The Director of Public Prosecutions in the UK may establish a policy about when ‘grossly offensive’ messages on social media would be prosecuted that would consider the reach of the message, i.e. how many people may have been exposed to it. One noted media lawyer has said that’s a bad idea, and the better test is just how offensive the message is, regardless of how many saw it. A discussion of the topic is here.

Under section 127 of the Communications Act it is an offence if someone ‘sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message . . . [more]

Uncovering shoddy research sometimes requires a high degree of detailed inspection. And if anyone is in need of an example of how important accurate citations are (not to mention intellectual honesty), this article describes a great one.

UVic Law Prof. Chris Tollefson uncovered a big hole in the Enbridge case for the Alberta-BC pipeline by attempting to follow the footnotes. Turns out citation errors were just the start: the content of the materials was also questionable, raising the prospect that the pipeline will likely impact cariboo survival, and not at all in a good way. The Professor gets an A+. . . . [more]

The law and the legal profession are moving towards greater systemisation much more rapidly and dramatically, than most realise. Professor Richard Susskind has said that the traditional law firm pyramid “has got to break up” and that law firms essentially have two branches: the specialist division and the process division.

Interesting examples of this change that is afoot, can be found in The UK Financial Times Innovative Lawyers 2012 Report. It highlights the fact that non-traditional approaches to providing legal services are gaining momentum.

Having innovative clients would have helped those interesting projects get off the ground. Similiarly, it . . . [more]

One of the things I dislike about getting older is how much harder it becomes to learn languages. Children absorb them like meat and drink, becoming them. And I, when young, was a quick study indeed if I had a foreign girlfriend. But now, though I still hanker after the feel of exotic words in my mouth, I mumble and forget them. I’ve thrown myself at some Punjabi and always peck away at Mandarin. Arabic seduces me, as I think I’ve said before, with the beauty of its script . . . . And oddly the only thing I can . . . [more]

A committee representing Federal Court judges, court officials and lawyers is proposing changes to the rules of the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal [press release] to make things easier for self-represented litigants and to cut down on vexatious lawsuits:

“The study proposes new tools to address abusive, inappropriate, disproportionate and wasteful litigation conduct. It also identifies a number of steps – many novel – to improve access to the Federal Courts, particularly by self-represented parties. ”

“The study is the product of a comprehensive policy review of the practices and procedures of the Federal Courts. A national

. . . [more]

Next week Benchers of the Law Society of Upper Canada will (hopefully) decide on the future of articling in the province of Ontario. So, rightly or wrongly, one piece of the legal training puzzle in Ontario will be determined.

The elephant in the room however is the law schools.

Many will say that law schools are there simply to serve the purpose of providing a legal education that students are free to use in whatever fashion they choose; ensuring students become lawyers is not the role of law schools.

This is naïve. And it would only be the most hard-hearted . . . [more]

Sharing a WiFi access point among too many devices can shut down access for everyone. At some point, the high congestion levels overload the WiFi router, making it in effectively useless. This isn’t a common problem for home networks, but it does occur (frequently?) for events such as legal conferences or when you stay at a hotel.

An interesting software solution from NC State Engineers looks to be on the horizon. It’s called WiFox and based on tests of 45 concurrent connecting devices, reported a 700% speed improvement, and a 30-40% reduction in network latency. The performance increase comes from . . . [more]

The 19th-annual Disability Awareness Week began on November 12, 2012. Fittingly, on November 9, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a landmark decision in...

I was sorry to miss the 2012 Law via the Internet conference held earlier this month at Cornell. Happily, many sessions are available for viewing on the conference website. I was particularly interested to watch Clay Shirky’s keynote address.

Shirky is the author of the recent popular titles Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus. At LVI, he questioned why there is so little shared annotation of the law. He reported on a couple of examples that have popped up on social media. For instance, the State Code of Utah has been included on Github, a site for . . . [more]

I spent today at London’s 5th annual DIG (Digital Interactive & Gaming) Conference along with about 1500 others. The conference is divided into 3 tracks. One for game developers, another for web developers, and another for students interested in game development.

Here are some random things from the conference.

The concept of an independent device lab, which is a place where various devices are available, such as iPhones, iPads iPad minis, android phones, android tablets, windows 8 phones, surface tablets, xboxs, etc. The idea is to provide hardware for independent developers to test their apps and web pages on. Larger . . . [more]

I’ve just emerged from a few weeks of first-year law student legal research instruction. During that immersion—that is, when I didn’t have time to read it—I came across an interesting post on the RIPS Law Librarian blog: Michele Thomas’s “Guiding Principles for Enhancing Classroom Experiences.” The principles arising from the author’s reflections are sound and broadly applicable, in my view.

Our teaching team happened to implement this year or have in place some of these, at least in some form. I expect we’ll look at more of these, or others, next year.

My favourite tips are Ms . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for November 1 – 13.

♨ 1. Teva Canada Ltd. v. Pfizer Canada Inc. 2012 SCC 60

[1] This appeal involves a challenge to the validity of the patent of the Pfizer respondents (“Pfizer”) for Viagra, a drug currently on the market for treating erectile dysfunction (“ED”). The appellant, Teva Canada Limited (“Teva”), claims that Pfizer’s patent application did not meet the disclosure requirements set out in the Patent Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. P-4 (the “Act”). Pfizer, on the other hand, submits that it complied fully with those requirements.

[2] The

. . . [more]