In my November 17th Slaw post “Making the Hard Decisions: Ethical Lawyering”, I discussed Dean Embry’s refusal to make certain arguments and call certain evidence and witnesses in his representation of James Sears, editor of Your Ward News (YWN), a community newspaper. Sears was convicted of spreading hate and, despite his accepting these views about what might be successful in his defence, a ground of his appeal was that Embry was incompetent because of his (Embry’s) failure to argue the truth of the content of YWN. In this post, I’m raising another issue related to the trial decision in the . . . [more]

Reaching December means that it’s time to look at the year in review and share what most interested you in the preceding twelve months through the lens of what court decisions you were all reading. 2020 feels like it’s been a year like no other, but there are things that have been constant and Canadians accessing case law via CanLII has been one of them.

That said, there are four current cases on the top ten list this year, compared to three in 2019, and none in 2018. It seems this is because of a break with prior . . . [more]

Since March 2020, a group of law librarians have been monitoring and reporting on the legal responses to COVID-19 throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The main idea behind this project is to provide the most pertinent and precise amount of information concerning a situation in a particular country or a comparative report on various countries. Unfortunately, the rapidly evolving and tragic situation in the region has given us numerous topics and angles to pursue, learn from and write about. The more the health crisis becomes multiple crises: political, social, educational, humanitarian, financial and so on, the more we must . . . [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

Use the CanLII Manual to British Columbia Civil Litigation to Find Annotated Rules of Court
Susannah Tredwell

Last Thursday, CanLII unveiled its newest endeavour: the CanLII Manual to British Columbia Civil Litigation. The resource consists of nine “pathfinders” dealing with specific areas of the law, a guide to civil procedure at the BC Supreme Court, and annotated rules of court for both the BC Supreme Court . . . [more]

It’s the type of story we like to bandy around in legal technology circles. Precocious law student interested in technology founds a start-up with some friends. They create some innovative solutions, and make it big enough to establish a company.

In 2014, three students founded ROSS Intelligence, an artificial intelligence driven product using Watson, to build tools that enhance lawyers’ abilities through natural language queries. The company was widely celebrated as the type of successes that entrepreneurial lawyers could create, and quickly attracted capital and strategic partnerships in the industry.

Unfortunately, this week ROSS Intelligence announced they are shutting down . . . [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) : Alexandre Bissonnette, condamné à l’emprisonnement à vie après avoir été reconnu coupable de 6 meurtres et de 6 tentatives de meurtre à la grande mosquée de Québec, devra purger 25 ans de sa peine d’emprisonnement à vie avant d’être admissible à une libération conditionnelle, plutôt que 40  . . . [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:

• Research Resources and Inclusivity Initiatives Librarian (Full-time) | Ithaca, New York
  (Cornell University Law Library)
• Legal Content Developer (Full-time) | Toronto, ON
  (CLEO – Community Legal Education Ontario)
• Indigenous Law and Indigenous Outreach Librarian (Full-time) | Victoria, BC
  (University of

One of the easiest ways to stay on track with an activity is to make a list. For many people, business development doesn’t come naturally making it easy to put off. By making and sticking to a list, you will begin to form a habit around business development to the point you eventually don’t even know you are doing it.

I have used contact lists with lawyers for years as a simple reminder of people that the lawyer wants or should keep in touch with throughout the year. The best part is that it works at every level of practice. . . . [more]

By Lewis Waring, Paralegal, Studen-at-Law, Editor, First Reference Inc.

In Battiston v Microsoft Canada Inc (“Microsoft”), an employee was wrongfully dismissed because his employer had failed to bring a harsh termination clause to his attention. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s decision in Microsoft resulted from a combination of the fact that the clause was relatively harsh as well as the fact that the employer had buried the clause deep within his employment contract and failed to sufficiently notify the employee of its contents.

The employer, in this case, was Microsoft Canada Inc, a subsidiary of Microsoft Corp, a global . . . [more]

One of the objections we often hear to Mediation-Arbitration (Med-Arb) is that it is “neither fish nor fowl”. It is not an effective form of mediation because the mediator is constrained by their dual role. The impartiality of the arbitrator is somehow compromised by also acting as mediator.

I think this is a misunderstanding of what med-arb is all about. It’s not just a hybrid mash-up of two forms of dispute resolution. It’s a unique form of its own, with its own benefits and challenges. And it can take many different forms, to suit many different kinds of disputes.

My . . . [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.

Bankruptcy Law Picture Book: A Brief Intro to the Law of Bankruptcy, in Pictures. By Wela Quan. Toronto: Irwin Law, 2019. 178 p. Includes illustrations. ISBN 978-1-55221-519-7 (softcover) $30.00; ISBN 978-1-55221-520-3 (eBook) $30.00.

Reviewed by Krisandra Ivings
Reference Librarian
Supreme Court of Canada
In CLLR 45:4

Wela Quan’s Bankruptcy Law Picture . . . [more]