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. Luke, 2019 ONCJ 514

[54] Parliament has already allowed for exemptions to the mandatory minimum sentences in s. 255. By virtue of s. 255(5), Parliament has accepted that there will be cases where judges can, and should, exercise discretion to relieve an offender from the consequences of a mandatory minimum sentence by granting them a conditional discharge. Regrettably, according . . . [more]

The limits on privacy and confidentiality of arbitration is often hard to unravel. They are really two separate questions. And the answer to both seems to be: “It depends.”

Is Arbitration Private?

It is generally assumed that arbitration is private – in contrast to the courts, which are generally open to the public, with some exceptions. But where does that assumption arise?

Provincial arbitration statutes generally do not provide that arbitration is private. (See for example the Uniform Arbitration Act and the BC, Alberta, and Ontario Acts.)

Nor does the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, which has . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently held in Petersoo v. Petersoo that a family law arbitrator should not ensure that a represented party is aware of an issue that is raised in the arbitration. This contrasts with Moore v. Apollo Health [and] Beauty Care, in which the Court of Appeal determined in 2017 that a judge who did not ensure that an unrepresented plaintiff who had intended to raise a claim had failed in his responsibility. . . . [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 practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Inasmuch As, in So Far As
Neil Guthrie

These pomposities can always be replaced by something simpler and clearer. Inasmuch as is just a fancy (and archaic) way of saying seeing that, since or because. … . . . [more]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced on May 20th that it had launched TOSsed Out, a new iteration of EFF’s continuing work in tracking and documenting the ways that Terms of Service (TOS) and other speech moderating rules are unevenly applied to people by online services. Sometimes, posts are deleted. Sometimes accounts are banned. For many people, the internet represents an irreplaceable forum to express their ideas, communicate with others, etc.

We have long been fans of the EFF and were delighted to hear that cybersecurity guru Bruce Schneier is leaving IBM, in part to focus on teaching cybersecurity to . . . [more]

Any planning of a public calendar can be challenging in a diverse and multicultural society. The Law Society of Ontario, for example, learned this the hard way when they scheduled the Barrister exam this year on June 4, 2019, which coincided with Eid celebrations of Muslims across the province.

The planning of a Federal election is a more extensive endeavour, not only in the national scope of the exercise, but in the more significant limitations imposed by statute. The Canada Elections Act, states,

Date of General Election

Powers of Governor General preserved

56.1 …

Election dates

(2) …each general

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) : La tenue d’un nouveau procès est ordonnée pour l’appelant, déclaré coupable de meurtre au second degré au terme d’un procès devant jury; le juge a commis des erreurs de droit dans la détermination de la recevabilité de déclarations extrajudiciaires ainsi qu’en omettant de donner une directive précise . . . [more]

Legal podcasts have really taken off in Canada over the last couple of years. From niche practice areas to big picture legal profession issues, smart and entertaining discussion and commentary abounds in these podcasts. You can find a directory of 20+ Canadian legal podcasts at lawblogs.ca.

While law practice management, legal industry culture, and substantive law subjects are well represented in this list, there really haven’t been any podcasts related to law libraries–until now!

At their last annual conference in Edmonton this past May, CALL/ACDB partnered with vLex for an exclusive podcast series, hosted by Colin Lachance, interim . . . [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):

• Program Counsel (Full-time) | Winnipeg, MB (Law Society of Manitoba)
• Corporate Lawyer – High Growth Companies (Full-time) | Toronto, ON (The Heller Group)
• Financial Services Lawyer (Full-time) | Toronto, ON (The Heller Group)
• Securities Lawyer (Full-time) | Toronto,

[Download the full text for this summary from the SSRN.] Law societies appear to be powerless to serve the public interest by defending lawyers’ markets against three major threats:

(1) the access to justice problem (the A2J problem of unaffordable legal services for the majority of society that is middle- and lower-income people), which has left the majority of law firms short of clients;

(2) the commercial producers of legal services such as LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer, now have millions of customers, who are now here in Canada beginning the same process of invading lawyers’ markets, along with the . . . [more]

Your personal information has already been compromised. Your business may already be infected. There have been so many breaches of user ID’s over the years that it is almost certain there is a login/password combination for almost everyone somewhere on the dark web. One of the striking revelations of many breaches is how long the bad actor has been lurking in a system before being discovered – sometimes months. Almost everything we do is digital, and most of it is in the cloud. It can be catastrophic if it fails or is compromised. Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important for businesses . . . [more]

Les salles de classe des facultés de droit sont remplies d’étudiantes. À l’Université Laval, elles forment près de 70 % de la nouvelle cohorte admise au baccalauréat en droit à l’automne 2018. Au Québec, plus de 65 % des diplômés de l’École du Barreau sont des femmes. Pourtant, les statistiques montrent que les avocates abandonnent la profession beaucoup plus tôt que leurs confrères (en moyenne 49 ans comparativement à 61 ans chez les hommes, selon les statistiques du Barreau du Québec). Les femmes sont très nombreuses à quitter la pratique du droit au cours des 10 premières années, cette période . . . [more]