As we (fingers crossed) emerge from the COVID pandemic over the coming months, one of the things we will ponder is how much we want go back to in-person mediation, arbitration and other proceedings.

There will always be many advantage to meeting face-to-face. The personal connection does help facilitate discussion and settlement of disputes. It is also an advantage for adjudicators to see and hear counsel and witnesses in the flesh.

But online tools have improved a lot in the past 18 months. So has our comfort level using those tools, many of which have been around much longer. How . . . [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

Finding Black’s Law Dictionary Online
Susannah Tredwell

One resource that users may not be aware is available in Westlaw Canada’s LawSource module is Black’s Law Dictionary, possibly because it is the only “international” piece of content included in the module. … . . . [more]

Persuasion and law go hand in hand with the use of language that is often very complex. Writing has long been a go-to option lawyers use to build their personal brands. Some of their writing is meant to be consumed by other lawyers while other content is written for client and business development purposes. Writing for a file, however, is very different than writing for business development. Below are nine tips for improving business development writing. Understanding these tips—and the differences in writing styles—will make writing for business development much easier.

1. Have a purpose: Create content that is useful and

Examinations for discovery are a regular feature of civil proceedings. Litigators are deeply accustomed to the facilities, court reporters, and transcripts necessary to provide this important procedural step.

One significant feature of these in-person proceedings that everyone misses is the bountiful food offerings that these facilities offer. An hor d’oeuvre or sip from a coffee is often one of the best ways to avoid interrupting, and let something that is non-essential slide.

All of these trimmings are gone in the virtual context, with discoveries continuing throughout the pandemic through virtual conferencing. That doesn’t mean that everyone is comfortable with the . . . [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) : L’argent liquide volé constitue un «bien» au sens de l’article 462.37 (3) C.Cr.; il est donc inexact de soutenir que seule l’impossibilité de confisquer un bien tangible permettrait de recourir à l’amende de remplacement d’une ordonnance de confiscation des produits de la criminalité.

Intitulé : Badaro c. . . . [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:

• Senior Specialist, Marketing Projects (Full-time) | Calgary, AB or Vancouver, BC
  (Bennett Jones)

I never thought I’d be writing a Slaw column about why a Canadian court shouldn’t try to identify lawyers and litigants who could be “thought of as being” Muslim with the goal of trying to prevent those identified from appearing before a particular judge. Yet here we are.

Background

Recently it was reported that the Tax Court adopted a two-part screening initiative in relation to one of its judges, Justice David Spiro:

1. All files assigned to Justice Spiro were to be reviewed to try to ensure that he would not adjudicate a matter that had any parties, agents or lawyers

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

Employers are legislatively prohibited from discriminating against their employees based on their sexual orientation any other listed or similar ground of discrimination. When a university discovered that an academic advisor’s profile on a gay male dating app ran afoul of its conflict of interest policy, it fired him. The employee claimed the dismissal was discriminatory and based on his sexual orientation. He submitted a complaint to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal whose decision was later reviewed by the British Columbia Supreme Court. Was Conklin v University of British Columbia, . . . [more]

We can speak authoritatively about cybersecurity awareness for law firm employees because we give this training so often. Here are some of our tips to ensure you maximize the effectiveness of your training.

1. Take cybersecurity awareness training seriously and do it right.

A significant recent statistic is that human beings are involved in the success of 82% of cyber attacks. They tend to have crummy passwords, they reuse and share passwords, they click on links or attachments without thinking, they get emails which seem improbable and yet respond to them, and the list goes on and on.

We used . . . [more]

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. Krug v Dakine Home Builders Inc., 2021 SKQB 241

[39] I raise this not to confuse the issue of liquated damages (which are absent in the contract) or whether Dakine should be paid for work already done; but rather to illustrate that since old times, the courts have seemed to view “time is of the essence” clauses in a rather restrictive . . . [more]

INTRODUCTION

With mandatory vaccination policies (some of which are not exactly mandatory because they provide alternatives), those opposed to vaccines have been claiming religious exemptions. When people are dismissive of these claims, others immediately respond, “But what about Amselem?”, the Supreme Court of Canada decision that seems to allow a highly subjective determination of legitimate religious belief. But what does Amselem actually say and how does it relate to anti-vaccination claims based on section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. . . . [more]