“Simple ideas are easier to understand. Ideas that are easier to understand are repeated.
Ideas that are repeated change the world.”
– Simon Sinek, Author & Speaker

There are a lot of things I love about working at a small law firm. Access to lawyers and senior leaders is more frequent, building relationships with everyone across the firm is actually achievable, and getting real-time insights into the practice of law happens daily. But for me, the main feature has been the ability to implement simple ideas, that demonstrate my experience and expertise, quickly and effectively.

If you are a sole . . . [more]

Have you had a chance to read CanLII President & CEO Sarah Sutherland’s new book, Legal Data and Information in Practice?

Over at the ICLR Blog, Paul Magrath recently posted a review the book and notes:

“[t]his short, clear book is a very good introduction for lawyers and information professionals. … All things considered, this is an area where both the pace and scope of development and the increasing awareness of social and ethical concerns justify paying attention to the subject, and for that this book is an excellent primer.”

If you jump over the pond, you’ll find . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on practice, research, writing and technology.

Research & Writing

Licensure
Neil Guthrie

This is becoming more common in regulatory law in Canada, but it’s unnecessary. It’s fairly old – OED gives citations going back to the mid nineteenth century. The word is listed there as an Americanism. … . . . [more]

Last month, a Texas lawyer’s “stunning” failure to comply with professional conduct rules and discovery obligations made international headlines.

The errors occurred in the context of a high-profile defamation case. Ultimately, a jury ordered Alex Jones—a far-right radio host and conspiracy theorist with millions of listeners—to pay nearly $50 million to the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. Jones had repeatedly (falsely) asserted that the mass shooting was a hoax in which the children’s families were complicit, in service of a government plot to take away Americans’ firearms.

Mark Bankston, . . . [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) : Les erreurs de principe commises par le juge de première instance et l’importance démesurée donnée aux objectifs de dénonciation et de dissuasion l’ont mené à imposer une peine manifestement non indiquée; par conséquent, un sursis de peine est substitué à la peine d’emprisonnement de 6 mois imposée . . . [more]

Written by Daniel Standing, LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

A recent decision of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, 2022 CanLII 5411 (ON LRB), could make waves in the construction industry for its redefining the concept of a specialty scaffolding contractor. Departing from the oversimplified notion that a speciality scaffolding contractor does nothing but scaffolding, the Board adopted a contextualized approach by examining the contractor’s devotion of time and resources to scaffolding to determine the matter. . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Wilson on Children and the Courtroom. By John P. Schuman, Farrah Hudani & Jeffery Wilson. Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2020. xxiii, 164 p. Includes table of contents, table of cases, and index. ISBN 9780433509905 (softcover) $140.00.

Reviewed by Lori O’Connor
Public Prosecutions
Melfort, SK
In CLLR 47:2

Wilson on Children and . . . [more]

In the genre of self-help books which I readily consume and then promptly fail to follow, sometimes one or two pearls of wisdom enter my consciousness and reemerge in this column. One of these is Gretchen Rubin’s suggestion in her book The Happiness Project that we ought to cultivate the activities which brought us joy when we were children. When I was younger I loved getting ready for the first day of school. I loved the freedom of the summer, but as the end of August approached I liked getting my pencils in order and my binders and notebooks packed . . . [more]

There are humans, I am told, whose lives don’t revolve around to do lists, completion of tasks, and productivity systems like Getting Things Done or Atomic Habits. Humans who don’t wake up clutching a bullet journal or begin tapping on Todoist before they leave bed. Humans who more or less go with the flow, who live in the moment, and who don’t spend their life energy building and tweaking a set of byzantine systems to make sure they’re doing the right things at the right time.

These humans are called normal people. It is not a category that includes . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about. La version française suit.

For this last week, the three most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. Action4Canada v British Columbia (Attorney General), 2022 BCSC 1507 (CanLII)

[71] Put simply, individuals have standing to question whether state actions infringe their Charter protected rights. Hence, in this case, there is a prospect that the plaintiffs could put forward a valid claim that certain of the COVID-based health restrictions instituted by . . . [more]