Feeding the social media monster

I am attending the Legal Education Society of Alberta  Social Media and You.  Randy Brososky of Group of Rogues just told a story about when he was first engaging in social media. He signed up for every new social media platform that came out.  Randy quickly learned that he had created a content monster that he couldn't possible feed.

His story reminded me that I had not posted on this little monster in some time.

I have been busy (aren't we all).

If you have been missing my legal research comments, remember to visit Slaw Tips on Wednesdays for a weekly legal research tip.

March/April LawNow magazine article Online Dispute Resolution

Margo Till-Rogers has written a nice thorough article about online resources for dispute resolution in this months issue of LawNow.

The current issue features environmental causes.

happy reading!

March/April LawNow Magazine

The March/April 2013 LawNow Magazine is now available. There is a particularly interesting article about Online Dispute Resolution.

The vagaries of case law language

I was at the CBA Alberta Law Conference last week and attended the Labour and Employment session on Friday afternoon.  The discussion was about restrictive covenants: non competes and non-solicitation clauses mostly in employment law.

 It was an interesting session, as was the whole conference. I used Storify to collect all the tweeted notes from the event (see my Slaw post yesterday for a link). You will see that a bulk of the discussion talked about injunctions and tests .

 Today, I was reading a newly posted case on CanLII Lia Sophia Canada, LP v Parklane Jewelry Limited, 2013 ABQB 53 (CanLII),

http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2013/2013abqb53/2013abqb53.html

This is a matter which is on point for restrictive covenants signed by employees and injunctions.

This interlocutory decision has no mention of the following words:

• Employee
• Employer
• Competition or (non-competition)
• Restrictive
• Covenant
• Trade

I point it out to you as a warning that relying on keyword searches for case law can sometimes fail.  I expect that if this decision proceeds to a reported completion, it may have those key terms included.  I suspect a case comment or digest would reveal the essence of the case that this short interim decision relates to, but the trick is an interested author finding it in the first place.

I do remember the presenters suggesting that most of the cases in this area were settled after injunctions were sought.

New look for Justice Canada Laws site

News that you may have missed with the holiday rush: The Justice Canada Laws site got a new look on December 20th.

The website has been upgraded to conform with the new Standard on Web Usability. This standard mandates a basic structure for Government of Canada Web page layout and design, which makes it easier to find and utilize information and services on Government of Canada Web sites and results in an appropriate degree of consistency across Web sites.

This site remains my go to source for retrieving federal legislation. Why Justice Canada rather than going to CanLII, which I am also a huge fan of? I have a few reasons:

1. For legislation, I prefer to use the source of the information that CanLII retrieves UNLESS I am comparing legislation to a previous version - CanLII wins every time for that task
2. I like seeing the shading for not yet in force provisions and the list of amendments not in force
3. I like seeing the related provisions
4. I need access to the annual statutes
5. I need access to the Table of Public Statues

I am truly grateful to have both CanLII and the Justice Canada Laws sites available for researching federal legislation.