Two recent events in my professional life have me thinking (and worrying as is my nature) about the push and pull we lawyers experience when communicating with clients. In an increasingly connected world, how do we balance our obligation to respond in a reasonable timeframe with the client’s expectation to receive frequent and immediate responses via text or instant messaging?

The first event is the launch of the Public Concerns Pathway (PCP) from the Law Society of Saskatchewan. I was the Knowledge Engineer on this project that provides the public with clear information about common concerns with legal professionals and . . . [more]

There is no “one” solution to the delays in administrative justice in Canada. When a problem is caused by multiple reasons, it often takes multiple approaches to resolving it. The volume of disputes has grown over the last decade and the reasons for this are complex. Society is becoming more litigious, which could be due to an increased awareness of legal rights and also a reduced willingness to compromise. The volume of complaints or applications to tribunals is also partly due to the rise of self-represented parties, who may not have a full understanding of the law. One of the . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Addressing the Jury: Achieving Fair Verdicts in Personal Injury Cases. By Roger Oatley & Troy Lehman. 3rd ed. Toronto: LexisNexis, 2025. xix, 438 p. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9780433531654 (softcover) $145.00.

Reviewed by Lorissa Kinna
Reference Librarian
Great Library, Law Society of Ontario

The third iteration of Addressing . . . [more]

Cases keep cropping up where counsel has used AI to create a court submission containing made-up cases. The common response on the part of courts and the profession has been: ‘prompt, but verify.’ It’s okay to use AI, just make sure it’s accurate.

I think this response misses the mark. But consider first how fixated we’ve become over the issue of verification — implying that this is all we need to be concerned about in deciding whether counsel should be using AI to write court submissions.

As Judge Moore in a Federal Court case wrote earlier this year:

The use

I don’t have to ask if you’ve ever encountered a bully at work. I know you have. We all have.

There’s one flavour of workplace bully that is particularly challenging to deal with: the narcissist. I’m using the term colloquially here­ — they aren’t waving around a clinical diagnosis to show off their bona fides — but you know the signs.

They gossip and stir conflict. Undermine others. Seek attention. Create constant drama. And they are masters of manipulation, turning others against you. Sometimes, the constant gaslighting and blame-shifting is enough to turn you against yourself

I’m exhausted just writing . . . [more]

AI has evolved rapidly from conceptual promise to practical workplace reality, dramatically reshaping governance and organizational policy. At the 2025 GPC annual corporate governance conference session in Montreal, many AI themes came up throughout the sessions and addressed some of its impacts including how boards need to approach AI adoption balancing the charm of innovation with the necessary guardrails of governance.

The discussions held included an a real-time poll showed more than 90% of attendees already used at least one AI tool. Application of AI was particularly notable, divided evenly between professional use (46 respondents) and non-professional use (46 respondents), . . . [more]

I am writing this on December 15^th. You may not read this until after Christmas but I hope it will still be timely!

If you have had enough Hallmark movies, or podcasts highlighting the latest twists in US politics, I have a suggestion for you. Tune in to the CBC’s See you in Court podcast. It tells the stories behind legal cases that changed Canada. Host Falen Johnson teams up with a journalist to dig into a case that challenged the status quo and reshaped the law.

The series begins with the story of Henry Morgantaler, and continues . . . [more]

Have you ever felt like running away?

In the middle of doing work or going through a stressful moment, you imagine how wonderful it would be to just go somewhere far away. Perhaps the image of a desert is something that you are imagining now as you read this. No one to bother you; just you, the ocean, white soft sand, and maybe someone to serve you a delicious meal?

Escaping the moment that is causing us stress or anxiety is something that the mind does in order to cope. When we go on vacation, we are giving our minds . . . [more]

Recently, the law societies across Canada came together to launch Ours to Protect, a national campaign to raise awareness about the importance of the rule of law. In Canada, when we talk about threats to the rule of law, we tend to glance nervously at chaos in other countries, especially the United States. The United States has provided a dramatic study in how quickly respect for legal norms can erode. The Trump White House openly vilified judges who ruled against it – accusing them of abusing their powers and even suggesting they be impeached or prosecuted. Some years . . . [more]

As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in commercial, administrative, and professional decision-making, disputes involving opaque or unpredictable system behaviour are becoming increasingly common. Traditional litigation struggles to address these conflicts, which blend technical uncertainty with evolving legal and regulatory principles. Mediation offers a proportional, flexible, and forward-looking process capable of bringing clarity to the “unexplainable” and helping parties navigate accountability in an AI-driven environment.

Although the term AI was originally used in 1955, our awareness and use of it have rapidly accelerated through the launch of OpenAI’s GPT series. OpenAI released the GPT-3.5 model in November 2022, and its latest . . . [more]

Recently, some folks have asked me about my views on whether government lawyers can strike. A full legal analysis, including labour law and constitutional considerations,[1] is not something I am able to provide here.[2] I offer instead some reflections from my individual and idealistic perspective – which some may well consider romantic or unrealistic. This perspective draws on what I consider to be the spirit, if not necessarily the letter, of the rules of professional conduct,[3] given that those rules themselves cannot address every situation.[4] In doing so, I assume that such a strike would be . . . [more]

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) took action^[1] to establish a framework to limit botnet traffic before they reach consumers’ devices.

The CRTC plays a limited role in regulating telecommunications service providers (TSPs) under the Telecommunications Act and protects Canadians from online harms under the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

Botnets are networks of computers, cellular phones, and other devices that have been infected with malware, allowing third parties to control the devices without the knowledge or consent of the owners.

After consulting with various organizations, the CRTC gathered input on blocking techniques and which activities to block to establish . . . [more]