Today’s tip is a reminder that web delivered content may display or act differently depending on your browser and the size of your browser window. If it is possible in your organization, use more than one web browser.

To highlight this tip, I will show you three versions of Lexbox, a groovy new research tracking service that is available from Lexum at mylexbox.com.

Chrome – full screen:

IE – full screen:

Firefox – Full screen:

Note the very minor differences in where your see down arrows and …

Happy 148th birthday Canada.

There is a nice history of Canada day outlined at this federal government website that was updated in June of 2014.  It reminds us of some facts.  I share those blow that relate to finding the law of Canada Day:

• July 1, 1867: The British North America Act (today known as the Constitution Act, 1867) created Canada.
• 1879: A federal law makes July 1 a statutory holiday as the “anniversary of Confederation,” which is later called “Dominion Day.”
• October 27, 1982: July 1, “Dominion Day” officially becomes Canada Day.  The

♫  He ain’t no drag 
He’s got a brand new bag… ♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by: James Brown.

This post continues the ‘no brainer’ posts about technology.  This time it is about a bit of technology that most people don’t put much thought into, I suspect, namely their computer laptop bag.

Now some people will say that a bag is a bag is a bag.  I am not one of them. In fact I can say that I am quite particular about my bag.  I had a nice laptop bag given to me by our local Continuing …

When someone does or says something nice to, for, or about you, it is appropriate to express your gratitude.

This holds true for someone who goes out of their way to assist you with your legal research problem.  I am not especially advocating a regular contribution to the wine fridge of your local law librarian who helps you all the time – I leave that to you.

Today’s Tip is particular to those (unexpectedly) wonderful public servants who call you back with information in a timely fashion, the colleague down the hall who saves you with a precedent, the partner …

The Wall Street Journal, of all places, had a feature this week on the increasing prevalence – and acceptance – of mindfulness training for lawyers.

In Lawyers Go Zen, With Few Objections, writer Jacob Gershman delivers more than just a clever headline.  He focusses on the enhanced listening skills that can be developed through mindfulness techniques.

I don’t have much personal expertise in this area, but I do have the luxury of deferring on this topic to my significant other, Toronto marketing consultant Sandra Bekhor, who has completed mindfulness training.

She notes:

“Sharper listening skills will make

Last week I posted about Legal Research Technology Skills. After reading Sarah Glassmeyer’s post on Slaw about The Future of Legal Practice and Technology for Law Professors. Today’s Tip is about technology concepts that I think are necessary for legal researchers. Concepts are things that a legal researcher should understand and have a rough idea of how they apply to legal research.

1. Document automation (including software and word processing tools like fields and macros)
2. Document management (what is kept within your organization) and content management (how are web sites, intranets and other content rich sources built)
3. Open source

I’ve previously blogged at Slaw Tips on the virtues of using Siri’s dictation functions to draft letters, emails and other documents typically created in day-to-day legal practice.

In short, dictation with Siri has increased my productivity, precision  and the overall quality of my work product.

For those who are similarly inclined, I wanted to share a great list of Siri commands that can be used for punctuating as you dictate.  With kudos and credit to iPhone Tricks, here is a partial excerpt:

Punctuation and Commands

Below you can find an extended list of punctuation and commands that iPhone’s voice recognition

Sarah Glassmeyer recently posted on Slaw about The Future of Legal Practice and Technology for Law Professors. Her opening salvo:

One of my pet peeves is when people throw around the word “technology” as a catch all to mean anything that can or will involve a computer. A common pattern is “In X number of years, this task will be replaced by TECHNOLOGY.” The speakers very rarely get into specifics as to when technology they mean. Personally, I like to amuse myself by replacing “technology” in these statements with “magic fairies.” Actually, I think fairies are more likely to

♫ I just want the simple things..♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Miguel.

This post continues the theme of innovative  technology for lawyers.  John Heckman, a legal technology consultant for whom I have a great deal of respect recently wrote in his blog “Does it Compute” a piece entitled:
Technophobe and Proud Of It — the Consequences.  He states that there are “attorneys whose willful refusal to become conversant with their firm’s technology will drag down its productivity and ability to respond to client needs.” John then quotes Sharon Nelson, another good friend and legal technologist who …

I despise long deadlines for legal research projects. Give me a complex project that has to be completed by the end of the week over a complex project that I must pick away at over a month or two any day.  Why? With a longer project I must use formal project management – on myself.

Project managing a short deadline individual research question is easy to mentally manage by scripting the activity as “the research process”.  To be clear, I am speaking of the type of legal research that is often assigned to junior lawyers, law students or law librarians. …