A lot of attention is being paid these days to cyberthreats and cybersecurity. It seems widely accepted that such threats and security questions cannot be confined to the IT department any more, but they involve sufficiently critical threats to organizations that boards of directors have to get involved. When boards get involved, they turn to their counsel.

Some enterprising law firms in the US have published books on the topic. The blurb for this one strikes me as a bit over the top – and the threats they sketch have been real for years (off-the-shelf attack software available for . . . [more]

The Charbonneau Commission mandated to look into corruption and fraud among the construction industry, unions and government, tabled its final report on November 24, 2015. The report proposes 60 recommendations that lead commissioner of the inquiry, France Charbonneau, called “concrete solutions” to ensure government contracts are fairly managed. . . . [more]

The cynical phrase, “Let Them Eat Cake,” is more appropriately attributed to Marie-Thérèse, the wife of Louis XIV, 100 years before Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI of France, about whom such royal indifference to starving peasants pleading, “bread, bread,” is alleged most frequently. If they were begging for bread, they certainly didn’t have cake. So to prevent a law society from appearing to be equally indifferent to the suffering of people who cannot afford lawyers, how should law society benchers explain their intense promotion of alternative legal services, and the resulting cynical phrase: “let them . . . [more]

Cybersecurity was a major topic at the recent Canadian IT Law Association conference. It can be a daunting subject to ponder when dealing with various types of services, cloud providers, and the methods, standards and assurances available to lower the risk of a security breach. Cyber insurance to cover some of these risks is a growing field.

This Cyber Security Report Card (pdf) is a good high level summary of the things that businesses should think about when considering security issues for their organization. It was provided by one of the luncheon speakers, John Millar of Digital Boundary Group, . . . [more]

A Toronto web design company recently published a job posting for a writing job indicating that “female candidates are preferred”, seemingly time-warping back to the Mad Men era… Specifically, the position was for a content writer and search-engine optimization specialist on LinkedIn. However, the posting also indicated that the successful candidate will need to fulfill the “responsibilities of a receptionist, so female candidates are preferred.”

Not surprisingly, the job posting has attracted negative attention on twitter and news outlets have picked up the story. The company responded on Twitter and LinkedIn by stating that they “did not mean to discriminate . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. R. v. Hecimovic, 2014 BCCA 483

[50] The trial judge expressly dealt with, and dismissed, the Crown’s theory that the respondent drove in a deliberately dangerous manner, within the meaning of s. 249(1)(a) of the Criminal Code. The question on this appeal is whether the trial judge erred in law in the manner in which she addressed what remained of the . . . [more]

On September 15, 2015 the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) published Civil Non-Family Cases Filed in the Supreme Court of BC – Research Results and Lessons Learned. This study is one piece of a larger, five year “Cost of Justice” research initiative being undertaken by CFCJ with the goal of defining the economic and social costs of justice on two fronts: the cost of delivering access to justice, and the cost of not delivering access to justice.

The study was conducted by Focus Consultants of Victoria, B.C. in 2014 and 2015 in the Supreme Court of . . . [more]

The holiday season is an important season to focus on good will and the profound messages that the holidays celebrate. Many organizations use the holiday season to communicate with clients and associates to share that sentiment. For example, an organization may wish to invite individuals to a holiday-themed party, or simply send a seasonal greeting. What many organizations may not have considered is whether these benign-seeming messages will attract seven-figure liability.

Canada’s Anti-Spam Law, more commonly known as CASL, generally provides that a sender must obtain the consent of a recipient before sending a “commercial electronic message,” or “CEM,” to . . . [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 research and writing, practice, and technology.

Research & Writing

Stay on Top of Changes to Specific Webpages With ChangeDetection.com
Bronwyn Guiton

ChangeDetection.com is a tool I recommend to help you monitor webpages and be notified automatically if they’ve been updated. No one wants to be sitting around refreshing a web page until that important agreement gets uploaded and goes public. This tool will watch the page for you and email you when it’s updated. . . . [more]

Phantom clients, those who believe they are represented by you, though the individual has not formally hired or retained you, can lead to a potential claim down the road. If you decline an engagement for legal services or the client chooses not to retain you, the non-engagement should immediately be confirmed in writing by way of a non-engagment letter. Here are three resources to help you draft one: . . . [more]

In an article in the National Post last week, Justice Belobaba is described as having ‘scorched’ Merchant Law Group for its “profoundly unacceptable fee agreement” with its client, the class representative in McCallum-Boxe v. Sony. While there are many unsavoury and arguably unethical practices for which Merchant may be justly criticized, this fee arrangement does not merit the same level of excoriation.

The case involved a very small settlement in a class action against Sony. The judge approved the $8000 payment to the class, but was shocked to discover that class counsel had not required the class representatives to . . . [more]

Last month I heard an excerpt from the Slate podcast Culture Gabfest presented as part of CBC’s Podcast Playlist. The excerpt was from the Culture Gabfest March podcast and the “gabbers,” along with “pop-chart columnist” Chris Molanphy, were discussing the “Blurred Lines” court case. It was something Molanphy said during the conversation that has been nagging at me ever since:

“… if something recaptures the atmosphere, or the vibe, or the feel of a record without actually duplicating its melody, its tempo, its syncopation, certainly its lyrics … that is now litigable, that’s kind of unprecedented.”

Indeed.

You . . . [more]