This could be The Year of Access to Justice in Canada. Whether it is a good year or a bad year for Access to Justice is TBD. The fate of Access to Justice is to be determined by governments, by the courts, by the legal profession and yes, by lawyers ourselves.

Dark Clouds on the Horizon: Justice Budgets 2012

In 2012, we are likely to see serious fiscal pressures on Access to Justice through budget freezes or cuts to legal aid plans, courts and other justice programs. Serious cuts to legal aid have already been proposed in the UK . . . [more]

When Heather Peters was dissatisfied with the proposed class-action settlement for her 2006 Honda Civic hybrid, which didn’t provide the promised fuel economy, she opted for Small Claims Court instead.

She is taking Honda Motor Co. to court this Tuesday in in Torrance, CA for $10,000, the new limit in California starting January 1, 2012, which by far exceeds the $100 and rebates she would have received from the class action. Best of all, the rules of the jurisdiction require Honda to provide an employee representative who is not a lawyer,

Small Claims Court is a special court where you

. . . [more]

This was how David Sterns, one of the panel members at an OBA civil litigation session last week, described the Ontario Court of Appeal’s 5 December judgment interpreting the new summary judgment rule. (See Simon Chester’s post last week for a good description of the amendment and the decision.)

Despite all the energy and resources being devoted in our modern system of civil justice to mediation, alternative dispute resolution and most recently judicial dispute resolution, in its 111 page judgment in Combined Air and four other cases, the Court of Appeal reinforces the primordial elements of the trial in our . . . [more]

The English media came back this weekend to re-examine the health of Thomson-Reuters and reached wildly different conclusions. The BBC talks of Thomson moving to establish hegemony over business data, whereas the Guardian focuses on the weaknesses of post-merger integration and the long-term challenge that Bloomberg presents.

The doyenne of the DC law library community, Jean O’Grady has a fascinating piece suggesting that Thomson may well acquire Wolters-Kluwer

Her analysis is:

Factors Favoring Such a Merger

1. Thomson Reuters Leadership Changes.Exane BNP suggests that TR appears to be “in restructuring

and crisis mode” since they failed to achieve top

. . . [more]

In my 26 September post here I touched on the issues raised by judicial mediation.

On 9 December the OBA presented a full day program on the topic.

Four panels covered the interprovincial landscape and experience, the Ontario experience, the private mediation landscape and perspectives, and finally the client’s perspective. Two breakout sessions considered the pros and cons, and the essential elements of good judicial mediation.

Of particular interest are the developments in Judicial Dispute Resolution in Alberta.

The Alberta new rules of court which came into force in Alberta on 1 November 2010 make JDR (or another form of . . . [more]

“In many ways a trial, like skydiving, is not inherently difficult; however both can be terribly unforgiving of the slightest inattention.”
“Courting Justice”, David Boies (Hyperion -Miramax 2008)

Referral advocacy is a model by which court advocacy is undertaken by a specialist bar to whom other lawyers refer as needed.

Lawyers who refer to specialist advocates lose the headaches of trial work, the havoc it wreaks on a practice, and the responsibility for an unfavourable outcome. Yet they gain the ability to offer their client specialist advocacy services at more predictable cost, and the client’s gratitude when the outcome is . . . [more]

Siskinds LLP launched the first individual civil suit last Friday against Baer for its birth-control products Yasmin and Yaz. From the CBC:

Yasmin, which is made by Bayer Inc., is one of Canada’s top-selling birth control pills. It is a so-called “fourth generation” hormonal contraceptive and is considered “low dose.”

The announcement of the suit, launched Friday in London, Ont., comes ahead of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s public hearings on the oral contraceptive scheduled for Dec. 8 in Maryland.

The FDA’s reproductive health and drug safety committee will be looking at the safety of Yasmin and its

. . . [more]

The Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Committee On Legal Ethics And Professional Responsibility has just released Formal Opinion 2011-200, Ethical Obligations For Attorneys Using Cloud Computing/Software As A Service While Fulfilling The Duties Of Confidentiality And Preservation Of Client Property

As the PA Bar keeps its Ethics Opinions behind a member wall, I’ve attached a copy of it to this post. One of the Committee members has told me I am free to distribute it.

This Opinion indicates that lawyers may ethically allow client confidential material to be stored in “the cloud” provided the lawyer takes reasonable care to assure that (1) . . . [more]

The North Carolina State Bar has revisited its proposed Formal Ethics Opinion (FEO) on cloud computing and addressed many of the concerns the legal cloud computing community had previously expressed.

The main point of concern with the previous opinion was a list of minimum mandatory requirements that an attorney had to ensure was met by their cloud computing provider. In an open letter to the NC State Bar, the Legal Cloud Computing Association outlined its concerns with the proposed FEO; prominent bloggers such as Carolyn Elefant, Stephanie Kimbro, Erik Mazzone and Niki Black also outlined their concerns about . . . [more]

In Canada there are companies that provide “litigation financial services” for personal injury, class actions and many other types of claim. These “Plaintiff’s Loans” are generally up to 10% – 20% of the value of the claim. No payments of principal or interest are required until the settlement or judgment is paid. If the amount recovered is insufficient to repay the loan, some lenders hold the borrower liable for the balance. Other lenders make non-recourse loans in Canada.

The loans made by these Canadian companies are frequently to personal injury plaintiffs and in the region of $10,000 – $20,000.

In . . . [more]

The Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia is coordinating a withdrawal of legal aid duty counsel services in support of the campaign to restore Legal Aid funding in the Province of British Columbia.

How far can judicial review go before it trespasses on the proper function of government and the legislature? What is the proper role of the judiciary in constraining the actions of the democratic state?

Last week, UK Supreme Court nominee Jonathan Sumption Q.C.raised these questions in a speech on the subject of the widening scope of judicial review in the UK .

He concluded by warning that if it is perceived judges are reviewing the merits of legislation, there will be pressure for some kind of democratic input into their selection. He would regard this as a very unfortunate outcome . . . [more]