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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, for instance, would start by selecting a phrase representative of one element of the group’s services — say, “patent licensing Canada.” The first step is to identify how often people type this phrase into Google each month; for illustration purposes, we’ll make it 3,000, or 36,000 annually. The practice group could respond to this information by positioning an on-subject paper, service page, or website at the top of the Google search results. Over the course of a single year, those 36,000 searches represent a consistently strong opportunity to showcase that group’s expertise. 

Repeat this scenario for any portfolio of related phrases, and a practice group will boost its exposure in front of its desired audience. Consequently, the group’s members will also improve the number of qualified contacts they receive and increase their ability to generate new relationships and potential work.

There are some specific techniques that law firms can employ to improve their “practice group findability” on the web. Here are some recommendations:

1. Conduct keyword research on niche service areas. It’s important to know the number of monthly searches conducted for a specific area of practice. With a strong grasp of the terms and phrases people use, groups can determine some key strategic information:

(a) whether there’s demand for a subject online: confirm if a “hot topic” really is popular, or if a casual industry phrase is worth more focused attention. 

(b) preferred phrases: which phrases are used most commonly? Are you using language that’s too sophisticated, or not sophisticated enough? 

(c) preferred keyword order: Search engines deliver different results based on the word order of your search. Knowing these variations can change your approach; see the next entry on selecting titles.

2. Select the best titles for publications.  Choose titles for group articles and papers based on the results of your keyword research, directing attention to both volume (frequently searched) phrases and keyword order. And remember to be descriptive: practice groups that choose descriptive titles have an opportunity to be found. 

3. Set up microsites for practice groups. Examples include blogs, FAQ collections, and single-subject websites. By selecting a domain name that matches a high-volume search, a website can be more subject-focused, and consequently will perform strongly for that subject in the search engines.  

4. Create a “deep link” strategy. Many websites (LinkedIn or Google Profiles, for example) allow you to link back to webpages on your site. Rather than sending these links to the firm homepage, practice group members should, whenever possible, point links to:

(a) their practice group web page, or

(b) their personal lawyer profile page.

5. Create Service Pages. These are sub-pages to the practice group homepage. The group would identify niche service areas and create dedicated webpages (or from an SEO perspective, “landing pages”) for that service offering. These pages expose more depth about the group’s expertise and create more opportunity for search traffic. These pages are optimized for their subject, and can deliver targeted page titles based on keyword research. 

6. Conduct new article and publication outreach. When your practice group releases a paper, video, article, or any publication, to whom can you send it? Remember that incoming links are “votes” in Google for higher search-engine rankings. Practice groups should spend some time identifying who they know online: bloggers, industry writers, media, or anyone who can help expose content publishing by the group.

7. Use keywords (authentically) in the body text. Once you know the high-volume search phrases, you must use those phrases within the text you write. This shouldn’t be done in an excessive manner, but do consider using using target phrases once or twice within the body of your writing.

8. Place subheadings on practice pages. Breaking up larger text blocks is a natural writing technique online anyway, so if you’re adding section headers, consider aligning those headers with your volume phrase targets.

These techniques, when used consistently within and across practice groups, should generate the right kind of site traffic and yield measurably improved business development results. 

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.

Some legal experts claim that a jurisdiction’s statute of limitations should prevail, and that in many cases it is too late to sue. But according to certain psychologists, it takes a long time for victims of abuse to come to terms with what happened to them, and even longer to be strong enough to face their abusers. Does that mean the victims’ “window” to see justice and protect future victims (because the abuses continue to this day) from the same horrible ordeal should close?

Some claimants want a higher level of accountability for the abuse: The Pope!

However, according to some lawyers, Pope Benedict XVI is immune from any lawsuits “as the head of a foreign state” (the Vatican). It seems in 2005, a test case in Texas failed because President Bush took up the Vatican’s cause and claimed sovereign (i.e., head of state) immunity on the pope’s behalf. Despite such claims, the international criminal court views the pope as a spiritual adviser, and not an immune sovereign.

According to the Guardian.co.uk:

Head of state immunity provides no protection for the pope in the international criminal court. The ICC Statute definition of a crime against humanity includes rape and sexual slavery and other similarly inhumane acts causing harm to mental or physical health, committed against civilians on a widespread or systematic scale, if condoned by a government or a de facto authority. … If acts of sexual abuse by priests are not isolated or sporadic, but part of a wide practice both known to and unpunished by their de facto authority then they fall within the temporal jurisdiction of the ICC—if that practice continued after July 2002, when the court was established.

