By David Lundgren, University of Toronto student Researcher in partnership with the NSRLP

In Canada, self-represented litigants (SRLs) are generally disadvantaged from the onset of their case and throughout the legal process. Litigants are often driven to self-representation by financial constraints or a lack of available resources. Cultural and linguistic barriers, mistrust of the justice system, and negative socioeconomic factors also influence their decision to self-represent. These considerations manifest negatively in SRL experiences and persist throughout cases. In court, self-represented litigants tend to fare worse; they are misperceived as vexatious and misinformed, or simply made to feel they do not . . . [more]

Preamble

This post is the fifth of a series considering three major issues under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: the impact of how the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has defined rights; the relationship between rights; and the relationship between guarantees of rights and freedoms and section 1 of the Charter. It is the Conclusion to the previous discussions. . . . [more]

Keep your eye on a fascinating project underway in England & Wales, where the Legal Services Board (overseer of all legal regulators there) has launched a “programme of work” devoted to ethics, professionalism, and the rule of law. These are subjects overdue for a critical reconsideration, given how much the world has changed in the last 15-20 years, and other countries certainly will benefit from the LSB’s work here.

It’s worth taking note, however, of the tone of the LSB’s early forays into this topic. A blog post from the Board’s regulatory policy manager, which makes several excellent . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Malgré la gravité des infractions de leurre et de possession de matériel de pornographie juvénile commises par l’accusé, les objectifs de dénonciation et de dissuasion peuvent se concrétiser par des condamnations avec sursis; l’emprisonnement pourrait avoir un effet dévastateur sur l’accusé, qui souffre d’un trouble du spectre . . . [more]

By Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

Sometimes, when a period of employment comes to an end, the answers to why or how it ended become especially relevant. For example, under employment standards legislation, an employee may seek a payment on termination to which they are disentitled because of the facts leading to the breakdown in the employment relationship. This occurred recently in 2023 BCEST 17 (CanLII), where the British Columbia Employment Standards Tribunal refused the appeal of a worker who sought “length of service” compensation after finding that he quit his job. You can’t have your cake . . . [more]

Periodically on Thursdays, we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

INDIGENOUS JUSTICE: True Cases by Judges, Lawyers & Law Enforcement Officers

Publisher: Durvile & UpRoute Books, 2023
Editors: Lorene Shyba and Raymond Yakeleya
Foreword: Chief Justice Shannon Smallwood, NWT
Release Date: June 1, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-990735-26-4 (pbk) | 978-1-990735-28-8 (audio) | 978-1-990735-27-1 (epub)
Page Count: 288 Pages
Regular Price: 35.00 $

Excerpt: . . . [more]

As I finished teaching my class, Foreign, Comparative and International Legal (FCIL) Research, this past semester, a couple of students asked me about ChatGPT and artificial intelligence (AI). Given the ubiquitous presence of these topics in everyone’s minds, I should have expected these questions. This is clearly what everyone is talking about and my students are no strangers to these conversations. As someone who works on legal research with sources in multiple languages and from a wide range of countries, I identify myself as agnostic when it comes to technology. In the end, I decided to share with my students . . . [more]

At the beginning of each month, we tell you which three English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII in the previous month and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about. La version française suit.

For this past month, the three most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. Bellwoods Brewery Inc. v 1896841 Ontario Limited, 2023 ONSC 2845 (CanLII)

[4] On May 21, 2015, 1896841 Ontario Limited (the “Landlord”) and Bellwoods signed a 20-year lease agreement. Pursuant to the lease, Bellwoods would rent the glass box and part of the brick building. . . . [more]

At a recent legal awards gala, one of the categories that caught my attention was the boutique law firm of the year. As we know, a boutique firm focuses on a specific area of practice, such as intellectual property, tax, or environmental law. Unlike firms that offer a wide range of legal services, boutique law firms provide a more narrow and specialized area of expertise.

The part that caught my attention was the scale of the firms up for the award. Firms ranged in size from under three lawyers to firms with over 100 lawyers. The focus of the award . . . [more]

This post is a detour from my series on section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Superior Court of Justice and Court of Appeal Working Families decisions (see here and here (SCJ) and here (ONCA)). (See those posts here, here, here and here). In this post I provide some thoughts about a way to think about “the special rapporteur affair”. . . . [more]

My wife was assaulted by a stranger in downtown Toronto, in January of 2020. She was walking through the underground passage from the Eaton Centre into the Queen TTC station. A man suddenly ran up and kicked her in the leg. She was rattled, and her leg was bruised, but she got over it within a few weeks.

She was lucky. A few weeks later the same man attacked another woman, in the same mall. This time he approached his victim from the back and hit her on the head. This lady suffered a serious concussion, and couldn’t work for . . . [more]