“A lawyer must encourage public respect for and try to improve the administration of justice.”[1]

This is a rule from the Model Code of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. The commentaries to the rule identify a more specific component duty to defend judges and other tribunal members from “unjust criticism”, because there is no way for them to appropriately defend themselves.[2] But the rule would also apply to unjust criticism of lawyers, especially those who, like judges, cannot defend themselves, particularly Crown attorneys.

This rule may appear to be aspirational. Indeed, Harry Arthurs has characterized this . . . [more]

Many legal ethics issues are interesting to lawyers and non-lawyers alike. There’s the “buried bodies case”, where two lawyers’ commitment to maintaining client confidentiality (in horrifying circumstances) destroyed their practices, sparked harassment and death threats, and caused them to be criminally charged. There’s the lawyer who gossiped with his spouse about his clients’ affairs, only for the spouse to report the lawyer to the Law Society for breaching confidentiality when their marriage broke down. My students are always engaged when we have in-class debates about the good character requirement, or the (lack of) regulation of lawyer-client sex . . . [more]

In July, I was counsel in a voir dire in BC Supreme Court, where four police officers testified over three days. While the officers gave evidence, I took over 30-pages of handwritten notes. I could capture verbatim maybe 30 percent of what was said. The rest of the time — when answers went on for too long or counsel and the witness talked over one another — I got only the gist of it. Yet, precision was key.

At one point, we stood down for over an hour for the court clerk to go through the recording to find a . . . [more]

The 2022 release of ChatGPT led to many breathless headlines about how generative AI would be an A2J boon. The mood is now more muted: while AI has driven some change in the legal context over the last three years, much has stayed the same. Given the time that has passed, some reckoning with where we are at seems appropriate. In this column, I focus on one piece of the A2J and AI puzzle: generative AI and self-represented litigants (SRLs) in Canadian courts and tribunals.

How has generative AI impacted the experiences of SRLs in Canada?

To answer this question, . . . [more]

In recent months, there have been several reports of lawyers for the US Department of Justice facing employment consequences for what the US Attorney General describes as failures of zealous advocacy. While I cannot speak to the US context, it seems worthwhile and timely to reflect on the role of zealous (resolute) advocacy for Canadian lawyers, including government lawyers.[1] Here I synthesize what I think is a fair consensus view in the Canadian context and then add some important points on which there is less consensus.[2]

The Consensus

Yes, government lawyers, like all lawyers,[3] unquestionably have a . . . [more]

The Hon. Leonard Marchand is Chief Justice of British Columbia, and a member of the Sylix Okanagan Nation. Justice Marchand was the guest on a recent episode of the excellent Canadian Lawyer Magazine podcast. He suggested that we think about the access to justice problem in terms of three groups of people.

The Strugglers

First are people who try to use the justice system, but fail to get justice because of barriers such as cost, time, and the system’s complexity. I think of these people as the strugglers, and their plight has been extensively studied. It is widely understood . . . [more]

Sometimes life requires us to take a break from work. Whether due to pregnancy, caring for family, one’s own medical needs, or a desire to take some time to regroup, many lawyers will need or want to take a leave from practice at some point in their careers.

While you can step away from practice, you cannot step away from your professional obligations. Fortunately, with some thought and planning, you can ensure you comply with your duties even when you’re out of office and not checking your work email.

This column outlines some (non-exhaustive) practical tips for lawyers on how . . . [more]

Don’t include fake cases in court submissions. Don’t miscite cases for wrong propositions of law. Don’t refer to cases in court if you haven’t read them. This is the most basic of lawyering stuff. Probably too basic to even be included in an Advocacy 101 course. Yet, over the last two years, lawyers have made headlines for doing exactly these things. Their common partner in misadventure? Generative AI.

The landscape of AI-generated errors in court submissions

AI-related mishaps first came to the attention of the legal community (and the rest of the world) in May 2023 when an American lawyer . . . [more]

While many in the justice sector are confused and ambivalent about artificial intelligence, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has taken a clear stand. CHRT “tribunal members,” as announced in a Practice Direction last fall, ”do not use AI to write decisions or analyze evidence.”

To understand why the CHRT (and some other Canadian tribunals and courts) have explicitly banned AI in adjudication, read the work of Prof. Amy Salyzyn. The “corrosive risks” she identifies include hallucinated cases, biased language, and subtle (and not-so-subtle) legal errors. Then there’s the issue of litigants’ confidential data being provided to AI companies through queries . . . [more]

After I wrote this column but before it went to press, my colleague Brandon Trask of UManitoba posted a similar column to the RobsonCrim blog. To the extent that I repeat some points he’s made, that repetition is valuable and worthwhile. I encourage readers to check it out.

What should and must a lawyer do when their client, or the representative of their client, attacks judges and large unidentified swaths of the entire bench? What if the lawyer is standing next to them when they do so? What if the lawyer is the Attorney General and the speaker is the . . . [more]

My last Slaw column discussed two recent cases in which Ontario’s Law Society Tribunal found individuals who had previously engaged in sexual misconduct involving minors were currently “of good character”. The findings in those cases, AA and Colangelo, have since been (repeatedly) upheld on appeal.[1]

Unsurprisingly, these decisions were controversial in the court of public opinion (sample Toronto Star comment: “When your [sic] a member of a governing body that characterizes pedophiles as people ‘of good character’, you have a problem”). Lawyers and law students similarly expressed dismay with the outcomes (for example, one commenter on . . . [more]

Ten years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set out some recommendations for cultural competency training for lawyers, law students and public servants. The Calls to Action (numbers 27, 28 and 57) call for education/training on the history of Indigenous peoples, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations. The Commission stated that such training would require “skills based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism”.

There were no calls to action for education or training of judges. . . . [more]