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) : À la lumière de R. c. Jordan (C.S. Can., 2016-07-08), 2016 CSC 27, SOQUIJ AZ-51302609, 2016EXP-2173, J.E. 2016-1212, le tribunal retient la complexité de l’affaire et rejette la requête en arrêt des procédures dans le cas des politiciens, fonctionnaires, ingénieurs, entrepreneurs et collecteurs de fonds impliqués dans . . . [more]

CAIJ, the Centre d’accès à l’information juridique (the network of courthouse law libraries associated with the Québec Bar Association), has signed resource sharing agreements with many major law firms in Québec that make their legal commentary freely available on the organization’s website.

This week, CAIJ announced that it will now feature texts written by lawyers from the firm of McCarthy Tétrault. This means there are 29 law firms that share material with CAIJ in English and French.

Their material will be added to a collection that already includes full-text commentary and textbooks including the Développements récents  (annual reviews of . . . [more]

Experiential learning was placed on the agenda for North American law schools when Educating Lawyers by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was published in 2007 (commonly called the Carnegie Report).

The Carnegie Report called for law schools to integrate “the three apprenticeships” of legal education into their curricula: theory, ethics, and practical skills. Over the past decade, many US law schools have taken up the challenge.

Canadian law schools have been slower to respond, but momentum is building for the integration of practical skills into the curriculum. A listing of experiential learning opportunities in Canadian law . . . [more]

In July of 2015, a family lawyer in Winnipeg suffered severe injuries when a bomb was delivered to her office and was detonated. This incident hit our legal community hard. Sessions were offered to identify suspicious packages; a Personal Safety Handbook was developed and many lawyers became hyper vigilant. While many in our legal community were horrified, incredibly empathetic and wanted to help; others reacted differently. The impact on some involved very real trauma and the true fear that this could/would happen to them. A similar reaction occurred in 2007 when a Senior Crown Attorney was subject to an attempted . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

A Flex Time JD: New Approaches to the Accessibility of Legal Education

Osgoode Hall Legal Studies Research Paper Series, No. 7, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2017. Forthcoming in the Canadian Bar Review.

Darcel Bullen, Legal Counsel and Business Agent, Service Employees International Union, Local 2
Lorne Sossin, Dean & Professor, Osgoode . . . [more]

I keep a folder with blog post ideas. Sometimes it is hard to choose which topic to focus on for my Slaw column. Not this time.

Professor John Lande’s column on February 12th recommended (commanded?) readers to find and read Noam Ebner’s recent article entitled Negotiation is Changing. Never one to ignore a recommendation from one of my conflict management heroes, I downloaded and read the article. It is fascinating and thought-provoking. I heartily urge anyone involved in negotiation to do the same. I use that phrase in its widest sense to include the legal profession, the conflict resolution/management . . . [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. Wood v. Fred Deeley Imports Ltd., 2017 ONCA 158

[79] The termination clause in Wood’s employment agreement contravenes the Employment Standards Act, 2000 for two reasons. First, it excludes Deeley’s statutory obligation to contribute to Wood’s benefit plans during the notice period. Second, it does not satisfy Deeley’s statutory obligation to pay severance pay. On either ground the clause is unenforceable. . . . [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

Accentuating the Negative
Neil Guthrie

Multiple negatives: In grammar, the general rule is that you shouldn’t use two negatives. It’s incorrect to say I didn’t see no one, although people will know what you mean. The correct thing is, obviously, I didn’t see anyone. Contractual drafters like to avoid double negatives because they give rise to ambiguity. The concern isn’t so much over a sentence like I . . . [more]

First I want to share the good news with you. The new Law Librarian of Congress, Jane Sanchez, started her new position the second week in February. You can find out more about her stellar qualifications here. And the weather in DC continues to be moderate with spring flowers emerging very early.

The bad news just keeps on coming, so I will share only some with you. The new administration has posted inaccurate texts of the President’s orders on their website. And much scientific and other information is disappearing from US agency websites. But even more disturbing is the . . . [more]

In what is certainly the most significant decision regarding the court’s ability to award costs against non-parties in over 45 years, the Ontario Court of Appeal has clarified the source of the court’s jurisdiction to award costs against non-parties and the applicable tests to be applied.

Chief Justice Strathy, writing for a unanimous court, noted that there had been considerable ambiguity in the case law as to whether the court possesses inherent jurisdiction, in addition to its explicit statutory jurisdiction, to award costs against a non-party. Strathy C.J.O. concluded that the court does in fact possession inherent jurisdiction in addition . . . [more]

The following is a Bulletin released March 6, 2017 from the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General

Ontario is helping families by making it easier for them to navigate family courts and access the legal assistance they need.

Last year, Ontario and the Law Society of Upper Canada asked the Honourable Annemarie E. Bonkalo to lead a review to consider whether a broader range of service providers could deliver certain family legal services.

Ontario and the Law Society are now seeking public feedback on Justice Bonkalo’s recommendations. People can submit feedback online until May 15, 2017.

The province, together with . . . [more]

Delusion only lasts for so long but at a certain point all the indicators cannot be ignored; law publishing, as a business in its own right has run its course; it’s pretty much over, if not necessarily, according to the caselaw, in the toilet.

Previously I suggested a likely scenario envisaged in the not too-distant future. If accurate, I predicted that by that time professional publishing will have become no longer a business in its own right. Rather it may evolve into an increasingly not-for-profit skillset within larger media entities that simply wish to maintain overall relationships . . . [more]