My Dean, Bruce Feldthusen, has written an article for Canadian Lawyer in response to criticisms in the legal profession about legal education and allegations that we are responsible for creating the perceived articling crisis in Ontario. The title of Dean Feldthusen’s article is pretty self-explanatory: “Legal Profession in Turmoil: Let’s Blame the Law Schools“. . . . [more]

Penny Collenette The tragic fire in the Bangladeshi factory recently sent shivers down the spines of those who research and work in the area of Business and Human Rights, an area that reaches far beyond the limits of CSR (corporate social responsibility). At a two day conference beginning on December 4^th in Geneva, nearly 1000 corporate and NGO leaders, lawyers, academics and politicians, will gather to discuss ways in which the two sectors of business and human rights can partner together to avoid human rights abuses and violations.

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. Finding Legal Information  2. Clicklaw Blog  3. Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog  4. Social Media for Law Firms  5. Rule of Law

Finding Legal Information
LogMeIn Adds File Storage Sync Called Cubby

Techcrunch has an interesting review of LogMeIn’s new file sync service, Cubby. I haven’t seen . . . [more]

There are many MS Outlook add-ons that mimic functionality that is already built into the application. Though Techhit’s SimplyFile http://www.techhit.com/SimplyFile/ would seem to fall into that category since MS Outlook has a strong rules function and has added the “Move” group in the Home tab, it is actually amazingly useful despite some overlap. SimplyFile is an “intelligent filing assistant for Microsoft Outlook” and costs $50US. So, is it worth it?

Files, folders and rules are the boon and curse of the MS Outlook organizational structure. Why? Lawyers use folders and subfolders to keep client and matter correspondence filtered from the . . . [more]

The motion passed at November Convocation, creating a pilot Legal Practice Program, also charged the Law Society and the profession to make evidence-based decisions about the various components. The motion, as amended, will pass on some of the costs to the profession, which is yet another reason why we should be very much invested and interested in how this develops.

The Professional Development and Competence (PD&C) Department is expected to develop a formal evaluation and reporting plan before the pilot is launched in 2014.

The problem is that there are just over 2,000 potential articling candidates (and growing) every year . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries are in Civil Rights, Criminal Law, & Copyright:

R. v. N.Y. 2012 ONCA 745
Civil Rights – Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Denial of rights – Remedies – Exclusion of evidence

N.Y. along with three other young persons and fourteen adults, were charged following a police investigation that uncovered a . . . [more]

Industrial design protection is an often overlooked form of protection that is a poor cousin of Copyright. For historical reasons Canadian law prejudices against certain authors who create designs which can be applied to useful articles. By virtue of Section 64(2) of the Copyright Act, RSC 1985, c C-42, if more than 50 copies of the articles are made by or at the direction of the owner of the copyright in the design then substantial copyright and moral rights protection is lost. Protection may be available under the Industrial Design Act, RSC 1985, c I-9 (IDA), a registry . . . [more]

Since most information these days is generated, communicated and stored electronically, those who need access to a person’s information need access to the person’s information systems. That access may require a password and perhaps a means of decrypting the information. To what extent can the person with a legal right or even duty to access the information compel disclosure of these access methods?

In Ireland, a receiver is investigating the corporate and personal affairs of Sean Quinn in his dealings with the Bank of Ireland. The High Court of Ireland has ordered that several members of the Quinn family turn . . . [more]

After more than 300 frivolous Friday Fillips, I feel I can hijack one fillip to do a bit of administrative business, namely to announce that as of this coming Sunday, Slaw will have a new design. I want to tell you a little bit about it here.

Webdesign styles change quite rapidly, and in the two years and more since our last makeover there’s been quite a movement towards enhancing readability. This makes great sense, especially for a publication that works its magic in words. As of Sunday, Slaw will load more quickly than ever before, and the text will . . . [more]

If you have an insurable risk, there’s a good chance someone is willing to sell you a policy for it. We’ve all heard stories of celebrities insuring their body parts, but how about someone buying insurance protection just in case they are molested by a ghost or probed by aliens? Here are a few of the strangest insurance policies ever sold. You be the judge if people need them.

Alien Abduction Insurance

Now you can sleep at night knowing that you and your family will be protected against the financially devastating effects of an alien abduction for as little as . . . [more]

I have always loved law reform commission reports. They are great sources for legal research. Many of the reports provide historical background on an issue and you can often find comparative information about how other jurisdictions have responded to a legal problem.

This past month, 3 law commission reports from England and New Zealand caught my attention for how they incorporated a comparative law approach:

• The Law Commission of New Zealand released an Issues Paper on the use of financial penalties by enforcement agencies to punish corporations and individuals for breaches of the law. The document briefly examines the situation

. . . [more]

In the fallout surrounding the American FBI investigation of CIA Director David Petraeus, you may have come across stories about how he attempted to hide his digital email trail. Utilizing a jointly held email account, messages between Petraeus and Paula Broadwell were left in draft mode, never to be sent and assumed not to leave a digital trail.

Well, leave it to the EFF to point out where things went so terribly wrong. Take a look at this tutorial released yesterday, on how to create an anonymous email account.

Some of the suggestions include:

• Using the Tor Browser Bundle;
• Signing

. . . [more]