The story of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of priests is sad for too many reasons, the main of which is the thousands of victims who had no say in the events that led to the abuse and who might never live normal lives. In Canada, Aboriginal children did not choose to attend church-run and government-funded residential schools, from which came countless stories of abuse. And parents involved with Catholic Church activities have trusted and continue to trust their spiritual leaders with their children, with sometimes devastating results.

The story is also sad because of the institutional apathy or secrecy that allowed the abuses to happen around the world. In Canada it was (and is) not only the Catholic or Protestant Church on its own, but also the federal government (in the case of the residential schools) that allowed these abuses to occur. Both the church and the government had some knowledge of the abuses taking place within their institutions as they were taking place, but both decided to ignore or hide them and essentially allow the abuse to continue.

But besides apologies, what kind of answer can anyone give for these irresponsible and inhumane actions?

Well, the Canadian government has tried offering money along with its apology to victims of abuse at residential schools, which seems to be the only way that large institutions understand how to make amends these days. The Pope also apologized for its part in the residential school abuses, and many have accepted that apology as genuine.

The Pope has also made apologies to other groups around the world for the abuses perpetrated by Catholic priests and other church employees over the years. And as mentioned, various dioceses around the world have made large settlements to groups in class action lawsuits.

And, of course, victims and their families usually look for criminal charges against the perpetrators or their employers or higher-ups. Numerous priests face jail time, and organizations have gone bankrupt, but no one has pinned anything on the Pope just yet. (In the case of the residential school system, the politicians and bureaucrats who were responsible for the program are no longer around.)

But do these gestures mean anything if the institutions offering them don’t change the conditions that caused the abuses in the first place? I mean, it’s all well and good to collect half a million dollars for abuses, but will that money prevent others from suffering abuse in the future? And sure you can put an abuser behind bars, but will that prevent others from committing the same abuses? Would it make a difference if the Pope were put in prison for his role in protecting abusive priests and employees of the church?

It might not, but a trial involving Pope Benedict and other church officials might expose information that could help victims understand better what was happening to them and their church—and possibly open up a path to organizational growth, moving past the scandals. But that doesn’t seem likely to happen. The Catholic Church is claiming diplomatic immunity, and besides, large institutions like the church, governments and corporation rarely face the same type of intense scrutiny before the courts that individual perpetrators do, and as a result, the whole story of such large-scale events rarely comes to light.

Should we be satisfied with these meagre portions of justice: imprisonment for individual perpetrators, grand apologies and cash settlements? Or do these acts just reinforce the status quo, without leading to any meaningful change? Does the law allow for justice beyond these common measures? Do we even know what sort of justice would satisfy victims of broad-based scandals? (And I think it’s fair to say that in a small way all Canadians are victims of events such as happened in the residential school system, since we all pay for the reparations, and many will lose trust in our government and other institutions.)

All I can say that justice is a work in progress, and while I fear we have reached an impasse in that work, I know there are many who continue to push for openness and truth. And through their efforts, we will increase our understanding of how victims relate to their victimizers, and how to heal harm their actions cause, and allow victims, victimizers and society as a whole to move on in trust.

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.

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 less vigilant about potential problems in new outsourcing relationships. In any event, it is clear that many customers are willing to accept service providers’ assurances that the standard descriptions and service levels “work for all customers.” 

However, customers do so at the peril of the outsourcing.

A few years ago, the foregoing observation would have been superfluous: it would be harder to think of a more obvious requirement in the context of an outsourcing. While organizations engage in outsourcings partly to benefit from the expertise of the service provider, it is clearly essential that both parties ensure that their expectations for the outsourcing are fully aligned. While service providers are generally experts on the services they provide and the manner in which they provide them, customers need to understand how their internal organization will use and rely upon the services and how this may differ from other customers of the service provider. The expertise of the service provider should inform the customer’s needs, but not determine them. 

Ultimately, the customer needs to dedicate sufficient resources to ensure a full appreciation of the services that are being contracted (including service levels and the consequences of any service level failure). Generally, this is a two-step process involving:

1. understanding the organization’s needs without reference to the service providers’ services; and
2. understanding any discrepancy between the organization’s needs and what the service provider is willing and able to provide.

The second part of this analysis will result in discussions between the customer and the service provider which will prove useful in understanding the service provider’s ability to meet the customer’s requirements and its ability to problem-solve – including obtaining assistance to mitigate the impact of any discrepancies that are found to exist.

