The Government has recently announced its intention to focus on Bill C-12, the Safeguarding Canadians’ Personal Information Act, its attempt to update PIPEDA in accordance with the statute’s last 5 year review (which incidentally was conducted over 6 years ago). Bill C-12 is a lackluster piece of privacy protection that, in spite of its name, arguably does far more to erode privacy than it does to enhance it. One commentator even dubbed it’s last incarnation the ‘anti-privacy privacy bill‘. As the legislation can be expected to reemerge as early as two weeks hence, a few of its . . . [more]

JURIST, the legal news and commentary website based out of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, needs money. Your money.

The well-known, pioneering news site explains that it is “anticipating a significant reduction in funding (meaning several tens of thousands of dollars) from our primary benefactors”.

It needs funds to:

• Redesign the JURIST.org website
• Fully develop a mobile version of JURIST.org, as well as iPhone and Android apps
• Increase outreach efforts to JURIST’s audience
• Develop new programming, including audio and video coverage, seminars and conferences that will directly benefit our community
• Cover costs associated with managing our

On November 17, 2011, the federal government introduced Bill C-25, the proposed Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act and making related amendments to other Acts in Parliament as a first step to implement the federal portion of the Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) framework that will particularly be applicable to small businesses and self-employed persons across Canada.

According to the government, just over 60 percent of Canadians do not have a workplace pension plan. That is a large chunk of workers who are left behind and who could face financial troubles in their retirement years. PRPPs will offer them a new, . . . [more]

Site news for those who read Slaw only via RSS or email

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 50 comments. You might be particularly interested in these:

• the six comments on David Canton’s post “Demanding Social Media Passwords From Job Seekers Is Wrong”
• the thoughtful comments on Jack Newton’s post “Addressing the High Cost of Cloud Computing Due Diligence”
• the five comments on David Canton’s post “Using QR Codes.”

You can subscribe to the comments on Slaw either as a separate matter (RSS, email) or as part of a subscription combining posts and comments . . . [more]

The Centre de recherche en droit public (CRDP), the oldest research center of the University of Montreal, was established in 1962. To my knowledge the CRDP is also the oldest research center in law in Canada. Beyond its longevity, CRDP’s merits are numerous. I just want to mention here those which relate to legal information and legal informatics.

• In the sixties, the DATUM project was conducted at the Faculty of Law with researchers from the CRDP. DATUM researchers developed one of the first automated retrieval systems for legal information in Canada. Professor Ejan Mackaay’s name is associated to almost all

One of the satisfying moments that recurred regularly in Star Trek, the Next Generation, was Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s simple executive gesture and the words, “Make it so.” A lot of magic thinking was bound up with that. The United States Supreme Court, however, has recently told attorneys that no such wishful assertion can be as effective, at least in the universe where human laws intersect with the laws of nature.

Two days ago the court released the decision in Mayo Collaborative Services et al. v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. No. 10–1150. The following is from the headnote:

Although “laws of

What constitutes alumni at a law firm? Does your firm have a program? Is it inclusive or exclusive? Should your firm develop an alumni program?

This is one of the few area’s in the practice of law where when asked “what are other firms doing” there is very little consistency. Some firms offer use of office space, have on-line portals that include useful materials or simply offer an annual receptions. Others would prefer that their alumni never existed.

There are a number of dividends to building an alumni program including:

• Goodwill. Those who have left will have another reason to

The issue of corporate or government employers asking for social media login ID’s and passwords for job seekers has reared its head again. See this CBC article entitled U.S. job seekers get asked for Facebook passwords. And see this article I wrote a year ago on the subject. This is wrong on so many levels that it is hard to believe anyone would ask for that. 

It is not unusual for employers to look at what job applicants are posting on publicly accessible areas of facebook and twitter. We can debate what influence that should have on the hiring . . . [more]

Machine-Assisted Review

Let’s start with a very hot if not very sexy topic. You may have heard of new technology called predictive coding or technology-assisted review. Recently, we’ve seen the phrase “machine-assisted” review a lot. They are all the same thing. A rose is a rose is a rose, but we have not yet settled on a name for this nascent technology.

The way most lawyers engage in traditional keyword searches is, as others have suggested, the equivalent of “Go Fish.” The requesting lawyer makes his best guess about which keywords might produce relevant evidence without having much knowledge of . . . [more]

Earlier this month, I published an article in the Montreal Gazette regarding my departure from private practice (at Norton Rose Canada) and my move to an in-house counsel position and the legal ramifications involved therewith. This post is an abridged (inproved?) version of the full article, which can be found here.

As an employment and labour lawyer, I was very conscious of wanting to do the “right” and legal thing in accepting the offer from my new employer and letting my firm know that I was leaving. Legal issues aside, I loved where I worked and wanted to treat . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of March 14 – 20.

♨ 1. Romspen Investment Corp. v. 6176666 Canada Ltée. 2012 ONSC 1727

[1] I suppose that on a sunny, unusually warm, mid-March day one should be mellow and accept, without complaint, the systemic failures and delay of this Court’s document management system. The problem is that from the perspective of the members of the public who use this Court, delays caused by our antiquated, wholly-inadequate document management system impose unnecessary, but all too real, costs on them. And yet the entity that operates

The following is based on an article that appeared in the January 2012 edition of LAWPRO Magazine. While the details of the insurance coverage discussed in the article are specific to LAWPRO insureds, the issues highlighted in the article apply to all lawyers. Lawyers outside Ontario should check with their own insurance providers about what is covered under their policies.

Lawyer mobility is now taken for granted: The days of spending one’s whole career in a single practice setting are long gone. Consider these scenarios:

Scenario one: A lawyer previously in practice elsewhere joins a new firm. A claim . . . [more]