Many lawyers and legal researchers keep a mental note to look out for new regulations under specific Acts or new proclamations bringing into force an Act of interest. As Shaunna Mireau pointed out in this October 2011 tip though, if you’re only keeping an eye on new issues of the relevant Gazettes, you’ll be days or even weeks behind those who are also keeping an eye on orders in council. Remember, most regulations, proclamations, and orders begin life as orders in council. Then, if required, the OIC is later published in either part of the Gazette. So, stay …

The novelist Graham Greene – a master of lean, mean prose – called adverbs ‘beastly’. (In spite of the -ly ending, that’s an adjective.)

Think of the adverb ‘quite’, which is either ambiguous or weak: ‘quite good’ can mean ‘better than expected’, ‘something a bit less than good’, ‘actually good’, ‘very good’. In any case, it lacks oomph.

Or indeed ‘very’, which the nineteenth-century newspaper editor William Allen White called ‘the weakest word in the English language’. Very true.

In legal writing, adverbs are often used as qualifiers or fillers. I’m thinking of words like ‘generally’, ‘clearly’, ‘unfortunately’.

In opinions, …

♫ The wheels on the bus go round and round,
round and round,
round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
all through the town…♫

Lyrics and music by: Lydia Ulsaker, sung by teachers, parents and children everywhere.

(image by: LaurMG, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

James C. Collins wrote the best seller: “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Other’s Don’t.”  It has stood the test of time and sold over 4 million copies according to Wikipedia.

Jim has some very good advice that …

Most CanLII users know that CanLII provides point-in-time versions of legislation. However, one feature of CanLII that is less well known is that it allows users to compare two versions of an act.

It is straightforward to compare two versions of an act on CanLII:

1. Find the act you wish to compare the versions of.
2. Underneath the name of the act is a list of point-in-time versions of that act. Select the two versions you want to compare. (They don’t have to be consecutive.)
3. Click on COMPARE.

The older of the two acts will be on the left hand …

What do I mean by this? Pairs of words that lawyers routinely use together, but would be better not to.

These pairs may once (in the late Middle Ages?) have had distinct meanings but now really don’t.

And even in the Middle Ages they may not have: many of these ‘coupled synonyms’ (in Richard Wydick‘s phrase) join an English word with its (Old) French equivalent, in a belt-and-suspenders manoeuvre.

Like ‘free and clear’, which combines the synonymous Old English freo and the Old French cler.

Examples:

Null and void [how about ‘of no effect’?]
No force …

♫ Light gives way to darkness
Unless we come alive.
So be the change you need to see.
Let yourself ignite…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Heartist.

(image by Erralix)

In the UK, “The Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls, as Head of Civil Justice, have asked Lord Justice Briggs to carry out an urgent review of the structure of the courts which deliver civil justice.” As part of this review is the consideration of the creation of an on-line court (“OC”) for ‘lower value disputes’. (http://www.chba.org.uk/news/civil-court-structure-review )

It is designed primarily for use …

ChangeDetection.com is a tool I recommend to help you monitor webpages and be notified automatically if they’ve been updated. No one wants to be sitting around refreshing a web page until that important agreement gets uploaded and goes public. This tool will watch the page for you and email you when it’s updated. Being the first one to share that sort of update with a colleague or client often pays off with new work or with increased trust and respect.

If I wanted to be notified of updates to a Government of BC page listing all current agreements between them …

There is no shortage of evangelism out there on the importance of the Internet as a platform for marketing law firms. I’ve certainly attempted to be a strong voice on this topic for well over a decade.

According to Toronto law firm marketing consultant, Sandra Bekhor, however, the legal marketing landscape has evolved, and the question has now shifted.

The importance of a well-positioned, frequently updated online footprint remains a given for law firm marketing.

The critical question today is whether that, alone, will be enough to guarantee success. In other words, can we do it all via …

Just as blogs get more readers than e-mails, articles with catchy headlines and enticing openers are more likely to be looked at than, well, boring ones.

Here is a post from LinkedIn that illustrates the point:

A recent case from the ONSC clarifies the law on whether municipalities can regulate boathouses and whether the Building Code Act applies to same, finding that (i) municipalities have jurisdiction to zone Ontario lakes and apply zoning by-laws to lakes, regulating construction of boathouses and other structures; and (ii) the Building Code Act applies to such structures, where not otherwise prohibited by the by-laws …

♫ Is the glass half full or half empty ?
It’s based on your perspective quite simply
We’re the same and we’re not, know what I’m saying, listen
Son, I ain’t better than you, I just think different…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Nujabes.

Image created by: Nicoguaro.

“Think Different” was the slogan for Apple, Inc at one time.  Steve Jobs said in the “One Last Thing” documentary:

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not