Earlier this year, I was invited by the Canadian Bar Review to write a review of a book by Professor Adam Dodek of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law titled: Heenan Blaikie: The Making and Unmaking of a Great Canadian Law Firm. I found the book an excellent read and I highly recommend it. My review is included in the current issue of the CBR, now available online. I’m grateful to the Canadian Bar Review for both the opportunity to write this article and for their permission to reproduce the excerpt below.

This is a gripping account of a . . . [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) : Dans une affaire de voies de fait graves où l’accusé, à l’aide de sa canne de métal, avait asséné un coup sur la tête de la victime afin de défendre son cousin, la conclusion de la juge de première instance, à savoir que la force utilisée était . . . [more]

Court data is an important source of information that can increase our understanding of justice system issues. Research is currently under way at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice using Ontario court data examining two issues: the impact of unrepresented accused on the efficiency of the courts and the disadvantages that may be experienced by unrepresented accused in terms of outcomes. The research is being carried out using an appearance-based data set from the Ontario Cout of Justice. The data set includes 17,622,670 appearances nested within 2,002,306 disposed cases from 2011 to 2022.

Court data . . . [more]

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.

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

1. Lin v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2025 FC 1043

[3] In brief, the Applicant first argues that the Minister’s Delegate failed to observe principles of natural justice and procedural fairness by (1) proceeding with the admissibility interview process with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada [IRCC] on March 19, 2024, and (2)°concluding this . . . [more]

“A lawyer must encourage public respect for and try to improve the administration of justice.”[1]

This is a rule from the Model Code of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. The commentaries to the rule identify a more specific component duty to defend judges and other tribunal members from “unjust criticism”, because there is no way for them to appropriately defend themselves.[2] But the rule would also apply to unjust criticism of lawyers, especially those who, like judges, cannot defend themselves, particularly Crown attorneys.

This rule may appear to be aspirational. Indeed, Harry Arthurs has characterized this . . . [more]

The ease of finding a federal order in council depends greatly on when it was published.

The easiest way to get a federal OIC is through the Orders in Council online database which is a searchable database of orders in council from 1990 on. If the full text of an order listed in the database is not available, you can email the OIC Division to ask for a copy.

Orders in Council made between 1867 and 1924 can be found on the Orders in Council Research Tool through Library and Archives Canada.

Orders made between 1924 and 1990 are more . . . [more]

Legal citation isn’t what most would consider a good ‘ol time. I’m sympathetic to student complaints! But, alas, it is important and must be taught. Part of teaching is preventing bad habits. While grading assignments I’ve noticed a common practice of copying and pasting a URL in lieu of a citation, or tacking a URL on the end of a semi-complete or complete citation. Hyperlinks seem helpful and modern—just one click to get to the source! In legal writing, however, a citation should allow the reader to quickly identify, locate, and verify the source across platforms and over time. A . . . [more]

The landscape of access to justice research and work in Canada continues to grow and evolve. However, in such a large and diverse country it is sometimes easy to become siloed in one’s own work, institutional setting, and geographical location. Understandably, we are all focused on the particularities and situational challenges inherent in the necessarily specific work of addressing a plethora of access to justice symptoms across different governments, court and tribunal systems, regions, and populations. But we must not lose the bigger picture, and there is therefore a great benefit to being able to connect, exchange ideas, share research, . . . [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) : Dans une affaire de conduite avec les facultés affaiblies causant la mort, la conclusion du juge de première instance selon laquelle la preuve circonstancielle excluait toute autre conclusion raisonnable quant au lien de causalité n’est pas déraisonnable; quant à la mens rea de la conduite dangereuse, le . . . [more]