Slaw carried a post during the summer about jurisprudential solitudes – a gap in knowledge between Quebec’s civil code-based and predominantly French-language legal resources and those in common-law, English-speaking Canada. I find that the barrier tends to run in one direction not both, in that there is more information about the Rest of Canada in Quebec legal circles than vice versa.

In any event, here is a very brief note of three recent decisions of Quebec courts (thanks to a publication by Nicolas Vermeys and Patrick Gingras for Éditions Yvon Blais.) Are there any similar decisions in other Canadian (or . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of September 23 – 30.

♨ 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 descriptions: Detaxers; Freemen or Freemen-on-the-Land; Sovereign Men or Sovereign Citizens; Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International (CERI); Moorish Law; and

Last week, the National Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, chaired by Justice Tom Cromwell, released for public consultation two of four reports from its working groups. The work of the Action Committee is guided by a vision of Canadian society where:

• Justice services are accessible, responsive and citizen focused;
• Services are integrated across justice, health, social and education sector;
• The justice system supports the health, economic and social well-being of all participants;
• The public is active and engaged with, understands and has confidence in the justice system and has the knowledge and attitudes needed

It is a dark time for hockey fans in in North America. The entire season is being threatened by a lockout, imposed by the NHL over their inability to negotiate a new collective agreement with the NHL Players Association (NHLPA). In an effort to stop the lockout, the NHLPA has resorted to some creative legal tactics. Indeed, a few weeks ago, the NHLPA filed for an injunction before the Quebec Labour Relations Board (LRB), arguing that the lockout was a violation of the Quebec Labour Code. Essentially, their argument was that since the NHLPA was not a “certified” union . . . [more]

In today’s difficult economic environment, it’s not unusual for lawyers to find themselves dealing with requests for representation from clients of limited means, or clients who want to keep their legal fees at a minimum. The economic issues these types of requests raise is but one consideration: Access to justice – which has become a prominent issue in Ontario lately – also figures in the equation.

Instead of turning away clients with limited budgets, lawyers often consider ways of providing limited scope or non-traditional legal services. From a malpractice exposure perspective, lawyers should appreciate that providing limited services can create . . . [more]

Last night was the kick-off of the 2012 annual International Association of Libraries meeting at the Law Society of Upper Canada in Toronto. About 120 prominent law librarians from around the world–primarily from academic, legislative and court house libraries–have arrived in Toronto and are enjoying the first day of programming.

The theme of this year’s program is “Canada: The Cultural Mosaic and International Law.” So far we have been welcomed by Ms. Deborah Deller, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Dean Lorne Sossin of Osgoode Hall Law School, and The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada (via . . . [more]

As I’m sure most of you will know by now, an Alberta judge has caught the world’s eye with a hefty (176 page) decision that, among other things, produced a taxonomy of vexatious litigants who adhere to one cause or another or to a set of supposedly effective trial practices. (See, for example, the stories in the Globe and Mail or the Edmonton Journal.) Meads v. Meads 2012 ABQB 571 can be found on CanLII, of course; and the main object of this post is to point you to this location, so that you can read the judgment, or . . . [more]

Law in fiction is a perennial favourite topic of mine. Usually I am drawn to how law and lawyers are treated in fiction. What drew my attention this time was a gem on advocacy in the pages of a novel.

Zadie Smith’s newest novel NW is about four characters that grew up in North West London. One of them is a black woman named Keisha Blake. Against the odds she breaks into law and becomes a successful barrister. En route she drops the name Keisha and takes up Natalie. When she is offered a much sought after prestigious job, she . . . [more]

The release of the iPhone 5 has seen hundreds of reviews flood the web. The consensus? The iPhone 5 is amazing. It is both thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4S, all while delivering a larger, more vivid screen coupled with an even better 8MP camera. The bad? Apple Maps is the most half-baked piece of software Apple has released since MobileMe.

For lawyers on the go, the iPhone 5 offers a compelling new feature that most reviews mention only in passing: LTE support. LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a new wireless data standard, and offers speeds in excess . . . [more]

We’ve been seeing a lot Gerry Oginski lately. He is a practicing lawyer but is also a frequent lecturer on lawyer videos and he has recently written Secrets of Lawyer Video Marketing in the Age of YouTube. We were curious to read the book because we know something about videos and have our own Sensei YouTube channel with dozens of videos.

Clearly, anyone who is a video novice would benefit from reading Gerry’s book, but we found things in his book that we didn’t know. If you are a lawyer who has not yet embarked on lawyer videos, you . . . [more]

When I use a word, said a famous literary character, it means exactly what I say it means, nothing more and nothing less.

The same principle applies to statements of the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court made that abundantly clear in the intervener’s failed attempt to get a rehearing of the Court’s decision in R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 S.C.R. 456, 1999 CanLII 665 in R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 SCR 533,  1999 CanLII 666.

But, as Marshall shows, if there’s a dispute about what the Court meant, we don’t get to find out the Supreme . . . [more]

If a brilliant legal treatise is composed by an academic but nobody reads it, does it really matter?

A study last year by Mark Bauerlein looked at books and essays in English literature at several public American universities, and found the vast majority attracted very little attention from other academics. Other research suggests that up to half of university library holdings are never used. There’s no reason to believe that these patterns in library use are any different in the legal field.

Of course despite my initial premise I do believe in the inherent worth of even obscure legal research . . . [more]