We’re used to thinking about search engine optimization (SEO) as a tool for law firms’ general web presence. But a growing opportunity, still under many firms’ radar, lies with a slightly different approach: practice group SEO, tailoring SEO tactics for specific practice areas within the firm. In many respects, practice focused SEO has the potential to be substantially more effective than the firm’s larger SEO strategy, which is often (necessarily) broad and less aligned with the services provided.
Let’s look at an example of how practice groups typically use search engines to improve business development. A patent law practice group,… [more]
“The Growing Acceptance Of “Off the Shelf” Service Descriptions”
Over the past couple of years, I have noticed that organizations engaging in outsourcing activities are increasingly willing to rely on service providers’ standard service descriptions. The main driver of this trend appears to be tight budgets. At a time of economic uncertainty, there is less capacity for rigorous review of a service provider’s standard service descriptions and service levels. Lacking internal resources, customers are increasingly relying on service providers’ expertise to fill in the gaps. A second factor may be a form of complacency. As customers accumulate a history of positive experiences with successful outsourcings, they may become… [more]
What’s the best thing about Wikipedia? It’s a source that’s “good enough”. It’s an excellent way to get up to speed when all you really need is general or background knowledge. And the price point is so attractive! But would I rely on Wikipedia exclusively? Doubtful … and I certainly wouldn’t rely on it in an important situation without checking primary sources.
Some wikis are now appearing as sources of legal information. I was fascinated to read the recent post on this site about the new tax wiki established by Professor Ben Alarie, of the U of T… [more]
“Mentoring: Important for Men – Crucial for Women”
A concern that I hear frequently from women lawyers is the lack of recognition and compensation for those partners – often women – who devote time to building up the human capital in their law firms. This includes time spent mentoring younger lawyers or working on the firm’s education, articling or associate development committees. When it comes to dividing up the partnership profits at the end of the year, it is typically only billable hours and collected revenue that counts and not time spent ensuring a stronger future for the firm.
For many women lawyers, this is frustrating because mentoring… [more]
Unforeseen circumstances have landed me in Campbell River, British Columbia for a few days. I’m trying to make the most of this detour by taking in whatever Campbell River has to offer. One of my better-spent days included a visit to the Campbell River Museum which has substantial displays devoted to the First Nations of the region, their history, material culture, place names, stories, and the colonization attempts by the Spanish and British. I know in general terms how that turned out – the British were the successful colonizers. And I know all to well what that meant for First… [more]
“Authentication and Trust – Some Preliminary Thoughts”
Before giving legal effect to any piece of information, people want to know whether the information can be trusted. What is this information? Where does it come from? How sure must they be of the answers to those questions?
At a basic level these are not even legal questions. They are not addressed particularly to the content of the information, though the content can help answer them. They are about the medium and not the message. They are questions of authentication.
Authentication questions apply to information in any form and in any medium. Electronic documents do not need ‘more’ or… [more]
The current spate of stories concerning nations trying to limit the use of Blackberries, when combined with the recently floated ‘net neutrality’ agreement between Verizon and Google, is emblematic of the continuing invasion of the world of telecommunication by the world of governmental and corporate power. Almost two decades ago, I was on a panel with Professor Marge Shultz of the Berkeley Law School faculty, who made a remark that I have never forgotten. Professor Shultz opined that,
Our ability to make advances in technology is outpacing our ability to understand how such progress fits in with law and politics
Driving the other day, I saw the following electronic highway sign:
Seattle:
Rte. I-90 19 mins
Rte. 520 14 mins
There are only two bridges from Bellevue to Seattle, so I had to choose one of these routes. No-brainer, right? Take Rte. 520 and save five minutes.
Not so fast, so to speak. Seattle’s not a small town. Both these routes lead there, but they leave drivers in very different places. Does “Seattle” refer to where each road enters the city, or to a specific spot? If the latter, where? Depending on where I want to go in Seattle, I-90… [more]
I recently had the opportunity to ask some of my clients a few questions about their outsourcing deals. The following is based on those discussions…
1. What is one of the biggest challenges you faced at the procurement stage of an outsourcing and how did you manage that challenge?
Procurement of long-term, high-value outsourcing contracts is complex. You need to be able to negotiate appropriate risk transfer, service levels and pricing, while maintaining competitive tension between vendors bidding for the work. It is not as simple as firing off an RFP with pre-defined services and waiting for a crate of… [more]
I tend to live in the future. I think about what it will be like when I’ve paid off all my debts, how I’m going to celebrate a significant event coming up next year, and what my next job will look like. So last December, when the legal outsourcing firm Integreon announced the first “Shared Information Service”, or outsourced law library services, I was very intrigued. At the time, I remember thinking, “how are they going to do this?” I can understand outsourcing research (be it legal, business development or competitive intelligence), but how do you outsource the… [more]
At the top of my list of things that should never be uttered in a marketing meeting is “because we’ve always done it this way” and “we’ll be the first in our industry to do it.” These are simply not acceptable answers to the most important marketing questions that you should ask yourself before you incur any marketing expense.
