While attending the latest fête of yet another elderly, past-his-due-date lawyer, I was drawn into a hateful, envious reverie of what this passing generation benefited from: big game clients hunted down by golfing foursomes, cases settled over scotch, reputations defined by progeny than by proficiency, minorities oppressed, women suppressed, and partnerships by fiat and fealty but not effort and effect. Gazing warily into my sparkling glass, a thought slapped my face awake from reverie to reality: it is not so different now, than it was then.

As my attention fades in and out from the drone of the acceptance speech, . . . [more]

As promised in our previous post, we are back to discuss the fourth and final chapter of our upcoming report detailing the pursuits of the “Towards Cyberjustice” Project (the other parts can be found here: part 1, part 2, part 3). Whereas our previous posts highlighted the various papers, studies and pilot projects conducted by the Cyberjustice Laboratory and its partners throughout this seven-year long venture, our final post is dedicated to the future avenues of research that were inspired by our accomplishments over these last years, which are also supported by the Social . . . [more]

In Bell Media Inc. v. GoldTV.Biz, 2019 FC 1432, the Federal Court dealt with a novel motion in Canada for a “site-blocking order”. The broadcasting company plaintiffs sought an interlocutory mandatory injunction against the innocent third party Internet Service Providers [ISPs] seeking to compel the ISPs “to take steps to block their customers from accessing websites and Internet services operated by the anonymous Defendant”.

The plaintiffs allege that the defendants are infringing copyright by operating unauthorized subscription services that provide subscribers access to the plaintiff’s programming content over the Internet.

The innocent third party respondents are the major Canadian . . . [more]

On October 25 & 26, Windsor Law proudly hosted the 2019 conference of the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics. The presentations touched on many of the most important issues confronting the legal profession today. Check out the brief summaries below to stay up to date.

Thematic Index

• Access to justice (see presentations #3 and #11 below)
• Zealous advocacy and its limits (see presentations #1 and #2 below)
• Harassment and discrimination within the profession (presentations #16, 17, 18)
• Teaching ethics in law school (presentations #6, 7, 8, 9)
• The Regulation of Judges (presentations #12, #15)
• The limits of “business-like” lawyer

2018 was a tough act to follow, but 2019 was, once again, a great year for CanLII, to say the least. More than ever, our successes are due to the relationships we have developed with organizations across the country that have embraced our vision for the future of free access to law. We are grateful they have agreed to share their content with us and hope to celebrate these relationships with this post, among other things.

Commentary

As regular readers of this blog will have appreciated by now, we’ve been multiplying announcements over the course of the year about new . . . [more]

My inbox fills up each day with messages from members of the public (NSRLP has an active public email, answered by dedicated NSRLP research assistants, but many SRLs write me directly).

It is still not well understood that the vast majority of SRLs are still looking for and extremely desirous of legal help. In my 2013 study, this figure was 86%. Similar results are reported by studies in the US, England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland. All these studies also found that by far the most significant reason for self-representation is . . . [more]

Earlier this month, I was kindly invited by Jason Morris to speak (via Skype) to his “Coding The Law” class at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law. We had a great chat on a range of topics, but one in particular stood out for me and I wanted to share it with a wider audience.

We were talking about the transition from law school into the legal profession, and yes, we did spend quite some time talking about all the ways in which law school does a poor job of preparing students for practice. But I pointed out one . . . [more]

The Federation of Law Societies of Canada on October 19, 2019 adopted changes to the model code of conduct, adding commentary on competence with technology.

There is no new standalone duty of technological competence, but rather the FLSC has provided new guidance on how the general duty of competence should be understood with regard to technology.

The new guidance is phrased as follows:

[4A] To maintain the required level of competence, a lawyer should develop an understanding of, and ability to use, technology relevant to the nature and area of the lawyer’s practice and responsibilities. A lawyer should understand

On-line reviews have become incredibly important for professionals to build their client base. Entire industries have been built on the notion that one person’s experience – even someone you do not know – is a tool used to judge ones abilities. We do it all the time with restaurants, stores, apps, and on and on. More and more on-line reviews are being used when people choose service providers.

It used to be when you needed a lawyer, you would reach out to someone you know and hope they knew someone. This may have led you to a tax lawyer when . . . [more]

The movement toward speedy adjudication of payment disputes in the construction and technology sectors seems to be gaining some momentum this fall, with new programs being launched in Ontario and England.

In England, the Society for Computers and Law (SCL) has launched a new adjudication process for resolution of technology disputes, following several years of study and industry consultation.

SCL was established to educate legal and technology professionals and promote “best practice” for the technology sector in the UK. It identified a need for faster, cheaper resolution of disputes involving long term, high value, and technically complex technology contracts.

Adjudication . . . [more]

We always look forward to the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center’s Annual Legal Technology Survey Report on the use of technology in the legal profession. The summary of the “Marketing and Communication” portion of the 2019 survey was recently published. It was written by our good friend Allison Shields and contains some fascinating (and worrisome) statistics.

Respondents to the 2019 Survey segment covering websites and law firm marketing were mostly solos or from smaller firms, consisting of 27% solos, 29% lawyers in firms of 2-9 lawyers, 18% from firms of 10-49 lawyers, 11% from firms of between 100-499 . . . [more]

The Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County has just completed what appears, based on a preliminary analysis of the data, to have been a highly successful pilot project to expand legal aid services to rural Wellington County in Southwestern Ontario. The project is being funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario. The project involved using a van to provide outreach services to 12 small communities spread throughout the 2,657 square kilometers of the county, visiting each community 10 or more times on a regular schedule between May and October. The van, staffed by two outreach workers, would park . . . [more]