Monday’s Mix

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from seventy 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. Alcohol & Advocacy 2. Mack’s Criminal Law 3. IFLS 4. Administrative Law Matters 5. Clio Blog

Alcohol & Advocacy
So you want to buy a bar…

…or for that matter a brewery or winery. Chances are if you’ve ever worked in the hospitality industry you’ve at least thought about it.Bars and breweries change hands frequently. Some transactions attract international attention (and often skepticism), like when Anheuser-Busch or Diageo increase their respective stable of breweries and distilleries. At a local level the purchase and sale of a brewery or restaurant typically attracts much less fanfare, and may involve parties who are intimately familiar with each other, such as when senior staff buy-out existing owners as part of a succession strategy. …

Mack’s Criminal Law
Reliable Co-Accused

Jeffrey Woodman was out shoplifting with a group of friends. They left the scene of their crime in a car. When a police officer approached the vehicle, the car accelerated towards the officer, struck him and sped off. The officer sustained serious injuries. The principal issue at trial was the identity of the driver at the time the officer was struck. Woodman was convicted by a jury of his peers; the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal of both conviction and sentence: 2016 ONCA 63. …

IFLS
Cunliffe Talk Follow Up: ReconciliationSyllabus blog on TRC Recommendation 28

In her powerful talk earlier this month about R v Barton and the death of Cindy Gladue, Professor Emma Cunliffe discussed the lack of cultural competency and respect for Indigenous lives shown by the lawyers involved in the case. She was later asked a question about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action regarding legal education. In her answer, she mentioned a recent blog post she had written on the subject, found here. …

Administrative Law Matters
Standard of Review: Correctness, Context and Confusion

A trilogy of recent Canadian decisions raising standard of review issues have caught my eye. In each case, a standard of correctness is applied, but different reasons are given by each court. Indeed, it would be fair to say that each court follows a different analytical approach. Some more evidence, then, of confusion in this important area of the law, but also of a recurring underlying problem: how to review a decision for which no reasons, or unsatisfactory reasons, have been given. …

Clio Blog
Get Back to your Resolution

New Year’s resolutions are traditionally reserved for health, fitness and a questionable attempt to shed the excess December decadence. The concept of a resolution, however, is still very much applicable to legal practices. If you’ve hopped aboard this social movement to change something for the better, and have missed a step, given up, or forgotten that you made the promise in the first place, chances are that you could use a little help. …
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*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.