In the 1920s, Jackie Coogan became one of Hollywood’s first child stars after playing the titular role of “The Kid” alongside Charlie Chaplin. Having starred in several box office successes, Coogan’s childhood career had earned him an estimated $4 million (roughly $62 million today). When Coogan tried to access his earnings in his 20’s, however, he discovered that his mother had spent nearly his entire fortune. In response to public outcry, California passed the Coogan Act, which aimed to safeguard a portion of child actors’ earnings until they reached adulthood and to protect them from abuse and exploitation. The Coogan . . . [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 Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Dans le cadre de l’affaire du meurtre de Guylaine Potvin, le tribunal déclare recevable le témoignage d’une biologiste judiciaire à titre de témoin expert concernant l’utilisation du nouvel outil d’enquête désigné comme le «Projet PatronYme» et ses résultats.

Intitulé : R. c. Grenon, 2024 QCCS 551
Juridiction . . . [more]

Written by Christina Catenacci, BA, LLB, LLM, PhD, Content Editor, First Reference Inc.

In January 2024, a British Columbia labour arbitrator had no hesitation concluding that an employee, who was the grievor accusing a female colleague of sexual harassment in this case, was actually the one who was sexually harassing the female colleague. Simply put, the arbitrator found that the grievor’s evidence was not credible, the female colleague’s account was credible and consistent with the evidence, and the female colleague did not do what the employee accused her of. As a result, the labour arbitrator agreed with the employer that . . . [more]

Democratization means making something, usually a public good, accessible to everyone. The democratization of technology related to the internet or the democratization of health care are examples. As digital technologies become more widely adopted in areas touching peoples’ daily lives such as making appointments, applications for employment, being informed about changes in conditions of services or bargains available in the marketplace the reasons for making enabling technologies accessible to everyone become increasingly obvious. In a nation with a long-standing system of publicly funded health care the reasons are obvious although the realization seems to be falling short. In justice democratization . . . [more]

I recently read that when legal aid was first developed in the United States in the 1960s, its primary goal was alleviation of poverty rather than access to counsel. However, over time, some stakeholders, mostly on the conservative side of the political spectrum, expressed concern that this was an inappropriate goal for public policy. This led people working in the legal aid sector to rebrand their initiatives as access to justice.[1] The primary difference between framing initiatives as “access to justice” as opposed to “alleviation of poverty” being that access to justice has a goal of improving the legal system . . . [more]

Note: In this article, the term “culture” is used broadly and is intended to mean anything and everything related to one’s customs, beliefs, behaviours and habits attributable to the make-up of who they are. It embraces the concept introduced to the writer by legendary professor Michelle LeBaron which appreciates that each individual person subscribes to several different cultures. Any one person may have a cultural component of themselves attributable to their age, surroundings, work, etc.

Afsana Gibson-Chowdhury is the founder of Gibson Chowdhury, Clear Collaborative Mediation and a renowned advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion among legal, dispute resolution and . . . [more]

Last week, I was asked to provide a peer-review of an article submission to a law journal.

After reviewing it thoroughly, I began to suspect that at least some of the content may have been AI-generated.

What Gives?

First off, there were at least two citations that led to dead ends. By now we all know this is a dead give away.

Second, there was little to no language linking paragraphs together. So there might have been two or three paragraphs written on a distinctive topic, but no language to alert the reader that a new topic was about to . . . [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 Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Dans une affaire de violence conjugale et postconjugale, la juge de première instance a commis 2 erreurs de principe en omettant d’évaluer correctement le risque que l’imposition d’une peine avec sursis à l’accusé poserait pour la collectivité; une peine d’emprisonnement de 6 mois est substituée aux 10  . . . [more]

On April 4, 2024, the Alberta Court of Appeal released its decision in Altius Royalty Corporation v Alberta, 2024 ABCA 105 (CanLII).

The appellants own a royalty interest in a coal mine. In 2014 they acquired royalty interests in the Genesee coal mine. This coal fuels the Genesee power plant in Alberta.
By 2012 federal performance standards, the end of life of the three coal-fired plants was determined to be 2039, 2044 and 2055 (para 3).

They claim their interest was constructively expropriated (paras 2 and 5) when the government of Canada amended the regulations to require the . . . [more]

It started as soon as I began my law career as an articling student. A lawyer gave me a task on Friday due Monday, meaning I would lose my weekend. I felt a little bit of pride – who, little old me, tasked with something so important? But I soon learned what is urgent is rarely important, and important rarely urgent. Having “uncovered every rock” and discovered nothing further, I watched my research memo fall into the abyss of make-work legal projects, more for show and profit, productivity measured more in money than in legal progress. I think I gained . . . [more]