When my daughters sailed on the tall ships for several summers, the crew had a daily activity called “mandatory fun.” It seems like an oxymoron until you think about it a bit. If you tell people they’re going to have fun, they do.

If you tell people they have to try to resolve their disputes, or else… — they will.

I have had many “full and frank discussions” (a very useful diplomatic euphemism) with fellow commercial lawyers about whether to include mandatory mediation clauses in business agreements.

Those who are vehemently against the idea insist that forced mediation doesn’t work. . . . [more]

The following article appears in the May/June 2012 edition of LAWPRO Magazine. It is available at www.lawpro.ca/magazinearchives.

LAWPRO is seeing far too many real estate claims where the lawyers handling the deals are making or not catching fairly basic errors. Often these mistakes result from errors made by clerks – all or most of which the lawyer could’ve and should’ve caught.

Common mistakes include:

• Not catching errors in legal descriptions
• Missing executions
• Not doing searches
• Not bringing rights or way or easements to the attention of the client

We also see claims involving ILA. Sometimes there was no recognition . . . [more]

Others have talked about their contributions to lawTechCamp 2012 held in Toronto in May. I am sharing the slide decks from the presentation I did with fellow consultant Stephanie Barnes and the six minute demo I did the same day.

The first talk here is an introduction to Law Firm Knowledge Management. Included are some images developed by Stephanie, and some we have developed together, as well as content from other sources. . . . [more]

Abe Voelker recently authored a thought-provoking blog post on how version control systems used by software developers could potentially be used to rework the process of drafting legislation:

Imagine a public system like GitHub but instead of source code being tracked, legal documents such as bills/laws are tracked (and just like GitHub, versioned in git). Imagine if, before any bill is introduced to Congress, its contents were posted on this publicly available medium with adequate time before a vote?

What if any proposed amendments to legislation were posted publicly as pull requests?

What if anyone could write amendments to existing

Admin law people (and which of us aren’t?) can rejoice in the arrival of a new blog in their area, the aptly named Administrative Law Matters. Launched around the middle of last month, the blog is a single person effort by Paul Daly (@pauldalyesq), Assistant Professor at the Faculté de Droit of the Université de Montréal, with an emphasis on common-law jurisdictions. Posts appear nearly every day. A welcome addition to the already fine collection of Canadian legal blogs.

[hat tip: Blogging for Equality — a great blog, by the way, that I need to post about . . . [more]

Slaw is pleased to announce that Matt Maurer is joining us as a blogger. Matt (otherwise Matthew P.) is a Queen’s law grad, was called in 2007, and is now an associate in the Minden Gross LLP litigation department, regularly appearing before various courts and tribunals in Ontario.

Welcome to Slaw, Matt. . . . [more]

The UK Supreme Court last week handed down its 5-2 split decision upholding the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to Sweden, but later the same day the Court issued a “Further Statement” explaining it had granted Assanges’s lawyer 14 days to apply re-open the appeal for further written or oral submissions.

On reviewing the Court’s reasons Assange’s lawyer submitted the decision was made on a ground that was not argued at the hearing.

The question for the Court was whether it should validate the European Arrest Warrant seeking to extradite Assange to Sweden to be questioned concerning . . . [more]

The Olympics are coming this summer. Imagine the marathoners winding their way through the city of London. As the camera zooms in on the winner crossing the finish line what do you expect to see? Will he be taking a swig of water and saying “I have to run my second marathon now, where’s the starting line for the next event?” Absurd – right? And yet, when it comes to the gruelling demands of intellectual work it is so easy to forget our physical needs and limitations and expect the equivalent of an endless marathon.

Tony Schwartz has founded a . . . [more]

A 41-page internal Department of Justice report obtained by the Canadian Press through a Access to Information Act request shows that the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (SSAGs) appear to be working well in jurisdictions where they have been adopted.

The SSAGs are not legislation and do not have the force of law. However, courts have strongly endorsed their use, and Prowse J.A. of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia described them in Yemchuk v. Yemchuk as a “useful tool,” but emphasized they were only intended to reflect the current state of the law, and did not consider entitlement.

Larlee . . . [more]

We write. And become attached to what we write. We put something of ourselves into it, even if it’s a routine patch of prose for work. How discouraging, then, to have our words thrown back into our faces as unworthy.

One of the steps to becoming a lawyer, I’d say, is learning that professional writing, at least, is a collaborative venture. You give your draft to colleagues who feel free to wield the red pencil, or its slightly nicer Word “comment” version; and with varying degrees of irritation you suck it up and hit “accept changes.” Nothing personal. Still. . . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

Initially I was going to write about the latest publishing developments and products post the easter break. But as most of you will know a bombshell hit the legal world earlier in the month: the collapse of Dewey in the US will, I suggest, have long term ramifications for both major publishers in the US market, particularly if partners and employees are owed large sums by the firm. We imagine there are more than a few unpaid bills that will remain unpaid or will be paid back on Greek terms over a very long period of time to publishers, content . . . [more]