How much time and effort does it take to perform this type of analysis? Often, more than most organizations think will be necessary. But the time and effort involved will help the organization better understand its needs and ensure that its expectations are reasonable and achievable. Like any necessary preparation work, however significant the time and effort required may be, it is unlikely to compare to the time and effort required to resolve the situation if the analysis is not performed and the parties subsequently find that their expectations are inconsistent. Having said that, the ease and effectiveness of available exit strategies can be considered when determining how much time and effort should be spent in performing an analysis of the services offered (however, if an organization is not spending the necessary time and effort to perform an analysis of the services it will be outsourcing, one has to wonder whether it has spent sufficient time analyzing exit strategies). 

While service providers may argue that their expertise allows them to offer “off the shelf” outsourcings, few customers consider themselves to have only “off the shelf” requirements. It follows, therefore, that only the customer will be fully competent to determine whether the proposed terms will meet its needs and that it will be well worth its time and effort to do so. 

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:

• A self assessment questionnaire to help you decide if partnership is right for you.
• An audio podcast by two coaches who help lawyers develope the skills they need to becomes partners.
• 15 things to think about before signing a partnership agreement.
• Money matters, such as how partners can define their financial goals and how to achieve them by retirement
• An audio podcast by three lawyers who describe their experiences making the transition from associate to partner.

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/

Cross posted at Avoid A Claim

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)

As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Principle #10: Viability

Viability is a large concept and embodies several ingredients:

• Cost effectiveness in the long run, or Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• Effectiveness of the web site platform in delivering the desired features and characteristics
• Efficiency of the web site platform in delivering the desired features and characteristics
• Sustainability of the web site platform (i.e. the underlying Web Content Management System): is it being kept up to date? Are security patches issued on a timely basis? Is the upgrade cycle regular? Is there a large base of knowledgeable developers that are familiar with the platform?
• Flexibility of the web site platform: is it providing a way to easily customize the site to add or modify features that are not part of the core Web Content Management System? Is an Application Programming Interface (API) available and easy to leverage?

All these facets of viability need to be assessed when selecting a Web Content Management System (WCMS) to power the court web site.

Principle #11: Simplicity

Last but not least, the overriding, overarching important principle of simplicity.

In the context of the present guidelines, simplicity should guide courts when they are making the following decisions:

• What Web Content Management System (WCMS) should the court select to power its web site?
• How much customization of the selected WCMS should occur to address the full range of requirements and desired features?
• How much integration between the selected WCMS and corporate applications / legacy systems should be implemented?

When Information Technology is concerned, complexity is a disease, especially when it comes to Web Content Management Systems. Courts should make technology decisions that will result in a simple environment for content creators, content consumers and web site custodians.

Customization and integration often lead to complexity. Governments and large organizations with well-funded Information Technology budgets routinely invest large sums of money to add customization and integration to their initial IT investments. This leads to several, well-known problems in the long run. For example, when a specific version of a Commercial-and-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) enterprise software is customized to provide additional features and integration with corporate systems, the requirement to re-customize and re-integrate is bound to re-occur for every release of a new version of the COTS software, often costing millions of dollars to organizations that have made those initial choices. This need for additional customization and integration typically allows the software to meet 98% of the requirements instead of 80%, for example.

Courts should carefully evaluate, before heading into the direction of expensive integration and customization, whether the additional upfront and recurring costs is worth the additional features of the web site? This question should be evaluated only after alternative means to meet the additional features have been considered. In many cases, human workflow adjustments can accommodate very well the requirements that are not met with the core Web Content Management System, in a much more cost-effective manner.

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.

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 Law Faculty; its objective is to provide an unofficial forum for making known the current views of the CRA and the demands of Canadian income tax law. They describe their content as follows: “Official Interpretation Bulletins do not have the force of law. This is true of the following wiki version as well.” 

Meanwhile, out on the west coast, Vancouver lawyer Michael Drew has created legaltree.ca, described on the site as “a collaboratively built website with legal research resources maintained by the site administrators, and legal literature contributed by lawyers in the Canadian legal community.” The site’s best feature is its excellent bibliography of secondary sources. 

One area of the site is devoted to user-generated content. It contains some digests of Supreme Court of Canada cases, at least one great article on heading to chambers for the first time, and some other short articles. This part of the site includes a tab for “books”. The site says that it will have books on specific legal topics, authored by Legaltree users. But although the site states that legaltree.ca invites authors to submit proposals, no books have been published yet. 

Other sources such as lexpubli.ca and jdsupra.com aim to provide free online precedent services. 

How will wikis and other collaborative sources fit into the world of legal publishing? Are they “good enough” as information sources for the practicing bar? Will they ever be more than sources for learning about an unfamiliar topic quickly and conveniently? 

Another way of looking at this question: as more and more legal information is available for free on the Internet, will the market for legal publications be eroded? The big question is: will the market for legal publishing continue to pay for curation (also known as quality control)? I strongly believe that lawyers are willing to pay for authoritative legal information; in other words, the information has to be more than just “good enough”. 