Think of marketing as a type of investment. While rates of return and maturation periods vary, a sound investment plan should ultimately help you meet financial goals. Likewise each marketing dollar spent should net you returns if marketing expenses are carefully… [more]
Most law firms use Microsoft Outlook and most people only think of it as an e-mail client that happens to have a calendar stuck on it. In reality though, Outlook, especially Outlook 2007 or newer, is quite a bit more than that.
Outlook 2007 introduced the “To Do Bar” – a panel on the right side of the screen when you’re looking at the Inbox – that shows you the next couple of appointments on your calendar as well as any tasks or flagged e-mails that you may have. It’s the ability to flag e-mails for follow-up that I want… [more]
After a judicial decision is completed by a judge and filed with a court, a legal editor may add a headnote to the decision. A headnote is normally prepared by an editor employed by a publisher.
The main purpose of a caselaw headnote is to save a searcher time in finding a point of law. A headnote should be an index to a judicial decision. For example, a headnote can serve a searcher so that only a portion of long decision has to be read.
Comment and opinion should not be part of a headnote.
“Technology and Access to Justice in Rural Communities”
There is no doubt that residents of rural communities in Canada face greater access to justice limitations than their urban dwelling counterparts. In the last column we explored one such limitation, being reduced access to legal advice and legal advocacy due to a comparatively smaller number of lawyers practicing in rural areas. As we discussed, this is a trend that is forecast to get even worse in the near future. In addition to challenges in regards to legal advice and legal advocacy however, rural communities face additional challenges in another important access to justice factor, that being access to legal… [more]
How much should you charge for your work? That’s a tough call for any lawyer to make, which is one of the reasons many of us default to a billable-hour system that we know doesn’t really reflect value delivered. So here’s one way to solve that problem: let your client decide how much to pay you.
In case you think that’s ten kinds of crazy, you should know that that’s exactly what UK firm CMS Cameron McKenna is doing. The 300-lawyer firm is making this and similar suggestions the centerpiece of a new marketing campaign that highlights its alternative… [more]
InformationWeek recently reported on a very interesting turn of events in the outsourcing arena. The article titled U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers states that the Obama administration has launched a $36 million program to train workers, including 3,000 IT specialists and related functions in South Asia. Following the training, workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the regions that provide offshore services to American companies looking to take advantage of the Asian subcontinent’s low labour costs.
Clearly there are two ways to look at this. You can either view this as an inappropriate use of… [more]
In June, Hicks Morley launched its first external blog, “Human Resources Legislative Update”. The blog replaces a monthly newsletter on legislative changes in human resources law that was sent to clients by email and posted on our website. The downside of the newsletter format was that by the time it was published, it was often already out of date due to the frequency of legislative changes and updates. We needed a time-sensitive solution that was accessible 24/7 to our legislative writers, provided a quick and easy publishing solution and gave readers the ability to ask questions or leave comments.… [more]
Your first high tech trial need not be an ordeal. With a little will power, ingenuity and preparation you can successfully launch your litigation into the late 20th century.
Start with a little mental preparation. Tell yourself (repeatedly if it helps) the one universal truth about courtroom technology: IT IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. If your confidence needs a further boost reflect on how well you mastered other first encounters with technology: riding a bike, driving a car, resetting the clock on your VCR. If you succeeded in at least one of these struggles you are ready for courtroom technology.
Much to the chagrin of the museum crowd, the last few years has seen a steady degradation of the term “curate.” A recent New York Times piece noted that the term “has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling and selecting.” In this sense, everyone perhaps is a curator.
Now, as stimulating as an etymological debate on the word “curate” undoubtedly would be (e.g., Florida still uses the phrase “probate curator”), I’m not really interested in doing it here. I raise the issue because I… [more]
Since 1998, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice has developed a number of online resources and databases which are designed to increase understanding about the civil justice system, and ultimately to improve access to civil and family justice. My last article focused on the Inventory of Reforms, which, alongside our Clearinghouse, is designed to provide greater access to information on the civil justice system and civil justice reform initiatives.
In all of our work at the Forum we have found that there is a real need to promote a stronger… [more]
As of yesterday, foreign lawyers seeking admission to the English and Welsh bar as solicitors via “a shorter alternative route to qualification” must meet the requirements of the new Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme Regulations 2010. One feature of these is the identification of certain jurisdictions as “recognised”; only lawyers from these jurisdictions may take the shorter route to qualification.
