In the latest chapter of the online defamation case by UofO law professor, Joanne St. Lewis, the plaintiff proceeded recently with a motion to compel a response from undertakings and refusals. These motions are rather commonplace in civil litigation, except that the defendant, Denis Rancourt, sought to have a blogger accompany him to report on the proceedings.

The undertakings and refusals emerged from the cross examination of an affidavit, submitted to oppose a motion by the plaintiff to abridge the time for mediation and require the parties to use an experienced private mediator rather than a roster mediator.

Counsel . . . [more]

Google provides a dashboard where you may view and edit the information it collects about you, and set policies for its collection of info in future. Google also describes data it collects that is not editable here.

It’s an interesting interface as much for what it implies as for what it states. Since multiple services, such as Gmail and Picasa, collect personal information independently, any inaccuracies in the various profiles could potentially be identified and corrected. For instance, my gmail profile lists Afghanistan as my location, but I’ll bet that, between Picasa, my calendar info, and various other indicators, . . . [more]

The moon today is waning gibbous and 95% of full — whether or not you can see it through the rain or past the city lights where you are. I suspect that, if you’re at all like me, you don’t often look up and note old luna’s phase. Nor, I suspect again, are you likely able to say just by looking at the image on the right whether the moon’s on its way to or from full. That fact struck me the other day; not only have we in the city — and, I dare say, in nearly all of . . . [more]

This is a post in a series to appear occasionally, 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.

“People don’t leave jobs they leave leaders.”

This comment came at the end of a training session with leadership coach Troy King and it stuck with me. In all the discussions I have sat in on, overheard and read in the legal press about the retention of associates never have I heard this idea put forward with such blunt clarity.

I take everything Troy says with consideration. As a Master Certified Coach, and Canadian Coach of the Year in 2010 he is pretty much a Yoda of the coaching profession. I decided to call Troy up to learn more about . . . [more]

I had written about the Just A Click Away project in January 2011. Just A Click Away is a Canada-wide initiative on public legal education and information (PLEI).

It organized a successful conference in Vancouver last February on how to use Internet and social media technologies to better educate the general public about the law.

Just A Click Away is continuing its efforts to bring the law closer to every Canadian and has just announced that it has received funding for Phase 2 of its work with a focus on “Supporting a Culture of Sharing”.

Phase 2 involves 4 organizations: . . . [more]

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

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 22 comments. You might be particularly interested in the informative comment by John Gregoryupdating his own post, “Electronic Transferable Records,” from March of this year.

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 (RSS, email).

2. SlawTips

This week’s tips on SlawTips are:

• Tuesday: Technology: The Google Doodles Archive
• Wednesday:

♬ Listen,
Do you want to know a secret?,
Do you promise not to tell? ♬

Lyrics and music by Lennon/McCartney.

At last week’s Pacific Legal Technology Conference held in Vancouver, BC, Canada, “The Cloud” was one of the hottest topics in the Conference. Of course the REPORT OF THE CLOUD COMPUTING WORKING GROUP from the Law Society of British Columbia was recognized as a leading document in terms of lawyers looking for a thoughtful analysis of moving to the cloud.

One of the other hot topics within lawyers using the cloud is the security in and . . . [more]

The new library of Osgoode Hall Law School is open, even if not yet quite finished. We’re still waiting for some of the furniture to be delivered and the rare books reading room (Canada Law Book Rare Book Room) is still under construction. I’m crossing my fingers that the missing pieces will be in place for the official opening of the new Ignat Kaneff Building, home of Osgoode Hall Law School, on October 16.

But there’s much more to a good library than well-designed facilities, access to good resources and helpful staff. One of the essential ingredients of any successful . . . [more]

The OIPC BC released Guidelines for Social Media Background Checks yesterday. The Guidelines were developed “to help organizations and public bodies navigate social media background checks and privacy laws.”

The Guidelines outline the privacy risks associated with the use of social media to screen and monitor current and prospective employees, volunteers and candidates, including:

The collection of potentially inaccurate personal information;

The collection of too much or irrelevant personal information;

The inadvertent collection of third-party personal information; and

The overreliance on consent for the collection of personal information that may not be reasonable in the circumstances.

The Guidelines also provide . . . [more]

I’m sure most Canadians law firm denizens have heard about some of the latest firm merger news, but I thought it might be good to catch up with a few links to the news stories.

Macleod Dixon & Norton Rose

Probably the biggest news in Canada for some months now is Norton Rose. You may recall they merged in June with Ogilvy Renault to create Norton Rose OR in Canada. They now have plans to merge with 250 lawyer Canadian firm Macleod Dixon and will be rebranding the newly expanded Canadian arm as Norton Rose Canada. From the press . . . [more]

The Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) released a study by Pierre Lortie today concluding that Canada does not need a national securities regulator. The report details how decentralization has allowed flexibility in the different provinces, allowing them to respectively adopt best practices, and finds a higher degree of performance as compared to other nations.

One notable finding was that Ontario is not a participant in the “passport” system, which allows dealers to register and companies to file prospectuses and have them apply in all other jurisdictions. The report strongly urges Ontario to join this system for it to . . . [more]