Jason Wilson’s thoughtful column looked at this topic from the 30,000 foot level. My comments relate to curation from about 1,000 feet. 

What does curation mean for us at CLEBC? When we publish a BC practice manual, it means finding an editorial board of experts in the area; working with them to develop a table of contents; finding great authors to write the book; and then carefully editing all the submitted chapters. 

When CLEBC editors review chapters, they ask: have we covered the correct material? Is there enough depth? Is there too much depth? Is coverage consistent across the whole book? Is there duplicate material? Is authority provided for every proposition? Is the authority accurate? Can the editor (the first reader) understand what the author is saying? 

When all that’s been done, the editorial board reviews the book to verify that it is accurate. As you can imagine, editorial boards made up of knowledgeable, senior, lawyers, sometimes from opposing sides of the bar (plaintiff and defence, for example), with the occasional helpful judge thrown in, will usually have strong opinions about the content of the book. Not only does this combination make for lively meetings, the process ensures that the content of our publications is as authoritative as it can be. 

There’s one final aspect of quality control: our team of copy editors and production staff comb over the manuscript to ensure that the grammar, spelling, and punctuation are correct, that the case and statute citations are accurate and included in reference tables, that an index is prepared, and that the publication is attractive and easy to read. 

(Note that every step in this curation process is also needed for material published on the web (with some differences on account of the different format)). 

Over the course of my two decades in legal publishing, I’ve learned that most lawyers are strongly motivated to “give back” to the legal profession. However, these wonderful volunteers are only too happy to leave the organization and management of these projects to legal editors (who serve as project managers). Part of our curation process not only ensures the quality of the material provided, but also that material is submitted on time, and that it receives the widest possible distribution. (This is entirely as it should be; it makes much more sense for our authors to be practicing law rather than chasing down their fellow authors to enforce deadlines, for example.) 

The final result is a lengthy, comprehensive, well-written, and most importantly. authoritative and reliable publication. I’m very proud that our practice manuals are regularly cited by the BC courts; here’s a recent example. 

Will we be supplanted by something that is “good enough”? I continue to believe that lawyers will continue to pay for the curation work we do, mostly because the final product is authoritative. After all, I don’t believe any lawyer wants to use a wiki for research, only to have the judge look over her glasses and say “What’s your authority? … I don’t think so, counsel”. 

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.

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 is one of the activities they most enjoy about working at their firm. Not only is assisting junior lawyers personally rewarding but mentoring also creates a more welcoming and collegial community within the firm – the kind of work environment these women want to foster. Many women also know that mentoring is the best way to ensure that young women lawyers stay in the profession and advance to partnership. 

While some firms foster mentoring through formal programs, most mentoring happens informally. Typically, women have less access to the kind of informal mentoring that will occur naturally between male lawyers who will spend time chatting in the hallways, are together on the golf course or at a hockey game or have lunch or drinks after work. If there is no formal mentoring program in place, some women may receive no mentoring at all.

One young female associate at a small firm told me that her male colleagues were regularly asked (often in front of her) to have lunch with the partners while she was excluded from these invitations. She believed that the male partners simply were more comfortable socializing with the younger men in the firm. When she left the firm, the partners were surprised. They said she was a fine lawyer whom they had expected would stay. She was frustrated at her lack of informal mentoring around both legal issues and career development. More importantly, she did not want to become a partner at a firm where she felt excluded and invisible. A good mentor would have ensured that she was fully accepted in the firm and had the same opportunities as her male associates.

Even where law firms have good mentoring programs in place, these programs often do not address the issues that drive women away. Returning from maternity leave and ramping your practice back up; developing business in a male dominated industry; harassment by a client; staying awake during the day when you have been up all night with a sick child or elderly parent – these may be issues that a male partner has never encountered.  Women associates are often reluctant to raise these challenges in case it signals that they are not coping. 

On the flip side – I hear partners say that they have mentoring programs in place but the women still leave. This is because the mentoring is not addressing the issues that are causing the women to leave. The women do not want to burn any bridges or criticize the firm by asking for better mentoring. 

Too often mentoring is seen as social conversations over lunch about what happened on the weekend or vacation plans. While building a relationship between a partner and an associate is important, if the conversation never moves beyond social chitchat, it is not mentoring. Similarly, answering a question on a file is important but neither is this mentoring. In a mentoring relationship, the partner actively supports and takes an interest in the broader professional and career development of the associate. This requires a bigger conversation where the associate feels that the partner is on her side and will support the associate on an on-going basis rather than just the occasional lunch. 

