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

Well, That’s Different
Neil Guthrie

The data analytics unit at one of what we used to call the Big Four accounting firms exhorts us to Think different. Do different. Be different. Be different is fine (grammatically and as a matter of practice), but the other two? Oh, dear. … . . . [more]

Pronouns are currently a hot topic in the legal profession, following recent measures by Canadian courts to prevent the misgendering of courtroom participants. Directives in British Columbia now require lawyers and parties appearing before courts to proactively identify their titles and pronouns (see the directives of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the Court of Appeal, and the Provincial Court). Other Canadian courts have followed suit. For example, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Ontario appellate courts encourage counsel and parties to share information about their titles and pronouns when introducing themselves in court.

Some object to these . . . [more]

I had the opportunity to review “Is Law Computable?: Critical Perspectives on Law and Artificial Intelligence” for the Canadian Law Library Review (46(4), 2021). This was edited by Simon Deakin and Christopher Markou and published last year by Hart Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-5099-3706-6).

This is the short version:

If you have any interest in artificial intelligence (AI), especially if it’s coupled with a desire to learn more about how developments in AI are related to law and legal technology, then this collection of papers has been compiled just for you.

…

While AI continues to seep into many areas

Over a year after Ontario introduced CaseLines to civil courts, nearly all matters are using this digital case management system. But it doesn’t mean they’re using it properly.

An unsuccessful partial summary judgment motion before Justice Dunphy in Basaraba v. Bridal Image Inc. illustrates this problem,

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) : Un ancien adjudant des Forces armées canadiennes se voit imposer une peine de 6 mois d’emprisonnement relativement à une accusation d’agression sexuelle à l’égard d’une caporale.

Intitulé : R. c. Gagnon, 2021 QCCQ 11908
Juridiction : Cour du Québec, Chambre criminelle et pénale (C.Q.), Québec
Décision de . . . [more]

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca.

Current postings on Slaw Jobs:

• Litigation Associate (Full-time) | Vancouver, BC
  (Bernard LLP)
• Policy Counsel – Temporary Position – Conseillère ou conseiller en matière de politiques – poste temporaire (Contract role) | Ottawa, ON
  (Federation of Law Societies of Canada)
• Litigation Legal Assistant (Full-time) |

On December 2, 2021, the Ontario government’s Bill 27, Working for Workers Act, 2021 to promote healthy work-life balance, the right to disconnect and to further enable competitiveness by banning unfair non-compete agreements that are used to restrict work opportunities, among other employment law-related changes, received royal assent with some amendments.

Before Bill 27 was ordered for third reading, the Standing Committee on Social Policy applied amendments that were approved to some of the following provisions of the Bill: . . . [more]

I’m a strong supporter of stepped dispute resolution clauses in contracts. Business people want a chance to negotiate or mediate a solution to their problems before handing things over to lawyers for arbitration or litigation.

I often recommend stepped clauses to clients when we were negotiating technology contracts. And I still recommend them as a mediator and arbitrator.

But several speakers at the CanArb Week conference earlier this fall reminded us of some of the potential pitfalls of these clauses. And some recent court decisions have highlighted the risks.

One of the most serious is the risk of inadvertent (or . . . [more]

In Grand River Conservation Authority v. Ramdas, 2021 ONCA 815, the Ontario Court of Appeal discusses the obligations that the court has to self-represented litigants. Below is an excerpt of some key points:

• Self-represented litigants are required to familiarize themselves with the relevant legal principles, practices, and procedures pertaining to their case. “However, the court has a duty to ensure that self-represented litigants receive a fair hearing”. (para 18)
• Judges must permit self-represented litigants to explain how they understand where things stand in the litigation. (para 19)
• Judges can consider whether providing self-represented litigants with an option to give

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

For this last week:

1. Erik v McDonald, 2019 ABCA 217

[149] Courts should strive to fashion legal principles that promote positive community values – good relations between neighbors, increased property values[85] and attractive landscape features – and discourage negative community values – bad relations between neighbors, diminished property values and unattractive landscape features.

[150] Granting access to the entire surface of a water body clearly . . . [more]

Written by Silvia Battaglia and Shannon Meikle, law students and NSRLP Research Assistants

The NSRLP receives a great deal of mail from our community, and every week we receive emails from people sharing their experiences as self-represented litigants (SRLs). Last year, we began receiving a lot of emails from SRLs who had requested accommodations in the legal process, needing courts to recognize and adapt to their cognitive disabilities (requesting, for example, more time to respond, frequent breaks in hearings, etc.). In a nutshell: they were not being accommodated. We read their stories with concern and became aware of the need . . . [more]