Getting the privacy balance right is not easy, from both theoretical and practical perspectives. As examples, here are some recent developments that go both ways.

Pro Privacy

• Proposed Bill C-12 amendments to PIPEDA that would mandate privacy breach notification in certain circumstances.
• The Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Jones v Tsige that created a tort of breach of privacy, or “intrusion upon seclusion” for intentional, offensive privacy invasions.
• The US Supreme court decision in US v Jones that decided police need to get a warrant before attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle.

Anti Privacy

• Proposed Bill C-12

In the Specific Claims Branch process, of course, the Crown is obliged to disclose nothing whereas the claimant has to disclose virtually its whole case.

Mr. Justice Harry Slade,
of the Supreme Court of British Columbia
and Chair of the Specific Claims Tribunal Canada
in testimony before the Commons Committee on Aboriginal Affairs
13 March 15, 2011 at 051:3-14

Readers with particularly good memories may recall that in a late September issue of SLAW I introduced the topic that I call “the Alice in Wonderland Dimension …” by outlining some of the challenges of pursuing claims of Aboriginal rights, and . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of January 17 – 24.

♨ 1. Jones v. Tsige 2012 ONCA 32

[1] Does Ontario law recognize a right to bring a civil action for damages for the invasion of personal privacy?

♨ 2. R. v. Rose 2012 ONSC 350

[1] Mr. Rose is charged with four counts of possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, four counts of possession of a controlled substance, and possession of property obtained by crime. He brings this application pursuant to section 24(2) of the Charter for an

I was shocked to read this headline in yesterday’s issue of INFORUM The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society semi-monthly e-newsletter: “Society to reduce Library & Information Services department”. The NSBS Library review project has been ongoing since April 2010.

There has been mention of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society Library and Information Services on Slaw, most notably, when this worthy group of librarians and library technicians received the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

The NSBS offers documents surrounging the review on their website:

• Library & Information Services Monitoring Report (April 19, 2011)
• Memo to Council, Organisational

English news sources reported yesterday that a three-judge panel of the High Court found Theodora Dallas, until recently a university lecturer in psychology, guilty of contempt of court and sentenced her to six months imprisonment. She will serve the first three in jail and “be on license” for the second three.

Dallas was on a jury trying a case of grievous bodily harm. The trial judge had given jurors clear instructions not to look up matters connected to the trial. At home, she searched the term “grievous bodily harm” and then put it in conjunction with “Luton,” producing a result . . . [more]

Another year gone and in the world of legal content / publishing I’d like to suggest it’s been one of the most important we’ve had since the mid 90’s and the advent of the CD Rom.

Although most of 2011 has been fairly quiet with the usual round of product developments, upgrades and rejigs. The last quarter of the year has more than hinted that the upheavals of 2008 / 2009 have now filtered through to the core modus operandi of the companies whose job it is to distribute legal content through to the professions, business, government and the wider . . . [more]

At the end of each year we at practicePRO take a look at what articles, checklists, tips, and other resources had the most downloads. As always, the list contains many resources that remain popular year after year, though there are some items that stand out.

• The Sample Budget Spreadsheet, a supplement to our Managing the Finances of Your Practice page is the first resource to be downloaded over 10,000 times in a year.
• The revised of the LAWPRO Fraud Fact sheet had 3,500 downlaods. We saw an explosion of online fraud attempts against lawyers in 2011, and the Fact

Winston Churchill once famously rejected a desert saying, as he pushed it away, “This pudding has no theme.”

Of the many criticisms that can be justifiably leveled at my weekly post on this blog, lack of theme, I hope, is not one.

The theme of my posts is the need to preserve our adversarial system of civil justice; to prevent it from morphing into one that basically offers only interest-based dispute resolution because the energy and the skills needed to determine rights, have fallen into disuse.

I carry that theme around all during the working week, and after hours too. . . . [more]

The Library of Parliament’s Information and Research Service has released a background paper, “Legal Status at the Federal Level of Assisted Human Reproduction in Canada” [PDF] by Sonya Noris and Marlisa Tiedemann. The paper takes the reader though the recent history (1990 – present) of federal attempts at the regulation of this set of developing medical practices, culminating in a brief analysis of the Quebec constitutional challenge to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act culminating in the ambiguous / ambivalent response of the Supreme Court (4-4-1, so to speak) in Reference re Assisted Human Reproduction Act 2010 SCC 61 . . . [more]

On Friday I had the pleasure of speaking to an audience of lawyers at The Commons Institute‘s eCommerce and the Practice of Law conference in Toronto. I was given the large topic of using social media in a legal practice.

Below are the slides I started with in the discussion, but the real meat of it was the many excellent questions that were put to me by the group. I hope to blog more about those questions, either here or over on my personal blog (will let you know!). In the meantime, I hope these slides are helpful.

This column was prompted by an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail’s Report on Business during that post-Christmas period of year-end retrospectives. In “Earthquake. Tsunami. Floods. Here is how a battered industry is getting back on its feet” (Globe and Mail, December 27, 2011), Greg Keenan analyzed how Japanese automakers were affected by recent natural disasters: last March’s powerful earthquake and tsunami and the Thailand floods. The devastating impact was aggravated by problems with the automakers’ suppliers: the automakers suffered severe parts shortages but were unable to adjust to these problems because of their inability to obtain . . . [more]

Canada’s newest student-run law review just released its first issue.

The University of Western Ontario Journal of Legal Studies is published entirely online, and is the first student journal coming out of UWO for over 25 years. The contents of the first issue are as follows:

Editors’ Note Lisa Di Valentino and Benjamin D. Tinholt

Niqab vs. Quebec: Negotiating Minority Rights within Quebec Identity Nafay Choudhury

Protecting Your Personality Rights in Canada: A Matter of Property or Privacy? Amy M. Conroy

The Rules of Professional Conduct: A Conflicting Guide for Counsel in Child Custody and Access Proceedings Jennifer L. Hiatt