Curiously, as of September 1, no Canadian jurisdiction is on the list of recognised jurisdictions, which contains Namibia, Turkey, Israel, and dozens of others. Neither, I should add, is any US state other than California.
According to Legally India, a spokesperson from the governing UK Solicitors Regulation Authority said, “The SRA conducted a survey of international Law Societies and Bars at the end of April . . . ” (Surely the SRA means “foreign,” rather than international.) It would appear, then, that none of the Canadian law societies or the national federation responded to the SRA in time. Their leisurely pace may mean that few if any Canadian lawyers wish to be admitted to practice in England and Wales. Or it may simply reflect the summer lassitude that slows us all down. An admittedly brief attempt to get information about this from the Law Society of Upper Canada failed; no one I was able to speak to knew anything about the survey.
Post written with the collaboration of Adam Gorley, B.A. (Phil.)
On Tuesday, August 31, 2010, the Canadian Press reported that a Montreal man filed a motion for leave to bring a class action suit against the Community of the Clerics of St. Viateur in Montreal and the Raymond-Dewar Institute (also known as the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb) and its priests. Serge D’arcy claims to have been a victim of abuse by pedophile priests while attending the institute between 1967 and 1972.
The applicant is requesting authorization to bring an action for himself and all who were physically or sexually abused by any member of the religious group while residing at the institution.
D’arcy is requesting $600,000 for himself, but the total amount of the class action could amount to several hundreds of thousands of dollars for each victim, since it requires an amount of $100,000 as moral damages, plus amounts in compensation depending on the nature of the acts committed. The institute housed about 280 youth per year at the time.
It was only after learning that a friend was also a victim of sexual abuse by the teachers at the institute, and that there were several other victims of similar abuses, that D’arcy took these legal steps.
The documents filed before the Superior Court reveal details about the acts allegedly committed on at least two young boys who are deaf and dumb, which included fellatio, fondling and masturbation. The applicant claims he began to suffer physical and sexual abuse from members of the religious group who taught and worked at the centre about one year after his admission. The abuse continued between the ages of 9 and 15.
The applicant states in the documents that he “experiences a sense of fear, anguish and shame. He kept a big secret, well hidden, for fear of being judged, and not knowing how or whom to tell” [translated from French].
The applicant and his lawyer believe that because of the physical and sexual abuse, the applicant has undergone numerous direct consequences, disorders and damages that have completely disrupted his life, leading him to become an alcoholic and drug abuser for several years and to contemplate suicide on three occasions.
According to the claim, the institute did nothing to protect the vulnerable residents under its care from abuse by priests, and the organization deliberately concealed these abuses to protect the clergy and the organization’s reputation.
Well, I hope the applicant and any others who join the suit find some form of solace and closure, because these types of cases can drag through courts for years and add to the pain and shame felt by the victims.
On a grander scale… Claims of sexual abuse by priests are not isolated. Stories of abuse have circulated privately in society for ages. However, in the last several years, many claims have become public and made headlines in Canada and around the world. In the United States, 11,750 allegations of child sex abuse have so far featured in actions settled by archdioceses—in Los Angeles for $660 million and in Boston for $100 million. Some dioceses have gone into bankruptcy. Read the rest of this entry »
The World Treaty Index began life in 1974 and has been in more or less continuous development since that time, as the output of the database moved from print to various electronic formats. Now it’s managed by researchers from the University of Michigan who have given it a new web interface. (See also the explanatory article on Computational Legal Studies.)
The WTI contains only metadata, as it were, about the treaties, and not the texts themselves, which likely can be found in other online databases, such as the United Nations Treaty Collection. Even so, the database is large enough, containing information on nearly all treaties formed during the latter part of the 20th century, which is to say more than 70,000 documents. The Index lets you search by country, laterality (e.g. bilateral, multilateral), date and date range, topic, and keyword in the treaty title. Thus, for example, a search for [Canada] and [bilateral] returns 1277 results (the first of which is a treaty signed in 1946 with the United States on Storage and Loading Facilities at Prince Rupert), each with its associated treaty number and source for text.
As well, results of a search are graphed, letting you see easily, for instance, that Canada’s peak period for bilateral treaty making was in the mid 70s:
click image to enlarge
The WTI lets you download the entire database, if you would wish to run it locally, and a CSV file of your search results.
The Canadian Bar Association’s new Partnership Toolkit is a comprehensive collection of information aimed at lawyers trying to navigate the oftentimes confusing and difficult path to partnership. Lawyers will find a wealth of advice here in the form of self assessments, audio podcasts and articles in both web and PDF formats.
