Some Slaw readers may soon become members of a class that is suing one of the leading sources of online legal information in Canada. In 2010, Lorne Waldman, a Canadian attorney, filed a statement of claim against Thomson Reuters Corporation for infringing Waldman’s moral right to control the reuse of his writings included in Thomson’s “Court Documents Collection” (CDC) database (available via Carswell Litigator). CDC permits subscribers to download documents Thomson copied from court files in Canadian cases. The court files include briefs and other documents written by Canadian lawyers, including Waldman. Thomson does not ask the authoring lawyers for . . . [more]

Becoming a lawyer is a long process with many hurdles to overcome.

Your undergrad grades and LSAT score need to be good enough to get you into law school. Law school grades, rightly or wrongly, are by and large what determine if you can land an articling position which is, of course, a requirement to be called to the bar. Throw in the bar admission course and exams, which change every few years it seems, and you are almost there. However, licenses to practice law are only given to those who are of “good character”. For most, this requirement is . . . [more]

An Ontario lawyer notified us that his office started receiving emails from Florida from people who had responded to a Craigslist ad advertising for a local office assistant. The ad said the lawyer was Ontario-based but looking to conduct transactions in Florida and needed someone to run an office, book flights, etc. Because the ad used a Hotmail address instead of a proper law office domain name, some responders grew suspicious and contacted the lawyer directly.

Here is the message received by those that replied to the ad (which has since been removed). . . . [more]

Here are the three most-consulted English-language cases on CanLII for the week of July 8 – 16.

[Note: it’s likely that people accessing the Supreme Court pentalogy on copyright released this week will have used the SCC site hosted by Lexum, which probably explains why they’re not among the top three opinions.]

♨ 1. Rubin v. Home Depot Canada Inc. 2012 ONSC 3053

[1] This is a motion for summary judgment brought by the plaintiff. On the day he was fired from his job, Eric Rubin signed a release. It is his view that, given the circumstances in which it

. . . [more]

This morning my Toronto colleague Martha Foote was awarded the Thomson Reuters Westlaw Award for Career Achievement, the big award at the Special Libraries Association Legal Division breakfast. The award is designed to recognize a member who has provided significant service to the Division.

Martha is a past chair of the SLA Legal Division and has also served on the executive board of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries. When not serving the profession on a volunteer basis, she currently serves as Board General Manager of LibraryCo, the central management for the Ontario county courthouse library system.

Congratulations, . . . [more]

The story of the commercial, professional and administrative uses of electronic communication is a search for trust. Who are we dealing with? How do we know? How certain can we be – or do we need to be? I have reviewed the basics in my column on Authentication and Trust .

Trusted technology

Sometimes the search focuses on the technology that purports to offer trust. This can be described in terms of a specific technology, such as dual-key encryption in the framework of a public key infrastructure (PKI ), for example. At other times the focus attempts to be . . . [more]

A series of lawsuits involving Mathews, Dinsdale & Clark and Adrian Jakibchuk, a former associate of the firm, was settled on June 7. The case emerged after Jakibchuk alleged inappropriate behaviour by David Cowling. More information on the background to this lawsuit was available here on Slaw when it was first launched.

Although the details of the settlement remain confidential, Christina Cheung of Precedent shares some information they have obtained:

Pleadings obtained by Precedent in the Jakibchuk lawsuit indicate that MDC paid an undisclosed sum of money to Cowling in order for him to drop his lawsuit and leave the

. . . [more]

For whatever this is worth, for those who need to care (or do, regardless of need).

These propositions are written for the Canadian lawyer whose knowledge of the relevant Canadian law is such that a Superior Court (or equivalent) judge would consider that lawyer competent to prosecute or defend an “ordinary” personal injury or property damage action. As such, they presume a certain level of knowledge.

Comments are on for a limited purpose. I will attempt to clarify any of these propositions if the manner in which I have stated the proposition is not sufficiently clear, bearing in mind what . . . [more]

Following our previous Slaw post, were we commented on the June 15 British Columbia Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Criminal Code ban on physician-assisted suicide. Without being surprised, on July 14, 2012, we learn that the federal government has decided to appeal that decision.

On this very date less than half a dozen summers ago I was lucky enough to be part of a group of volunteer roadies setting up a rock and roll concert in a big field in a small town. Steppenwolf with John Kay was to be the headliner, followed by a string of other bands. The air was hot, the buzz building, the Patrón Tequila folks had arrived, things that needed doing were getting done, and even lowly gofers like me were touching the electric hem of showtime excitement.

This would have been enough of a kick for me, at . . . [more]

Few people welcome the experience of arguing in court over intensely personal issues. Fewer people would pay a single nickel for the experience. With the very odd exception, ordinary people appear in court because they have no real choice in the matter. A mother fights for the custody of her infant son out of concern for his safety. A factory worker seeks wrongful dismissal damages to pay his mounting bills. A disabled man resists eviction from his subsidized apartment to avoid homelessness. And yet in spite of these common scenarios and the human need to correct actual or perceived injustice, . . . [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.

. . . [more]