A Slaw.ca post by Lynn Foley last week provided the inspiration for today’s tip.

Lynn asked Slawyers to consider what their clients perceive as value using the lens of the ACC Value Challenge. I ask Slaw Tips research readers to consider how the discrete piece of legal research they are doing adds value for the client.

One of the most important skills a legal researcher can bring to a project is the ability to focus on the question they are trying to answer. There are a ton of information sources available that any question can be filtered through, so the …

Regular readers of the Tuesday Tech Tip will know I get excited about keyboard shortcuts. This week I want to cover some of the keyboard shortcuts that are available in Dropbox.
Although most of you will be used to navigating Dropbox with your mouse, you can actually do many things with keyboard shortcuts. It is worth your time to learn these keyboard shortcuts as you will be able to complete common tasks more quickly than you would if you were using a mouse. Here is a list of some handy Dropbox keyboard shortcuts (Mac users please substitute the Command key …

♫ Through the fire and the flames we carry on! ♫

Lyrics and music by: Herman Li, ZP Theart, Sam Totman, Vadim Pruzhaniov, recorded by Dragonforce.

Jo DeMars, of NetNeutrals (www.netneutrals.com)  spoke at the 2014 Online Dispute Resolution Forum at Hastings College of Law at the University of California in San Francisco.  This post is based on her most excellent presentation on Wednesday June 25, 2014. While her comments were presented in the context of resolving disputes that arise in e-commerce, her advice applies to virtually any consumer complaint, including client complaints …

I like to think I know about all kinds of sources – partly because I usually remember what I share.  Sometimes I just miss things though. Today’s Tip could come with the Beatles as the background music:

I get by with a little help from my friends

Thanks to my new colleague Josette McEachern, who posted on the Edmonton Law Libraries Association Blog, I now know that there is an open and free version of the Income Tax Act Annotated provided by Lexum.

Check it out…

You can never trust your eye when it comes to hanging pictures or other similar situations when things have to be level. But no need to run to the toolbox – just grab your iPhone. Open the Compass app, swipe to the left and bingo, you have a handy level that will help you hang a stubborn picture that just doesn’t seem to want to hang correctly on the wall.…

I had the pleasure of sitting down for a chat on Monday about knowledge management with Canada’s reigning Information Diva, Connie Crosby.

The video of our discussion is embedded below:

The focus of our conversation was how Canada’s smaller law firms can utilize current knowledge management approaches to better identify, organize and access their own, valuable knowledge inventories – their precedents, checklists, document templates, research memos, and other key data.

Connie is principal of Crosby Group Consulting, a Toronto-based firm, specializing in knowledge management, information management, social media and library management. She is a law librarian, Slaw…

Today’s tip is a quick reminder to think about the British/Canadian and US spellings and how that might affect your search string.

offence = offense

Offense in CanLII finds 227Alberta Appeal court decisions.
Offence in CanLII finds 4433 Alberta Appeal court decisions.

Happy Wednesday!

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Predicting the weather is both an art and a science, and getting it right in the longer term can involve some luck. But in the shorter-term, knowing for sure whether some rain is coming your way can be very helpful. Should I head to the golf course? Is my kid’s baseball game going to get cancelled? Do I take an umbrella for the walk to the subway?
My go-to resource for answering these kinds of questions is Government of Canada Canadian Weather Radar page for Ontario. It has a map of Ontario overlaid with current storms and links to …

After much planning, and at least one eyeball fixed at all times on weather reports foreshadowing thunder, lightning, rain (and lions tigers and bears, oh my!) our Wise Law Office Backyard Retreat finally enjoyed its inaugural debut last Sunday.

I expect to have several SlawTips posts in the weeks ahead on the actual topics we discussed and the action plan that continues to emerge.

For today, I’m going to focus on the agenda, which is reproduced below.

WISE LAW OFFICE BACKYARD RETREAT AGENDA – June 8, 2014

11:00am – 11:15am – Introduction and objectives for the day (Garry)

11:15am –

The very first Research Tip on this blog was about reading the URL.  That advice is the same today as it was back in January 2011.  Understanding ‘where’ on the web you are getting information from is a useful skill.

Dan has written about phishing and there is a a good twist on Lifehacker that discusses how to boost your phishing detection skills.  The skill set boils down to reading the URL and being aware of where you are vs. where you want to be.

What does this have to do with legal research? Reading a URL and understanding …