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Archive for November, 2025

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. Legal Feeds 2. All About Information 3. Canadian Privacy Law Blog 4. Flex Legal Blog 5. In All Fairness

Legal Feeds
2025 Lexpert Rising Stars Awards winners attribute success to high standards, mentors, friendships

At Toronto’s Liberty Grand on Thursday night, winners at the Lexpert Rising Stars

. . . [more]
Posted in: Monday’s Mix

The Moral Cost of Delay: Reflections on Managing Judicial Reserves

“Reserves do not improve with age. The longer a decision sits unwritten, the heavier it becomes.”

When the Honourable Deena Baltman (retired) offered this observation during a recent continuing professional development session for Deputy Judges, she articulated something that every judge knows but rarely voices. Her presentation, titled Managing Reserves, was pragmatic and concrete: write promptly, ideally within 48 hours; avoid over-reserving; schedule writing time ruthlessly; resist the temptation to wait for motivation, inspiration, or provocation.

Yet what has stayed with me is not just the efficiency of her techniques but the unspoken premise beneath them: that timeliness in . . . [more]

Posted in: Justice Issues, Legal Ethics

Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ

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) : Même si la déclaration antérieure de la victime — laquelle, au moment de la continuation de son contre-interrogatoire, a décidé de se rétracter et de retirer toutes ses accusations contre l’accusé — n’aurait pas dû être recevable à titre de preuve au fond, cette erreur est sans . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeals

Criminal Law: DUI Evidence
R. v. Rousselle, 2025 SCC 35 (41153), R. v. Larocque, 2025 SCC 36 (41155)

Qualified technician’s certificate proves alcohol standard “certified by an analyst”.

Prisons: Transfers; Habeas Corpus
Dorsey v. Canada (Attorney General), 2025 SCC 38 (41132)

Inmate

. . . [more]
Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Don’t Close the Book on Libraries: Why Space Still Matters

I understand the reluctance to commute. I’ve been working from home since the pandemic first hit—and I love it. Laundry gets done more often, and my cat (sometimes) appreciates the extra cuddle time.

Remote work has become the norm for many of us. Ontario courts continue to conduct remote and hybrid hearings, and legal professionals have access to excellent online research tools through LiRN-funded courthouse libraries and platforms like CanLII.

So I get why people ask whether we still need physical library space?

The answer is a resounding yes.

Library spaces remain vital, not just as repositories of knowledge, . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information

GenAI, the Verification-Value Paradox – a Critique

There has been much chatter on LinkedIn about a new academic article about the Verification-Value Paradox (of GenAI use by lawyers).

The article claims that it is doubtful that GenAI delivers value to lawyers because any efficiency gains are erased by the time spent verifying its output; a framing that the author calls the “verification-value paradox.”

The “paradox” is:

More AI = more verification = less value.

The author admits that this paper is not based on fresh, robust empirical evidence, as he waffles back and forth in much of his discussion of the paradox; essentially stating that GenAI . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information, Legal Information: Information Management, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Practice of Law, Practice of Law: Future of Practice, Practice of Law: Practice Management, Reading, Technology, Technology: Internet, Technology: Office Technology

Don’t Let Recent AI Lawsuits Fool You, Users Are Still Greatly Disadvantaged in a Digital-First Ecosystem

The recent barrage of copyright lawsuits involving AI companies has revealed the staggering scale of copying undertaken to train large language models (LLMs). In the recently decided Bartz v. Anthropic case, for example, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California notes that the AI firm downloaded millions of books in order to “amass a central library of ‘all the books in the world’” that it could use to develop its AI models and services.

As with the Anthropic case, the majority of these high-profile AI copyright lawsuits are being brought forward by authors . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Publishing

The Law Firm Pyramid Rollover

Artificial intelligence, pricing, and transience of the legal service sector’s workforce will cause the traditional law firm pyramid structure to rollover like an upending iceberg. The result? By 2030, global legal services will operate much differently than they do now.

Twin juggernauts – AI and Pricing – compounded by continuing transience of the legal service sector’s workforce will take a major toll on law firms unprepared for their impact. This reckoning will upend the traditional pyramid structure with the result being that by 2030, the global legal services sector will operate much differently than it does now.

The countdown clock . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Marketing, Practice of Law

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. Family Health Law Blog 2. Condo Adviser 3. Double Aspect 4. Le Blogue du CRL 5. Blogue SOQUIJ

Family Health Law Blog
Did You Receive a Letter from Service Canada About the Canada Disability Benefit? Here’s What It Means

If you’ve recently received a letter from Service

. . . [more]
Posted in: Monday’s Mix

Summaries Sunday: Supreme Advocacy

One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from August 28 – November 12, 2025 inclusive.

Appeals

Criminal Law: Arrest
R. v. Wilson, 2023 SKCA 106; 2025 SCC 32 (40990)

The Crown says Parliament deliberately omitted an explicit immunity from arrest from the text of s. 4.1(2) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ

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 juge de première instance aurait dû, avant de conclure la lecture de son jugement sur la peine, s’abstenir de faire part de l’indignation personnelle qui l’habitait envers l’accusé et de souligner le courage et la force des victimes; toutefois, l’accusé n’a pas démontré une crainte raisonnable . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Cost Savings, AI and the Public Sector

AI Generated Government?

It’s interesting that both of these articles came through on my feed in the same day:

Ahmed Otmani Amaouim, “Canada’s new Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation: What it means for Canadian innovators” (MNP, last accessed September 12, 2025), online: https://www.mnp.ca/en/insights/directory/what-it-means-for-canadian-innovators.

and then

Patrick Butler, “N.L.’s 10-year education action plan cites sources that don’t exist” (CBC, September 12, 2025), online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/education-accord-nl-sources-dont-exist-1.7631364.

Falsified Education Policy?

Let’s just call it – it was Newfoundland and Labrador’s **Education Accord** (10 year policy document) (that cost $755,000 dollars, no less) which contained falsified sources:

Yumna Iftikhar, “PCs ‘not . . . [more]

Posted in: Education & Training, Legal Information, Legal Information: Libraries & Research, Technology

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