This is the text of an email fraud alert sent by LAWPRO to our insureds on December 21, 2012.

Just this week LAWPRO has dealt with two firms that were the victims of major frauds on their trust accounts. The time just before the holidays should not be a time for bad thoughts and frauds targeting lawyers, but unfortunately the fraudsters aren’t cooperating. We frequently see an increase in fraud attempts around the holidays as the crooks behind these frauds will actually use the distractions of the holidays to help them dupe lawyers and law office staff.

In one case . . . [more]

Recently the Law Society of Upper Canada announced a dramatic change in the admission requirements for law students.

The current 10 month articling requirement remains an option. But for students unable to find an articling position they will be able to qualify for admission by taking an eight month program composed of four months of classroom study plus four months of unpaid “co-op work” at a law firm or sole practitioner – see The Globe and Mail article, November 30, 2012, by Kirk Makin.

From the Law Society Gazette:

On November 22, 2012, Convocation approved a three-year pilot project

. . . [more]

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan? That white stuff from yesteryear is in your memory, of course. And only there. There could hardly be a better metaphor for all things ephemeral and fleeting than former snow. The interesting question, though, is how we feel about such impermanence. On the one hand, "les neiges" are now water under the bridge, done and dusted, yesterday's news, or, to return to our metaphor, Schnee von gestern (yesterday's snow) as the Germans might say. We screw up the lunch bag, toss it into the bin, and move on.

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is accepting nominations for the 2013 Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

It honours a publisher (whether for-profit or not-for profit, corporate or non-corporate) that has demonstrated excellence by publishing a work, series, website or e-product that makes a significant contribution to legal research and scholarship.

Members as well as non-members of CALL can make nominations. Criteria are explained on the Award website (see link in first sentence).

The deadline for sending in nominations is February 15, 2013.

Members of the Award Selection Committee are:

• Justice Eric (Rick) Libman, Ontario

. . . [more]

It seems funny to me that lawyers believe that we are complete masters of our own fate. We aren’t. Each province’s Law Society Act, which creates a monopoly for lawyers and allows us to be self-governing, was created and passed by the local legislature – and it can also be changed by the local legislature.

Now, if one looks at the current political environment across Canada we see a few interesting things.

British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia will all likely go to the polls in 2013.

The Ontario Liberal party is in the midst of a leadership campaign that . . . [more]

As we do occasionally, I’m bringing today’s Google Doodle to your attention. It’s a graphic storyboard of the tale of Little Red Riding Hood in honour of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.

The Grimm version (Little Red Cap), is a copy of a story by Charles Perrault, itself a turn on an oral tale, has a somewhat different ending than that portrayed by Google (or, indeed, by most recountings aimed at children). The Grimms have her fill the wolf with stones, which kill him. There are myriad interpretations and exegeses of . . . [more]

Ontario’s Accessibility Standard for Customer Service came into effect on January 1, 2012 for all businesses and not-for-profits in the province with more than one employee. If an organization has more than 20 employees, an online report must be filed by December 31, 2012 to demonstrate to the government that accessibility has been achieved under the Customer Service Standard. Many organizations are now asking “what comes next?

Up until the Judicature Acts in 1873, lawyers in England and Wales practicing in the common law courts were known as attorneys-at-law, or attorneys for short. After this time they adopted the term solicitor, which was previously used for the courts of equity. Of course in Canada lawyers are both barristers and solicitors, although neither term is used much in common parlance.

Anthony Castelli of Circle of Legal Trust recently compared searches for “lawyer,” “lawyers,” “attorney” and “attorneys” using Google Trends in the U.S. and concluded,

…the obvious the word of choice to optimize for is attorney. In the United

. . . [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.

EDUCATING SUPERIOR LEGAL PROFESSIONALS: SUCCESSFUL MODERN CURRICULA JOIN LAW AND TECHNOLOGY
Jeanne Eicks
in Educating the Digital Lawyer, Marc Lauritsen & Oliver Goodenough Eds.
Cambridge, USA: Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession, 2010-2011
excerpt Chapter 5, pp. 8-14

[Footnotes omitted. They are available in the original via the linked title above.] . . . [more]

In November of 2012 I attended the Distinguished Librarian Award ceremony of the Librarians Association of the University of California, Berkeley (LAUC-B). The beautiful Morrison Room in the Doe Library was the setting for this biennial event. This lovely reading room, with its muted lighting and its wooden shelves filled with volumes of great fiction, is permeated with the essence of learning and the life of the mind. The two honorees were Lillian Castillo-Speed of the Ethnic Studies Library and Marci Hoffman of the Law Library. Each of these women has a remarkable career, but since I know Marci well, . . . [more]

No big surprise here, but the Federal Court decision of HomeAway.com, Inc. v. Hrdlicka  stated that:

[22] I find, therefore, that a trade-mark which appears on a computer screen website in Canada, regardless where the information may have originated from or be stored, constitutes for Trade-Marks Act purposes, use and advertising in Canada.

One of the issues was whether the appearance of the trade-mark on a website viewable in Canada that originated from the United States was “use” of that trade-mark in Canada. The site was for people wanting to rent homes, cottages or apartments for vacations, including some listed . . . [more]

It’s become my December routine. First, get the Clawbies season started: check. Then, turn my attention to legal web trends and predictions for the upcoming calendar year. Now, yes, I am the guy who told you in 2012 that Twitter was going to become a Facebook acquisition, so you know I’m not afraid to take a shot in the dark. (And that I’m going to have a little fun in the process.) No guarantees that I’ll be that creative this year, but your mileage may vary.... So, let’s see what law firms might have coming to them in the new year.