So how does a law firm know what their associates need to become better lawyers and future partners? How will they know if their female associates (or associates from different cultural backgrounds, for that matter) have different concerns than their male associates?

The firm must start with an anonymous survey (preferably of both partners and associates) about what they believe the current mentoring situation to be. Is it working? Unless the survey is seen to be anonymous, no associate will provide honest feedback about the partner mentors. Women associates are particularly reluctant to raise any issues that may single them out as not coping as well as the men. 

Responding to the issues raised in the survey should lead to written guidelines setting out expectations for both partners and associates; training for both partners and associates on what constitutes good mentoring and follow-up to see if the changes are working. While none of this need be complicated or bureaucratic, it does need buy-in from the top and visible partner leadership. It also requires recognition and some type of reward for those partners who take mentoring seriously and devote time to it. Mentoring does not need to be part of the always-contentious compensation criteria, however it does need to be a reward that is sufficiently motivating.

As there are fewer women at the partnership level in Canada, there are fewer good female mentors available to mentor younger women. While female role models are important, not all female partners (or male partners, for that matter) make good mentors. A female partner for example, may have chosen not to have children so that she could devote more time to building her practice. She may be unsympathetic to a female associate returning from maternity leave and feel that no special accommodation should be given to a woman who has chosen to become a mother.

Male partners can be excellent mentors especially when they can assist a young female associate better navigate the male business world or understand law firm politics. 

One solution to the lack of sufficient female partners is to use mentoring or peer circles. There is a different dynamic when only women are in the room. Women (like men) do not need to be as guarded or concerned that they will be misunderstood. This can lead to a freer discussion where associates can learn from shared experiences and support each other. Mentoring or peer circles can be organized around specific topics like returning from maternity leave or business development.

Male associates should have access to a formal mentoring program as well. Even though men typically receive more informal mentoring than women, it is important that all associates feel that they are being treated fairly. Also, most female associates will be uncomfortable if they feel singled out or if they face resentment from their male colleagues who feel that the women are getting an unfair advantage on the road to partnership.

While mentoring is good for the bottom line in all law firms, it is crucial in assisting women to stay in the practice of law. However, it must focus on the issues that drive women away. To determine what those issues are and to encourage open and frank dialogue to solve them requires a commitment on the part of partners to be the best mentors they can be. Mentoring is not difficult. We owe it to our clients, our younger lawyers and ourselves to do this well. 

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.

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 Nations people, but it is always useful to be reminded, and to see it in the context of other First Nations.

The museum demonstrates what colonization meant for the First Nations of (what is now called) Vancouver Island and the islands adjacent to it. The history and impacts of colonization are all too similar across the continent, but the Campbell River Museum does a better job of documenting it than many. First, it documents competition among European powers to see which would have the opportunity to exploit the new-to-them territory. Contact with First Nations people was almost incidental to this process. The British and Spanish sent ships to the area to map the territory and name the places they mapped, ignoring the fact that all the places already had names. They also ignored the fact that there were settlements in the territory, and simply produced maps showing the territory as vacant.  

Next, the museum documents the decimation of First Nations populations by European diseases. The display indicates that only one in ten First Nations people survived exposure to the diseases brought to their territory by European traders and colonizers. I realized that Europeans first viewed the territory as vacant (despite contact with the First Nations); then the territory became nearly vacant because of the spread of their diseases. Although such population loss represented a huge threat to First Nations societies and cultures the museum demonstrates that the cultures did survive and that their languages, stories, and traditions continue, at least to some extent, today.

The museum is more explicit than most in documenting colonization along with exhibiting First Nations “cultural artifacts”, both ancient and contemporary. In addition to invasion and disease, the museum documents the intent to destroy “Indianness” by sending generations of First Nations children to residential school. It also demonstrates that, while settlers where given 160 acres per homesteader, whole First Nations communities were given only five times that. Visitors learn that by the early 1900s, First Nations (which, in the 1700s, had title and sovereignty over all of British Columbia) had reserves totaling only 1/3 of 1% of the territory of British Columbia. We also learn that some Europeans thought even that was too much, despite the fact that very little of British Columbia is covered by treaty, and there was no other compensation for loss of First Nations territories.

After this strong display of First Nations history and colonization I experienced a strong disconnect when I moved on to the displays on the settlers. One display documents the fact that a prominent settler who developed all sorts of businesses in the area donated the land for several local institutions, such as a school, church and the like. Here we lose track of the idea that this is First Nations’ land. Although Aboriginal title in the region is outstanding, when we start looking at the story of a European individual, we learn that he can donate land.   No doubt he had legal title to the land he donated. And that is where the justice issues arise.  

