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Jan 15, 2025 | 
slaw.ca | John Willinsky |Allison Wolf |Frédéric Pelletier |Ian MacKenzie
Regular readers of this column (thank you) will recognize copyright reform is a common interest of mine, especially as such reform might lead to greater public access to research. Still, I only took up the copyright torch after a very loose consensus – among researchers, publishers, librarians and funders – around open access’ scientific value began to emerge. Such consensus has been called the iron law of copyright reform.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
slaw.ca | Allison Wolf |Frédéric Pelletier |Ian MacKenzie |Melanie Neufeld
Imagine being offered a career-defining opportunity—one that could catapult your skills and confidence to the next level. Now, imagine turning it down, not because you lack potential, but because you fear falling short. This scenario is more common than you think, and the difference between seizing such opportunities and walking away often comes down to mindset.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
slaw.ca | Ian MacKenzie |Melanie Neufeld |Robert McKay |Frédéric Pelletier
[Une version française suit] On January 13, 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its landmark decision in Arsenault-Cameron v. Prince Edward Island, 2000 SCC 1 (CanLII), [2000] 1 SCR 3, a case significant for its impact on minority language educational rights in Canada. This decision was also the Court’s first to adopt the the Neutral Citation Standard for Case Law, a pivotal innovation introduced in 1999 by the Canadian Citation Committee.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
slaw.ca | Ian MacKenzie |Melanie Neufeld |Robert McKay |Heather Suttie
Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible. This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. David Whelan 2. Employment & Human Rights Law in Canada 3. Canadian Appeals Monitor 4. The Authentic Lawyer 5.
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
slaw.ca | Ian MacKenzie |Melanie Neufeld |Robert McKay |Heather Suttie
Justice must be fair and impartial, but also must be seen to be fair and impartial – and inclusive tribunal processes are a big contribution to the sense of fairness that all participants in a tribunal proceeding are entitled to receive. Language – and people’s perception of that language – is an important gateway to fairness (and perceptions of fairness).
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Jan 9, 2025 | 
slaw.ca | Ian MacKenzie |Melanie Neufeld |Robert McKay |Heather Suttie
Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law. For the Encouragement of Learning: The Origins of Canadian Copyright Law. By Myra Tawfik. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023. 408 p. Includes bibliographic references and index.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
slaw.ca | John Willinsky |Heather Suttie |Canadian Association |Ian MacKenzie
The week of October 7th this year was quite something for Artificial Intelligence (AI). It was the object of two consecutive Nobel Prizes, awarded just days apart. The first, in Physics, went to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton (a British Canadian) for laying the foundations of machine learning. The second in Chemistry, won by Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, and David Baker, was for utilizing AI to predict millions of intricate protein structures that are key to understanding molecular interactions.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
slaw.ca | Heather Suttie |Canadian Association |Ian MacKenzie |Robert McKay
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
slaw.ca | Canadian Association |Ian MacKenzie |Robert McKay |Susannah Tredwell
CALL/ACBD is accepting nominations for the 2025 Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing. The Canadian Association of Law Libraries has long had an annual award for excellent legal publishing. Some years ago, we renamed the award we present after Queens University Professor Hugh Lawford (1933-2009) to recognize his contributions to legal publishing in Canada. As a group of legal information specialists, our work depends on being able to access and share high-quality legal knowledge.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
slaw.ca | Ian MacKenzie |Robert McKay |Susannah Tredwell |Tania Perlin
The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has issued ethical guidelines for judges on the use of social media. These guidelines could be a useful template for updating or expanding codes of ethics for tribunal members. In this column I identify some of the key parts of the guidelines as well as some of the shortcomings.
