As director of the Program of Legal Studies for Native People (PLSNP) I have several roles. One is advising prospective Aboriginal law students about how they might best prepare for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). This often leads to a discussion about why they have to take it at all since it is not created for Aboriginal Canadians or demonstrated to be a valid measure of skills for Aboriginal Canadians. (I can’t argue with that – when I asked for statistics about how LSAT score correlates with success in law school for Aboriginal Canadians, I was told that would . . . [more]

In a very curious custom, today seems to be the day when leases renew in Montréal, so it’s Moving Day, when a few hundred thousand Québecois decide to switch residence on the same day. Movers are sitting on their hands much of the rest of the year, but are booked solid for July 1 months in advance. Even at rates that are triple normal.

Why? . . . [more]

Happy Canada Day! Since it is a holiday day, my family is working on chores around the homestead. Today’s chore for the parents is continuing with backfilling for our current building project. This is the kind of chore that gives a person time to think.

I have been operating a jumping jack while my husband uses our tractor to put dirt in the trench around out new insullated concrete form foundation walls.

I think learning to use this tool and carrying out the task of packing dirt is an excellent analogy for the legal research process.

First, for any task . . . [more]

In May, the Ontario Court of Appeal reversed the lower court decision in Piresferreira v. Ayotte. The reversal limits an employee's ability to hold an employer liable for negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress in the workplace. The Court stated that employees may not make the charge of negligent infliction of mental suffering against an employer or supervisor for conduct in the course of employment.

Today is Canada Day, so it’s unlikely that there’ll be any other posts today — or, indeed, readers to read them, if there were. Of course, being Canada, we’ve managed to celebrate our nation on a single day that, unless it falls on a Friday or a Monday, doesn’t stretch to a long weekend the way that some other national holidays manage to. I’d like to think it has something to do with a concern about productivity, but . . .

Speaking of productivity, what would an entry on Slaw be if it didn’t produce even some small tidbit of . . . [more]

The oldest law reports in North America were originally written by Josiah Quincy Junior (1744-1775), recording the cases of continental America’s oldest court, the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. That is the direct ancestor of today’s Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, which has been in continuous existence since 1692.

My friend Daniel R. Coquillette, former Dean of Boston College Law School has edited a new edition of the law reports published this month.

Quincy’s court reports offer a rare legal insight into life in the American colonies prior to the American Revolution, and cover such

. . . [more]

As per the subject line, today marks the end of an era. After 18 years at the Bora Laskin Law Library at the University of Toronto and then 12 years at the Sir James Dunn Law Library at the Schulich (nee Dalhousie) School of Law at Dalhousie University Ann Morrison is retiring. Ann is a veritable legend in the field of law librarianship, with a list of achievements that I could not do justice to with a Blog post. While I am sad to see her leave us, Ann’s retirement is well-earned and Ann has truly had a lasting impact . . . [more]

We constantly see commentary on frivolous lawsuits, and cases that poke holes in limitation clauses in contracts of various types. Perhaps everyone should have some sort of basic understanding of who is responsible for what. So I propose (in jest of course) that everyone be subject to the following agreement.

By being born, you agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, even you you have not, or can not, read them. 

You are responsible for your own actions. Stuff happens in life, and you should look to yourself before you blame others. 

Stuff will happen that may . . . [more]

Are any members of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries doing any recent bibliometric analysis of case law citation and noting up? I know of several such efforts in the past (see the Research Databank of their Committee to Promote Research).

There is also of course the study done by Greg Wurzer, Aleksandra Zivanovic and Rhonda O’Neill (“Canadian Electronic Citators: An Evaluation of their Accuracy and Efficiency” (2004) 29 Can. L. Libraries Rev. 68) and various citator comparisons done by American colleagues a few years back in the Law Library Journal.

However, I think the time has come . . . [more]

Westlaw Canada has added some search features:

1) Did you mean? If you misspell your keywords in a search (e.g., “fiducary”), the system will prompt you to see if you meant the correctly spelled word (e.g., “fiduciary”). Interestingly enough, the misspelled “fiducary” still had 5 results which raises the issue if one should always truncate the term to “fid!” (this recalls a library school exercise I used to assign in the old days prior to there being online citators for UK cases – the exercise had students “note up” the famous Jarvis v. Swan Tours decision. I had one student . . . [more]

This is a short note with some links related to cyberbullying, starting with one to the June 27th New York Times feature article, Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray. Reporter Jan Hoffman details how American school administrators are dealing with the pressure to intervene in cyberbullying cases despite challenging questions about the scope of their power to deal with “off campus” student conduct.

The pressure for intervention is understandable because the prospect of taking on a cyberbully through the courts can be daunting. Whether this cost should be mitigated by protective orders is the issue in a Nova . . . [more]

On June 2^nd, 2010, the Canadian federal government introduced a new copyright bill intended to “modernize Canadian Copyright law,” as Tony Clement, Minister of Industry put it in the press release. I want to join the healthy welter of blogging around this latest attempt to “modernize” our act. Now before you read any further, let me say that the one to read in these matters is Michael Geist, especially as he is all over the most draconian aspect of this new bill, namely how the digital lock provisions trump all other rights.

For my part, I want . . . [more]