This July I was able to attend the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in Chicago. I had a wonderful time reconnecting with old friends and colleagues. Many of the sessions focused on how to handle AI in law libraries. I was glad to go to a presentation on project management where I learned that my colleagues at the Law Library of Congress are planning to work on a project to make the records and briefs of the Supreme Court of the US available online. This is a very exciting project that will take many years to complete and . . . [more]

“All people want and need to be Heard, Seen and Loved” (HSL).

— In That Order —

The Dalai Lama (Note 1)

The Youth Voices Initiative (sponsored by the BC Family Justice Innovation Lab Society) is a youth-led group that has been working for over 7 years to advocate for children’s right to have their views heard about issues affecting their lives resulting from parental separation. Note 2

The United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child (UNCRC), Article 12 confirms that this is a RIGHT of children and youth – not a privilege granted by adults.

In 2022, . . . [more]

In his recent post “A Relationship Model of Dispute Resolution”, Jordan Furlong proposes a relationship model of dispute resolution:

The choice of dispute resolution environment should take into account the nature of the relationship that is the subject of the dispute. The more important or valued or future-looking the relationship, the farther away from trials and courtrooms it should be kept.

I wholeheartedly agree. There is value in considering ‘alterative dispute resolution’ processes outside of the courtroom when relationships are at stake. As he notes, “…trials, when they do occur, inevitably damage or destroy any relationship that existed . . . [more]

The news, from a distance, that the assets of Canada’s Irwin Law publishing business have been sold is nevertheless interesting and, one might hope, a positive step that will allow its portfolio to be developed in concert with that of the asset acquirer, the renowned University of Toronto Press. It is also hoped that the vendors have the same sense of satisfaction as my fellow owners and I had, at Dunedin Academic Press, having recently passed its assets to Liverpool University Press, and that the customer bases of and suppliers to both Irwin and UTP are the beneficiaries of . . . [more]

Quit the AI theatrics and get on with the business of legal service.

I’ve had it. Had it with the legal industry’s incessant blither blather, adjective-laden hyperbole, and histrionic pearl-clutching – hello, law firms – pertaining to the perils and rarely the pluses of artificial intelligence.

The continuous and roiling notions around AI, its impact on the legal market, and how services will need to be offered, provided, and priced strikes me as a crazy collision of Marx Brothers movies, “A Day at the Races” and “A Night at the Opera.” Wacky, zany, and clear over the top.

AI will . . . [more]

If you want to be a full-time member of a federal tribunal, one of the conditions of employment for many of those tribunals is that you must live within commuting distance of the National Capital Region (NCR), otherwise known as Ottawa-Gatineau. There was a time when this requirement made some sense – in the days before reliable telecommunications, especially video technology. However, today it acts as a significant barrier to a geographic diversity of appointments to tribunals. It also significantly limits the pool of available candidates for specialized tribunals.

Not all federal tribunals have this residency requirement. Some tribunals have . . . [more]

I recently listened to an audio book called The Art of Communicating by Thich Nhat Hanh.

I have read various books by this world renowned speaker and teacher of mindfulness, and I highly recommend reading or listening to some of his work.

I consider myself well versed in the art of communication. I have read many books and articles on how to improve communication in various settings. However as I listened to this audio book, I realized that my view of communication was very one sided.

It seems that most of us think that communication is the way we verbally . . . [more]

Earlier this summer, I attended Pride Toronto, an annual festival celebrating the queer community that attracts three million people to its events. Pride Toronto kicks off a wave of pride festivals across Canada throughout the summer.

While I’m not a member of the 2SLGBTQI+ community, it feels very important to show support for those who are, especially given sharply increasing rates of hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation in our country. But like many Canadians, I didn’t always understand this, or know how to be an ally.

Twenty years ago, I was a student at the University of Toronto when . . . [more]

This was mentioned this in a SLAW Tip back in 2013, but I thought it worth revisiting.

AccessCLE is a free resource that allows you to search and retrieve Law Society of Ontario CPD program materials from 2004 onwards. Articles are available as PDFs and can be downloaded free of charge.

You can either search materials for keyword or browse by topic. There is also an advanced search option that allows you to restrict your search by author, title, or full text. 

— Susannah Tredwell . . . [more]

Migrant caregivers are the backbone of Canada’s care economy yet they remain one of the most vulnerable groups in the labour market.^[1] The roughly 25,000, predominantly racialized women migrant caregivers in Canada provide essential care for children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and people in need of ongoing medical care. For decades, Canada has sought to fill critical workforce shortages in the caregiver industry by providing temporary immigration pathways tailored to foreign workers.^[2] Foreign workers arriving mainly from the Global South have temporarily made Canada their home through federal immigration programs like the Live-In Caregiver Program (1992-2014), the . . . [more]

I recently attended the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries / Association canadienne des bibliothèques de droit (CALL/ACBD) held from June 25 to 28 in Montréal, and it was a highly enriching experience. The conference was meticulously organized under the theme of “Languages of Law”, offering a robust lineup of sessions and activities that catered to various interests within the law library community.

One of the standout sessions was the keynote titled “Navigating Bill 96: Legal, Linguistic, and Societal Perspectives,” presented by Jean-Pierre Corbeil and Julius Grey. This session provided valuable insights into the multifaceted implications of . . . [more]

Children dressed in suits, we drive silently. The one kid slides in a cassette tape and I hear it for the first time, a song I will listen to for the rest of my life in a trance, o’ let the sun beat down upon my face, as I look out the window. I don’t know the song and I want to ask but the music fills the space and there is no other space, not for speaking, not for laughing, not for crying.

We step into the stone building and everyone is there, all in black and white. . . . [more]