♫  Doin it right, doin it right
Doin it right, doin it right
The blues bands cookin and the drummers burnin down
Doin it right on the wrong side of town!!!  ♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by the Powder Blues.

Law firms like to think that they do things rather well.  Exceptionally well, as a matter of fact. Particularly the biggest ones.

Only problem is, not everyone agrees with that perception.  Take Casey Flaherty for example.  Casey just happens to be the General Counsel at Kia Motors America.  In his words (and this is an exact quote) “Lawyers see …

This post first appeared on Slaw July 2, 2009 and it is still relevant advice.

In this world of super fast document retrieval it is sometimes important to remember the basics. I was just asked for a decision where the style of cause and the citation both contained errors. The “help I can’t find this case” is usually one of my favourite problems. This Thursday after a mid-week Canada Day off is a lot like a Monday.

The citation that was given to me was a 1983 case from the O.L.R.s – obviously that was incorrect as the Cardiff Index

Not sure if the experts will say this is a scientifically helpful idea for falling asleep (IMHO it seems better than just counting sheep), but sometimes you will want to listen to music as you (hopefully) fall asleep.
But how do you set things up so you aren’t stuck listening to music all night? Just create a playlist for the songs you want to listen to – even if it is just one song. You get silence – and hopefully sleep – when the playlist is done. Here’s to falling asleep faster!
And a bonus tip: If you want a …

After months of nagtext messages from my cell carrier, all promoting  my available hardware upgrades, I finally made the move several weeks ago and switched to a sparkling new iPhone 5s.

I wasn’t much interested in the new (for me) Siri functions, to be honest. I had long ago lived through my friend’ eager demonstrations of Siri’s amusing ability to handle their obscene test questions with digital grace. There was little novelty left.

Little did I realize that the technologies associated with Siri would ultimately be a pathway for my rediscovery of the long-lost art of dictation.

Back …

Today’s Tip: wait with patience.

I often find myself using curse filled phrases when everything (websites, videos, my Blu-ray player, my Starbucks app) is too slow to load. That little rotating circle symbol, the hour glass, even PayPal’s rounded square that ticks away while the web does its thing drive me nuts, nuts, nuts. When my children slide the symbol to answer my phone calls and don’t speak immediately, we have (annoying to them) conversations about appropriate telephone etiquette.

This 4:11 YouTube clip of comedian Louis C.K. with Conan O’Brien “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy” shared by Jason Thomas …

Taking a screenshot of your PC desktop is easy – look for the “print screen” key on your keyboard. On PC keyboards it will usually have PrtScn, PRTSC or PRTSCN on it. Often, you will have to press it in combination with the SHIFT key. Doing this will place an image of the entire desktop in the clipboard – a quick paste of the clipboard contents (CTRL+V) gives you an image of your entire desktop.

Adding an ALT to the mix (e.g., SHIFT+ALT+PRTSC) will place an image of the active window (not the entire desktop) into …

♫  Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye my love
I can’t hide, can’t hide, can’t hide what has come…♫

Lyrics, music and recorded by Avril Lavigne.

April 8, 2014 is a significant date for users of Microsoft XP and Office 2003. On that date, support ends for both of these venerable and well-loved products.

Microsoft wants its 100 Million XP and Office 2003 users to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8 and Office 2010 or Office 365.

MS has relented on MSE (Security Essentials updates) and will continue these until July 14, 2015 but that does not mean that you should stay …

One of the things we don’t talk about much on the legal research side of things here at Slaw Tips are Regulations.  Regulations are a form of delegated legislation made in the exercise of powers conferred by a statute. Regulations are the how to a Statute’s what. and are usually found online attached to the act that they are made from.

A fairly common question arises about the in force date of a regulation. In Alberta, the day it is filed with the Registrar of Regulations, unless a later day is specified. For federal regulations, section 9 of the Statutory …

On at least a few previous occasions(here and here), I have written about the necessity of backing up your personal data, pictures and contacts, regardless of where they reside – your computer, your smartphone, your iPad or other tablet, your camera, etc. It is a fact of life that hard drives and other devices will fail – you want to have your data backed up so you don’t lose it.

But what about all that data and information you have created on the cloud? Think about all the information you have created in Facebook, LinkedIn, the various Google …

Canada’s legal sector appears to be on the cusp of major change.

From the towers of Bay Street to our courthouses across the nation, we may be embarking upon a bumpy, but perhaps overdue ride of reorganization, re-prioritization and rationalization.

Last week’s sudden collapse of Heenan Blaikie and the Supreme Court of Canada’s January 23, 2014 ruling in Hryniak v Maudlin could be harbingers of the revolution ahead.

While the Heenan, Blaikie debacle may have more, ultimately, to teach us about human shortcomings and hubris than the perils of the immediate legal marketplace, it does underscore the reality that defections, …