I have been privileged to teach legal ethics at the University of Ottawa and before that at Osgoode Hall and U of T. I love teaching legal ethics because students have fresh and valuable perspectives on so many important issues in the legal profession. Legal ethics is a branch of “professional ethics”, special ethical rules that apply to members of a profession. What we think it means to be “a good lawyer” , “a good soldier” or “a good doctor” may differ from society’s general understanding of what it means to be “a good citizen”. In legal ethics we struggle . . . [more]

This past week Dr. Michael Rachlis launched Doctors for Fair Taxation, calling for the top wealth earners in Canada to be taxed even further. Given that physicians are often prominent members of this tax bracket, the initiative attracted lots of attention.

Rachlis suggested to Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom that this could inspire a “Lawyers for Fair Taxation.” Walkom responded with skepticism, which to me was incredibly telling of the way that lawyers continue to be perceived in society.

The rationale behind Rachlis’ group is that income inequalities lead to poorer health indicators, and that the decline of . . . [more]

This week Slaw is going to feature a couple of entries each day by and about law students. Slaw contributor Adam Dodek has arranged with students from his courses on Professional Responsibility at Ottawa University Faculty of Law to let us publish five of their short essays. And Slawyer Dan Pinnington, whose day job has him, among other things, on the senior management team at LAWPRO Magazine, has kindly let us republish excerpts from the recent student edition of that publication.

You’ll easily recognize these special posts by the banner that will head them up:

And because there are perhaps . . . [more]

Some interesting data about law schools and the broader ecomony is collected in this Atlantic article. The main point is that while a slow job market has meant rising demand for education in the past, today’s law school enrollment has fallen off along with the rise in unemployment numbers. . . . [more]

I’ve never understood why the winners of spelling bees get lauded and labelled as smart or intelligent. That kind of skill is on a par with remembering the names and dates of all of Canada’s prime ministers, though fractionally more useful I suppose. “Mackenzie Bowell,” you announce. “December 21st, 1894 to April 27th, 1896.” No one is going to marvel, “Mind like a razor.” I guess I should disclose that I was a lousy speller and that Mrs. Hill, my grade 12 English teacher had to threaten me with failure if I didn’t learn to spell. It only irritated her . . . [more]

In her legal career Charlene had never encountered a challenge that stoic hard work and determination couldn’t beat. After severe abdominal pain forced her to the hospital’s emergency ward she returned to her office to finish an assignment despite the blindingly brutal pain. Months later she discovers that during this time the partner she reports to had found numerous flaws, typos and weaknesses in her work and had told her colleagues that she had grave concerns about Charlene’s legal abilities.

Charlene’s legal career as a solicitor was in ascendency before her car accident. The head injury caused her some setbacks . . . [more]

This is a post in a series appearing each Friday, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

The Government has recently announced its intention to focus on Bill C-12, the Safeguarding Canadians’ Personal Information Act, its attempt to update PIPEDA in accordance with the statute’s last 5 year review (which incidentally was conducted over 6 years ago). Bill C-12 is a lackluster piece of privacy protection that, in spite of its name, arguably does far more to erode privacy than it does to enhance it. One commentator even dubbed it’s last incarnation the ‘anti-privacy privacy bill‘. As the legislation can be expected to reemerge as early as two weeks hence, a few of its . . . [more]

JURIST, the legal news and commentary website based out of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, needs money. Your money.

The well-known, pioneering news site explains that it is “anticipating a significant reduction in funding (meaning several tens of thousands of dollars) from our primary benefactors”.

It needs funds to:

• Redesign the JURIST.org website
• Fully develop a mobile version of JURIST.org, as well as iPhone and Android apps
• Increase outreach efforts to JURIST’s audience
• Develop new programming, including audio and video coverage, seminars and conferences that will directly benefit our community
• Cover costs associated with managing our

On November 17, 2011, the federal government introduced Bill C-25, the proposed Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act and making related amendments to other Acts in Parliament as a first step to implement the federal portion of the Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) framework that will particularly be applicable to small businesses and self-employed persons across Canada.

According to the government, just over 60 percent of Canadians do not have a workplace pension plan. That is a large chunk of workers who are left behind and who could face financial troubles in their retirement years. PRPPs will offer them a new, . . . [more]

Site news for those who read Slaw only via RSS or email

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 50 comments. You might be particularly interested in these:

• the six comments on David Canton’s post “Demanding Social Media Passwords From Job Seekers Is Wrong”
• the thoughtful comments on Jack Newton’s post “Addressing the High Cost of Cloud Computing Due Diligence”
• the five comments on David Canton’s post “Using QR Codes.”

You can subscribe to the comments on Slaw either as a separate matter (RSS, email) or as part of a subscription combining posts and comments . . . [more]

The Centre de recherche en droit public (CRDP), the oldest research center of the University of Montreal, was established in 1962. To my knowledge the CRDP is also the oldest research center in law in Canada. Beyond its longevity, CRDP’s merits are numerous. I just want to mention here those which relate to legal information and legal informatics.

• In the sixties, the DATUM project was conducted at the Faculty of Law with researchers from the CRDP. DATUM researchers developed one of the first automated retrieval systems for legal information in Canada. Professor Ejan Mackaay’s name is associated to almost all