The site can be navigated in an interactive and animated menu style as well as a traditional series of links. Some of the highlights of the Toolkit in include:
This are just a few samples among the many resources this Toolkit offers. If moving onto the partnership track is something you’re considering, or if you’re already on it and are looking for great advice, be sure to visit the CBA Partnership Toolkit at http://www.cba.org/cba/partnership/main/
This post concludes a series of post on the subject topic:
Presentation of the CCCT IntellAction Working Group on Court Web Site Guidelines (21 Jan 2010)
Presentation of the Working Group selection of principles included in the subject guidelines; principles 1, 2 and 3 explained (The Right Information for Specific Audiences, Empowerment, Timeliness – 17 Aug 2010)
Presentation of Principles 4, 5 and 6 (Notification, Content, Security – 20 Aug 2010)
Presentation of Principles 7, 8 and 9 (Bilinguism, Accessibility, Interactivity – 25 Aug 2010)
Most of us realize that merely deleting a file doesn’t really remove it from the hard drive or other storage media it resides on. (For some background on this issue see a post I wrote a while back.)
Given how we use digital devices today – both for work and personal use – we can’t just abandon this issue to our firm IT staff. Our personal computers at home, our phones, copiers, memory sticks and ipads all probably contain our own personal information, or personal or confidential information of others. We need to manage that not only while we use those tools – but when we dispose of them as well. Pulverizing them into dust – aka destruction to the smithereens level – is not always an option.
This Microsoft article is worth a read, as it explains the issue, has some suggestions to reduce the risks, and links to some disk erasing tools.
One of my favourite funny memories of time spent in Germany is of a moment in the square of a small town when a chant went up from among the layabouts that decorate these public spaces: “Johnson! Johnson! Johnson! . . . ” And, lo, here came Johnson strolling from behind some building naked as a jaybird. Hausfraus — it was shopping time — turned away, moved away, and this Moses parting the bourgeois sea, not acknowledging his claque, which kept up the chant, sauntered free. But as he approached the fishmongers, where I was watching from, (with some uneasiness, I have to add: the notion of a naked man in a fish shop seemed somehow . . . ) the ta-ti-ta-ta of the cop cars was heard and within moments Johnson was gone with the guys in green.
For a law blog, though, the question raised by the Johnson episode might be quo warranto? It may be that the Germans have a law against public nakedness, like our Code s.174 which makes it an offence to be nude in a public place “without lawful excuse.” Note, though, that the consent of the Attorney General is required for a prosecution under this section; this may or may not inhibit the police from using this section to arrest our Johnsons. If it does, there’s always the offence in the next section of “openly [exposing] or [exhibiting] an indecent exhibition in a public place.” (I have to say I might enjoy defending someone on this if only to make fun of “openly . . . exhibiting . . . an exhibition”.)
But in some places things are more gnarly. Scotland, it seems, is one of those. From the blog Jack of Kent we learn that former Royal Marine Stephen Gough, who rejoices in the nickname the Naked Rambler, and who keeps getting arrested, is now doing time in a Perth prison for breach of peace and contempt of court. Seems he showed up for trial sans kilt, which earned him 21 months inside. The BBC carried the story at the time of his sentencing. Because he’s a stubborn man, and because it seems that the sheriff is as well, he keeps fighting the law and the law keeps winning: he’s been re-arrested a number of times mere moments after being released. As the entry on Jack of Kent points out, he’s potentially facing a life in jail.
All of which led to a discussion on that blog about what business the law has telling people what to wear — or to wear, come to that, making for an interesting read, as usually happens with posts on Jack of Kent, I might add.
Yesterday the Twitter was awash with messages about this revolutionary new Gmail Priority Inbox. The beta version just arrived in my email, and have to say that I am already in love with it. Essentially what it does is bring new, unopened, important messages to the top, then lists those messages that are “starred” (which I have flagged with a star), and then lists everything else. It learns which are important messages over time depending on which are opened and which are responded to. In other words, its accuracy gets better over time.
This entertaining little video explains it a bit better:
Now my little rant: many people see gmail.com as an unprofessional email domain, and it is even blocked by some organizations’ email systems. When I left the law firm life (and Outlook), I found Gmail to be my best email client. Even when I use my professional email domain from crosbygroup.ca, I still use the Gmail client to manage my email. It has features that allow me to manage and organize messages quite nicely. And they really think about users when they create new features. With some of these new features (Priority Inbox, Gmail call phone) I don’t think discounting Gmail as “unprofessional” will hold water very much longer.
We care about print here at Slaw, though we’re the home of pixel-lex. Print is what we grew up with, even the tykes among us; it’s still the base for much of our professional primary sources; and though we love our tech — because ambivalence points both ways, after all — when it comes to reading the touchstone for comparison is always the printed book. So when one of the great publishers is heard to say that one of the great books is “out of print,” we pay attention.