The Canadian legal system, like the museum display, doesn’t know how to cope with this disconnect. Although we can recognize that there was, and maybe still is, Aboriginal title, it is so much easier to understand the title of settlers whose names we know, and to recognize the ways they have dealt with “their” land.   Although Canadian courts now acknowledge the existence of Aboriginal rights and title, it seems they turn themselves inside out to limit Aboriginal rights and title so they don’t interfere much, if at all, with the titles and rights of the settlers, or give First Nations any “advantage” over other Canadians. It’s clear by any indicator that all sorts of Canadian institutions, legal institutions among them, have succeeded in “not advantaging” First Nations. For example, according to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, First Nations in Canada currently have reserves totaling approximately 2.6 million hectares, or .2 percent of the total land area of Canada. Apparently there is still support for the sentiment that .3 percent really was too much land for First Nations.

We didn’t get around to noticing the Law Library of Congress’ new blog In Custodia Legis, which explains its name and aim here.

Today, it featured a new post on the developments at Thomas 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.

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

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.

This is only a picture – the real map is the link above.

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.
• Find out more about our hosts, co-hosts, and regular panelists.
• You can subscribe to Tech Talk shows as a podcast on iTunes.
• We’re also on Twitter.

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.

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 ‘better’ authentication than documents on paper. However, they do sometimes present novel difficulties in answering the underlying questions. Some of the difficulties are inherent in the medium, and some arise only because we are less familiar with electronic media than with paper. Centuries of widespread literacy have built norms of prudence into our thinking for paper records. People are still learning what is prudent with electronic records, and the evolution of the technology keeps changing the answers.

This column will review some of the issues that authentication presents for information in electronic form and some of the solutions that have been found or proposed for them. Subsequent columns will explore some of them in more detail.

I will start, like a typical lawyer, with two qualifications to what I just said, that these are not legal questions. By that I mean that one does not even begin legal analysis of a text before knowing whether to bother, whether the text itself is reliable. Who cares what it means if I can’t trust it? However, one element of trust is knowing whether one can prove the reliability if there is a dispute. Thus the law of evidence is relevant to what one will consider satisfactory authentication. What is prudent depends to a large degree on what is provable.

Furthermore, the content can be relevant because the law sometimes imposes requirements of form on particular kinds of document before legal effect can be given to them. A common example is a will, which must in much of the common law world at least be in writing, signed by the testator in the presence of two witnesses. In essence, the law declares that the content is so important, or the risk of error or fraud is so great, that formal safeguards must be used. Being confident, or being able to prove, that a will is complete and accurate and originates from the testator is not good enough authentication. (One could further qualify those statements with respect to holograph wills and some other rules about disposition on death, but one resists the digression.)

Authentication here describes the activity of the person who is thinking of using or relying on the document, and not that of its creator. Sometimes the term is used otherwise. Article 1 of the Uniform Commercial Code, for example, defines a signature as an action taken with present intent to authenticate the record. We can take that to mean to provide evidence by which the eventual relying party can determine the source of the signed record, in order to trust it – in short to authenticate it, in our usage.

These issues are of course not matters of first impression. One could conceive of many of the discussions about the law of e-commerce and e-government as questions of appropriate authentication. An interesting overview of the Principles of Electronic Authentication in Canada, developed by a team of public sector and private sector experts, was published by Industry Canada in 2004. I have gone on at length about it in “Electronic Legal Records: Pretty Good Authentication?” and in“Authentication Rules and Elecctronic Records” (2002) 81 Can. Bar Rev. 529.

How much authentication?

Trust is relative. How much does one have to trust something in order to consider it authenticated? In the absence of a legal standard, such as for wills as mentioned, it is up to the user, the relying party, to decide when he, she or it is satisfied. As a rule, the relying party takes the risk of inauthenticity, whether negligent or fraudulent (assuming that the fraudster cannot be found or is judgment proof), so that party gets to set the standard – which may vary from user to user.. 

Time for a TRA – a threat-risk analysis. No surprises here: what are the chances that the document is not genuine, who is likely to want to corrupt it, how easy would it be for an attacker to do so, how much do I lose if the document is not good, how much do I gain if it is good? It is a security-orietned cost-benefit analysis. So some knowledge of computer security is essential to an effective TRA, though one may substitute trust in the party with whom one is dealing, or at least in a history of uncontested transactions. Pretty good authentication may be enough.

Different uses of information may require different levels of assurance. Likewise different security techniques may justify different levels of assurance in their products. An authentication policy may prescribe the use of particular methods to get access to or to rely on particularly sensitive information..

