♫ 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

Legal citations like to pack the largest amount of information in the smallest amount of space. However, if you are not familiar with the abbreviation for a specific law journal or reporter, it can be tricky figuring out what is being referred to from a few scant letters. Adding to the confusion is that one journal may be referred to by different abbreviations and the same abbreviation may be used for multiple law reports. (For example, does the B in B.L.R. refer to Business or Building or Burma?)

Fortunately there are a number of resources to assist in deciphering these …

I’ll be tuning into the videocast of Barry Fisher’s 16th Annual Employment Law Summit in a few hours, so I suppose I have CPD on my mind.

Today’s post might be half rant, half tip, but I do have a few suggestions on Ontario’s CPD program for the LSUC that I will take the liberty of outlining:

1. As your technology departments are capable of the miracle that brings CPD programmes directly to our video screens in real time, surely they can also develop a simple protocol to automatically post our LSUC CPD hours directly to the LSUC portal once a 

My first tip is simple: get writing!

Or, more to the point, get blogging.

Blogged content has high visibility and much higher readership than content that is distributed by e-mail. Unless you have a very targeted and well-maintained e-mail distribution list, it’s unlikely that a publication sent by e-mail will be opened (much less read) by more than 5% of its recipients.

Contrast that with material that is posted on a blog, which can easily get views in the four digits. Blog posts also have the advantage of being picked up the aggregators (LinkedIn, Lexology, Mondaq, JD Supra), which widen …

♫ I got something that will sure ’nuff set your stuff on fire
…
Tell me something good (tell me, tell me, tell me)…♫

Lyrics and music by Stevie Wonder, recorded by Rufus and Chaka Khan,

Lawyers are sensitive souls. No lawyer wants to receive a complaint from a client.  However, what you don’t know can, in this case, actually hurt you.  The failure to complain by a dissatisfied client may result in the client leaving quietly but then causing maximal damage to the law firm’s reputation by talking to others about their bad experience.

When given a …

I shared some tips about technology skills with some fine folks via webinar with CBA Manitoba’s Legal Research Section recently.  One of the tech skills was about noting up:

Note up cases for judicial history as well as consideration of decisions by other cases and legal commentary using multiple database sources (fee and free)

The tip was about the way to execute performing a noteup using CanLII, WestlawNext Canada and LexisNexis Quicklaw.

Melanie R. Bueckert, LL.B., LL.M., Legal Research Counsel at the Manitoba Court of Appeal offered this excellent addition:

The only thing I would have added, if we had