Do family law lawyers have an obligation to minimize conflict? It seems obvious that given the stakes involved in family law matters, especially where there is family violence or children, that a lawyer’s role ought to include minimizing conflict; however, that idea is not as straightforward as it sounds. A family lawyer does have an obligation to advise her client on the impact of actions that inflate conflict; but a lawyer’s role properly understood, does not include an objective of minimizing conflict. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it is an important distinction.

Minimizing Conflict

The BC Family Law . . . [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. Waksdale v. Swegon North America Inc., 2020 ONCA 391 (CanLII)

[10] We do not give effect to that submission. An employment agreement must be interpreted as a whole and not on a piecemeal basis. The correct analytical approach is to determine whether the termination provisions in an employment agreement read as a whole violate the ESA. Recognizing the power imbalance . . . [more]

Much time, effort and funding has been devoted in recent years to trying to increase access to the legal system. At the same time, there has been a movement to “de-expert” or diminish the expertise of lawyers, as is true of many areas of life (everyone can be a journalist, everyone can become famous on social media, educators rely on what their students say they should teach, sometimes I think anyone can become a successful singer, at least to my tone deaf ear), even if not all (not everyone can become a baseball player in the major leagues or win . . . [more]

As we continue to develop CanLII as a content platform and start to work more on developing original content, I have been thinking about the tension between platforms which gain value from lots of content, and organizations that create content as their primary value proposition.

The observation may be trite, but to illustrate my point using more general examples, Google and Facebook are examples of platforms that gain from having additional volume while devaluing each individual piece of content. Newspapers and magazines provide value primarily through the content they create.

In legal information we have analogous organizations with similar . . . [more]

Reflections on the 19 June 2020 UN Human Rights Council resolution on systemic racism, police brutality, and unlawful suppression of peaceful protest.

“Black Lives Matter. Indigenous Lives Matter. The lives of people of colour matter.” – Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 17 June 2020

The brutal torture and murder of an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, in the United States (US) on 25 May 2020 has sparked global outrage about systemic racism and impunity for police violence against Black people, Indigenous Peoples and people of colour. Protestors have taken to the streets in thousands of places around . . . [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

Providing Library Services From Home
Susannah Tredwell

Many people have spent the last three months working from home. While most librarians had experience providing services to clients who were working remotely, it was a different situation when it came to being the ones who were working remotely. When you’re used to working in a physical library, moving to providing services entirely online presents a challenge, since . . . [more]

We citizens in DC have been subjected to too much sad news and desolation due to the coronavirus and the violent federal response to a peaceful demonstration against police brutality. These peaceful demonstrations are continuing throughout the United States.  

I was very happy that on June 15th the Supreme Court of the US decided that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from firing employees for being lesbian, homosexual, bisexual or transgender. Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia was a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

On page nine of the opinion he states that: Title . . . [more]

Despite the pandemic, the wheels of justice continue to turn. With several hearings continuing to occur remotely due to social distancing protocols, the Ontario Court of Justice announced they are scheduled to resume in-person hearings on July 6, 2020.

The incremental plan includes the use of limited courtrooms for all trials and preliminary inquiries involving accused persons who are in custody and who are out of custody. All participants in a trial or preliminary inquiry, including the accused person(s), counsel and witness(es) will attend in person, are expected to attend in-person, unless a judge has directed otherwise.

In part, this . . . [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) : La tenue d’un nouveau procès est ordonnée notamment pour les motifs suivants: l’exclusion apparente par le juge des infractions d’avoir conduit avec les facultés affaiblies et de celles prévues au Code de la sécurité routière des infractions pouvant donner lieu à une conclusion de profilage racial; son . . . [more]

As mentioned in an earlier post, I am part of a small working group that has been developing a standard order for the appointment of mental health professionals to prepare parenting assessments, also known as custody and access reports and bilateral assessments, under section 211 of British Columbia’s Family Law Act. We have finished reviewing and incorporating the feedback we received on our last draft and are now ready to share what amounts to Version One of our model parenting assessment order.

Despite the importance of parenting assessments in the resolution of family law disputes, there is no . . . [more]

The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright) is a copyright collective meaning that it manages certain rights on behalf of copyright holders. Importantly Access Copyright does not itself hold any of the copyrights that it manages.

York University (York) is Canada’s third-largest university with over 50,000 students and approximately 1,500 full-time faculty members. York had a license to use some of the works licensed by Access Copyright from 1994 to 2010. Access Copyright applied to the Copyright Board for an interim tariff during a period when renewal negotiations were languishing. York initially complied with the interim tariff but then advised . . . [more]