From the Court:

OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada is pleased to announce the launch of its English and French Twitter accounts. Tweets will pertain to the business of the Court and will be posted on both accounts simultaneously.

The launch of these Twitter accounts in 2016 coincides with an important milestone in the Court’s history: it is the 140th anniversary of the first hearings held by the Supreme Court of Canada.

You can follow the Supreme Court of Canada on Twitter in English @SCC_eng and in French @CSC_fra.

Chief Justice McLachlin commends the Court’s presence on Twitter:

On Friday Oct 2, 2015 in Vancouver, BC, the ninth Pacific Legal Technology Conference will take place. But it can also take place right in your office. This year 13 sessions will be real-time webcast (the keynote will be recorded and made available for viewing after the conference due to logistical issues) allowing both in person and webinar attendees to fully participate in the conference.

28 speakers from Toronto, New York City, Salt Lake City, Alaska and all across BC will speak on such sessions as “Blending Technology with Strong Advocacy Skills”, “Practice Management Tools: There has never been a . . . [more]

Good news colleagues!

I have received a response from the Attorney General for Ontario to our petition to re-instate the E-Laws Detailed Legislative History Tables.

Please see her response below, which includes full details of the new approach
that the E-Laws team is working on.

We are encouraged to send our feedback to them.

Thanks to everyone for participating in this petition!

All the best
Annette

From: JUS-G-MAG-Webmaster [mailto:JUS.G.MAG.Webmaster@ontario.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2015 3:39 PM
To: Annette Demers
Cc: Spakowski, Mark (MAG); Merdzan, Susan (MAG)
Subject: Ministry of the Attorney General Response – MC-2015-5161

Our Reference #: MC-2015-5161

Ms. . . . [more]

Prepared by
Laverne Jacobs, PhD
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
University of Windsor, Faculty of Law

Hi Everyone,

it’s with great pleasure that I’m writing to announce that the Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice has become an open access journal.

Our first open access issue (31(1)) became available last week. The move to open access was initiated by an editorial team of our colleagues over the past few years, along with Yearbook coordinator, Vidya Balachandar. The initiative was led by former Editors-in-Chief, Reem Bahdi and Myra Tawfik. Here is a link to issue 31(1): http://ojs.uwindsor.ca/ojs/leddy/index.php/WYAJ

The Yearbook’s move . . . [more]

I must preemptively refer you to John Gregory’s post from last year when it comes to canvassing the laws, and lack thereof, around how third party services (like Google, Facebook, PayPal, etc.) are obliged to act upon the death of an account holder. The whole legal terrain is fascinating, and consists of a stewing heap of conflicting rationales, policies, privacy legislation and common laws around the rights of heirs, deceased people, states and private corporations. It’s all heading in a better direction, probably, with the advent of uniform legislation like FADA, but for some time it has been quite . . . [more]

On the eve of Justice Louis LeBel‘s retirement, the PMO has announced his replacement. A Gaspésienne. A woman. A litigator in private practice at Osler’s Montréal office. Suzanne Côté. In every way a safe appointment, which has already been warmly received, and which raises none of the delicate difficulties of the previous announcement concerning Justice Marc Nadon. The timing is interesting on a day when all eyes are on Pierre Karl Peladeau announcing that he’ll run – and Doug Ford saying he won’t. This story may get lost.

The announcement stated:

« Je suis ravi d’annoncer la nomination

Are you ready to bring change to the legal profession? LAWPRO (the Ontario malpractice insurer) is looking for a lawyer who is passionate about helping Ontario lawyers and paralegals avoid malpractice claims and succeed in the practice of law. This is a high profile opportunity for a dynamic individual who will become the public face and engine behind the practicePRO program, our internationally recognized risk management and claims prevention initiative. See a more detailed list of responsibilities and requirements here. . . . [more]

[The following is the text of a LAWPRO alert sent October 7, 2014. This post mirrors the alert, but includes samples of the new exemption clauses we have seen in claims files.]

LAWPRO has become aware of a new exception to coverage in certain title insurance policies which could expose real estate practitioners to claims from their private lender clients.

The issue has recently arisen in connection with private residential mortgage transactions, and in particular where the lender and borrower are separately represented, as required, because the loan is more than $50,000. This is the basic scenario: After the lender’s . . . [more]

The Law Society’s Alternative Business Structures Working Group has now posted its Alternative Business Structures Discussion Paper on the Law Society’s dedicated web page at www.lsuc.on.ca/ABS/

This Discussion Paper was released on September 24, 2014, to seek input from lawyers, paralegals, stakeholders and the public about Alternative Business Structures (ABS). The Law Society’s ABS Working Group has been reviewing extensive research on the topic and communicating about it with key representatives of the legal professions and other experts since 2012. The discussion paper provides context and background to help everyone understand ABS and describes a series of considerations and ethical . . . [more]

Read the full article here. . . . [more]

The Slaw community will be very pleased to learn that our Founder Simon Fodden has been honoured as a co-recipient of this year’s CBA President’s Award, along with former MP, Irwin Cotler.

From the press release:

The award recognizes the significant contribution of Canadian jurists to the legal profession, the CBA, or the public life of Canada.

Simon Fodden founded Slaw.ca in 2005, a blog that is considered by many to be a foremost source of legal information and discussion in Canada.

“As we debated and analyzed the future of law, and in particular our CBA Legal Futures

The Ontario government is harmonizing the look and feel of all its websites. One of the sites being renovated is the e-Laws site, home of Ontario’s official statutes and regulations.

The Ministry of the AG has just tweeted a general invitation to try out the new site in beta, and to comment.

Here is the English language law site

Here is the French language law site

There is a ‘contact us’ button in the text at the top of the page. Please use it to comment on the beta version (though you may feel free as well to say what . . . [more]