• I will make better use of checklists and reporting letters: Family law involves complex documents that deal with complicated issues involving emotional clients. There are many risks of errors by the lawyer, and misunderstandings by the client. LAWPRO’s new Domestic Contracts Matter Toolkit has checklists and forms that contain points and questions lawyers should systematically consider as they conduct the initial interview on a domestic contract matter and when they meet with the client to review and sign the document. And a final reporting letter detailing what you did and what advice you gave can be a lifesaver in

The great Courthouse Libraries BC website has introduced a new portal to its roster of practice portals. The Criminal Law Practice Portal (CLPP), like the other five, is meant to:

serve as a law practitioner’s starting point, or homepage, for a particular practice area. The Practice Portals gather key external resources of all kinds (established legal texts, current web resources, and carefully selected news and social media updates), and augments them with library produced content.

Specifically, the CLPP offers practitioners the daily hearing lists (by location), the ability to learn about sentencing ranges for an offence (via rangefindr, introduced and . . . [more]

The Annual Consumer Electronics Show is underway in Las Vegas. Despite some commentary that the show is old or outdated, it occupies floor space equivalent to 393 basketball courts and attracts 150,000 people.

The tech press, such as CNET, is of course there in droves.

Some of the interesting things so far include:

• Laptops that convert, flip, slide roll, …
• Next generation Intel chips that boost ultrabook performance and battery life
• Massive 4K (very high resolution) TVs
• Flexible screens
• Internet of Things gadget makers announced the creation of the Internet of Things Consortium to promote their emerging industry and

Tablets are becoming a commonly discussed, if not applied, technology in law practice. 33% of respondents to the American Bar Association’s 2012 Legal Technology Survey used tablets for work. Or, rather, they used them but not particularly with specific legal technology. The most common uses were Internet, e-mail, calendars, and contacts. In short, lawyers are using tablets similarly to how they might use their smartphones.

This data interested me because my own brief experience with a tablet was pretty much the same. Like the majority of survey respondents, my Android-powered tablet is personal and not supplied by my work. 91% . . . [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 January 1 – 8:

1. Meads v. Meads 2012 ABQB 571
   

   [1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into

Yesterday marked the start of the winter term for University Students. It also marked the start of the teaching term for some of my colleagues who offer their practical experience to law students by acting as Sessional Instructors. Many practicing lawyers give their time to this worthy activity.

At the University of Alberta Law School, there are 20 courses this term taught by sessional instructors – they are designated with a X in the course number if you are curious enough to follow the link. The University of Calgary Law School also has a long list of sessional instructors . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology

Tips for Using Flight Searches and Hotel Reviews on TripAdvisor and Kayak
Dan Pinnington

I travel a lot. When I‘m on a tight schedule and need to know all my options, getting all available flights by time and cost across multiple airlines in one place is invaluable. For business and personal travel, Kayak and TripAdvisor are two of my favourite travel resources for doing multiple-airline flight searches. You pick . . . [more]

Almost two years ago, I wrote an article on eBooks and their application to a legal library. One trend I have noticed since then is that publishers now appear to be differentiating between “eBooks” and “online books”. “Online books” are those books that are available purely through databases or online platforms, such as Carswell’s eReference platform or CCH Online. By contrast, the term “eBook” is used to refer to books which are available in ePub (or other electronic formats) and which are intended for electronic devices. Licensing varies but generally online books are rented while eBooks are “owned” (subject to . . . [more]

Fees disputes commonly lead to unpaid accounts, Law Society complaints and/or malpractice claims. For these reasons you should do your best to avoid fee disputes with your clients. Here are some simple resolutions that will help you accomplish this:

• I will get a sufficient retainer at the start of a matter: At the start of the matter ask for a retainer that is sufficient to do all of the initial work on the matter. Ask for a retainer that will cover all the work – asking for less gives the client unrealistic expectations about fees and means you are

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from thirty-five 2010 & 2011 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. le Blogue du CRL  2. First Reference  3. BC Injury Law  4. Library Boy  5. Youth and Work

le Blogue du CRL
Le calme après la tempête
Par les temps qui courent, il semble tout à fait pertinent de se demander quels sont les effets juridiques d’une . . . [more]

Comic: “Ask me, What’s the most important thing about comedy?”
Me: “Okay. What’s the most important thing about—”
Comic: “Timing.”

One of the most misunderstood aspects of project management is timing. I’m not talking about how long you expect various tasks will take. (Answer: longer than you think… unless you do something about that.) Nor am I referring to task sequencing, or which tasks follow which. Both of these are difficult but well understood problems.

Rather, it’s critical to understand when to begin each task. Getting task-starts under control can give you a significant leg up on . . . [more]

We know from Crookes v. Newton that a link “by itself” is not a publication for the purposes of defamation in Canada. But what about a right by a publisher to collect royalties when being linked to?

It seems bizarre, but newspapers in Ireland are attempting to do exactly that. In a piece titled 2012: The year Irish newspapers tried to destroy the web McGarr Solicitors state:

This year the Irish newspaper industry asserted, first tentatively and then without any equivocation, that links -just bare links like this one– belonged to them. They said that they had the right