It seems that the Sunday Times carried a story in which the CEO of Oxford University Press said something to the effect that the current edition of the Oxford English Dictionary published in 1989, orse the OED, bids fair to be the last version that will land in ink on paper. (I’d like to be more accurate about who said what, exactly, but because the Sunday Times has retreated behind a paywall, I’m unable to read the story. Moreover, it would seem that Google no longer includes the Sunday Times in the sources it uses for its News searches. I’ve said before that this move by the Times is daft. I’ll say it again: this retreat from reality is daft.)
Few things are calculated to catch on newsfire as well as this sort of “print-is-dead” tinder. Scarcely a news source failed to repeat the story. The old order passeth, and all that.
Well, maybe not.
Oxford University Press released a brief statement today aimed at reassuring the bookish among us:
The first edition of the multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary was fully published in 1928, and the second edition in 1989. No decision has yet been made on the format of the third edition. It is likely to be more than a decade before the full edition is published, and a decision on format will be taken at that point.
A team of 80 lexicographers are currently preparing the third edition of the OED, which is 28 per cent complete. No final completion date is yet confirmed.
However, revised and new entries are published online every three months on OED Online at www.oed.com and a new version of the OED Online website will be launched in December 2010. Oxford University Press prepares the OED, and many of its other dictionaries, in a format-neutral form so that it is suitable for all types of publication.
Dictionaries are and will remain a fundamental part of OUP’s publishing. We publish 500 dictionaries, thesauruses, and language reference titles in more than 40 languages, and in a variety of print and electronic formats so that readers can access information in the most convenient way.
Demand for online resources is growing but large numbers of people continue to purchase dictionaries in printed form and we have no plans to stop publishing print dictionaries.
All right folks, move along. Nothing to see here.
In the meantime, you might like to know that the Online OED is coming out with a refurbished website this December.
But whether in print or in pixels, the queen of reference works is an expensive proposition, if you’re not connected to a university or another institution that subscribes: individuals pay $300 a year for the privilege of meaning online and $1000 for the 20 real volumes. Which shows this to be something of a tempest in a Qianlong teapot.
Today, it featured a new post on the developments atThomas to make legislative information more accessible. There aren’t a lot of comments yet, but it’s early days.
The high spots for me were on Social Media and a Legislative Map at the State level, which looks simple but is only simple to use.
Social Media Box
In addition to easier access to the Library’s social media, there is a new box to highlight ways to connect with THOMAS and the Law Library of Congress through the In Custodia Legis Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and iTunes U.
The high point for me is a splendid map hot-linked to all of the state legislative websites across the country. Beautifully programmed tool from Christine Sellers
State Legislature Page
A link to State Legislature Websites has been added to the THOMAS homepage. This new page displays a map with links to the legislative bodies for all fifty states, Washington, DC, and U.S. territories. It provides quick access to state legislative websites that are similar to what THOMAS provides on a federal level.
With the Law Librarian Conversations podcast settling into its new home at CALI (the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction), the new podcast Law School Tech Talk has now been started.David Dickens, Consulting Technologist at Pepperdine Law, is the host along with co-hosts and regular contributors: Jonathan Ezor(billed as “resident law prof”), Debbie Ginsberg (“Law Librarian”), and Ben Chapman (“another veteran IT guy”). They hope to cover all angles of law school technology.
From the email I received about the show:
We hope to have live shows for you about every two weeks; they should run 30 minutes, give or take.
Topics will include news and events relating to technology in law schools, and we’ll usually have one special guest each show.
Our home on the web is here, where you can find our inaugural episode with special guest Tom Boone.
To attend the next live recording of Law School Tech Talk online, today at 2 pm ET/1 pm CT, register here. It is organized and recorded on a webinar platform.
Because of our point-based immigration system Canada is know for attracting some of the best and brightest around the world, resulting in a phenomenon known as the brain drain. But Canada often experiences its own drain, with many professionals and stars seeking bigger markets and opportunities in the U.S.
In a recent edition of The Medical Post, Matthew Sylvain notes an interesting phenomenon (Brain drain reversed? August 17, 2010). American physicians are moving to Canada, albeit in small numbers.
The most obvious reason is the economy, and Sylvain cites John Mabbott of Health Match B.C. in pointing to people letting their health insurance premiums lapse as one of the reasons why a for-profit system is hit harder in the recession.
Canadian physicians also don’t have to negotiate with big HMOs that bargain over fees and coverage. Consequently, more physicians are free entrepeneurs in Canada than the U.S. Less litigation here means lower insurance premiums.
The biggest surprise for me was that tax rates for the highest bracket in some states are comparable to Canadian taxes, and many Canadian physicians actually make more money than their American counterparts.
The best kept secret in the U.S. right now is Canada.
We have far less new law graduates in Canada looking for jobs. Unlike the U.S., we haven’t had massive lay-offs of lawyers from major law firms. Canadian recruiters I’ve spoken to have described more of a massive hiring slow-down. But could some of these hires be American counsel seeking greener pasture north of the border? Could we could eventually see a similar trend here in the legal industry?
