It’s been over a year since WHO formally declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Since that time, our lives—both personal and professional—have changed. With many people working from home and the need to lessen physical contact, law libraries have had to change how they provide library services. Of these changes, which ones are likely to stick around and what are the long-term implications?

Death of the looseleaf?

I know, we’ve been predicting the death of the looseleaf for years. And yet, despite all predictions, looseleafs are still with us. Will COVID-19 be the thing that kills them off?

The value of having . . . [more]

Earlier this year, I attended a virtual, all-day workshop, Building the Next Legal Practice, by the Center of Legal Innovation in Australia for LegalTech Week. At the event, were asked to envision the future legal industry of 2025.

Compared to Canada, Australia has had non-lawyer ownership for over 20 years and as such, Australian lawyers operate under a different regulatory environment. Australian lawyers had very different predictions for the future of practicing law than a similar group of Canadian lawyers would. I will elaborate on some of these and then relate them to the Canadian context.

1. Half of the . . . [more]

This submission is part of a column swap with the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) bimonthly member magazine, AALL Spectrum. Published six times a year, AALL Spectrum is designed to further professional development and education within the legal information industry. Slaw and the AALL Spectrum board have agreed to hand-select several columns each year as part of this exchange. 

The role of the law librarian continues to evolve in exciting and challenging ways. In the mid-2000’s, we saw many librarians in the law firm and corporate world expand their work beyond traditional legal research to include responding to . . . [more]

One of the earliest nautical handbooks published in the English language and intended for a mass market was called The Seaman’s Vade Mecum. Published in 1744 by William Mountaine (who, despite publishing a series of books on seafaring, was not himself a sailor, but a mathematician), the book remained the go-to book for seafarers until the end of the age of sail. The name itself translates from the Latin as “go with me”, and it was used to denote a pocket handbook that a prudent sailor always kept close to hand. And that’s exactly what we in the Canadian . . . [more]

Conflict management systems are increasingly common within large corporations and other organizations. Workplace interpersonal disputes and bad behaviour are inevitable, but also manageable. Interests can be reconciled, rights can be upheld, and peace can be restored. A conflict management system is built to do exactly that.

Some workplace disputes call for open communication and compromise. However conflict management systems can also ensure that unacceptable behaviour — e.g. harassment, discrimination, and bullying — is corrected and deterred within an organization. Information, mediation, and arbitration are among the building blocks of a good conflict management system. Minimizing the time consumed and the . . . [more]

The work of environmental law in a time of intertwined biodiversity and climate crises is not just an intellectual or professional exercise for me and my colleagues at West Coast Environmental Law. This is particularly the case when decisions are made about mega-projects that fly in the face of law, science and self-determination of Indigenous peoples. Over this past COVID winter, for example, we felt the weight of stress and uncertainty about that fate of the Site C dam.

We wrote about  Site C in August 2016 and since then, the destruction of the Peace River Valley has continued, while . . . [more]

Jane wants to ask the partner she works with about raising her salary, but she is afraid to initiate the conversation.

John works with a disorganized partner who is a last-minute delegator. John has ideas about how he can better support the partner but doesn’t know how to raise the subject.

Why is it that speaking up and making requests can be so hard to do? Why does self-advocacy raise so many fears?

The difficulty in speaking up is often about the tension between exercising personal power and tending to our relationships.

It can seem like communicating about what’s important . . . [more]

What makes for an effective and efficient law society? This isn’t a question without controversy. The last several decades abound with debate about what exactly Canadian law societies should be doing and how they should be doing it. Two propositions, however, strike me as relatively uncontroversial: (1) law societies should engage in evidence-based policy making; and (2) law societies should continually evolve their approaches in response to changes in the legal services environment. In short, we need smart and relevant regulation.

The regulatory “sandbox” that will be considered by Law Society of Ontario (LSO) Benchers next week is a prime . . . [more]

There are important benefits that derive from understanding the impacts of lawyer-assisted civil dispute resolution. In a 2019 article published in the Alberta Law Review, authors Sarah Buhler and Michelle C. Korpan consider this issue as relates specifically to legal representation provided through legal aid and clinic settings in Canada.[1] Underlying the case that the article makes for this type of research is the recognition that this is one of many areas in which there is a considerable lack of justice research in Canada.[2] One of the reasons identified for conducting this kind of research is the effect . . . [more]

A recent decision in British Columbia supports the proposition that, in commercial arbitration at least, the successful party may expect to fully recover their reasonable legal costs and expenses. Do recent changes in the B.C. Arbitration Act reinforce that principle?

In Allard v. The University of British Columbia, 2021 BCSC 60, Madam Justice Karen Douglas says that “the “normal rule” in arbitrations is that the successful party is entitled to “indemnification costs unless there are special circumstances that would warrant some other type of costs.” [Paragraph 78]

“Indemnification costs” are a party’s actual legal costs and expenses, and contrast . . . [more]

The spectre of “vaccine nationalism” is one of the recent challenges that the global COVID-19 pandemic has brought us. The immediate and primary focus of governments has been the serious threat to the health of their populations. The resulting economic challenges have been “game changing.”

At the end of January 2021, the European Union became the first major trading power to introduce export controls on COVID-19 vaccines.[1] Other countries have considered export bans. In India, the domestic Serum Institute has been directed to prioritise the needs of India.^[2] The U.S. and UK governments have signed contracts . . . [more]

Spring is here, so allow me to introduce you to Joshua Palacios, a young outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays who has something to teach us about the development of new lawyers.

Josh, who is 25, made great strides last summer at an “alternate training site” that the Blue Jays created for their young players when the pandemic forced the cancellation of the minor-league season. And during spring training in March, he tore the cover off the ball and made spectacular defensive plays in the outfield. Combined with strong character and leadership skills, his new productivity made him a . . . [more]