A question at a LESA seminar I was involved with brought the thought of republishing to mind. An attendee at the seminar asked if articles posted to SSRN as prepublications to a peer reviewed journal release were altered or whether they could be the same text as what the journal published. My answer off the cuff was that I had a sense that the articles could be edited after posting to SSRN and before publication, but I confess that I have no proof of this.

The republishing that I am thinking of is not the actions the SCC contempated in . . . [more]

This morning I came across a U.K.-based online quiz setting out various scenarios. Titled “Are you an accidental outlaw”, there are 9 questions relating to: twitter, facebook, uploading, music, blogging, online discussions and selling content. After you complete each answer, you click through to your score, with an explanation/advice on the current law and top tips. You may want to ask your fellow employees to take the quiz too. Take the quiz. . . . [more]

Yesterday police cleared out the protests in New York for Occupy Wall Street. The same day, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) received a court injunction allowing the protesters to return. A copy of the injunction can be found here.

Coincidentally I was on The Agenda with Steve Paikin last night talking about whether we should be evicting protesters from our parks. You can see the episode here.

A press release from the NLG New York City Chapter is available here. . . . [more]

Last week I gave a talk at Victor Medina’s excellent MILOfest conference about How to Secure Your Mac Law Firm. In preparing for the talk, I developed the following set of best practices that any lawyer using Apple devices should employ to help protect their law firm’s data:

Securing Your Desktops/Laptops

• Upgrade to OS X Lion and enable FileVault 2 for full disk encryption. Read more about FileVault 2 and Lion here.
• Enable the off-by-default firewall.
• Set your screen saver / lock screen to activate after 5 or fewer minutes of activity.
• Disable automatic login.
• Enable Find my Mac

In an interesting intersection of two of my favourite areas (law and technology), Apple Insider reported last week that Apple recently announced that it was going to be conducting mandatory union awareness training to educate its employees on “how to deal” with unions. According to the article, the course is described by Apple as follows:

“This course is intended to provide managers with a practical understanding of how unions affect the workplace, how and why employees organize, and the legal do’s and don’ts of dealing with unions,” … “This is a mandatory class for all new managers, and is required

Here are the three most consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of November 8 – 14.

1. Bedford v. Canada, 2010 ONSC 4264

[1] There has been a long-standing debate in this country and elsewhere about the subject of prostitution. The only consensus that exists is that there is no consensus on the issue.

2. EJH (Re), 2011 SKQB 404

1) This is truly a remarkable story. The story of AH, a mother who has escaped a life of prostitution and squalor and bested addictions so that she might have the ability to parent her two

Anyone looking for a sign of the times for the state of access to justice in British Columbia will find at least 100 of them sprinkled throughout the province. In its efforts to provide maximum accessibility to some measure of free legal counsel for low- and modest-income British Columbians, Access Pro Bono (BC’s largest pro bono legal service provider) operates pro bono legal advice clinics in 100 different locations across BC— in communities stretching from the 59^th parallel down to the American border, from the Rocky Mountains over to the Pacific shores. Pro bono clinics are now more common . . . [more]

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2011 issue of LAWPRO Magazine. All issues of the magazine can be found at www.lawpro.ca/magazinearchives.

Technology is becoming an ever greater part of our lives, both personally and professionally. On a daily basis most of us use a cellphone or smartphone, a desktop computer and the Internet. Many of us will have an iPad or other tablet device and be posting updates on Facebook, Twitter or other social media tools.

Clients expect their lawyers to be technology literate – and there are always new and improved ways for communicating with clients. Here . . . [more]

On Wednesday the Canadian Association of Law Libraries will be presenting a webinar with Michel Gamache, Director of Documentation Services, Heenan Blaikie in Montreal. Michel will be explaining how to get started with Yahoo Pipes for working with RSS feeds to customize information for practice groups. Even if you do not work in a law firm, this webinar will help you get started taking your use of RSS feeds to the next level. I myself dabble in the use of Pipes and am looking forward to learning more.

The webinar takes place this Wednesday, November 16, 1:00 – 2:30 . . . [more]

How far can judicial review go before it trespasses on the proper function of government and the legislature? What is the proper role of the judiciary in constraining the actions of the democratic state?

Last week, UK Supreme Court nominee Jonathan Sumption Q.C.raised these questions in a speech on the subject of the widening scope of judicial review in the UK .

He concluded by warning that if it is perceived judges are reviewing the merits of legislation, there will be pressure for some kind of democratic input into their selection. He would regard this as a very unfortunate outcome . . . [more]

October 21 saw a most interesting and perhaps game-changing development in professional publishing with the launch in the UK of Bloomsbury Professional’s new online tax law service, www.bloomsburytax.com.

What makes the new service worth noting is not rocket science technology or really cutting-edge functionality but price and simplicity, combined with an unashamed resemblance to the book idiom in its presentation – a smart move, it might be suggested, in an e-book era.

The publisher, formerly Tottel Publishing, itself and, by implication, its content having roots and established credibility derived from LexisNexis origins, boasts that the key features of the . . . [more]

David S. Caudill, “Lawyers Judging Experts: Oversimplifying Science and Undervaluing Advocacy to Construct an Ethical Duty” (2011) 38 Pepperdine Law Review 674

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1874947

The fact that judges, typically untrained in science, need to “resolve disputes among respected, well-credentialed scientists about matters squarely within their expertise,” a “daunting task,” seems to suggest that lawyers could too. But judges do not always agree on the admissibility of expertise, and discerning reliability has proved to be controversial. To expect attorneys—and this is what the proponents of a duty to vet experts expect—to do sufficient scientific research