The organizing committee of the 2010 ODR and Consumers Conference to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia Nov. 2-3, 2010 is pleased to announce that Madam Justice Frances Kiteley will be a keynote speaker at the Conference.
Prior to her elevation to the bench, Madam Justice Kiteley was called to the Bar in Ontario in 1976; she was in private practice in Toronto for 19 years and was elected as a Bencher of the Law Society in 1987 and 1991. In 1995 she was appointed to what is now the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario.
Justice Kiteley had been involved in the Toronto Electronic Filing Pilot Project which planned, developed, implemented and maintained the first electronic filing end-to-end system in a court in Canada; she was also a member of the Ontario E-filing Implementation Committee which was involved in planning, developing and implementing pilot projects intended to lead to province-wide electronic filing.
Between 2000 and 2005, she was a member of the Judges Technology Advisory Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council and as a result chaired or participated in numerous committees dealing with the following :
Three surveys of chief justices as to the status of the security of computers used by judges and judicial information created, stored and used by judges
The Blueprint for the Security of Judicial Information – a guide for use by all courts as to the technical requirements for security for the technology resources of judges
Monitoring of the computers used by judges
Acceptable Use Policy
Model Protocol for the establishment of a Court Technology Committee
The discussion paper on Electronic Access to Court Records and the model policy approved by Council in September 2005
The Use of Personal Information in Judgments and Recommended Protocol
The Feasibility of a Canadian Centre for Court Technology
Madam Justice Kiteley has made presentations on such technology issues to the Manitoba Court of Queens Bench, the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick, the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island and the Provincial Court of British Columbia.
The ODR and Consumers 2010 forum will see Madam Justice Kiteley address the pivotal issue of the role of Online Dispute Resolution in the judicial dispute resolution process.
In a stunningly inaccurate prediction, I announced to a friend a few years back that parasols would move into the mainstream here in Canada as we worried more and more about sun damage to our skin. As you may have noticed, it didn’t happen. Perhaps it may still, awaiting only some prominent person to champion the thing, in the way that Englishman Jonas Hanway in the mid 1800s popularized the use by men of umbrellas against the rain despite the taunts and ridicule he got for using a woman’s device.
Everyone’s doing it now, of course. And umbrella makers rejoice in that fact, I’m sure. (I suspect them, too, of somehow encouraging that particular form of forgetfulness that makes you leave your umbrella on the streetcar or in the taxi. I have no proof, though.) Which means that everyone is bound to like this article in The Paris Review about a remarkable colony of umbrella makers in northern Italy, who’ve been at it for centuries. But most fascinating of all, to me at least, is the strange fact that these ombrellai have developed their own language.
I don’t mean their own jargon. Jargons are a dime a dozen. Why, even law has one. No, this is a language called Tarùsc, that, so far as I can tell, bears some similarity to those “made up” languages like Esperanto, in that some words seem borrowed from this linguistic line and other from that. In Tarùsc, for example, potatoes are cartòful, no distance at all from the German kartoffel. Rundél is the world; and hands are grapèll. There’s a long list of words at the end of the piece; take a look and see if you can plumb their origins.
Sadly, the language is doomed, as is the practice of umbrella fabrication in Piedmont. Not so the brolly itself, though. So long as there’s rain, or, on the chance that there’s rain, we’ll carry an “en-tout-cas,” I predict. But wouldn’t it make sense to keep the bumbershoots open all year round, huh? Go on! You there in the prominenti, you could be the first to popularize the practice. Go down in history — and make a seer out of me.
A monk asked Joshu in all seriousness: “Does a dog have Buddha-Nature or not?” Joshu retorted: “Mu!”
The problem of “identity,” as we would style it today, is the sort of thing that zen masters make their students struggle with, as in the famous dog koan set out above, which tackles the matter elliptically. “Who am I?” — “Who are you?” — are questions that human beings have been worrying since the dawn of consciousness, presumably.
Now, I’m not going to get all gnomic on you here: it’s not the place for it. But the deep question is not so far removed from the shallower question of identity in society, for both have a tendency to elude easy answer, and it’s our continuing difficulty with the latter that I want to work with a bit in this post. Think of this, by the way, as a teaser for a column coming up on Monday by John Gregory on authentication; I’ll roil the waters and he’ll calm them and provide legal clarity.
For those lawyers or small business owners just starting out, setting down roots online can be a daunting process. Not everyone has the budget to hire out a new website construction project, and on the other side, there are numerous sources that will encourage you to DIY – “do it yourself”. What frequently happens though, is the new entrepreneur gets stuck. Do you cobble it together? Or, do you bite the bullet and find the budget?
