand, the decision the court has reached, and

. . . [more]

Statistics Canada launched a blog today called—what else?—StatCan Blog (Blogue de StatCan, en français). As the first post explains,

Like most endeavours at the agency, the blog’s topics will have a certain statistical gravitas: the Framework for Environment Statistics, the System of National Accounts, the Consumer Price Index Enhancement Initiative, the Survey of Financial Security, as well as some broader topics, such as the use of microdata or the new model for publishing data online.

The Chief Statistician believes in the importance of linking these sometimes arcane-sounding initiatives to people’s own backyards.

This is tangential to law, . . . [more]

On January 15, 2013, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg released its ruling in the cases of four Christian employees who argued that they suffered from discrimination and that their employers encroached upon their right to religious freedom at work.

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.

THE CONDUCT OF AN APPEAL, 3rd ed.
by Mark Gelowitz (see also the author’s website for the book)
Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2012

Excerpt by the author: Chapter 2, pp. 67-69

1. Standards of Appellate Review

In recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada has refined its approach to appellate standards of review by . . . [more]

There is a virus going around which incites selected journalists and commentators to lambaste the Courts for certain decisions, particularly constitutional decisions, and more particularly decisions about Aboriginal peoples. (For the moment I am refraining from saying “Aboriginal or treaty rights” for reasons that will become evident a short distance below.) It is always an advantage enjoyed by those who want to indulge in such lambasting not to have read the decision, or to have followed the proceedings, either in that Court or any other Court or any public inquiry or parliamentary committee that may be studying related issues. Indeed, . . . [more]

PLEI Connect recently began a new series of public legal education webinars, some topics in English and others in French. For those not familiar, “PLEI Connect is a project to help organizations across Canada identify and share technology tools to effectively deliver public legal education and information (PLEI) services.”

PLEI Connect is a multi-jurisdiction, team initiative of CLEO, Éducaloi, PovNet, and Courthouse Libraries BC. It originated only a couple of years ago at the Just a Click Away conference. A look at a bit about PLEI Connect shows how these fine organizations share defined responsibilities for the project. From the . . . [more]

The High Court of England and Wales (Technology and Construction Court) has held that an employer has no proprietary right in emails sent by the company’s CEO that would give the company the right to see the content of the emails. The case is Fairstar v Adkins [2012] EWHC 2952 (TCC). (For various reasons no claim arising from copyright or confidentiality could be made, and the employment contract did not deal with the question.)

The court reviews a great deal of English (and a bit of Canadian) law on the point. It also considers the practical implications of holding that . . . [more]

On January 1, 2013, the Law Society of British Columbia brought into force a new code of ethics to govern the actions of lawyers in the province.  The new code, officially known as the Code of Professional Conduct for British Columbia (“BC Code”) replaces the existing Professional Conduct Handbook that was in effect in British Columbia from 1993 until 2013. 

Many people don’t bother wearing watches any more because its so easy to check the time on our phones. But that may change as watches move from just telling time to being a display device that works with our phones. A Datamation article entitled 5 Tech Trends That Will Bring Back the Wristwatch explains why. 

The 5 trends:

• Multi-screen functionality where devices work together
• Wearable computing
• Voice interaction
• eInk displays that are thin and consume very little power
• Bluetooth 4.0 that consumes very little power

See, for example, the Pebble watch, a Kickstarter project that is now shipping. I’ll take . . . [more]