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 more than 80 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. Library Boy 2. Attorney with a Life 3. Canadian Class Actions Monitor 4. First Reference 5. ReconciliAction YEG

Library Boy
Alberta Law Reform Institute Report on Electronic Wills

The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) has published its final report on the Creation of Electronic Wills: “ALRI conducted extensive consultations with the public and estate planning professionals to assess what people expected from the law when making their will. ALRI heard from over 400 members of the public and held in-depth roundtable consultations with trusted estate planning practitioners from across the province. Our consultation results confirm that people want to be able to create wills using electronic tools.” …

Attorney with a Life
Get in the Driver’s Seat of Your Practice: Part 4 – Planning

We have all heard people say ‘work smarter, not harder,’ but how do we do this? A great way to work smarter is to plan better. Improving your planning abilities can increase your efficiency and productivity. One of my clients, let’s call her Penny, was struggling with planning out her workdays to use her time more wisely. She was working through tasks based on deadlines and emails that came through with action items. She tried creating to do lists for each day, but it wasn’t a habit she had successfully ingrained into her daily routine. …

Canadian Class Actions Monitor
Comments on Bernard v. Collège Charles-Lemoyne de Longueuil Inc. – Freedom of Speech and Right to Opt-Out

The authors summarize this case, rendered on June 22, 2023, in which the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of Justice Pierre-C. Gagnon, which, among other things, denied a motion to invalidate class members’ opt-out forms and to reopen the opt-out period. This case is part of an authorized class action against all private elementary and high schools in the Montreal Metropolitan Community seeking partial reimbursement of tuition fees paid for the 2019-2020 school year because of the suspension of classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. …

First Reference
Voluntary Code of Conduct on the Responsible Development and Management of Advanced Generative AI Systems released

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) recently released its Voluntary Code of Conduct on the Responsible Development and Management of Advanced Generative AI Systems (Voluntary Code) on September 27, 2023. This article explains the main features of the Voluntary Code. Given the urgency that is needed to deal with advanced AI systems that are capable of generating content (for example, ChatGPT, DALL·E 2, and Midjourney), ISED released the Voluntary Code. …

ReconciliAction YEG
Weaving Legal Traditions: An Animated Insight into Canada’s Multi-Juridical Identity

A multi-juridical nation is composed of many legal orders. Civil and common law traditions with European origins define Canada’s dominant legal system. Settlers transplanted these two systems onto this territory in a manner that denied the existence of longstanding Indigenous legal orders. Even though Indigenous laws have largely been unrecognized, Canada is a multi-juridical nation. Indigenous legal traditions pre-date others and continue to be embraced by Indigenous communities, …

_________________________

*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.