The following advice won’t be for everyone, but for the soon-to-be business owner, or anyone who’s jumped into business over the past five years, hopefully some of it will resonate.
First off, I’m a big fan of bootstrapping. Not just being self-sufficient to reduce the initial investment, but risking as little capital as humanly possible during your startup period. I’m almost embarrassed to say it now, but I started Stem on a couple of thousand dollars, and that included a new computer. So with this frugal tone in mind, I’d like to offer a couple of tips on creating a bootstrapped web presence:
Give yourself permission to launch a ‘Version One’ website. Nothing online is permanent, including this site.
Learn enough to register a domain, and sign up for a web hosting account. My preference is use two different providers here – one as your domain registrar (example: GoDaddy) and one for the web hosting (examples: Bluehost, Fused Network). And if you do reach out to others for help, make sure everything is registered in your name.
Use WordPress for your initial website. Why? Because your path to improvement has less hurdles. Designers are plentiful, and you can easily replace or expand your ‘Version One’ website the moment your budget numbers justify it. Unless you’re very tech-savvy, I think WP is the easiest of the major CMS products to get into production.
For those even less-tech savvy, WordPress.com is also a possibility. But only if you have your domain name on it.
Monitor with Analytics – Google Analytics is a copy & paste away from showing how fruitful your early efforts are online. Free tools are important considerations for any startup, but Web Analytics services (it doesn’t have to be Google) are a required element.
Delivering the Vision Sooner - Knock off the technical website issues ASAP. The faster you finish ‘tinkering’, the sooner you rise above to focus on the deliverables that are your business. I make no bones about it when it comes to the startup period. It’s a race. Your mortgage may be on the line, and website tinkering is counter productive.
Good enough. Along the same lines as the previous item, you don’t have time to be a perfectionist. Most new entrepreneurs wear lots of hats, or ALL the hats. That means you don’t have weeks to spend on your logo, or to perfect your business image coming out the door.
Know when your startup period is over. Whether it’s 6-months in or 18-months in, your ‘Version One’ website has a limited life span. Simply put: kill it and upgrade your home base. If you’re using that same website in Year 3, there’s a problem. New businesses are forgiven for bootstrapping; established businesses look cheap, and turn away work without knowing it.
For the new entrepreneur set to launch a service-based business with a virtual shingle, there are always good opportunities to cull expenses. And it’s smart! No one can guarantee your offering will gain traction, or that you won’t become one of those “new businesses in the first 5-years‘ statistics. But all other things being equal, your odds improve by dropping your burn rate to as little as possible.
Google has just released a new search page dedicated to real-time results — those posts that come in typically from Twitter. They’re rolling it out, as they do with all innovations. But if you’re keen, you can get to it via http://www.google.com/realtime?esrch=RealtimeLaunch::Experiment. When it’s otherwise available to you, it will be reachable at http://www.google.com/realtime.
One nice feature is the ability to restrict your results by geography. Thus, for example, I was able to see what people in Canada were saying about the floods in Pakistan. And, as Google suggests, it might be handy to find out what’s going on in a town you’re visiting.
Safety is an illusion in today’s workplace. The current economy coupled with rapidly advancing technologies allows opportunities, or makes it necessary, for organizations to change the way they work. For individuals in many organizations, it could mean that risks (suggesting change, launching a new product, revamping a process) are not taken in an effort to maintain some kind of status quo (continued employment for example). The obvious downside for not taking a risk is that sometimes maintaining the status quo is equivalent to stagnation and failure.
I have always been a glass half full, change equals opportunity, bring on the next challenge kind of person. I am sure that some of you share the excitement that this personal philosophy provides. Perhaps, like me, you look at Google and see a similar optimism. If you don’t believe that Google is a great risk taker, I have some examples from recent history.
Google Wave. It was contemplated, tested in the market (see post comments), and canned as a failed experiment. Google risked investing time and resources and after evaluation, risked again by stopping development of a tool that some people found useful.
Google’s new voice and video chat tool that is now available in your gmail. For Canadian’s who do not have access to Google Voice, this was announced yesterday:
Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”
Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.
I haven’t had an opportunity to adequately test this new service point yet, but as far as business risk taking goes, this is a great example. Between Voice and call from Gmail, it may even seem that Google is competing with itself. David’s post this week about cell phone adoption provides an interesting counterpoint from the communication philosophy standpoint.
If you have tried out this new gmail phone service, let us know in the comments. For US readers, I would love to hear if you are using Google Voice.
The following is the text of the August 26 e-blast sent to Ontario lawyers reminding them of the ongoing collaborative family law cheque scam.
