Calling all Lexbox power users!

Lexum announced today that it’s looking for beta testers to try out the new Lexbox Premium service. These early adopters will get to use the service for free until the official launch; this includes up to 100 alert feeds and 5GB of storage (with more available if needed), 3rd party integration, unlimited search and hyperlinking in your documents, unlimited history and more.

See Lexum’s announcement for more details and to sign up for your beta user account. . . . [more]

Reaching December means that it’s time to look at the year in review and share what most interested you in the preceding twelve months through the lens of what court decisions you were all reading. 2020 feels like it’s been a year like no other, but there are things that have been constant and Canadians accessing case law via CanLII has been one of them.

That said, there are four current cases on the top ten list this year, compared to three in 2019, and none in 2018. It seems this is because of a break with prior . . . [more]

The British Columbia Provincial Court is implementing a new regime for resolving family law disputes beginning this week. The new regime involves making dispute resolution the first step in the court process. The BC court announcement states that: “The early resolution model includes new, simpler forms and procedural changes that help set a collaborative tone. For example, instead of making their first appearance in a busy, adversarial courtroom, people attend a family management conference with a judge as the first step in court proceedings”. This new model is being implemented first in the regions of Surrey and Victoria, BC.

I . . . [more]

Apportionment of Fault In Tort (1981) – David Cheifetz

An unrestricted PDF of Cheifetz, Apportionment of Fault in Tort is now available. The text has been out of print for about 2 decades.

The “price”, for Canadian purchasers, will be a donation of CDN $20 to either the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children or the Vancouver Children’s Hospital. Purchasers from other countries should chose a suitable children’s hospital or equivalent in their jurisdictions.

If you want the PDF: Send a request to me at dcheifetz21@gmail.com with a copy of the donation confirmation and the email address to which you want . . . [more]

It’s December 1st and that means one special thing in my world: the Clawbies are on! 15 years ago, I sat at my desk and wrote up an inaugural “Canadian Law Blog Awards” (styled awkwardly for the first many years as CLawBies – glad we scrapped the camel case!). That first edition was inspired by Dennis Kennedy’s Blawggies and was meant to be a playful homage to the unsung blogging heroes sharing Canadian perspectives on all things legal. It felt important to recognize how they made our community a little stronger and more connected. It’s safe to say we’ve never . . . [more]

[Editor’s note: Slaw.ca does not typically publish releases or announcements, but we are making an exception here below. We wish Colin the best of luck in his new non-profit initiative.]

Ottawa, September 21, 2020 – The Legal Innovation Data Institute brings the power of many to meet the interests of all. Imagine trying to write a story with only a partial alphabet. Or trying to write a song with access to just a few notes. It’s the same with legal data – the more you can access, the more you can do. Through a unique member and collaborator model, LIDI . . . [more]

You’ve likely come across Peter Sankoff’s #100interns project over the past few months. Peter executed a very successful campaign of connecting law students with various practitioners, small firms and educational institutions around the country. Students with an interest in Criminal law were paired with practitioners or researchers; giving them the experience they would normally have found during summer intern positions. The idea of filling this “COVID gap” for law students is incredibly admirable; though the project has since finished, and was limited to those seeking criminal law experience. Over the past couple weeks I have been contacted about two student-led . . . [more]

Introducing the Innovating Justice Forum 2020: The Innovating Justice Forum is a premier event working towards Sustainable Development Goal 16 and taking justice innovation to the next level. This edition of the annual gathering will focus on “how justice innovation can be financed and why it makes sense to invest in it”. Embark with us on a discovery of the avenues and alleys leading towards building the business case for Financing Justice Innovation. We aim to make these two full days a lively exchange of ideas, co-creation, scrum sessions on matters directly related to getting justice innovations financed, . . . [more]

As it does every year, December 1st has snuck up us. The date arrives just as the holiday busy season is heating up, and folks are packing their days and evenings with holiday shopping, parties, card-writing and travel plans. In the midst of all this, we ask the Canadian legal community to add one more thing to their plate: participating in the Canadian Law Blog Awards, fondly known as the Clawbies, now in its 14th year. Thankfully, no one ever complains about this “one more thing”. In fact, many folks say they are grateful for the opportunity to reflect on . . . [more]

I’m very pleased to announce that Slaw has partnered with the fine folks at CanLII to produce a series of ebooks of selected content from Slaw.ca. As a publisher with CanLII’s Authors Program, a number of Slaw’s columnists and bloggers have worked with CanLII directly to create highlighted collections of their finest writing on a single interest or issue. The following list shows our initial set of participants, along with a link to their Slaw author profile page (so you can see their entire list of Slaw submissions):

• Kari D. Boyle on Dispute Resolution [Slaw archives]
• Adam

Chat with the Chiefs & a #SRL about the progress you’re seeing in #AccessToJustice! What’s working? What have you tried and learned from? Tweet #A2JChatBC for the live TwitterTownHall Oct 28 12:–2:pm https://t.co/Xo3c1gl0Ea pic.twitter.com/UNaK8LI3CS

— BC Provincial Court (@BCProvCourt) October 10, 2019

For several years now, the Provincial Court of BC has engaged in regular annual Twitter Town Halls as a form of digital outreach—an effort to bring more transparency about the judicial process through direct engagement between members of the Bench and the public. The first one, carried out in 2016, garnered international attention from the Conference of . . . [more]

At CanLII, we are working to create a new model for legal publishing, and we want to work with people who see the potential for open legal commentary. We have successfully built a collection of over 63,000 books, articles, reports, case summaries, and commentaries, and are always developing new tools to meet the needs of Canadians. This year, we are grateful to have received a grant from the Law Foundation of British Columbia to create a publicly accessible litigation manual for British Columbians, and we are searching for an editor and a team of writers to contribute to the . . . [more]