Ten or fifteen years ago, the professional who sent a newsletter, mailed a holiday card, and maintained an updated LinkedIn profile was considered ahead of the curve.

The bar was low. Showing up, in almost any form, was enough.

Today, that communication strategy blends into the background. This is not because newsletters stopped working, direct mail disappeared, or LinkedIn became oversaturated. It was because client expectations changed, attentions changed, the way we build trust changed. The shift was gradual, then sudden, and now permanent.

Where We Were Five to Ten Years Ago

In the mid 2010s, most mass communication followed . . . [more]

The Alberta legislature passed two bills in December 2025 that are particularly important to the regulation of the legal profession. The many separate ramifications of the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, some of which I have previously written about,[1] are important though perhaps not immediately obvious. The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, in contrast, has a clearly unifying purpose that is readily apparent – but its nuances and details deserve more attention.[2]

My view has long been that the regulation of the extra-professional conduct of lawyers, including their expression, is an important aspect of the role of . . . [more]

Back in the day, when I was starting my mediation practice, I received the worst advice ever. It came from someone who, I believe, meant well. The advice was that I should let the world know I was a mediator by modelling neutrality. In everything I did.

Why was this bad advice? Because that is impossible! No human being can be neutral about everything, nor should they pretend that they can be.

Also, how can someone expect to successfully market themselves absent any personality? The individual who gave me the advice may have meant well but failed to grasp what . . . [more]

In late April, two groundbreaking decisions concerning legal regulators in Canada were announced — one by a court, and one by a law society.

The first decision came from the British Columbia Supreme Court, which ruled that the provincial government’s proposed overhaul of legal regulation in BC was constitutional and could proceed. I thought this was the obvious outcome from the outset, as I wrote here at Slaw two years ago, and I’m very glad to see the issue resolved — for the moment, anyway.

At the heart of BC’s legislative overhaul (and the lawsuit that challenged its . . . [more]

In my last column, I wrote about the hidden economics of law firm student recruitment and the substantial investment firms make in attracting and hiring students. The conclusion was relatively straightforward. Most firms devote enormous attention to recruitment, but the return on that investment is largely determined after students arrive.

That return is shaped through hundreds of small interactions that rarely receive much scrutiny. How work is delegated. How instructions are delivered. How drafts are reviewed. How students learn what is expected of them.

In most firms, these processes are informal and highly variable. That is understandable. Lawyers are . . . [more]

On 6 May 2026, Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) announced that it had eliminated 91 positions, including 45 layoffs, in response to a $15 million deficit. The deficit followed a $9.4 million reduction to NSCC’s operating grant by the Province of Nova Scotia earlier in the year and reduced international tuition revenue, due to previous federal and provincial caps on international students. The cuts included student advisers and other professional support workers, but a whopping 25% of those cuts were librarians. All campus librarians were eliminated. NSCC’s campus librarians partner with faculty to facilitate critical information and digital . . . [more]

Canadian securities law has long resisted narrow or technical definitions of the term “security.” Instead, both legislatures and courts have embraced an intentionally expansive and purposive conception, one designed to capture a wide range of investment arrangements rather than a closed set of financial instruments. The oft‑invoked proposition that “a security is what the law says it is” reflects not interpretive casualness, but a deliberate regulatory strategy. Overbreadth in the statutory definition of “security” is not an accident of drafting; it is a conscious design choice that enables securities regulation to respond to evolving forms of capital formation and investment. . . . [more]

If you think civil lawsuits take way too long in Canada, you’re in good company. But one high-profile suit recently went from claim to final hearing in less than 30 hours. Ontario v Doe was certainly an unusual case, and one that has been widely debated for reasons that have nothing to do with civil procedure. And yet it also offers three important lessons for people who care about making justice speedier in mainstream civil litigation.

The Facts: A Last-Minute Injunction

A rally was planned for the afternoon of Saturday March 14th, on University Avenue in downtown Toronto. Just . . . [more]

Several Canadian governments have been using politicised rhetoric against “self-interested” lawyers and “biased” courts to garner popular support for increased control of the legal system. This column examines threats to the independence of the legal profession in Canada and explores how the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer (Luxembourg Convention) could fortify the rule of law.

The Luxembourg Convention: “Survival mechanism for the Rule of Law”

Threats to lawyers and judges in the United States (US) have triggered worldwide alarm. In 2025, research by Canadian . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Unravelling MAiD in Canada: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide as Medical Care. Edited by Ramona Coelho, K. Sonu Gaind & Trudo Lemmens. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025. 552 p. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9780228023692 (softcover) $39.95; ISBN 9780228024538 (ePUB); ISBN 9780228024521 (PDF).

Reviewed by Sasha Dhesi
Library Technician
Cassels . . . [more]

In previous articles, I introduced the RECLAIM model as a cultural operating system for law firms and explored the first three elements: Respect, Equity, and Clarity. This month, I turn to L: Learning.

In February 2014, Satya Nadella stepped into the role of CEO at Microsoft. The company he inherited was dominant but adrift, slowed by internal competition and a sense that it had been left behind by the cloud and mobile shifts. Nadella opened with a bold move.

Microsoft, he said, would go from being a know‑it‑all culture to a learn‑it‑all culture.

That single reframe became the . . . [more]

In recent years we have made significant strides in recognizing the prevalence of mental health issues amongst lawyers and attempting to defeat the stigma that discourages lawyers from disclosing their challenges and seeking support.

It is now well-known and accepted that “legal professionals are almost twice as likely to experience mental health issues like anxiety, stress, depression and addiction as the general population”.[1]

Leaders in our profession are speaking up. In 2022, former Chief Justice of Ontario George R. Strathy published a thoughtful paper acknowledging this reality and calling for top-down change in our approach to mental health as . . . [more]