I heard recently about a mid-career lawyer who is a partner in a small, boutique litigation firm, and who began her career in a large firm setting. Though now well-established in her career, she still arrives at the office early each morning and rarely leaves before midnight. Those who work with her understand that this is the expectation for them as well. I suspect she’s not at all unusual in these habits and expectations.

That’s never been my approach to work and so I struggle to understand both the motivation for that kind of work-life imbalance and how it benefits . . . [more]

A common rebuke to self-driving cars are thoughts about cars behaving like computers – like freezing or rebooting while driving. Those make amusing sound bytes or twitter comments, but there is a grain of truth to it. Self driving technology has come a long way, but while computers and software can follow programmed instructions, and can learn over time, humans are still better at many things.

An article in the New York Times entitled Why Robots Will Always Need Us does a good job of putting this in context, in part by the experience of aircraft.

Author Nicholas Carr points . . . [more]

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. Elmardy v Toronto Police Services Board, 2015 ONSC 2952

[96] The police are entitled to speak to members of the public with whom they interact. Similarly, members of the public are entitled to decline to speak to the police. Had Constable Pak approached me, I might have given him the information he wanted. I might have said, “Constable, I prefer to . . . [more]

A recent decision demonstrates once again that our Province’s residential tenancy laws are in need of an overhaul to give more protection to landlords.

By the time the case (almost) came on for a hearing on April 27, 2015:

(a) the tenant had accumulated arrears of rent from September, 2013;

(b) the Landlord and Tenant Board (“LTB”) had made several orders terminating the tenancy and ordering eviction for non-payment of rent and arrears;

(c) the LTB had also made several orders setting aside the orders mentioned in (b) above and instead installing various repayment schemes;

(d) the tenant breached all . . . [more]

Perhaps because most law firms are partnerships, we don’t pay much attention to the practical implications of the partnership structure. This is understandable as there isn’t much of an alternative in our existing system at least so far as private practice is concerned.

A law firm partnership is very different than most ordinary businesses. In most businesses, the owners of the business are not involved in the business whether as workers or as managers. In contrast, law firms are owned and managed by people who provide services to customers (often with the assistance of others). In a law firm, the . . . [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 technology, research and practice.

Technology

On iPad/iPhone Turn Caps Lock on With a Double-Tap on Either Shift Key
Dan Pinnington

iPads and iPhones have a Shift key, which is handy when you need to type a capital letter. But what if you want to type something in all caps? Pressing Shift for each letter is a pain. …

Research

Ask Directions
Shaunna Mireau

I’ve been travelling in the Maritime this pas week. Like many . . . [more]

Following up on his previous week’s posts on lawyers’ personality traits (autonomy, skepticism,urgency), sociability, and resilience.) Ian Hu (practicePRO and Claims Prevention Counsel at LAWPRO) looks at how lawyers face an uphill battle to keep turnover low, keep colleagues happy, and maintain civility across the profession.

I spoke with consultant and lawyerbrainblog.com blogger Dr. Larry Richard, who provided strategies to manage or overcome these problems in his LAWPRO article. Dr. Richard pointed out that personality traits are expressions of preference. As such, we are not stuck with our personality traits forever. We can learn . . . [more]

The Internet of Things involves the connection of many things to the Internet that did not use to be networked. The numbers of such interconnected things is growing rapidly; the estimates vary greatly but are always counted in the billions over the next few years. The interconnection allows those things to communicate with the world, and vice versa. We have considered some of the legal issues raised by such communications, whether with the ‘world’ intended by the designer of the interconnection or with someone with unforeseen capacity or intention.

This column focuses on one communication: an ‘off’ switch, used by . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty 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. Barry Sookman  2. Entertainment & Media Law Signal 3. Lee Akazaki  4. IPilogue  5. FamilyLLB

Barry Sookman
Budget Bill with copyright amendments tabled in House of Commons

The Government tabled legislation in Parliament today to implement certain provisions of the budget. The Bill summarizes the following key legislative provisions . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Criminal Law – Evidence – Torts – Contempt – Police – Securities Regulation

Henry v. British Columbia (Attorney General) et al. 2015 SCC 24
Barristers and Solicitors – Civil Rights – Criminal Law
Summary: Henry was convicted in 1983 of 10 sexual offences involving eight complainants. He was declared a dangerous offender and sentenced . . . [more]

Which laws exist to protect patients from snooping eyes of health care providers?

Disciplinary hearings were held over the past few weeks in Ontario for nurses who looked at patient files without authorization. Despite the knowledge of several of these instances, there has never been a successful conviction of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) since coming into force a decade ago, and some people are starting to ask why.

One of the major challenges is the regulatory regime itself, which is particularly unwieldy and requires prosecution by the Attorney General. The Health Minister has already promised to simplify . . . [more]

On one Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe.

Summary of all appeals and leaves to appeal granted (so you know what the S.C.C. will soon be dealing with) (Apr. 9 – May 13, 2015 inclusive).

Appeals

Criminal Law: Mandatory Minimums
R. v. Nur (R. v. Charles),2015 SCC 15 (35678)(35684)
Mandatory minimum sentences imposed by s. 95(2) (a) violate Charter s. 12.  Most cases do . . . [more]