My Dad, who passed away in 2006, had a collection of favorite sayings. At one point we packaged them up and listed the top 10 ala David Letterman. At the top of the list was the phrase “listen you might learn something”. Over the years I have begun to understand more deeply the wisdom of his words.

Listening well is a key competency for being a good human. It is especially important for those in leadership and in the conflict management disciplines, such as law, mediation, arbitration. There are probably thousands of books and articles written on what effective listening . . . [more]

Dear Tri-Agency,

I was delighted to see your announcement last summer that the Tri-Agency, representing Canada’s major research funders (CHIR, NSERC, SSHRC), have decided to review your Open Access Policy on Publications. Your continuing efforts to increase the public’s ability to consult research and scholarship through this policy are admirable. Having seen your invitation for public input on the review process, I wanted to make a small contribution, as a professor of education who started a Public Knowledge Project 25 years ago to support public access to research, and as a school teacher before that . . . [more]

In my last column I focused on the legal framework for addressing backlogs and delays in administrative tribunals. Before I start to explore the adjudicator’s toolkit for reducing backlogs and delays, I thought it might be worthwhile to start with what the parties and their representatives can and should do to assist in this rather large challenge.

There is some truth to the perception that one of the parties to a dispute either wants delay or is ambivalent about it. However, that is not always the case. Sometimes resolving a dispute – whether you win or lose – is good . . . [more]

One of the problems with generative AI is that there are so many possibilities and inconclusive data. How often does it hallucinate? Each system claims certain odds, but who is certain? I’ve been mulling over a few hypotheticals where AI has a defined failure rate and the harms are clear and predictable. Of course there are dangers to generative AI beyond the hallucination rate, but I’d like to ignore all of that to puzzle over three variables: time, harm, and benefit.

Assume there are 100 private-school students and twice a year they write a term paper independently. This year a . . . [more]

Sweet and Maxwell, part of Thomson Reuters and based in England, was founded in 1799; in 2024, 225 years of its existence can be marked and celebrated. For those with an interest in such matters, the book, “Then and Now” was published for its 175th birthday in 1974 and in 1999, 200 years saw the publication of “Now and Then” (not The Beatles’ version). Its present focus is, no doubt, on the future.

Perhaps two and a quarter centuries might not be considered to be sufficiently eye-catching to make it noteworthy, but I would disagree. In a . . . [more]

One of those old truisms that floats around, no less accurate for its long tenure: everybody likes buying stuff, nobody likes being sold to.

It’s a seeming paradox – you’d think that buying and selling would be a perfect match. Except that lots of the time, the selling being done is terrible and gets in the way of what would otherwise be a pleasant buying process. See also, buying literally everything online so you don’t have to interact with a salesperson.

Stuff happens in our brains when we shift into sales mode: the other person (the prospect… how’s that . . . [more]

The buried children have been haunting me. It’s difficult to celebrate the turning of the year while thousands of children remain lost in the rubble of humanitarian catastrophes caused by disasters, political turmoil, and armed conflicts around the world.

In 2023, apocalyptic stories of children and families lost through earthquakes, landslides, wildfires, atrocities, and war crimes filled the news. The Middle East and Ukraine dominated headlines while Afghanistan, Myanmar, and other places were pushed from attention.

An insistent question began to intrude. “What if it was your kids under the rubble?” In late November 2023 this . . . [more]

I’ve been fortunate in my career to be part of new innovative projects and to help expand the scope of longstanding organizations. My most recent role is Policy and Communications Advisor with the Canadian Lawyers Insurance Association (CLIA). Never heard of CLIA? For an organization that has been around for 35 years, we have an image problem. Or perhaps a lack of image problem. Many of the lawyers we insure have never heard of us.

CLIA is a reciprocal insurance exchange formed in 1988 as a direct response to a need for more effective professional liability coverage for Canadian . . . [more]

This is a brief summary of the Impact Assessment Act reference case by Anna Johnston, counsel for the intervenors West Coast Environmental Law Association and Nature Canada on the file. You can find a more detailed analysis here.

On October 13, 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada released its opinion on the constitutionality of the federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA), with a 5-2 majority, led by Chief Justice Wagner, finding that the main scheme of the Act is unconstitutional.

West Coast intervened in the case along with Nature Canada, so we had a front-row seat to the arguments. In . . . [more]

The end of a calendar year invites reflection on the months just passed. Inspired by Alice Woolley (now Justice Alice Woolley) who compiled several year-in-review lists when she was a professor (see, for example, here, here, here and here), in this column I look back on five areas of key developments in lawyers’ ethics and lawyer regulation in 2023. I also flag several major court cases and disciplinary proceedings from 2023, many of which are ongoing.

Five Areas of Key Developments

1. Generative AI and the delivery of legal services. In November 2022, ChatGPT was released to . . . [more]

The Canadian justice system experienced an unprecedented transformation during the Covid pandemic, when court and administrative proceedings across the country moved from in-person to remote hearings. Much discussion ensued on the implications of this transformation for the judiciary, the legal profession and their clients, as well as access to justice more broadly. However, self-represented litigants were not directly engaged in most of these discussions and as such, their perspectives and experiences respecting remote proceedings did not form part of the access to justice assessment. Early on in this process shift the NSRLP started hearing from SRLs anecdotally about their experiences . . . [more]

Hello my dear readers.

I have not as yet had the privilege of writing about wellness on this amazing platform, however, I am not new to the topic.

As lawyers and legal professions, we are not very good at taking time to care for ourselves. We are in the business of helping and caring for others and at the end of the day, there is usually very little time left for us.

My goal is to welcome you all into this space and invite you to give yourselves permission to take a few moments to recharge, breathe and find some . . . [more]