A new smartphone app has been developed to guide and assist members of the public through often difficult and contentious police interactions.

LegalSwipe is a free app, available on both the iTunes and Android markets. It provides step-by-step interactions through a decision tree, prompting the user to ask specific questions such as whether they are under arrest. It then tells the user what they should or should not be doing or saying with these police interactions.

The app is the brainchild of Christien Levien, a law student who completed his articles in criminal law and is currently studying for . . . [more]

Mandatory minimums. Mega prisons. “Tough” on crime.

These have been the hallmarks of the Federal government’s reform of the criminal justice system, but the policies have been more politically motivated than good policy or social science evidence. Canada’s crime rate has been the lowest since 1972, and the literature on law enforcement suggests these measures will actually make things worse.

The mandatory minimum provisions and removal of credit for time has already been challenged successfully in court. Courts in B.C., Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Northwest Territories have all found these provisions as unconstitutional, culminating in the Supreme Court’s decision in . . . [more]

Does merit trump diversity? Can’t both coexist and in fact, isn’t it possible that an individual’s merit is enhanced by that individual’s background, skills and experience?

These questions rolled through my brain as I read yesterday’s Financial Post article, Firms adopting diversity policies but few commit to targets for women on boards. The suggestion is that increasing diversity in membership of corporate boards may have a negative impact on the effectiveness of those boards. Some corporations are hesitant to set targets for gender diversity on their boards, the lawyers interviewed explained:

…the most common reason given by companies for

This year Stephen Harper’s government announced its intention to introduce legislation that will make a life sentence mean a sentence for life.

It remains to be seen how our courts will apply the Charter to the Conservatives’ tough on crime bill.

The boundaries of a similar discussion are being tested in Europe now.

On 1 June 2015 a panel of 5 judges of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights referred to a full hearing before a panel of 17 judges, a complaint by UK prisoner Arthur Hutchinson who has been sentenced to spent the rest of . . . [more]

Despite all the calls for more practically-focused, experiential and applied legal education, there is more to law school than simply learning a trade.

Legal education is a process of socialization and acclimatization to the profession, including its history, culture and traditions. All of these are arguably necessary to instill the values behind our professional responsibilities and ethics.

There is also a substantive background required of all lawyers in order to practice. Intellectual property lawyers will still have to learn about basic criminal law. And human rights lawyers are required to learn the basics of contract law. The substantive framework is . . . [more]

Difference is a necessary part of the human condition, without which we’d be an awfully dull lot. Although difference is what gives us creativity and invention, it’s also the cause of intolerance and war, and it’s what keeps family law lawyers in business. As Martin Gore famously put it,

There are an infinite number of reasons why committed, long-term relationships break down. Some people get bored. Some grow apart as they get older. Others just turn into assholes.

Once upon a time, thanks largely . . . [more]

There’s plenty of rich data on new lawyers in Canada to be found final report from Law and Beyond (“LAB”), a study of Canadian lawyers called to the bar in 2010. The key findings of the study, released last week by Ronit Dinovitzer, provide a glimpse into the kinds of information researchers gleaned about this cohort; for example:

• Twenty-two percent (22%) of the LAB sample are non-white, 56% are women, and 16.4% are immigrants.
• Women remain more likely than men to work in the public sector, even in their early careers, with more than one quarter of women

When Walmart, Target, and the ultra-conservative Koch brothers stand shoulder-to-shoulder on an employment issue, you could be forgiven for thinking that a workplace apocalypse is brewing. This trifecta is more likely to be found campaigning against union certifications or decrying a minimum wage hike than singing hymns on a picket line with the likes of ColorOfChange.Org, The Center for American Progress, and the American Civil Liberties Union. And yet the lion doth lay down with the lamb.

Several weeks ago Koch Industries added its ample voice to the chorus of “ban the box” promoters. The “box” being “banned” in . . . [more]

Why is the idea of asking service users what they need in terms of access to justice so challenging to those working in the justice system?

This is the question that I was asking myself as I participated a recent workshop on enhancing access to justice in the area of family law, coordinated by the Manitoba Law Foundation and facilitated by John Paul Boyd.

Participants represented a range of justice system service providers and included some community voices as well. Working in small groups, we brainstormed the obstacles to access to justice and ways to provide better supports to those . . . [more]

Busy family law lawyers, myself included, live in a bubble of immediacy, a shroud of crisis that moves with us as we go forward in time and cross entry after entry off our calendars. This often has two consequences. First, it discourages us from enquiring into the past, into the roots and evolution of the law on domestic relations, for example, or the delightful but sadly defunct matrimonial torts, and from seeking to decipher the meaning of important statutory passages such as this:

Subject to this Act, a guardian of the estate of a child has all powers over the

Members of the public have until Friday, June 5 at 11:59 p.m. to vote online for the winner of the 2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

The prize, which is sponsored by ABA Journal and the University of Alabama School of Law, is intended to recognize a work of fiction that best exemplifies the role of lawyers in society.

The three finalists this year are:

• My Sister’s Grave, by Robert Dugoni
• Terminal City, by Linda Fairstein
• The Secret of Magic, by Deborah Johnson

There is a judging panel of four:

• Roy Blount Jr., author and

A fog of uncertainty and conflicting case authority continues to beset British Columbia’s Family Law Act. The confusion is understandable, given that barely two years have elapsed since the act came fully into force and that the Court of Appeal has yet to pronounce upon the key areas of controversy, but nonetheless highlights critical access to justice issues that went unobserved and unnoticed under the previous legislative regime which thirty years’ of case authority had fully illuminated.

One of these key areas concerns the status of gifts received by spouses and whether such gifts are divisible family property or . . . [more]