Trust may change over time. What was secure last year may not be secure next year. Attacks only get better, they don’t get less effective. What one demands in order to authenticate a document may evolve too. 

It is said that one cannot establish trust through the same channel of communications that used to convey the information to be trusted. That would amount to saying ‘trust me because I am who I say I am’. As a result, people rely on communications by separate channels, independent evidence of identity or reliability, or intermediaries to certify trustworthiness, to build a base for authentication. 

This is readily seen in the widespread use of SSL (secure socket layer) certificates for secure web communications. Web browsers come loaded with certificates that the browsers’ creators consider reliable, and secure web sites offer those certificates to people dealing with the site to show that the site is operated by those who purport to operate it. The data transmitted is also secured during transmission. SSL allows authentication to be automated, which in turn permits mass e-commerce. SSL is not perfect, but it is good enough for most purposes.

Identity and data authentication

To rely on a document, one needs to know that both parties have a common text – that the data are authenticated – and one needs to know who one is dealing with – that the identity is authenticated. These present separate questions. Data authentication is arguably simpler, a matter of hashing (taking a ‘digital fingerprint’ of the information), though degrees of security are available, as usual. 

It is common to distinguish among identification (establishing who someone is in the first place), authentication (proving that a person is who he or she purports to be, once you know the possibilities – in other words, the relying party knows the ‘right’ answer already) and authorization (giving the authenticated person appropriate access to programs or information). 

Identity authentication usually relies on evidence of what the person to be authenticated knows (such as a password or access code), or has (such as an ATM card or cryptographic token) or is (such as biometric data or distinctive handwriting). These days security concerns tend to lead to demands for ‘two-factor authentication’, which ideally should mean two factors from these three different types of authentication. If identity is to be certified by a trusted third party, then that certifying authority will want to use more than one method of verification for greater security.

Identity authentication raises a couple of legal policy issues and a big technical one..

First, authentication may not require a signature. A signature is one method of authentication, but where the law does not expressly require a signature (and it usually does not), then no part of an electronic communication need ‘be’ a signature. However, there must be a way for the relying party to authenticate the source of the information. I will not change my legal position based on information when I do not know where or who the information comes from.

 Second, authentication of identity may raise privacy issues. There is at least a potential tension between precise authentication and the control of personal information. That is why the Ontario government is required, in setting up ‘public facing’ authentication systems for transactions between the government and the public, to prepare not only a TRA but a PIA – a privacy impact assessment, to ensure that no more personal information is being sought than necessary, and that the information is protected against misuse (Government of Ontario Policy for Public Facing Identification, Authentication and Authorization, Version 8.1, April 2010, section 3. page 4.). This topic is dealt with as Principle 4 of the Industry Canada Principles referred to above.

The Ontario system, and others like it, attempts to design a single, readily understandable way for a person to identify himself or herself to the government, without making that single sign-on technique serve as a single key to all the personal information that the government holds on the individual. Such a key would present too much risk of abuse. An additional layer of authentication is needed for the individual to access or transact with particular departments or programs.

The technical issue about identity authentication arises from the benefit of having identification systems be interoperable. Websites can be known by SSL certificates. How are individuals identified? Is one certification system as good as another? Can one transmit trust across systems? What standards exist? These questions have been around for a while; there was debate about standards for ‘cross-certification’ in public key infrastructure (PKI) systems in the 1990s. Renewed efforts are being made to develop such standards in ‘federated identity management’ projects.These projects are in principle technology neutral, that is they do not rely solely on PKI technology, though PKI is a part of them.

One hopes that the very complex and painstaking work on federated identity management will produce an authentication system that will be transparent and easy to use for the originators and users of the records that it applies to.

Public records

Authentication issues take on a new dimension in the public sector. (I have speculated about some of these issues here.) Private sector communications may set authentication methods and allocate the risk of faulty authentication by contract. Public bodies often require information from people against their will, without any contract. Must the technology for authentication and the resulting risk allocation be prescribed by statute? Other techniques exist, including the use of authorized technology and mandatory enrollment in the communications system.

 Even more interesting questions arise when the communication comes from government to the citizen (including business interests). How does one prove that a document is ‘official’? To some extent this is still identity authentication, where the desired identity is the state, because the state is presumed to be sufficiently trustworthy as to its documents. Seals and the signatures of public officials have performed that authentication function on paper. The Evidence Act in many jurisdictions makes such documents self-authenticating. Ontario’s section 29 is an example.

What happens electronically? Here are four responses, most of them works in progress, worth keeping an eye on.

