Canada’s online legal magazine.

Archive for August, 2021

Bullying the Green

When I was a junior family lawyer, I was representing a client at a mediation. Opposing counsel was a senior male lawyer who brought his junior, who had actually been a former classmate of mine. She was the lawyer I had been communicating with throughout the file, but at the mediation, he was the one who took point. The mediator was also male. We sat in the boardroom, at a long rectangular table. Typically, in a private dispute resolution process, neutral professionals will sit at the ends of the table – i.e.: a jointly retained mediator, family professional, or financial . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Ethics

Tips Tuesday

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Recent Horrors
Neil Guthrie

Some frightful things that have imposed themselves on your humble scribe’s tender eyes. Actual drafting by a senior partner. What this means is clear enough, but the drafting is simply awful …

. . . [more]
Posted in: Tips Tuesday

Monday’s Mix

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. Timely Disclosure 2. Legal Feeds 3. Excess Copyright 4. Global Workplace Insider 5. Administrative Law Matters

Timely Disclosure
CSA to Combine IIROC and MFDA in a Single Self-Regulatory Organization

On August 3, 2021, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) announced their plan to “consolidate the functions” of the

. . . [more]
Posted in: Monday’s Mix

Discrimination Based on Face Mask Use in Retail Settings

Face mask mandates are now common place across Canada, which started being enshrined in law over a year ago. Many of these can be found in municipal by-laws, but they can also be found in regulations to provincial statutes.

For example, Ontario’s O. Reg. 364/20 – Rules for Areas in Stage 3 under the Reopening Ontario (A Flexible Response to COVID-19) Act, 2020 states,

(3.1) The person responsible for a business or organization that is open shall ensure that any person in the indoor area of the premises of the business or organization, or in a vehicle that is operating

. . . [more]
Posted in: Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

ÉDUCATION : Une commission scolaire a offert un transfert d’école à une élève ayant été victime d’intimidation et a omis d’appliquer le plan de lutte contre l’intimidation qu’elle avait adopté; elle a ainsi commis une faute et doit verser à la mère de l’élève une somme de 29 400 $. . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Friday Jobs Roundup

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs:

. . . [more]
Posted in: Friday Jobs Roundup

Summer Reading and Coming Events

I just returned from a glorious 3-week summer break and am now trying to catch up on my accumulated emails. A few things caught my eye that I thought may be of interest to other SLAW devotees:

  1. IAALS events – I have followed the Institute for the Advancement of the America Legal System for some time. It is a U.S. leader in the analysis and reform of the U.S. justice system, including through unbundled legal services. Two events to note:
    1. Redesigning Legal Speaker Series: The next session is on August 24, 2021 and is entitled “Legal Tech –
. . . [more]
Posted in: Dispute Resolution

The Math Confirms It: Contract Clarity Is Good

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

John Locke once lamented the limited ability of language to express an idea when he said, “So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.” He could very well have been talking about an employment contract dispute. An employee may try to introduce ambiguity into a provision that the employer considered watertight at the time of drafting. In this article, Bryant v Parkland School Division, 2021 ABQB 391, a case in which the plaintiffs sought . . . [more]

Posted in: Case Comment, Substantive Law, Substantive Law: Judicial Decisions

Book Review: Managing Privacy in a Connected World

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.

Managing Privacy in a Connected World. By Éloïse Gratton & Elisa Hendry. Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2020. 488p. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9780433503651 (softcover) $190.00. 

Reviewed by Stef Alexandru
Librarian
Lawson Lundell LLP
In CLLR 46:2

Managing Privacy in a Connected World expertly ties together privacy and emerging practice . . . [more]

Posted in: Book Reviews

Variability in Judgments: Why It Can Be So Hard to Find Consistency

The doctrine of stare decisis asks judges to treat like cases alike. “The term comes from the Latin phrase stare decisis et non quieta movere, which means ‘to stand by decisions, and not to disturb settled points’”. – The Honourable Justice Malcolm Rowe and Leanna Katz

Given the simpleness of the doctrine of stare decisis, you would think it would be simple to apply every time. And we would see the same outcome for similar cases every time. After all, stare decisis allows people to know the law by providing consistency, certainty, and predictability. But each case raises unique facts,

. . . [more]
Posted in: Substantive Law

Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Conlin v Edmonton (City) Police Service, 2021 ABCA 287

[62] The appellants are correct that there is a fine line between a correctness standard of review and a finding that there was only one possible outcome that was reasonable. Empirically, there is never only one possible outcome, because there are always at least two: the challenged outcome selected by the decision maker, . . . [more]

Posted in: Wednesday: What's Hot on CanLII

Supreme Court – Collective Copyright Licenses Are Not Mandatory

The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright) is a copyright collective meaning that it manages certain rights on behalf of copyright holders. Importantly Access Copyright does not itself hold any of the copyrights that it manages.

York University (York) is Canada’s third-largest university with over 50,000 students and approximately 1,500 full-time faculty members.[1] York had a license to use some of the works licensed by Access Copyright from 1994 to 2010. Access Copyright applied to the Copyright Board for an interim tariff during a period when renewal negotiations were languishing. York initially complied with the interim tariff but then . . . [more]

Posted in: Intellectual Property