♫ Get back, get back.
Get back to where you once belonged…♫

Lyrics and music by Lennon–McCartney, recorded by The Beatles.

Tuesday March 31, 2015 is World Backup Day. I think it is important to focus on this often neglected task as it is often lost in the hustle and bustle of getting the work out. But with the recent attacks of ransomware on all types of businesses, law firms included, having a proper back up that is not infected has assumed increasing, if not vital, importance.

Furthermore, having a proper backup is not just for your …

We live in a world where it is generally acknowledge that even though many web services that we use have terms of service, nobody reads them. Stop that bad habit right now. Especially for fee based legal research services. Do you understand what you have agreed to when you use WestlawNext Canada or LexisNexis Quicklaw?

By highlighting this as Today’s Tip I am NOT suggesting that fee based research services are inherently bad – I believe the opposite – I would not want to perform legal research for clients without a subscription to a fee based research service that delivers …

New York City’s embattled, progressive mayor, Bill de Blasio, has in rapid order acquired a bit of a reputation for failing to arrive on time. His tardy tendencies have even launched a new cottage industry in the press, the “De Blasio was Late Again” outrage-of-the-day story.

Late for a St. Patrick’s Day mass.  Late for a plane crash memorial service.  Late to a police officer’s wake. Late for an event in his own home. Gosh, even late in responding to a snowstorm.

Naturally, the most civic minded among the journalistic order have taken it upon themselves …

Once in a while a legislature will pass an act and then make amendments to it before it comes in to force.  Just when you think you have everything figured out….

An example of this from Alberta is referenced in CanLII as Education Act, SA 2012, c E-0.3 , [Not yet in force] along with Bill 19 the Education Amendment Act, 2015 introduced yesterday in the Alberta legislature.

Today’s Tip: IF an applicable statue is not yet in force check for amendments to it.

Once Bill 19 passes (fairly obvious for a majority government unless an election is called …

♫  How can i go forward when I
don’t know which way to turn?
 How can i go forward into
something
 I’m not sure of? oh no, oh no…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by John Lennon.

2015 ABA book Solo and Small Firm Legal Technology Guide  has just been published.

John Heckman, a long-standing and highly acclaimed legal technologist,  has published a review of the book.  I felt the review was a good one and here it is with his consent:

Does It Compute?

John Heckman’s Take on Practice and Document Management, and Other Legal Technology

February 23, 2015…

A fantastic post by Marc Lauritsen that came my way via the Attorney at Work Daily Dispatch inspired Today’s Tip. Marc’s post asked readers to think about recent decisions they helped make and whether they did a good job of choosing.

Choices are part of every aspect and many, many moments of every day. In terms of legal research, deliberate choice should be a decision point that you make with each research question, each search string, and most importantly when planning your research path.

As Marc suggests:

Be mindful when you find yourself facing a choice. Don’t just think about

What data can be harvested from the typical smartphone? How can litigators utilize forensics to obtain this data for use in legal proceedings?

Two recent articles from Law Pro’s Tim Lemieux and Rob Lekowski of ABA’s Law Technology Today have looked at these questions and offer quite a bit of need-to-know information.

The typical mobile device retains information on the locations of all calls, all wifi-networks joined, photos taken, and apps that utilize location services.  Text messages – even those deleted – will remain on the device until overwritten, as will browsing histories. Even encrypted data may be accessible.

And …

A hat tip to Sandi Madvid, Supervisor of Edmonton Library Services for Parlee McLaws LLP for Today’s Tip. Sandi shared  that the Alberta Building Code 2014 and the Alberta Fire Code 2014 will be in force on May 1, 2015.  Considering my husband is a carpenter and uses the Building Code, I am surprised I didn’t known this was coming!

Some Canadian jurisdictions (including Alberta, obviously) model region specific codes on the National Building Code of Canada. Building Codes are usually only available for purchase and most (but not all) are available by subscription to an electronic version.

The Building …

This tip was inspired after answering a question from memory that I should have documented back in 2009.

As legal researchers, we find nuggets of useful information from sources that are both transparent and obscure.  Transparent because they are the logical source of the information we seek and obscure in that if we hadn’t connected with exactly the right person at the exactly right time we would not necessarily have found the information in the form or with the context that we did.

Document your sources in detail. Don’t trust that your memory will be available (or working properly) in …

Most of us spend many hours a day browsing the Web. If you are reading an article, or scanning through a long page, it is a pain to reach for the mouse and use the scroll bars, and hitting the down cursor key will only move you one line at a time. Not very fast or efficient.

There is an easier way – pressing the spacebar once will jump you down one screen. This works in all PC and Mac browsers regardless of how big your font size is. Hitting the spacebar once will magically jump you to a full …