When Trinity Western University first suggested it should have a law school, I emphasized here all the market reasons they should not; there are enough law schools already, not enough articling positions, and too much job competition for junior lawyers.

What it was ultimately about though is that we don’t need a new law school, doing everything the old way of doing things, and adding exclusionary criteria that runs contrary to human rights principles.

Since then, we’ve had new law schools at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, and Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. The former has gained some notoriety . . . [more]

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.

ENVIRONNEMENT : Les immeubles loués par l’Administration portuaire de Québec à IMTT-Québec étant des immeubles fédéraux et les activités de cette dernière relevant de lois fédérales, les dispositions de la Loi sur la qualité de l’environnement en matière d’autorisations provinciales sont constitutionnellement inopérantes à l’égard des activités et des installations . . . [more]

One aspect of having a great affection for law publishing is that I have a tendency to search for its characteristics and qualities elsewhere. For me, it sets a general standard for non-fiction and published information provision. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, I find myself looking for snippets of law publishing in many unlikely places and am pleased to find it frequently. My enjoyment, not long ago, of Philip Wood’s The Fall of the Priests and the Rise of the Lawyers, in which the author stresses the centrality of law to human survival was, in part, for such reasons. Lawyers . . . [more]

Here we go again. Quebec Justice Minister recently tabled Bill 62, An Act to foster adherence to State religious neutrality and, in particular, to provide a framework for religious accommodation requests in certain bodies fostering respect for religious neutrality of the state and aimed in particular to frame requests for religious accommodations in certain organizations. This is this sitting government’s attempt to draft a charter of secularism.

This is the fourth time that the Quebec government (under different leadership) has tried to pass a bill to clarify the religious neutrality of the state and set guidelines for the granting of . . . [more]

In her remarkable new book Life Sentence (Doubleday Canada, 2016), Christie Blatchford describes the Canadian judiciary as “unelected, unaccountable, entitled, expensive to maintain and remarkably smug” (at pp. 33-34). She argues that the process for judicial appointments and judicial discipline, along with the structure and conduct of an ordinary trial, create judicial arrogance. And that arrogance, even if not universal, is both systemic and common enough to corrode and undermine the pursuit of justice. She also suggests that actors in the legal system are complicit in judicial arrogance while simultaneously having considerable arrogance of their own: lawyers and judges alike . . . [more]

There have been many articles written suggesting that lawyers should learn how to code software. This Wolfram Alpha article is a good one, although many of the articles are far more adamant that every lawyer needs to learn how to code. The rationale is that because software will have an increasing effect on how lawyers practice, and who will be competing with us to provide our services, we should learn to code.

So should we learn how to code? For most lawyers, probably not.

I knew how to code before law school, and for me it has been very useful. . . . [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. Schrenk v. British Columbia (Human Rights Tribunal), 2016 BCCA 146

[44] Applying those principles to the case at bar, the Tribunal certainly has jurisdiction in relation to an allegation that a person has forced the complainant, expressly or otherwise, to endure harassment at work. It had jurisdiction to address the response of the complainant’s employer to his complaint. It does not, . . . [more]

The Ontario Land Titles Act pushes onto an owner the risk of the owner’s transfer being void. It does so, even if the owner took proper care when buying. This is an outdated idea. Most modern land titles systems don’t use it.

Ontario’s Bill 27, the Burden Reduction Act, 2016, includes a major change to the Ontario Land Titles Act. The bill aims to modernize Acts and reduce their burden. The bill would put a new definition of a “fraudulent instrument” into the Ontario Land Titles Act. This would push even more risk onto an owner. It . . . [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, writing, and practice.

Research & Writing

Search Strategy—Cast Your Net Wide
Ken Fox

Good keyword searching practice varies from database to database, depending on how the data is structured and how the search engine works. But there are some principles that apply to most situations. …

Confusing Pairs, Part 1
Neil Guthrie

Words you mix up at your own peril. Adverse: unfavourable (‘adverse weather conditions); opposite (‘adverse in interest’). Averse: against, opposed to . . . [more]

Donald Trump and his polarizing ideas have attracted widespread criticism. However, I suspect that few expected to find a harsh, vocal critic in a United States Supreme Court justice. Judges, after all, are held to the highest standards of impartiality, and political statements can easily raise the question of judicial bias. Against this backdrop, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments about Trump’s presidential campaign present an interesting case study. What happens when a judge is openly opposed to a presidential candidate but has no relevant case on the docket? Could such a comment lead to a finding of bias in Canada? . . . [more]

In the 4,000-year history of the legal profession, unbiased information sharing has never been the norm. Instead, insights have remained siloed in large institutions—or traded anecdotally among groups at networking events.

That changes with today’s release of the Legal Trends Report. The Legal Trends Report is being published by Clio, the world’s most widely-used legal practice management platform (disclosure: I am the founder and CEO of Clio). By leveraging anonymized, aggregate data from 40,000 active Clio users and over $60 billion in billing volume, the Legal Trends Report provides new insights into topics including average billing rates by state, . . . [more]

The Law Society of Upper Canada created the Challenges Faced by Racialized Licensees Working Group in 2012 to identify the challenges faced by racialized lawyers and paralegals and consider strategies for enhanced inclusion at all career stages.

After gathering extensive information about the challenges faced by racialized licensees and best practices to address these challenges, the Working Group prepared a consultation paper, which was presented to Convocation on October 30, 2014. The paper included a series of questions for the professions and public to consider and provide feedback. Consultation meetings were held in key cities during the winter of 2015. . . . [more]