A recent decision in British Columbia supports the proposition that, in commercial arbitration at least, the successful party may expect to fully recover their reasonable legal costs and expenses. Do recent changes in the B.C. Arbitration Act reinforce that principle?

In Allard v. The University of British Columbia, 2021 BCSC 60, Madam Justice Karen Douglas says that “the “normal rule” in arbitrations is that the successful party is entitled to “indemnification costs unless there are special circumstances that would warrant some other type of costs.” [Paragraph 78]

“Indemnification costs” are a party’s actual legal costs and expenses, and contrast . . . [more]

It is very difficult to read about the suffering of someone you admire and care about. And yet, when I finished Julie Macfarlane’s new book, “Going Public”, the story of her experiences of sexual abuse and violence, I felt enlightened and uplifted.

Why? I think it is because Julie is vulnerable about her experiences AND uses her professional wisdom, insight and experience to put her stories into a larger context.

“Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” Brené Brown

This book is important for many people and groups, including:

• Survivors, their families and those supporting them
• Professionals

“Sometimes it’s important to stop whatever break you’re taking and just do the work” – New Yorker Cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan

“Why, then, do so many experts insist that they’ve found the one true and right way? It’s a fact about human nature: when getting advice, we love to receive a precise, standardized template for success, and when giving advice, we love to insist that the strategy that works so well for us will surely work for others. But each of us must find our own way”.

Gretchen Rubin, Outer Order, Inner Calm

The working life of an . . . [more]

A recent decision of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, in the judge’s words “highlights the perils of not having a dispute resolution mechanism built into a contract.”

Madam Justice Loparco described the lawsuit in North Pacific Properties Ltd v Bethel United Churches of Jesus Christ Apostolic of Edmonton as a “Jenga tower.”

The case involved a very complicated real estate deal (119 paragraphs summarizing the evidence). The saga started in 2006, with an agreement to sell property to a developer and transfer of part of it back to the Bethell church. The original buyer assigned the purchase agreement to . . . [more]

It is hard to believe that it has been over 3 years since the launch of the BC Family Unbundling Roster. There are now over 175 legal professionals on the list from all over BC.

It is time to assess whether unbundling (including legal coaching) is helping to close the A2J gap in BC. One challenge is that we have little data to guide evidence-based service improvement and policy-making. We need evidence about the client’s experience of unbundling and details of the experience of the legal professionals as well. If legal professionals do not see advantages both for their . . . [more]

A review of “The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law”, Edited by Trevor C.W. Farrow and Lesley A. Jacobs (UBC Press, 2020)

This recent book arises out of the research done by members of the Costs of Justice research project with a focus on the cost and affordability of justice in the civil and family law areas. The two main research questions in this project are: what is the cost of delivering an effective civil justice system; and, what are the economic and social costs of failing to do so?

The main audiences for this book are . . . [more]

One of the objections we often hear to Mediation-Arbitration (Med-Arb) is that it is “neither fish nor fowl”. It is not an effective form of mediation because the mediator is constrained by their dual role. The impartiality of the arbitrator is somehow compromised by also acting as mediator.

I think this is a misunderstanding of what med-arb is all about. It’s not just a hybrid mash-up of two forms of dispute resolution. It’s a unique form of its own, with its own benefits and challenges. And it can take many different forms, to suit many different kinds of disputes.

My . . . [more]

Under ordinary circumstances, I would not remotely contemplate imposing such an unsatisfactory mode [videoconference] of a trial on a party against its will. But these are not ordinary circumstances and we have entered a period in which much that is around us is and is going to continue to be unsatisfactory. I think we must try our best to make this trial work…

Justice Perram, Capic v Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited (Adjournment) [2020] FCA 486 (Australia)

Like many adjudicators working during the pandemic, I am now adjudicating in a virtual hearing room instead of a real one. The . . . [more]

Continuing Legal Education BC (CLEBC) is offering its annual Conflict Resolution Conference in an innovative virtual 24-hour format.

This is a great opportunity to learn from and with innovators from around the world who will share how the field is responding to COVID-19, increased calls for anti-oppression work within our systems, and the challenges of shifting our practices online. AND to do all this from the comfort of your home and at very affordable prices.

The conference site describes this unique approach:

“Participants will have the opportunity to learn about:

• conflict resolution responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including both new

We lawyers, adjudicators, and mediators are normally quite resistant to change. Dealing constantly with conflict, we seek comfort in the dispute resolution processes we know.

So it’s still surprising to me to see how quickly the “dispute resolution industry” has adapted to the new reality of physically-distanced dispute resolution imposed by the COVID pandemic.

Will we ever want to go back to the old way of doing things?

In the spring there was a flurry of tutorials on how to do online dispute resolution. Many people struggled to learn how to ZOOM. Those who had been advocating and doing online . . . [more]

This is Part 2 of a two-part piece focusing on how family lawyers and mediators can participate in and support the Youth Voices Initiative.

In Part 1, I described the foundations of the Youth Voices Initiative, overseen by the BC Family Justice Innovation Lab, which aims to improve the well-being and resilience of children and youth who are experiencing parental separation. I tried to connect the dots between the child rights provisions, Adverse Childhood Experience research, the importance of child voice/participation and the family justice system. Out of a human-centred design process emerged a story-based concept which the . . . [more]

This is Part 1 of a two-part piece focusing on how family lawyers and mediators can participate in and support the Youth Voices Initiative.

It has been 10 years since Brené Brown published her book The Gifts of Imperfection. In Brené’s words:

This book was an invitation to join a wholehearted revolution. “A small, quiet, grassroots movement that starts with each of us saying, ‘My story matters because I matter.’ Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance.”

What does this have to do with the Youth . . . [more]