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 practice, research, writing and technology.

Technology

How to Create Your Own Teleprompter
Lesha Van Der Bij

A few years ago, I stopped using paper notes when giving presentations. Instead, I began using my iPad for speaking notes. It seemed easier (and less distracting) to scroll through a single page than flipping through paper notes. …

Research & Writing

Due to
Neil Guthrie

Riders of the subway in Toronto will be familiar with announcements along . . . [more]

In the Hague Declaration on Access to Justice that was adopted on 7 February this year three things stand out (see my previous column). It recognises the need to make justice systems more people-centred. It calls for a more evidence-based way of working. And, finally, it calls for innovation. The question that nobody has really answered is: how does that work? If you are a minister of justice and you wake up one day thinking “I want to do that Hague Declaration thing”, what comes next? How do you know what ‘people-centred’ is? What does “evidence-based working” mean in . . . [more]

I’ve previously highlighted the concerns of border officials seizing and reviewing information and documents protected by solicitor-client privilege found on electronic devices.

The first publicly reported case of this occurring was released this weekend, involving an lawyer from Toronto returning from Guatemala and Colombia on April 10,

“The policy’s outrageous,” said Toronto business lawyer, Nick Wright. “I think that it’s a breach of our constitutional rights.”

His thoughts follow a personal experience. After landing at Toronto’s Pearson Airport on April 10, he said the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) flagged him for an additional inspection — for no stated reason.

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.

PROTECTION DU CONSOMMATEUR : Les articles 11.2, 11.3, 13, 214.2 et 214.7 de la Loi sur la protection du consommateur, qui ont pour effet de régir les conditions de commercialisation des télécommunications, sont inapplicables et inopérants à l’endroit de Telus Communications inc.

Intitulé : Directeur des poursuites criminelles et . . . [more]

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs (newest first):

• Content Editor–Western Employment & Labour Law Subject Matter Expert (Contract Role) | Concord, ON
  (First Reference Inc.)
• Chief of Legal Operations (Full-time) | Victoria, BC
  (British Columbia Ministry of Attorney General – Legal Services Branch)
• Chief of Legal

On March 21, 2019, the Canadian legal profession lost a giant of the bar: David Scott passed away in Ottawa after a sudden hospitalization. I regret that I did not get a chance to see David in the hospital or tell him how much he meant to the University of Ottawa law school, to our profession and to me. I can only offer this tribute instead.

David Scott represented the very best of our profession. He was recognized for his accomplishments with the highest honours our profession provides. That he was the first Canadian ever to be elected President of . . . [more]

On April 29, 2019, the British Columbia government tabled Bill 8, Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2019 to significantly update the Employment Standards Act and incorporate some recommendations from the BC Law Institute, as well as from the BC Employment Standards Coalition, the BC Federation of Labour and feedback from workers, employers and the public. Further recommendations from these reports will be considered at a later date and proposed legislation tabled.

The ESA has not been significantly updated for 15 years and there are several areas where changes are needed and overdue. However, the government will be implementing the updates in . . . [more]

New Mexico is one of the few U.S. States where the official publishing of legislation and case law is centralized in the hands of a specialized enterprise agency, the New Mexico Compilation Commission (NMCC), created in 1941. Over the last fifteen years, the State of New Mexico has been its own self-publisher of its official laws. NMCC has been providing three distinct online services: its agency website for posting slip opinions, formal and unreported opinions and new court rule amendments on behalf of the Supreme Court of New Mexico; a free, word-searchable online database of unannotated statutes at the request . . . [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. Platnick v. Bent, 2018 ONCA 687

[110] Without diminishing the public interest in protecting comments made to promote the effective administration of justice, I am satisfied that the potential harm to Dr. Platnick outweighs the public interest in protecting Ms. Bent’s expression. Dr. Platnick’s allegation, if eventually made out, is a very serious one, both in terms of the financial harm . . . [more]

Unbundled legal services (also called “limited scope legal services”) are part of a movement that is gaining momentum in Canada. We are excited to see that the BC Family Unbundling Roster hosts 150 family lawyers willing to provide these services to families. And the new Ontario Family Law Limited Scope Services Project offers a directory of lawyers together with information and tools for both lawyers and the public.

“There is no doubt that the assistance of a professional lawyer in a family law matter is invaluable. With “unbundling” that assistance can take the form of help in discrete increments where

In Tomorrow’s Lawyers, Richard Susskind predicts that the Big Four Accounting Firms would overtake law firms in the years to come. Susskind explains that the accounting firms were forced to deal with disruption earlier than law firms. In the course of adapting to the disruption, the large accounting firms became more streamlined and became more creative in packaging services. As a result, Susskind predicts that the accounting firms would first begin to dominate law firms by eating into more routine legal work.

Yet again, Susskind’s predictions were correct. It was recently announced that Ernst & Young would be buying . . . [more]