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. Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571

[1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into the following . . . [more]

INTRODUCTION

In my post last week, I blogged the background to an analysis of constitutional challenges to interprovincial border closures. I briefly referred to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Comeau, which considered the constitutionality of barriers to interprovincial trade represented by section 134 of the New Brunswick Liquor Control Act limitations on the amount of liquor and beer that someone could bring into New Brunswick from another province. I also set out some of the border closures established by provinces and territories during the coronavirus pandemic, with an emphasis on the situation as the jurisdictions begin . . . [more]

Already here in May, it seems inevitable that the new law school year in September will not be carried out entirely in person. Universities ranging from McGill in Canada to Cambridge in the UK have already announced that their Fall 2020 classes will begin online, and while most American universities have delayed making similar announcements, it’s hard to see how campuses can be retrofitted over the summer to accommodate the physical distancing demands that the pandemic has created. Even if some schools insist on starting in person, will that continue through an expected second wave of infections in Autumn?

Law . . . [more]

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

Finding Government of Canada Publications
Susannah Tredwell

One of the challenges of the last few months has been accessing materials that my library does not own. With the majority of libraries being closed, we have not been able to borrow these materials from the usual suspects. …

Technology

Master Research Tools While Working Remotely
Emma Durand-Wood

The Law Society of Saskatchewan has just launched a new . . . [more]

The Bora Laskin Faculty of Law was founded in 2013, to much fanfare. It was the first Canadian law school to offer an integrated licensing curriculum, and has mandatory courses in Aboriginal law.

Since that time, the school has also had its challenges, most significantly, the resignation of Angelique EagleWoman as Dean in June 2018, citing systemic racism in the law school. Given that she was the first Indigenous law dean in Canada, this resignation sent shock waves throughout the school.

EagleWoman expressed these concerns internally in writing as early as March 7, 2018, leading the university to request that . . . [more]

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 Ju stice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PROCÉDURE CIVILE : En raison de leur caractère général et impersonnel, les décrets et les arrêtés gouvernementaux adoptés dans le contexte de la pandémie de la COVID-19, qui sont contestés par le demandeur, constituent des actes normatifs à vocation générale visés par l’article 529 paragraphe 1 C.P.C. dont le . . . [more]

Administrator’s note: The ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic has posed a challenge to long-term content planning here at Slaw. Please note that this column was written in late April 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a “game changer.” Health and family have always been the priority for me, and that has always been my message to those working with me and my clients. To each and every Slaw contributor & follower: in these turbulent times, I hope you and your family are staying safe.

Governments across the globe are mandating social distancing and related business shutdowns in an effort the “flatten the curve” . . . [more]

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 (newest first):

• Managing Director (Full-time) | Toronto, ON
  (Legal Information and Resource Network (LIRN)

By Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

The case Acumen Law Corporation v Ojanen, 2019 BCSC 1352 (CanLII) tells the story of the abrupt and acrimonious end of an articling student’s employment with a law firm. The court rejected the range of factors purported to support just cause and, in addition to ordinary damages for breach of contract, awarded the employee aggravated or moral damages because of the way she was fired. The case serves as an important reminder to employers about the seriousness of misconduct required to support just cause, and should also encourage employers to think . . . [more]

May is typically the beginning of the season for conferences that law librarians attend, kicking off with the CALL/ACBD conference. This year, we are attending virtually, and you are invited to our events!

You may consider yourself a law librarian, knowledge manager, legal researcher, legal information provider, legal technology developer, legal information specialist or user, or not – it doesn’t matter to us – you are welcome to join in. You may be a member of CALL or a member of a law library sister association, or not – regardless of whether you paid your modest CALL/ACBD membership fee for . . . [more]

This is the third article in a series about mismanaging projects, or throwing away the bad stuff to leave only the good – or at least better – stuff.

There are five aspects you have to manage to move projects forward effectively:

1. The project itself, discussed in the January column.
2. Time, which we covered in part in March. We’ll get to the rest here.
3. Money
4. The client.
5. The team.

The Matrix of Project Times

The table below flags time-related issues on three different scales for various aspects of a project or team, the first of which is the . . . [more]