The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has released its “Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Courts” (CJC Guidelines), which represent a significant step towards integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into the Canadian justice system. This article evaluates the CJC Guidelines, analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and potential implications. Given my experience drafting similar guidelines, I offer constructive recommendations for improvement, focusing on practicality, comprehensiveness, and responsiveness to the unique challenges of AI adoption in Canadian courts.

Practicality and Usefulness of the CJC Guidelines

The CJC Guidelines are undoubtedly useful in laying a conceptual groundwork for AI adoption in . . . [more]

Introduction

In June of 2022, the Government of Canada tabled Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act,[1] making it one of the earlier countries in the world to commence work on a national level Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulatory framework. Unfortunately, due to a complex array of factors—including criticisms of its scope, legislative delays and political instability—the bill now faces a significant risk of failure.

Bill C-27 is an omnibus bill that contains three pieces of legislation including the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPA) and the Artificial Intelligence Data Act . . . [more]

In November, I’m presenting to law students about plain language and the importance of good communication. As always when preparing for a presentation, my first consideration is ‘who is my audience’ and ‘how best can I deliver my message to this audience’. In this circumstance, who my audience is and the impact on their communications has become the message.

The majority of these students will be in their mid to late 20s: Millennials on the upper end and Generation Z on the lower end. In the 20 years since I graduated with my fellow Gen Xers, communication channels, styles, preferences . . . [more]

Professor John Lande has just published a terrific article “Theory and Practice of Mediation Representation”. He has also posted a summary here. Professor Lande acknowledges that there is much more written about how to mediate (as mediator) than how to represent clients in mediation (as counsel). Given that it is very common for lawyers to support clients in mediation, he gathers the best existing literature on the subject and presents both a theoretical framework for analyzing mediation representation and practical techniques for lawyers to use. There are helpful tables and checklists describing tasks for both lawyers and mediators. . . . [more]

The week of October 7th this year was quite something for Artificial Intelligence (AI). It was the object of two consecutive Nobel Prizes, awarded just days apart. The first, in Physics, went to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton (a British Canadian) for laying the foundations of machine learning. The second in Chemistry, won by Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, and David Baker, was for utilizing AI to predict millions of intricate protein structures that are key to understanding molecular interactions.

In stark contrast to this double triumph are some 20 copyright infringement suits filed against OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, . . . [more]

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

[This is Part One of a two-part series on Strategic Growth in the Legal Services Market and the foundation for the first half of my September 2024 keynote address to the Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association in Calgary, Alberta.]

In 2008, a global financial crisis considered the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s marked the end of the traditional law firm’s 20-year bull run.

Since then, life in the global legal services . . . [more]

CALL/ACBD is accepting nominations for the 2025 Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries has long had an annual award for excellent legal publishing. Some years ago, we renamed the award we present after Queens University Professor Hugh Lawford (1933-2009) to recognize his contributions to legal publishing in Canada. As a group of legal information specialists, our work depends on being able to access and share high-quality legal knowledge.

We value innovation and this award is open to legal content in all information formats.

The award honours a publisher (whether for-profit or . . . [more]

The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has issued ethical guidelines for judges on the use of social media. These guidelines could be a useful template for updating or expanding codes of ethics for tribunal members. In this column I identify some of the key parts of the guidelines as well as some of the shortcomings.

The CJC defines social media, using the Oxford English Dictionary definition as its foundation:

 … social media is defined as “websites and applications which enable users to [access], create and share content or to participate in social networking.” This definition encompasses a wide variety of tools,

From the reassuring distance of not relying significantly on the professional information industry to pay my creditors, I can permit myself to comment, on or off message at whim, on the requirement, for some others, to remain on it, and always promote the party line. The obvious result, if this is the case, is that much of what we read and hear is likely to be public relations nonsense, and even lies.

I would also admit that, particularly over the period during which I have been writing and pondering on law publishing, and reflecting on the totality of . . . [more]

I’ve previously talked about the CanLII Manual to British Columbia Civil Litigation, a free resource that includes an annotated version of the B.C. Rules of Court. However, B.C. is not the only jurisdiction for which you can find an annotated Rules of Court on CanLII.

The Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario, published in 2022 and written by a team of 135 leading litigators and experts, provides both commentary and case law, as well as links to other useful resources. It includes short summaries of the cases cited, along with links to the full text of the cases. . . . [more]

In this wellness message I wanted to focus on my favorite subject; animals.

I know that many of you have pets and are great animal lovers.

I have been told by numerous friends and colleagues that they enjoy the company of their furry companion more than people.

It’s sad to say but at times it is true.

The overwhelming amount of work, daily responsibilities and just life in general, makes us feel tired and spent. Being with animals provides an oasis where we can be ourselves, relax and be with a living being that is completely non judgmental and accepting. . . . [more]

Ongoing barriers to access to justice remain a persistent problem throughout our legal system, particularly for those living on low incomes. In law, as across all areas of society, there is much interest in the potential to harness technological innovations to help address those barriers. Legal regulators in Canada and abroad are taking a variety of approaches aimed at unlocking the potential of technology-based legal services, while also continuing to protect the public from harm. Efforts in Canadian provinces, however, do not seem to be generating initiatives that will benefit people most in need of more accessible justice. We think . . . [more]