The federal Justice Department’s Consolidated Regulations are organized by regulation title. So how do you find all of the regulations passed under a given statute?

Well, there are a couple of ways, the simplest of which is to go to the act itself in the Consolidated Acts, and select the first letter of the title in the A-Z menu. The left-hand column lists all the acts beginning with that letter, along with their chapter number –

and the right-hand column has PDF links to the acts and little yellow “R” boxes. Any guesses what the R stands for?

Good …

More in this series.

Dependant, dependent

The first is a noun, most commonly used to mean ‘a person who depends on another for support or position’ (He is a single man with no dependants). Dependent is the adjectival form of the noun (Each dependent child will receive a payment …) Dependent  also means, more generally, ‘contingent on or owing its existence to something else’ (Your success as an articling student is dependent on many factors, some of which may not be apparent to you).

In the US, dependant is almost never seen; Americans use …

You stare at a Word document full of dense text, nary a headline or bulleted list in sight. You aimlessly play with font sizes and faces and tables and margins, knowing you aren’t really making any progress. Not even clip art can save it. You’re doomed: the document is utterly, completely boring.

We’ve all been there, faced with this seemingly impossible task: to somehow transform pages of text into something people will actually read. (Or better yet, something people will actually WANT to read!)

The next time you find yourself in this unenviable position, I encourage you to check out …

Ahead of me laid a mountain of a mediation memo. On one side a complex liability scenario had to be made easily digestible. Expert and lay witnesses provided converging and diverging testimony, and I had to explain why I happened to have the best interpretation. Hundreds of pages of reports lay in store, needing analysis with a fine-tooth comb and a magician’s touch to transform it all to less than a dozen pages. On the other side the damages story awaited. Millions of dollars claimed, another set of reports and analysis. Where to start, how to start, should I even …

It is straightforward to find out out how a Canadian case has been subsequently treated by Canadian courts; all you need to do is note it up on Quicklaw, WestlawNext Canada, or CanLII. However sometimes you need to find out if a US case has been mentioned in the Canadian case law and this is slightly more challenging to do.

The easiest way to note up a US case in the Canadian case law is by a Boolean search for the names of the parties and any citations for that case. For example, if you were trying to find out …

I generally stay away from drafting issues, but thought I’d mix things up a bit.

Depositary and depository

Depositary in US contracts has always seemed wrong to me. Shouldn’t it be depository?

No, in fact. The two words, while ‘often confounded’ (as the Oxford English Dictionary Online puts it), mean different things.

A depositary is ‘a person [natural or otherwise] with whom anything is lodged in trust; a trustee; one to whom anything (material or immaterial) is committed or confided; …a bailee of personal property, to be kept by him for the bailor without recompense.’

A depository, on …

Have you heard about MMS Watch? It’s a free mandatory minimum sentencing resource recently created by the experts behind Rangefindr – the popular criminal sentencing resource.

MMS Watch provides a list of every mandatory minimum sentence in force in the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Sentencing Act. Additional explanation appears on the website:

MMS.watch is an ongoing project by rangefindr.ca to monitor the constitutionality of each mandatory minimum sentence (MMS) in the Canadian Criminal Code and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. All data are from the rangefindr.ca database. MMS.watch is free and will remain free.

We …

Web design is a fast-moving field. Do these changes make you wonder if it’s time to update your law firm’s website? The decision itself can be daunting. Does it need to be an overhaul? Or should we just tweak? How much is enough? Will it even make a difference?

Why not take a scientific approach and deconstruct your site to better assess its current state?

Here are a few questions to get you started:

1. Branding – From words to pictures, does the website integrate your professional identity, appropriately and creatively? Or, put another way, does it make you proud?

Over the past few months, CanLII has been rapidly growing its collection of secondary sources, which now includes law reviews, journals, and newsletters. For more information on what’s available, see the Law Society of Saskatchewan’s recent posts:

• Law Reviews on CanLII
• Journals Available on CanLII
• Newsletters are being added to CanLII

Hat tip to the Legal Sourcery Blog for keeping tabs on these developments!…

Begin your journey towards intentional organization™ with the first thing Master Virtual Assistant AndreaCan counsels her clients:

The first thing I teach to stressed out lawyers is to write things down. Not on post its or various yellow pads – in the same spot. Get a notebook, I recommend and use a Moleskin … cuz if it was good enough for Hemingway – seriously, because it is small enough to be portable yet large enough to be useful.

Every morning, I open to a new page, date it and use that page to capture any of the things I need …