In my previous column on the Alberta Regulated Professions Neutrality Act,[1] I focused on subtle details of the Act and the important implications of those details for how the Act worked and what it did.[2] In this column, I focus instead on the major flaw of the Act, which flaw is glaringly obvious but seems to have received relatively little attention and prompted relatively little pushback outside the legislative assembly.[3] Nothing in this column is revolutionary or imaginative or even particularly original. But it is worth emphasizing nonetheless. While the Act has implications for many regulated . . . [more]

Queen’s University Library has added a new chapter on “An Introduction to Researching Indigenous Legal Orders” to their Canadian Legal Research Manual.

The introduction to the chapter notes that it “provides a very brief introduction to researching Indigenous legal orders. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a starting point primarily intended for non-Indigenous law students researching in an academic setting.”

It includes an overview of the terminology, an overview of sources of Indigenous law, a discussion of ethical considerations and limitations of resources, as well as a list of further reading. Suggested resources include . . . [more]

Once a patent is granted, it can be asserted in litigation against an alleged infringer. One of the remedies that can be obtained is “reasonable compensation” for pre-grant infringement pursuant to section 55(2) of the Patent Act. While relief is often sought and granted for pre-grant infringement, the remedy has some subtleties, including those arising from changing practices at the Canadian Patent Office.

Section 55(2) of the Patent Act states the following:

55(2) A person is liable to pay reasonable compensation to a patentee and to all persons claiming under the patentee for any damage sustained by the patentee

…All my notions – notions of good and evil, of pleasant and unpleasant, of funny and serious, of ugly and beautiful – are essentially middle-class notions; my taste in books and food and clothes, my sense of honour, my table manners, my turns of speech, my accent, even the characteristic movements of my body, are the products of a special kind of upbringing and a special niche about half-way up the social hierarchy.

-George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

Many in the legal profession who came from a working- or middle-class background can relate intimately to Orwell’s account of . . . [more]

This is the sixth article in my series on RECLAIM, a cultural operating system for law firms built on how human beings are actually wired. Having covered Respect, Equity, Clarity, Learning, and Autonomy, I turn this month to the I: Inclusion.

A few years ago, I coached an associate in the real estate group of a large firm. She could have written a recruiting brochure for her team without exaggerating a word.

The group did the biggest deals in the city, and they knew it. They were proud of the work, and prouder of how they . . . [more]

Over the past several years, artificial intelligence has moved steadily from the margins of organizational life toward the centre of ordinary operations. It now appears throughout the systems organizations rely upon and the work their people perform, frequently arriving without any deliberate decision to adopt it. For a growing number of organizations, the question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will appear in some form. It has already arrived, and that development carries real implications for boards of directors.

I have spent a fair amount of my career in and around boardrooms, working on questions of corporate governance, non-profit governance, . . . [more]

Rachel Birnbaum and Nicholas Bala’s recent discussion paper, Shaping the Future of Child-Inclusive Mediation in Canada, is an important contribution to the ongoing evolution of family mediation practice in Canada.

The paper provides a thoughtful overview of the research supporting child-inclusive mediation and reaffirms the principle that children should have opportunities to participate in decisions that affect their lives. As the authors note:

“The objective of child-inclusive mediation is not to have children making decisions but adding their input to the decision-making process. The research demonstrates that when children are consulted and included, they have better outcomes.”

Yet despite . . . [more]

“Where’s my book?”

“On your bookcase.”

A pause. “Where on the bookcase?”

“The middle shelf.”

Another pause. “Where on the middle shelf?”

I let that hang for a second, my hands covered in the pie pastry I’d been rolling out. Maybe, if I just gave it some time, the book would reveal itself from its sophisticated hiding place of … the middle shelf of a tiny three-shelf bookcase.

It did not. So, I did what mothers do and retrieved the book.

I used to tell this story from my kid’s childhood for laughs, but it points to a deeper truth. . . . [more]

Now in an era in which it is uncommon to find much discussion and newly written commentary on aspects of law publishing, as distinct from artificial intelligence technology, it was a pleasant surprise to encounter New Perspectives on the Legal Treatise. The content of the book was edited by Femi Cadmus, who, at the time, was law librarian and Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Nicholas Mignanelli, Assistant Dean and Director of the Mabee Legal Information Center [sic] and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa College of Law. Its contributions are based . . . [more]

At a conference of law teachers at Western in June, I took part in discussions among professors and lawyers about whether facility with AI should be a core competence in a Canadian law degree at this point in time. This gave rise to larger questions about whether law profs now have an ethical or pedagogical duty of some kind to familiarize themselves with AI and develop methods of teaching students how to use it effectively. This, in turn, pointed to the even larger question of what it means to be a competent lawyer in the age of AI.

Put another . . . [more]

Through my own journey with chronic pain, I am acutely aware of the impact language can have on your health. More specifically, I recognize the role catastrophizing plays in magnifying pain and that simple word substitutions can facilitate healing. It has also triggered a recognition that the language I use with clients may also negatively contribute to their anxiety.

Catastrophizing involves exaggerating the severity of a situation and jumping to the worst possible conclusion. As noted in the recent Psychology Today article, “Catastrophizing”:

Everyone has negative thoughts. But for many people, negative thinking can spin out of control and be

How many times have you asked someone , “ how are you?”

Similarly, how many times have you been asked the same question?

If we think about this, the question becomes very mundane and actually quite meaningless.

“How are you?” has become a customary greeting, wherein we don’t expect to receive or give a response that is more than “I am okay.

Recently, after being asked by a friend “how are you?” I realized in mid answer, that this person was not even listening to what I was saying.

I am certain that many of you have found yourselves in . . . [more]