The unique identifier for authentication: The electronic record contains a unique identifier that links to the appropriate file in a secure government data base. The user of the record can readily verify the information in it with the official source. This reduces the temptation for the producer of the record to falsify its contents. This method is used in Ontario for electronic certificates of corporate status and of corporate leadership. It is also used to authenticate electronic writs of seizure and sale (writs of execution), in which case the unique identifier that links to the court’s file is also designated to be the seal of the court.

The electronic notary: The notary is a public officer whose main function is authentication, or providing evidence for authentication by others. To date Canadian notaries do not function electronically, though Quebec has been working on a system for civil law notaries for some time. Some American states have authorized this practice, however, and the Uniform Law Commission lat month adopted theRevised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts. The Uniform Act still leaves some decisions on technology to governments, at least if they choose to intervene.

The electronic apostille (and register): Under the Hague Conference on Private International Law’s Convention on the Abolition of All Forms of Legalization, member states may authenticate public documents for use in other member states by use of a certificate called an apostille. Though the Convention dates from 1961 (and now has about 100 member states – though not yet Canada), it does not require apostilles to be on paper. The Hague Conference has been working (with the National Notary Association in the US) to develop a system of electronic apostilles, and a few countries have started producing them. The prospect raises issues of common vs proprietary technology, compatibility of systems, credibility of the electronic certification of the certifiers, and the like. 

The report of the June 2010 meeting underlines (in paragraph 3) the benefit of supporting the e-apostille with an e-register – which functions like the unique identifier system mentioned above. Some countries are working only on the e-register. The Convention requires a register, but in practice no one has recourse to it, since that would require international correspondence. An electronic version promises much easier use and is likely to change the practice of apostille-based authentication as a result. 

Tying authentication to privacy again: the Conference recommends (in paragraph 5a) that the numbers that the Convention requires to be on the apostilles be generated randomly, or at least not sequentially, to make it difficult for someone to ask for details about an apostille without having the actual apostille in hand. This reduces the risk of inappropriate discovery of personal information in the public document underlying the apostille.

Authentication and Preservation of State Electronic Legal Materials Act: The Uniform Law Commission has also been developing uniform legislation on state primary legal material in electronic form, such as statutes and regulations, administrative codes and registers, and case law.  Ontario and Canada give ‘official’ status to their online statutes and regulations, in that they can be cited in court. However, both the Legislation Revision and Consolidation Act, R.S.C. 1985, S-20, section 31and the Legislation Act, 2006, section 34 in Ontario make the ultimate official version the one on paper in the hands of the appropriate legislative authority. In practice lawyers and courts in Canada seem content to rely on online versions of case law, whether the courts’ web sites or CanLII -– pretty good authentication in the circumstances.

One could also mention in the public sector the various questions of Justice system authentication – e-filing, e-service, e-records and orders, as well as the e-decisions just referred to. These questions will have to await another column (perhaps by another author, though I did a brief exploration in “The Law Goes Electronic”, [2009] Annual Review of Civil Litigation.). The paperless practice of law raises lots of authentication questions too, but that issue is well in hand in Slaw already.. Those hungering for more will want to attend the Canadian Forum on Legal Technology in Ottawa next month.

There is a bit of judicial authority that information on an ‘official’ web site is more readily admissible in court than information would be from a private site. ITV Technologies Inc v WIC Television Ltd at paragraphs 16 and 17. The main challenge to such information would probably not be its authentication but its nature as hearsay, which takes us beyond our topic. 

Authentication for the longer term

Authentication is not just a matter of ‘legal effect’. The reliability of a document can affect the acquisition or retention decisions of a librarian or archivist. Those professions as well as lawyers need to consider authentication over time, as well, not just a one-off decision. Some legal documents need to be reliable for a long time e.g. deeds of land or wills, and official documents like statutes or treaties. This may affect whether one relies on electronic versions at all, as well as the cost of different media and of keeping all information constantly not only readable but verifiable with changing technology. The National Archives of Canada used to have, and may still have, a policy not to accept digitally signed electronic documents, because the certificates supporting the signatures would not be valid for long enough to allow for authentication in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion (until next time)

Authentication is a cornerstone of the legal world, online as well as offline. It thus produces issues in almost all fields of activity, private and public. It is not all about signatures, or about encryption. It is about risk management for evolving technology in a world of multiple uses by multiple users. It is therefore a topic that we will be able to, indeed have to, explore again. Your suggestions for refining the conceptual framework presented here would be welcome for that enterprise.

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.

Sylvain quotes John Philpott of CanAm Physician Recruiting,

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.

Madam Justice Kiteley:

Co-Chair since 2006 of the Canadian Centre for Court Technology (which she joined in 2005) and member of  the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

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.

Credit: A. Davey, Flickr