Part 3 of the three part test for sound prediction from AZT (“The Test”) should be added to part 1. This would better reflect the practical application of the sound prediction test and avoid unnecessary judicial scrutiny into ultimately irrelevant factual and evidential areas.

It has been 10 years since the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) established The Test (in Apotex Inc. v. Wellcome Foundation Ltd., 2002 SCC 77). The Test has invalidated many pharmaceutical patents (and more recently, non-pharmaceutical patents). As we await another SCC decision on utility and sufficiency, this may be an appropriate time to . . . [more]

In the Internet age, people still have the same interests and passions as they had before electronic communications became pervasive, but they have different methods of expressing them. It may be a challenge to apply traditional rules of law to those methods. This note reviews one example of such a challenge, with respect to the use of evidence from Facebook and the reliance on Wikipedia to inform the tribunal of relevant facts.

In Landry c. Provigo Québec Inc (Maxi & Cie), 2011 QCCLP 1802 (CanLII), Madame Landry complained about harassment at her workplace at Provigo, the Quebec grocery chain. . . . [more]

Do you really know who you are? Maybe… maybe not. When I work with lawyers to articulate their personal brand it is generally clear… that it is not clear. What is the solution? We need outside perspective. So, I have them ask a few people who know them very well, to answer a few questions. Such as… How would you describe me? What do you see as my strengths? The answers are often times extremely enlightening. We just don’t see ourselves as other do.

Why is this so? Heidi Grant Halvorson, a contributor to Forbes Magazine has some answers . . . [more]

At the Canadian Bar Association 2012 annual meeting in Vancouver, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin again made the case that access to justice is probably the most urgent policy challenge facing Canada’s justice system. The Chief Justice argued,

Being able to access justice is fundamental to the rule of law. If people decide they can’t get justice, they will have less respect for the law. They will tend not to support the rule of law. They won’t see the rule of law, which is so fundamental to our democratic society, as central and important.”

This message is one that she has . . . [more]

For a variety of reasons, some law firm websites may not have reached the top slot in Google, Bing, or Ask. There is competition for keywords, and the search engines change their algorithms frequently. Without having a team of folks tweaking the site, there will likely be some ebbs and flows in visibility in search results. However, there are a number of ways to boost visibility on the web so that whether someone finds the firm or attorney through social media, a directory, the website, or a professional nameplate site, you can get the message out about the firm’s professionals . . . [more]

[This column was written with the asstance of Meredith James.]

One of the challenges in environmental work is the inconsistent and erratic relationship between law and science. To be effective, environmental policy needs to be based on good science, which is why current government cuts to key environmental research are so harmful, in both the short and the long run. But even when good science exists, the law struggles to properly incorporate it, and sometimes science can’t (yet?) answer the questions the courts are interested in. What should happen then?

Criminal cases

The courts sometimes seem to have a poor . . . [more]

The issue of succession for small firms and solo practitioners has received a significant amount of attention of late in Canada. The attention stems from a demographic reality that sees the majority of lawyers in many provinces in the country in excess of 50 years old and a general recognition that a substantial amount of these lawyers have not adequately planned for succession. Concerns regarding succession are especially poignant for small firms and solo practitioners who often suffer from a lack of resources to address succession issues but who are the most at risk for negative consequences due to an . . . [more]

If the maxim Ignorantia juris neminem excusat (“ignorance of the law excuses no one”) means something in a society governed by the Rule of law, legislative materials ought to be made available in a manner that makes the most out of current information technologies. Before the invention of the printing press, such technologies included a stone stele put in a public place in ancient Babylonia or parchment documents issued in several handwritten copies to English medieval barons. Up until 15 years ago, the most efficient technology to disseminate Acts, regulations and related proclamations to wide audiences has been printed sessional . . . [more]

The federal government has announced proposed regulations that will allow banks to opt out of a national customer ombudsman service in favour of private ADR services that they will choose and pay for.

This seems like a bad idea.

If banks can simply shop around for another ADR service provider whenever they are unhappy with the decisions of the current provider, how can consumers and small businesses have any confidence in the integrity and impartiality of decisions?

The Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) currently has more than 600 participating firms including banks, credit unions, trust and loan companies, . . . [more]

Now this could be seen as a pretty strange question for one to ask . . . if it weren’t for the fact that so few law firms seem to have effectively answered this question.

Twice a year I have the privilege of conducting a one-day master class for new practice group leaders, usually held at the University of Chicago and hosted by the Ark Group. Over the years I have now conducted about a dozen of these sessions and in all cases the participants comprise firms of over 100 attorneys in size including the likes of Jones Day, . . . [more]

In 2011, the typical corporate email user received about 105 email messages a day (source: The Radicati Group), many of them on a handheld device. So if you’re trying to reach a busy person who’s likely checking email in between meetings, your best shot is to write a good subject line for your email message.

Think about what causes you to open an email message. As you scan your inbox, you probably check whose name is in the ‘From’ line and then you read the subject line. If you don’t know the sender, the subject line is all that . . . [more]

Legal research is often the bane of a criminal lawyers’ existence. Whenever I glance at the mountain of paperwork that forms the spine of a civil case I give a reassuring nod of my head secure in my early career decision to abandon corporate commercial litigation for the more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants lifestyle of a criminal barrister.

And yet, arriving in court without a meticulously researched legal position is less fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants and more akin to showing up before the bench without any trousers at all.

Sentencing law in particular raises a unique challenge for the busy criminal practitioner. While textbooks can provide . . . [more]