The Ontario civil justice system is struggling to provide timely, cost-effective and fair access to justice to civil litigants. According to Justice D.M. Brown, if the Judges of the Superior Court are unable to respond to the challenges and stresses confronting the civil litigation system, the public system risks losing litigants to the private-sector justice system in which an ever increasing number of private arbitration centres offer parties dispute-resolution services employing modern technological systems and well-trained arbitrators, who are often retired Superior Court Judges.

Justice Brown used the decision of George Weston Ltd. v. Domtar Inc. to once again sound . . . [more]

More than a century ago, an early torts scholar (Pollock) wrote that, when it came to causation, lawyers and judges shouldn’t go adventuring with philosophers. Many modern Canadian lawyers and judges are likely more familiar with Sopinka J.’s admonition in Snell v. Farrell against “abstract metaphysical theory” – the claim that causation is “essentially a practical question of fact which can best be answered by ordinary common sense rather than abstract metaphysical theory.” . . . [more]

Mitch Kowalski’s SLAW piece last week points to digital developments at the up-market UK clothier Burberry, as illustrative of what’s coming for legal services.

At the opposite end of the market there was another development in the UK last week. The Co-op supermarket chain announced the addition of a family law branch to the legal services it offers, which will evidently include fixed tariff family law and face to face advice, from over 1,000 locations.

One of the Coop’s major competitors in legal services, is Tesco supermarket.

Qualilty Solicitors with over 400 locations in a huge advertising campaign (developed by . . . [more]

Soon – perhaps within the coming days or weeks— the Prime Minister will name a new Supreme Court Justice to replace retired Justice Marie Deschamps. As set out in the Supreme Court Act, this judge must come from Quebec because section 6 of that act provides that “[a]t least three of the judges shall be appointed from among the judges of the Court of Appeal or of the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec or from among the advocates of that Province.” However, it is not completely clear who qualifies as “a Quebec judge” for the Supreme . . . [more]

This is certainly one of the more ambitious public legal education initiatives in Canada.

The third season of the television series “Le Droit de Savoir” (The right to know) began on Quebec cable TV on September 18th on the Canal savoir channel (with repeats on the Télé-Québec public educational network in the summer of 2013).

The French-language series is a co-production of the Quebec Bar Association. Lawyers already write the deals for TV and film projects. So, why not just jump into producing the material itself?

Episodes in the coming season will feature reports on topics such as aboriginal law, . . . [more]

A few things struck me this week. First, Jordan Furlong’s great piece, “Back when we used lawyers.” Then the opening of Burberry’s new flagship store in London, England (thanks to my colleague Antony Smith at LawSync for pointing it out to me and suggesting a digital connection to law).

Jordan’s premise is, as the title suggests, that change is constant and that in the lifetime of our parents (and even some of us) how things were done and by whom, when theywere kids, has dramatically changed. What is “normal” for legal services now or in the past will . . . [more]

Read this endorsement released today by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Para. [2] sent me searching.

The background to [2] is here.

Read the first 6 paras., and para. 24, in the 13th case in the chronological listing. It’s 2008 CanLII 27483. I’ve chosen to not link to it.

Perhaps this case – and similar others which some of us have been on the wrong side of – is some answer to the question posed here.

When you see the list, and read the case, you might get an idea why I’ve framed this posting the way I . . . [more]

We are delighted to join SLAW as your two feminist legal practitioners. We wear multiple hats with pride: we are small business owners, small practitioners, staunch feminists, young lawyers, and queer women. We stand in solidarity with sex workers, keen and questioning law students, community activists, brave women who survive trauma and are stronger for it, harm reductionists, transfolk, people of colour, contrarians, and people who speak frankly about the deficiencies in the composition and conventions of our legal system. We like all of these people’s voices to be heard, more so than what is traditionally allowed in the practice . . . [more]

Back in April practicePRO released a map that showed where emails to our fraud reporting database (fraudinfo@lawpro.ca) were originating from. The aim was to show how widespread the problem of email scams was. Despite being an Ontario-based insurer, almost half of our emails had come from elsewhere in Canada, the US and overseas.

We recently updated the map, and it shows that the pace of email fraud attempts hasn’t slowed. In five months we’ve had nearly 1,000 more emails, posted 57 new warnings on AvoidaClaim.com and heard from lawyers in 29 additional countries.

Strangely, South Dakota continues to be the . . . [more]

Oscar Wilde apparently advised, “Never put off till tomorrow what you can possibly do the day after.”

Procrastination is the evil that some say would be encouraged if Rule 48.14 of the Ontario Rules of Procedure were changed to lengthen the two year period after which court machinery will come belching and hissing to life, swiping actions not listed for trial off the conveyor belt into the waiting pail beneath marked “Status Hearings”.

Is this a sensible use of judicial and administrative resources? All those plaintiffs’ lawyers swearing affidavits about how they changed their address and never got the Status . . . [more]

This past Wednesday the Opening of the Courts ceremony occurred in Toronto, marking the start of the judicial season.

I covered the ceremony last year here on Slaw. True to their promises the protesters were present again this year.

Family Law Still a Problem

Their focus this year, as in last year, was primarily family law. Not much has changed though since last year, except that law enforcement asked the protesters to move to the sidewalk instead of using their megaphone right outside the doors.

The speeches by the judiciary also touched on family law this year. . . . [more]

Just when I had given up on major law firms doing something that makes them more efficient and innovative, international law firm Bingham McCutchen LLP relocates 250 of its staff from around the globe (if they choose to move) to Lexington, Kentucky into a former IBM building on the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream Research Campus business park.

The firm decided to move its finance, accounting, human resources, information technology, knowledge services, marketing, operations and risk management staff into one location to save costs, improve coordination and become much more efficient.

Certainly the $6.5 million in tax incentives from state and . . . [more]