The CBA Futures Initiative took to the Twitterverse Tuesday night to talk about legal education.

What was supposed to be a half-hour discussion about objectives and obstacles turned into more than two hours of enthusiastic participation from across the country. Mitch Kowalski summed up the responses about 75 minutes in: “So we’ve seen tuition, diversity, maturity, practicality, length of study are issues. Solutions?”

Karen Dyck summed up the legal profession’s response to these issues so far with an emoticon wink: “Don’t change a thing.”

A lot of the early discussion focused on high and rising tuition costs, in response to . . . [more]

Today I read with interest Toronto law librarian Katie Thomas‘ post on the On Firmer Ground blog, “MOOCs: What’s In it for Law Librarians?“. She does a great job of outlining the availability of MOOCs (massive open online courses) for librarians.

She asks the question, though:

And what of MOOCs for law librarians? I did not find any that were purposely geared to law and librarians. There are courses on environmental law, criminal law, English common law, constitutional law and more. I think Wendy Reynolds raises a good point when she surmises in a comment on SLAW

On September 19, 2013 I attended the Devry Smith Frank LLP Exclusive Human Resources Seminar Series at the Don Valley Hotel & Suites in Toronto. My notes from this session follow.

Religious Accommodation in the Workplace

L. Viet Nguyen discussed the challenge of accommodating religious practice and expression in the workplace. Religion is a fundamental freedom, guaranteed in the Charter, and discrimination on the basis of creed is prohibited by the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Religious accommodation in Canada is governed by a 2-part test from the 2004 SCC case of Amselem v. Syndicat Northcrest:

1. employers are

The other day, I was sitting with Phil Brown, of the Law Society of Upper Canada, trying to solve the world’s problems – as we are wont to do from time to time.

I ventured that one of the constraints to access to justice is a lawyer’s overhead. And a large part of that overhead in large- and medium-sized firms, is lawyer salary.

Then I thought, how crazy is it that we live in a world where lawyers can’t survive on a salary of $250,000.00 per year – keeping in mind that this amount is about 5 times what the . . . [more]

“The conundrum that regulators have is that we are to all intents and purposes recognizing entry-level competence,” Tim McGee, CEO of the Law Society of British Columbia told a CCCA lunchtime panel at the 2013 CBA Legal Conference in Saskatoon, discussing what the role of the regulator should be in ensuring competence in the legal profession.

His point was that despite CLE requirements, lawyers aren’t actually assessed by regulators as their careers progress – it’s assumed that if they attend an accredited law school, get a certain degree and pass a bar exam, law students are competent to become lawyers. . . . [more]

The recent controversy over the Sam the Record Man sign, Ryerson University and the City of Toronto is interesting on a number of levels. There is the heritage aspect of the matter and there is the legal contractual element – Ryerson agreed to find a place to hang the sign, then decided that it didn’t want to do so.

Much has been written about the above.

What interests me personally, and as an adjunct professor at a law school, is the ethical element.

Ryerson is an institution of higher learning. It teaches students.

And so, call me old-fashioned, but . . . [more]

“Are we happy being lawyers?” That’s the question Nancy Levit and Douglas O. Linder tackle in The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law (Oxford University Press, 2010). Lawyers themselves, they have anticipated your next question:

What do you mean by “happy”? On a scale that runs from having root canals to a night of fine wines and sex on a tropical island, where does “unhappiness” turn into “happiness”? Do you mean “happy” right now as I write footnote 17 on this brief for Acme Investments or “happy” during the course of my ten-year legal career? … Also, . . . [more]

As he does each year at about this time, Rich McCue tipped us to the fact that the results of his survey of incoming law students are now online. The University of Victoria Law Student Technology Survey has run for ten years now, providing a nifty picture of how things are changing for law students — so far as technology is concerned. The executive summary of this year’s survey, which had a whopping 90% response rate, is as follows:

• 96% of incoming law students own “Smart Phones” that can browse the internet (up from 89% last year and 50% three

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries is accepting submissions for the May 25-28, 2014 Conference that will be held at the Hotel Fory Garry in Winnipeg. Do you have something to share?

The conference is an exciting opportunity to explore and learn about emerging issues in law librarianship, to acquire the tools for building both hard and soft skills, and to meet with vendors about their new products and the improvements of existing ones.

The theme of the 2014 conference refers to the coming together of our professional knowledge and inspiration. Inspired to seek creative responses to existing or anticipated

The Seventeenth Annual Canadian Information Technology Law Association (“IT.CAN”) Conference will be held in Toronto, October 24-25, 2013. The full conference brochure is available on the IT.CAN website, and registration is possible online in English and en français. The brochure contains details concerning CPD and CLE credits available.

As usual, the speakers’ list is a who’s-who of experts in IT law and includes a number of lawyers who write or have written for Slaw, namely: Daniel Logan, James Kosa, Andrew Terrett, Richard Austin, John Gregory, and David Canton.

If you have any questions about the program please contact Lisa . . . [more]

U.S. lawyer Stephanie Kimbro who writes about running virtual law practices shared an infographic she created last week with everyone — Technology in Legal Education (excerpt of the image below). It essentially shows why there is a need to teach law students and lawyers about technology, how the technology has been a “disruptive” force in the industry and its effect.

I especially like her outline of new roles people are playing in law firms today.

This is just an excerpt of her infographic. For the full graphic, visit her website Virtual Law Practice.

Hat tip ABA LTRC on Twitter. . . . [more]

Despite the fact that “de-nial ain’t just a river in Egypt”, we are about to head into September which means the real new year for academics like myself is about to kick off. On the the day after Labour Day (American friends take note of the proper spelling with a “u”) a new crop of bright eyed students arrive at university campuses across the country. Every year at this time I always like to take advantage of the excellent work done by the folks at Beloit College who produce the Mindset List, in order to see what I’m getting . . . [more]