“You need to return on a Wednesday at 9:00am or a Friday at 2:00pm.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh wait, sorry. You’re client’s last name begins with ‘G’. That’s a Tuesday matter.”

“But I’m back here this Monday…”

“Oops. Hang on. It’s a domestic. Thursdays at 10:00am. Definitely Thursday.”

***

The above is a pretty faithful recounting of nearly every day in set-date courts across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and, perhaps to a lesser extent, across Ontario. I don’t have a sufficient personal sample size to gauge whether the alphabet soup insanity that has infected my home province has spread its . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology
Dan Pinnington

To Avoid Corruption – Formatting a Memory Card Is Better Than Erasing Images on It*

With DSLRs, it has become very easy to fill your SD or memory card to capacity. Many of us have will have found ourselves deleting pictures when we run out of space. Doing this in the middle of a photo shoot is fine. However, if you are taking a bunch of pictures . . . [more]

In an unusual case, Justice Nordheimer of the Superior Court of Justice has overturned the result of a youth soccer match.

The Cobras defeated the Strikers 2 – 1 in the semi-final match of the Ontario Cup in the Under 16 Boys Tier 1 Division.

After the match, the Strikers alleged that the Cobras had improperly used six players as “call-ups”. The Ontario Soccer Association (“OSA”) sent notice of the Protest to the Cobras.

A few days later the Cobras received another email from the OSA raising a new issue regarding the semi-final match. In particular, the OSA was . . . [more]

“Diversity” describes the characteristics of a group. When we examine how diversity influences the profession as a whole, it’s easy to lose sight of the experience of being an individual lawyer, with specific identity characteristics, practising law in Ontario. While cultural sensitivity benefits all lawyers, what is it like to practice law when, at least with respect to some aspect of your identity, you are in the minority?

We posed that question to the four lawyers profiled in the in the newest issue of LAWPRO Magazine. While their stories are very different, all four agreed that success depends on . . . [more]

On Saturday The Honourable Louise Arbour‘s star was unveiled on Canada’s Walk of Fame along with those of the other inductees The Band, Jeff Healey, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Reynolds and Hayley Wickenheiser.

#CWOF2014 Inductee @louise_arbour stopped by the #TwitterMirror on the #SunLifeYellowCarpet. Watch Dec. 19 @Global_TV pic.twitter.com/czYDzzcue7

— Canada’s Walk of Fame (@CWOFame) October 20, 2014

From her bio included with her webpage:

The Honourable Louise Arbour is currently a jurist in residence at Borden Ladner Gervais providing strategic advice to lawyers of the Litigation Group, in particular on issues pertaining to international disputes. Her great legal mind,

It’s Open Access Week this week, an opportunity to highlight efforts to promote, facilitate and otherwise support access to cultural, scientific and legal information. If you’re on campus at York University this Friday afternoon Osgoode Hall Law School professor Carys Craig will introduce the screening of “The Internet’s Own Boy” a presentation of the York University Libraries Scholarly Communication Initiative. If you can’t be there Friday I encourage you to watch this wonderful telling of Aaron Swartz’s life story which is also openly available on the Internet Archive.  . . . [more]

A distinguished Ontario litigator I know has made it a personal rule never to cite a case that was reported before the year he was called to the bar.

The British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond might want to enquire whether any of the lawyers he likes to retain harbour any such sentiments. Last week Mr Hammond appeared to entertain the thought of laying charges of treason against Britons who go to fight in Syria and Iraq.

The law of treason dates back to an English statute of 1351.

Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators in the gun powder plot were convicted . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Slater Vecchio Connected 2. AvoidAClaim Blog 3. The Court 4. DroitDu.net 5. À bon droit

Slater Vecchio Connected
Are Fines for Distracted Driving in BC too Low?

Immediate communication has become the norm and many feel obligated to respond to texts and e-mails while driving. Attorney General Suzanne Anton . . . [more]

In November of 2011, I wrote a column on the value of risk management for law firms and put forward the proposition that “[d]espite th[e] considerable grounding in working with risk and counseling clients on methods to minimize and avoid risk, seemingly very few law firms in Canada actually engage in any sort of structured or coordinated risk management activities for their own organizations.” I was recently contacted by a reporter for a legal industry publication to discuss risk management for law firms and thus had the opportunity to reflect on my original statement. When asked a question regarding the . . . [more]

Justice ministers from across Canada met in Alberta this week to discuss funding for legal aid, but no agreement was reached.

According to provincial justice ministers, legal aid used to be shared equally with the federal government. However, since 2003 there has been no new funding from the federal government, meaning any shortfall is left to the province. What that means is that in some provinces like Alberta, federal contributions to legal aid have dropped to 16 per cent.

Andrew Swan, Manitoba Justice Minister, said,

I don’t understand how a government in Ottawa that claims to be in support

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) : Les erreurs de la juge de première instance se rapportent directement à l’évaluation des conditions d’ouverture de la légitime défense et ont privé l’accusé de ce moyen de défense; il y a lieu d’ordonner la tenue d’un nouveau procès.

Intitulé : Dyckow c. R., 2014 QCCA 1812 . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern:
Constitutional Law/ Courts / Practice/ Aliens / Civil Rights / Criminal Law

Vilardell v. Dunham 2014 SCC 59
Constitutional Law – Courts – Practice
Summary: During the trial of a family action, the plaintiff asked to be relieved from paying the hearing fees imposed by the Crown. The British Columbia Supreme Court, in a . . . [more]