Almost every day LAWPRO® hears from lawyers who find themselves the targets of various kinds of frauds. While this message is not a full fraud alert, we felt we should advise lawyers to be on guard, as there has been a significant increase in the number of collaborative family law agreement frauds reported to LAWPRO over the last week. Almost 20 firms have been targeted in the last four business days. We also urge lawyers to be extra cautious as we approach Labour Day weekend, as we have seen an increase in fraud attempts around long weekends and holidays in the past. Read the rest of this entry »
Legal Watch blog recently reported that Apple has applied for a patent on technology that, among other things, would allow Apple to identify and punish users who “jailbreak” or unlock their iPhones or who otherwise tamper with their devices against Apple policy.
The patent application is titled, Systems and methods for identifying unauthorized users of an electronic device, and would allow Apple to remotely, and without detection, record a user’s face, voice, a unique “heartbeat signature”, a photo of the location where the phone is being used, and monitor essentially all usage of the device.
These biometric measures could also be used to identify unauthorized users of an electronic device by comparing the identity of the current user to the identity of the owner of the electronic device. When an unauthorized user is detected, various safety measures could be taken such as shutting down functions of the electronic device in question.
Many civil liberties advocates, such as Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which defends civil rights and freedoms in the digital world, believe that this patented system would enable Apple to secretly collect, store and potentially use sensitive biometric information about a user—simply put, to spy on their customers.
According to the EFF:
This is dangerous in two ways: First, it is far more than what is needed just to protect you against a lost or stolen phone. It’s extremely privacy-invasive and it puts you at great risk if Apple’s data on you are compromised. But it’s not only the biometric data that are a concern. Second, Apple’s technology includes various types of usage monitoring—also very privacy-invasive. This patented process could be used to retaliate against you if you jailbreak or tinker with your device in ways that Apple views as “unauthorized” even if it is perfectly legal under copyright law.
Here’s a sample of the kinds of information Apple plans to collect:
The system can take a picture of the user’s face, “without a flash, any noise, or any indication that a picture is being taken to prevent the current user from knowing he is being photographed”
The system can record the user’s voice, whether or not a phone call is even being made
The system can determine the user’s unique individual heartbeat “signature”
To determine if the device has been hacked, the device can watch for “a sudden increase in memory usage of the electronic device”
The user’s “Internet activity can be monitored or any communication packets that are served to the electronic device can be recorded”
The device can take a photograph of the surrounding location to determine where it is being used
In other words, Apple will know who you are, where you are, and what you are doing and saying and even how fast your heart is beating.
Quite invasive and privacy intrusive; enough to stop my beating heart!
We're currently planning more projects and will let you know about them as we launch them.
... a per saltum project from Slaw ...
Our simple-to-remember rewriting of the URL for the Supreme Court of Canada — And lessupremes.ca works as well, bien sûr.
Gavel Busters It's time to bring the hammer down on Canadian sites that mistakenly use the gavel as a symbol of law. Help us wipe out this scourge! Learn more on our Gavel Busters page.
The Friday Fillip Collections
Some end-of-week frivols fastened in folios for your enjoyment ...
Selected Fillips from 20062007 [2008 2009 coming soon ... ]
Slawstalgia See how things used to be on Slaw: - the page from June 5, 2006, when we'd be going for just about a year... - the page from May 13, 2010 [PDF], nearly four years later...
Read this book and you will know whether you are more likely to be a happy lawyer at age 30 or age 60, why you can tell a lot about a firm from looking at its walls and windows, whether a 10 percent raise or a new office with a view does more for your happiness, and whether the happiness prospects are better in large or small firms.
"The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers." If you haven't already said "This is how it begins" here's another reason to.
On Monday, August 23, 2010, over 300 individuals charged during Toronto’s G20, nearly two months prior, had their first appearances at the courthouse at 2201 Finch Ave. West in North York. Although I had not been retained by any of those whom I assisted with bail on a pro-bono basis, I decided to head over to court to see what was happening.
This came to me the other day, sitting in my car, thinking about how law students don’t know anything about secondary sources and just insist (said disdainfully, and as if I had dirt in my mouth) on looking for answers on Westlaw or Lexis as if it will just come to them if they ask.
Evan Chesler, the presiding partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, one of the world’s largest law firms, wrote an article in 2009 called “Kill the Billable Hour”. It has not been killed, but he is confident that clients will continue to ask for alternatives.
In 2003, a group of scientists and executives from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the drug and medical-imaging industries, universities and nonprofit groups joined in a project that experts say had no precedent: a collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in the human brain.
"I believe that net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time," declared Democratic Senator Al Franken at Thursday's public hearing on the Internet, held in his home state of Minnesota. Unless it's freedom of religion," he added, "which, until last week, I thought we had kind of worked out."
Perhaps the best piece in recent memory on the future of the web, competition of the closed-Apps market, and maturity of Internet content delivery. - SM
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The problem of “identity,” as we would style it today, is the sort of thing that zen masters make their students struggle with, as in 
