Canada has a long history of (mostly) productive tension between the profession and law schools about the preferred content and mode of legal education, but occasionally, this productive tension deteriorates into stereotyping. In those low moments, the practicing bar is accused of narrow-mindedly favouring black-letter law and practical skills training, while the legal academy is off on some buzzword-heavy frolic of its own. In this parallel and distinctly two-dimensional universe, lawyers in the process of hiring articling students or associates are readily able to spot problems with legal education from student transcripts without any detour through actual law classes or . . . [more]

Law should be drafted in a way that prevents litigation. Statutes, regulations, and precedents should ideally let people predict the decisions that legal authorities would make, if presented with certain facts. If the “shadow of the law” is sharp and clear, then people can avoid and resolve disputes instead of spending time and money litigating over them.

Often, however, it is difficult to create law that both keeps people out of court, and ensures that the resolutions they reach out of court are fair and just.

Amending Pleadings

Consider, for example, the law about amending pleadings. In the . . . [more]

In a previous column, I looked at some principles behind awards of legal costs and expenses in Canadian domestic arbitration.

In international arbitration the general rule is that the unsuccessful party pays the successful party’s costs. The question, usually, is how much?

The high cost of international commercial arbitration is the main source of complaint by users of the system, according to a series of surveys by Queen Mary University of London between 2013 and 2018. Costs have continued to increase steadily. In large commercial and in investor-state disputes, they can be in the millions (or tens of millions) . . . [more]

A correspondent from Europe wrote me recently to ask if I had any thoughts about unhealthy work schedules and high billing pressures facing young law firm associates. I had assumed this was strictly an Anglo-American problem, but based on what my correspondent told me, it seems that wherever in the world there are sizeable full-service law firms, there are overworked and over-stressed lawyers inside them.

The usual expressions of concern are being made by bar associations and the firms themselves, and there’s been talk of task forces, educational webinars, voluntary programs, and so on. I told my correspondent that I . . . [more]

A Warning for Law Firms

The first of the quarterly 2021 surveys appeared during April – and the news isn’t good for small and midsized law firms. Note these ominous words from Coveware, a highly regarded aggregator of global ransomware and cyber extortion data, which published the Coveware Quarterly Ransomware Report (Q1 2021):

“The most notable change in industries impacted by ransomware attacks in Q1 was the Professional Services industry, specifically law firms. Small and medium sized law firms continue to succumb to encryption ransomware and data exfiltration extortion attacks. Unfortunately, the economics of many small professional service firms

In 2015 world leaders, acting through the United Nations, agreed to adopt 17 global objectives known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The overarching objective was, and remains, to make measurable progress toward creating a better world by the year 2030 by reducing poverty, fighting inequality and by addressing the emergency of climate change. Among the Sustainable Development Goals is SDG 16, focusing on peace, justice and strong institutions. SDG 16 seeks to promote “a peaceful and inclusive society for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and to build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.” . . . [more]

Tuning in to a discussion about access to justice, we might think, mistakenly, that the big problem is how much the legal system costs. The cost of litigating a dispute is too high, it goes, and so lawyers should flatten fees, cap fees, and unbundle fees, fleeing fees like so many fleas. Only the richest (they have the money) and the poorest (they have so little they qualify for aid) can litigate, so to achieve justice for the masses we should turn to alternative dispute models like mediation and online dispute resolution. The justice system is too complicated and too . . . [more]

This post is a joint submission to Slaw, contributed by the following authors: Xavier Beauchamp-Tremblay, Pierre-Paul Lemyre, Sarah Sutherland, Ivan Mokanov

The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) recently released a report titled “Guidelines For Canadian Courts – Management of Requests for Bulk Access to Court Information by Commercial Entities”.

Over the years, several parties from different sectors have contacted CanLII or Lexum to obtain bulk access to legal decisions from Canadian courts and tribunals. We never believed we had clear permission to redistribute this content and decide who should be granted or denied bulk access to legal . . . [more]

In March of this year, artist Mike Winklemann, AKA “Beeple”, sold a compilation of digital art for $69m through Christie’s. The artwork was comprised of 5,000 images, created daily over a 13-year period. Unless your firm is planning on investing in digital art anytime soon, why should law firms care about this sale? Because whether you are a Managing Partner or a Marketing Director, business strategy is about identifying important shifts in the marketplace BEFORE they are entirely relevant to your current business processes so you can determine if and how they might affect you and your client base in . . . [more]

A number of Canadian jurisdictions have a “public interest override” in their Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPP) legislation.

In Alberta, this imposes a duty on a public body to immediately disclose information that is “clearly in the public interest” despite any other provision in the Act. Section 32 FOIPP reads:

32(1) Whether or not a request for access is made, the head of a public body must, without delay, disclose to the public, to an affected group of people, to any person or to an applicant

(a) Information about a risk of significant harm to

Things are getting almost back to normal after the attack on the Capitol building on January 6^th. The barricades were slowly coming down, but then a subsequent incident happened when a car crashed into a barrier killing one of the Capitol police officers. There is still some lingering sense of apprehension about what might happen next. The Biden administration is now trying to reverse all the damage done by the previous administration, by issuing executive orders and introducing legislation.

When I moved to the District of Columbia in 2003, I did not realize the full impact of the . . . [more]

What’s the modern equivalent of a “broken record?” How about a GIF or TikTok on loop? Either way, I plead guilty. 

My particular hobby horse (the one I perform on the broken record and video loop) for much of the past decade has been bulk or unbundled access to legal information.

On Slaw alone, I’ve touched or ranted on the topic close to a dozen times. Here are a few of the longer pieces directly on point:

2020 – Lowering the Primary Barrier to Legal Innovation – Access to Good Data

2018 – CanLII’s Future as a Canadian Primary Law . . . [more]