While being a criminal lawyer is unlikely to make you the most affluent guest at a dinner party, it does often mean that you’ll have the most interesting work stories to tell. However, those very same fascinating tales that so enrapture your listening audience often make you the target of the unflinching gaze of the news media. Being able to competently respond to media attention on your cases is an essential skill for lawyers in any field where the bright light of journalism might shine.

Traditionally, there have been two schools of thought on lawyer/media relations.

The strong silent type . . . [more]

Because international law supported European assertions of sovereignty over Indigenous territories beginning in the 15^th century it’s appropriate for international law to deal with the issue of Indigenous rights now. The current situation of Indigenous peoples was created by international law. European nations created an international law that allowed European powers to divide up and colonize the rest of the world and profit from it. Europe exported enough of its population to at least some of the colonies in the Americas and the Pacific that when they were decolonized, Europeans or their descendants continued to govern on the basis . . . [more]

Morally, legally, financially, environmentally: can we really create huge unprecedented risks in pursuit of our own comfort, and manage them successfully? I am coming to agree with Thomas Homer-Dixon that our destructive capacity has far outstripped our ability to manage or even understand it:

As our world has become more complex, we have, in fact, moved from a world of risk to a world of uncertainty. In a world of risk, we have data at hand that allow us to estimate the probabilities that any given system we are working with will evolve along certain pathways, and we can also

January was all about lists. Every blog, publication, and column uses this season to either reflect on the year that was or look ahead to the year that will be – and I want in on the prognosticating party. Thus I give to you, fair SLAW reader, my picks and predictions for the top five trends to watch in Canadian criminal justice in 2011. To build the anticipation, I have listed my picks in reverse order. No cheating by scrolling straight to the bottom of the page.

5. Increased emphasis on case management.

For a number of years, governments have . . . [more]

York University is the new home of the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice. The Forum is moving to York from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law and will partner with the York Centre for Public Policy & Law (YCPPL) and Osgoode Hall Law School on various socio-legal research initiatives.

“The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice is considered a leader in interdisciplinary research on civil justice,” says Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Professor Lesley Jacobs, who teaches law & society and political science and is the director of the YCPPL. “It is a non-profit, independent, national organization established . . . [more]

And by Nkasi Adams

[Here at the University of Saskatchewan I have the pleasure of supervising graduate students working in the areas of Canadian Aboriginal law and international Indigenous rights. Last year Nkasi Adams, the first Indigenous woman to graduate from law school in Guyana, joined us at the University of Saskatchewan to pursue an LL.M. focussing on the tensions between Indigenous peoples’ rights and international measures to deal with climate change. I’m happy to have her provide most of the ideas and information for this month’s column. It’s something we don’t know enough about here in the north. . . . [more]

It would not be a gross generalisation to say that many in the legal profession in the UK would wince at the idea of young people being taught to use the law as a tool to manage their affairs and claim their rights. Common reactions may well focus on the old adage that “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing”, or the absurdity of young people needing to know anything about the law. But, in these gloomy economic times when young people’s (particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds) debts spiral, their advice and support services downsized or removed, and . . . [more]

Over the past few months I have had the privilege to be involved in an important project in British Columbia known as the Public Commission on Legal Aid (“Public Commission”).

Although the scope of the Public Commission is province wide and therefore includes cities and communities of all sizes, I have been personally interested to hear the unique challenges faced by those in rural communities in regards to legal aid. Commissioner Leonard Doust, Q.C. will be releasing an official report of his findings sometime in 2011; however, I wanted to take the opportunity now to share some background on the . . . [more]

In a previous column, we described the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice’s Inventory of Reforms, a freely accessible, online database that contains descriptions of civil justice system reform initiatives from across Canada. The importance of this information is not only in letting people within a jurisdiction know what is changing, but also letting all jurisdictions across the country see what is being tried elsewhere. The natural extension of this is the ability to identify the most effective reforms so that they can be highlighted and applied elsewhere, though this function is naturally the most challenging to put into . . . [more]

Does tinkering with our long-standing parole system actually increase public safety?

In Oliver Stone’s recent sequel to the classic film Wall Street, we are treated to a scene of Gordon Gekko standing in line awaiting his release after years in jail. The camera is focussed tightly on Gekko’s soft but slightly wrinkled hands as he accepts the return of items in his property bag that were seized from him two decades ago when he began his incarceration. “One watch. One ring. One gold money clip with no money in it,” the desk officer intones. The camera then pulls out . . . [more]

Ecojustice, formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund, has launched a lawsuit on behalf of Aamjiwnaaang First Nation members, Ron Plain and Ada Lockridge, alleging that the cumulative effects of government approved pollution in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley amounts to a violation of their human rights under sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case is an application for judicial review, attempting to strike down Ministry of the Environment action that allowed Suncor to increase production (and presumably emissions) from its refinery in Chemical Valley. Suncor had been required to limit production at the facility . . . [more]

The Program of Legal Studies for Native People (PLSNP) was founded in 1973 to encourage Canadian law schools to admit Aboriginal law students to law school, and to encourage Aboriginal students to study law. As far as anyone could tell, at that time you could count the number of Aboriginal lawyers and Aboriginal law students in the country on your fingers. After nearly 40 years, has the need for the PLSNP disappeared?

I’d say there are at least two answers to that question. First, I’d say that it is impossible to know, because no one keeps track of the actual . . . [more]