Law societies and other professional regulatory bodies around the world have begun to recognize their professions’ roles in addressing and adapting to climate change. Unfortunately, the Law Society of British Columbia (the Law Society) missed an opportunity to do so last month. My West Coast Environmental Law colleagues Erin Gray, Staff Lawyer and Kaymi Yoon-Maxwell, Summer Law Student, report below on what happened and the worrying implications.

Climate resolution fails at Law Society meeting

On June 22, at its 2022 Annual General Meeting (AGM), the Law Society membership – which is all lawyers in BC – failed to pass Resolution . . . [more]

Procedural resources are vital for the prosecution of cases before courts and tribunals. These resources range from case-relevant legislation – including the legislation establishing the court or tribunal – to the rules of procedure and decided cases of the court or tribunal. They ground arguments, and guide and assist lawyers in making compelling cases. Claims can fail or succeed depending on the procedural resources available and accessible to litigants. Fairness dictates that these procedural resources be readily available to all litigants who need them, not just to lawyers.

Litigants represented by lawyers have little-to-no worries regarding these procedural tools. Their . . . [more]

Does finding help in your community when you are experiencing troubles produce a sense of wellbeing and security? Do feelings of well-being and security matter as outcomes?

The criminal law perspective has dominated the public and professional discourse about community security and wellbeing for decades. This has ranged along the political continuum from tougher crime control measures and mandatory sentences intended to remove criminals from our streets to community policing intended to make a police presence both a comfort and a protection for community residents. Let’s now turn our attention to the role of access to civil justice in community . . . [more]

Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine has led the international community to respond with unprecedented speed and intensity. Reactions to this European conflict are in stark contrast with the lack of effective international action to halt ongoing atrocities in Myanmar, Afghanistan, China, and other places. The crisis in Ukraine has also brought to the foreground the limitations of international law and mechanisms to halt aggression and atrocity crimes.

This article summarizes recent attempts within United Nations (UN) bodies to halt the war and atrocities in Ukraine. Also considered are actions in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and . . . [more]

According to the meta description on its website, “[t]he Law Society’s Rules of Professional Conduct (“Rules”) express the high ethical ideals of lawyers, and specify the bases on which they may be disciplined.” To date, and unlike in other jurisdictions[1], this has not included any requirements for basic technological competence. Thus, the current Rules are entirely devoid of the terms ‘computer,’ ‘technology’ or ‘data.’ While the internet is mentioned, it appears only twice, and then, only in relation to advertising. Could this omission, or the failure of the Law Society to test new licensees on technological . . . [more]

“When did it become illegal to ask questions? Especially in the courtroom?” This is the opening line to Justice A. Pazaratz’s decision in J.N. v. C.G., (2022). [1] This provocative line sets the tone for a decision delivered almost entirely through frank obiter. When reduced to its ratio, J.N. v. C.G. is a case about whether the court can require a parent to vaccinate their children, and whether a judge should rule on the appropriateness of these beliefs and decisions. What makes the decision notable is how Justice Pazaratz uses wide-sweeping comments to engage numerous societal issues, including free . . . [more]

Bringing people-centered justice to all will fail if we wait for people to come to the door of a law office asking for help. Justice must be made as accessible as possible by going out to where people live or spend much of their time. The rural mobile law van operating in the Wellington County and North Halton area just west of the City of Toronto is so far showing success in expanding access to justice in a rural area by extending that proactive offer of service, making legal assistance at least more accessible than before. A six-month pilot project . . . [more]

The recent findings of an international trial monitoring panel in the case of United States v. Donziger reveal the failure of a New York court to ensure a fair trial in accordance with international law and human rights standards. As the panel concluded in their extensive report, critical changes are needed in laws, rules, and courtroom procedures to ensure that the methods of US federal courts match their longstanding mission to uphold the rule of law.

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In September 2020, an international group of legal academics and practitioners (which include the writers of this article) convened to examine . . . [more]

Before I became a lawyer, I had this naive T.V. inspired understanding of the justice system. Anyone who went to court had a lawyer to advocate for them, unless they were nuts or had a genius level intellect, but in either case the gallery would gasp when the self represented litigant announced, “I am representing myself”.

However, the reality I came to know after becoming a lawyer myself is that the majority of people engaging with the Canadian justice system have no choice but to represent themselves at some stage in their legal proceedings.

Since taking on my first family . . . [more]

The specialized knowledge and training of lawyers is supposed to make them uniquely positioned to engage in the practice of law. But it also underlies a fundamental assumption about the workings of litigation — that lawyers work with and against other lawyers who are equally trained and well-matched. Such an assumption underscores the functioning of the adversarial system, the ethical duties of lawyers operating within it, and the legitimacy of the outcomes reached in the adversarial system.

However, the validity of this operative assumption may be undermined by certain practical realities — whether most lawyers in the adversarial system are . . . [more]

We are very happy to announce that the National Self-Represented Litigants Project has opened an East Chapter (NSRLP-E) to serve and advocate for the needs of self-represented litigants (SRLs) in Atlantic Canada. While we have only just begun the Project, our staff and students have been preparing directories of services for all the Atlantic Provinces, primers, public legal education materials, and case summaries.

Importantly, our students are hard at work reaching out to SRLs and writing reports that will help guide our work on the needs and experiences of SRLs in Atlantic Canada.

For example, one of our researchers recently . . . [more]

Colombia has long been one of the most dangerous places in the world for human rights advocates, but the danger intensified in 2020 and 2021 with a surge of massacres and assassinations of human rights defenders and community leaders. The dire situation in Colombia has drawn the attention of the international coalition for the annual Day of the Endangered Lawyer marked each year on 24 January.

This year, LRWC is working with the Law Society of Ontario’s Human Rights Committee and Human Rights Watch to organize an online event to discuss the situation of lawyers at risk in Colombia. The . . . [more]