The market for legal AI is teaming with options. Many of them are compelling. All of them are expensive.

What the companies offering these tools hope that you don’t notice is that free (or almost free) tools, like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are getting so good at basic legal research tasks that many lawyers looking to boost their productivity don’t need to look any further.

We highlight three ways to use these free tools to make research more effective — but we note that becoming a subscriber to one of them, for roughly $30 a month, will tend . . . [more]

Ten years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set out some recommendations for cultural competency training for lawyers, law students and public servants. The Calls to Action (numbers 27, 28 and 57) call for education/training on the history of Indigenous peoples, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations. The Commission stated that such training would require “skills based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism”.

There were no calls to action for education or training of judges. . . . [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) : Les dispositions ayant haussé l’âge du consentement de 14 à 16 ans, lesquelles sont en vigueur depuis 2008, ne font pas obstacle à l’application de l’ancien article 140 du Code criminel en l’espèce; ainsi, dans la mesure où la victime avait 14 ans en 1981 et où . . . [more]

Ontario’s Civil Rules Review Working Group has proposed the most comprehensive reform of Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure since their introduction in 1985. The Consultation Paper released in early April weighs in at 122 pages, with recommendations affecting every major element of civil litigation within the province.

The Working Group’s overarching goal is to get “all cases heard within two years.” This is certainly not unambitious, given that the status quo average is between four and five years. Quicker times to disposition, the Working Group hopes, will generate lower legal bills and better access to justice.

There seem . . . [more]

The global legal services market needs optimistic contrarians: strong people who think fast and clearly, and whose actions are decisive and fearless. Their power needs to be united, harnessed, and used for good.

The legal services sector has always had a reputation for being tough. It’s getting tougher by the minute and unlikely to let up.

While disruptive factors are many, the three most daunting are:

• Accelerating advances in generative artificial intelligence that are usurping service-oriented tasks and upending how various types of legal work get produced and priced – all of which is impacting traditional law firm pyramid structures

As we start to come out of the winter season, I thought it was important to remind everyone that at times, there are friends and colleagues who are having a harder time shedding the heaviness of the dark winter months.

Recently I watched a commercial, where a man is sitting quietly at a football game in the midst of cheering and laughter from everyone around him. Let’s call him John. The person in the next seat, let’s call him Adam, is cheering loudly and tries to encourage John to participate and enjoy the game.

The action progresses to show that . . . [more]

Renowned for its dysfunction, the leadership of the Ontario Superior Court deserves some credit for belatedly admitting the court to be in crisis. Acknowledging the need for bold, fundamental reforms it tasked the Civil Rules Working (Working Group) with identifying ways to reduce complexity, costs and delays and stated that “minor amendments (to the Rules) would be insufficient.” Despite that mandate, the Working Group in their Phase 2 Consultation Paper has proposed implementing further rules and procedures, changing a handful of existing Rules and rearranging the balance. One step forward, two steps back.

Handicapping the Working Group

Initially, the Working . . . [more]

Both Lexis+ and Westlaw Canada allow you to restrict your search to just the table of contents of a book. Restricting a search to just subject headings — rather than the full text of a book — can be an effective way of reducing the number of extraneous results.

To search the table of contents of a specific book in Lexis+, go to the title of the text you want to search and select Table of Contents (TOC) only below the search bar.

Similarly, to search the table of contents in Westlaw Canada, go to the title of the text . . . [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) : Déclaré coupable d’avoir déchargé une arme à feu dans l’intention de blesser une personne et d’avoir commis des voies de fait graves, l’appelant n’a pas démontré que le juge de première instance aurait commis une erreur de droit en inférant qu’il conduisait le véhicule à bord duquel . . . [more]

How will generative AI impact the legal profession? This was the big question in late 2022 when ChatGPT was first released. How would this seemingly magical word machine collide or coexist with a profession that is, if not “essentially word merchants” (to use phrasing in a New York Times article), certainly deeply engaged with language?

Much has changed over the last two and a half years. To give just one illustrative example: fueled by hundreds of millions in investment, there are now over 500 legal tech tools that incorporate generative AI. The interest, money and work being poured into . . . [more]