Registration is now open for the Canadian Bar Association's Fifth Annual Law Firm Leadership Conference, this year focussing on Change Management. The conference will be taking place on November 16 & 17, 2009 at the Park Hyatt Toronto. There will also be a pre- and post-conference bootcamp sessions, "Meeting the Leadership Challenge" on November 15 (a full day) and "Meeting the Leadership Challenge – Managing for Profitability" on November 17-18 (two half days).
Featured speakers include:

• Bruce MacEwen, President of Adam Smith, Esq., LLC, New York (NY)
• Paul Lippe, CEO, Legal OnRamp (California)
• Evan R. Chesler

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In a highly publicised decision that caught most music industry watchers off guard, a federal jury in Minneapolis last week handed the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) an unprecedented and overwhelming victory in the form of a $1.92 Million (U.S.) award against a mother of four for allegedly file-sharing 24 songs. At $80,000 per track, it represents a ratio of 80,000 to 1 of punitive damages to the actual damages suffered, assuming each song could have been legally purchased for $1.00. News reports on the case, the first of thousands filed in the U.S. against individual file sharers to actually . . . [more]

The land title registration system in British Columbia, which is based on the principles of the Australian 'Torrens' registry system (named after Sir Robert Torrens) allows one to register title against real estate in a central registry. This system, which has been used since the 19th century, was a significant improvement from earlier, more cumbersome methods of proving title which required tracing back the historical “chain of title” in order to prove that the land was unencumbered.

A key part of BC’s land title system is the principal of “indefeasibility of title” which allows purchasers, lenders and other parties dealing . . . [more]

Recently, I ran across an excellent article in the Spring 2009 issue of Corporate Governance Quarterly called “Climate Change Disclosure Heats Up”. The authors, Patricia Koval, Tyson Dyck and Michael Pickersgill of Torys LLP, discuss public companies’ disclosures pertaining to the companies’ exposure to “climate risks”. This broad risk category includes matters such as: how climate change affects the company’s profitability, what opportunities / challenges climate change presents to the company, and what actions the company is taking in anticipation of the various climate change related regulations coming down the pipe (e.g. the anticipated mandatory cap-and-trade system on greenhouse . . . [more]

The conviction of Robert William Pickton was upheld today in a two-one split decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal. Here is the judgment from the court, subject to some redaction because of the publication bans.

In a second ruling yesterday, the court unanimously accepted the Crown's appeal of a decision by Justice Williams to sever the 26 counts of first degree murder into six and twenty as well as errors of law in three rulings on evidence and errors in the jury charge. But the Crown acknowledged that a new trial on 26 first-degree murder charges . . . [more]

Math has never been my strong suit. Keeping my day organized in 6 minute intervals is sometimes a chore. My firm changed accounting software and with that change I decided to use the new tool efficiently and no longer keep a paper time sheet. Unfortunately, I no longer have the nice little conversion chart that used to be on my paper form.

New search tools have been getting some press here on Slaw, including WolframAlpha. This computational search engine makes for an easy shortcut to inputting the correct time span into online time sheet.

The resulting hours plus . . . [more]

It should be no surprise that, with the current market conditions, both developers and purchasers are closely scrutinizing just how firm their contracts are for residential property developments currently under construction. As such, the recent British Columbia Supreme Court decision in Dwane v. Bastion Coast Homes Ltd. drew a lot of attention from developers, pre-sale purchasers, and the media alike in this Province. Though headlines blared Judge lets buyer ditch deal on condo and B.C. court rules pre-sale condo contract invalid, the fact of the matter is that Bastion Coast is little more than the application of pre-existing law. . . . [more]

Bonne fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste à nos amis et confrères dans la belle province.

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I was in an interesting discussion today with colleagues on whether there has been a proliferation of the citation of unreported judgments in judicial decisions in Canada and whether this was a good or bad thing.

The context is this: in the good old days of print case law reporters (e.g., Dominion Law Reports or Ontario Reports) when life was much simpler, qualified editors chose to publish only the significant or important decisions. As such, you knew that when lawyers and judges cited precedent to print case law reporters there was some semblance of authority or quality in the precedent. . . . [more]

On June 22, 2009, Canada’s federal government announced that a team led by the chair of the B.C. Securities Commission, Doug Hyndman, will lead the transition to a new national securities regulator. Mr. Hyndman will be responsible for negotiating with the provinces—each of which currently has its own securities regulator—as well as developing the legislation that outlines the new national regulator's mandate. A report is due in a year, with an implementation target of three years.

Goodness knows, this is long overdue. In the absence of a single national securities regulator, efforts have been underway for many years to harmonize . . . [more]

Neither civil libertarians nor privacy advocates are likely to be pleased with the two Bills introduced last week by Canada’s federal government, Bills which are intended to give police wider powers to access online data without a warrant. If passed, the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act (Bill C-47) will require Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) and other "telecommunications service providers" to install equipment facilitating the interception of communications, and to allow police access, without a warrant, to the personal information of users including names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and internet protocol addresses. The Investigative Powers . . . [more]

Slaw has discussed a couple of times [* *] whether domain names are property of any kind, including property that can be seized to satisfy creditors. The California Court of Appeal — Palacio del Mar Homeowners Assn., Inc. v. McMahon, Cal.Rptr.3d 2009 WL 1668294 (Cal. App. 4 Dist. June 16, 2009) [PDF] — has recently decided the latter question in the negative: no seizure. (Internet Cases has a summary.)

Part of the issue was whether the domain name was property that could be ‘levied upon by taking it into custody.’ If that’s the test then lots . . . [more]