I have updated the Reference Tools page of my legal research and writing website with a new section on Law Reform Commission Reports, a topic that – in retrospect – was likely insufficiently treated in my book.

I believe it may currently be the most complete, online collection of links and other resources for researching law reform commission reports. Included, of course, are links to the BC Law Institute Law Reform Database as well as links to individual law reform commission reports websites.

For the older, online Ontario Law Reform Commission Reports, I linked to the listings from . . . [more]

Here are some of the sites that are going dark today, or changing their home pages in protest over the proposed US legislation. For more information on why this legislation is so bad, check out these sites, or search for “SOPA” on Slaw or Techdirt.com, or just Google it.

Wikipedia:

Boing Boing

WordPress

EFF

This is Google’s US site. Google’s Canadian homepage does not seem to be affected.

Michael Geist

  . . . [more]

Canadian patent CA 2246933 was issued on January 17, 2012 for the Amazon 1-Click claim. Aaron Edgar and Grant W. C. Tisdall, in "Amazon.com’s Canadian ‘one-click’ Patent on the Threshold of Issuance" (gowlings.com, January, 2012), have written:

On December 23, 2011, barely a month after the Court’s ruling, the Commissioner himself approved Amazon’s application and a Notice of Allowance was sent out. On December 28, 2011, Amazon’s patent agents submitted the required issue fee and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) then promptly processed the fee as paid. Given the recent speed at which CIPO processed allowance of

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of January 10 – 17.

♨ 1. Zefferino v. Meloche Monnex Insurance 2012 ONSC 154

[1] . . . The claim is based on the alleged negligence of the defendant insurance broker in failing to properly offer optional income replacement benefit coverage to the plaintiff as part of a policy of automobile insurance.

♨ 2. Williams v. Toronto (City) 2012 ONSC 102

[1] This is a motion by the defendant the City of Toronto (the “City”) for an order under subrule 56.01 (1)(a) for security for costs against

On January 18, 2012 you will not be able to read anything from the English version of Wikipedia.
Building on Jack’s post yesterday, there is indeed a BIG fuss about SOPA. As Jack mentioned, Reddit and Boing Boing are also going dark in protest.

Wikipedia explains their blackout here, but I found this expert particularly interesting:

My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on

When people lament the deteriorating state of access to justice in Canada and the unwillingness of cash-strapped governments to address the issue in meaningful ways, their focus often shifts to the role of lawyers in ensuring the delivery of critical legal services. Many observers, including Canada’s Chief Justice and Governor-General, characterize the role as a professional responsibility tied to the collective privilege of an effective monopoly on legal work. Others point to the lack of any moral or practical imperative in the equation, and characterize the role as more of a professional expectation. Given that most but not all Canadian . . . [more]

Corporate/commercial law accounts for the third highest number of legal malpractice claims in Ontario, after real estate and civil litigation. An article in the January edition of the LAWPRO Webzine examines the causes of these claims in detail, and tells lawyers what they can do to reduce their exposure to claim in this area of law. This post reproduces the portion of that article that dealt with communications-related claims – the biggest cause of claims in the corporate-commercial area.

Over the last ten years, corporate/commercial-related claims (including bankruptcy, tax, and securities-related claims) averaged 14 per cent of LAWPRO’s claims count . . . [more]

Controversy and anger over the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has been gathering since the bill was introduced nearly three months ago.

Corporate supporters of the bill have been the targets of organized boycotts. GoDaddy, for example, was a supporter of SOPA until December 29’s “Dump GoDaddy Day” gained enough traction to force the company to reverse its position on SOPA.

Meanwhile, popular websites such as Reddit and Boing Boing will show their opposition to SOPA by “going dark” (i.e., shutting down) for one day on January 18th. Google and Facebook are being campaigned to undertake a . . . [more]

The traditional tests for the validity of a marriage in Canada (which adopted the rules established by the English courts in the nineteenth century) was that a marriage had to be valid (i) where it was performed, by the lex loci celebrationis, and (ii) by the law of the parties’ ante-nuptial domicile, usually referred to as the question of “essential validity”. Simon Fodden correctly stated the law in his earlier post.

With respect to the lex loci celebrationis, the ceremony had to comply with the rules of the place where it occurred—the minister had to be licensed, a . . . [more]

Leading London barrister Jonathan Sumption (now Lord Sumption) was sworn in last week as a member of the United Kingdom’s highest court, the first barrister in 50 years to be appointed to the jurisdiction’s top court without having served as a full time judge.

My SLAW post on 14 November last reported on a speech Sumption made about that time on the dangers of the widening scope of judicial review.

He returned to that topic in his recent interview with The Times, warning judges to keep out of politics.

Sumption also spoke of his views on judicial appointments. He opposes . . . [more]

Like Darryl Mountain in today’s Slaw.ca column, I have been thinking about law school lately. Or rather, I have been reminded about past thoughts on this topic. Whether law school should be changed or not is a current hot topic in the U.S. In addition to the New York Times article that Darryl points to, The National Law Journal has also just published the article What is Law School For, Anyway? by Karen Sloan about law schools not keeping up with what is needed in the profession.

One thing I believe the U.S. law school system has gotten right, however, . . . [more]

My fellow slaw columnist Jordan Furlong has written a number of articles over the past few years about the shortcomings of legal education (the latest of which is here). The New York Times has also added to the debate with a recent article entitled “What They Don’t teach Law Students: Lawyering”. One of the themes floating around has been to partially return law school to its roots as a vocational school.

I had the occasion to think about some of these ideas recently when a move to Australia led me to requalify as a lawyer in a different system. . . . [more]