The Legal Aid crisis in B.C. is yet another indication that the justice system is simply not working for most Canadians. Access to justice has become a major problem across Canada and it requires a holistic solution, including both more money to Legal Aid services as well as the promotion of new types of service models for people to choose to represent themselves.

On March 29, the B.C. government and the Legal Services Society announced a one time grant of $7.9 million to temporarily increase payments to Legal Aid lawyers. This was in response to a threatened strike by Legal . . . [more]

This week, Convocation at the Law Society of Ontario voted to approve the Integrated Practice Curriculum (IRC) for Ryerson’s new law school. This will make Ryerson the second school in Ontario, following Lakehead University in 2014, to adopt this model.

Approval of the proposed curriculum, which is available online, is based on the 2014 list found in the Integrated Law Practice Program for Law Schools document, which reviews exposure to specific skills and tasks, and demonstration and assessments. What this approval means is that graduates of the new law school, which are expected in 2023, will not have to complete . . . [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’appel est accueilli, car le juge de première instance a commis une erreur de principe en refusant la suggestion commune des parties; sous le couvert de l’intérêt public, il a plutôt imposé une peine qu’il trouvait plus appropriée dans les circonstances, ce qui ne respecte pas les . . . [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 (newest first):

• Content Editor–Western Employment & Labour Law Subject Matter Expert (Contract Role) | Concord, ON
  (First Reference Inc.)
• Chief of Legal Operations (Full-time) | Victoria, BC
  (British Columbia Ministry of Attorney General – Legal Services Branch)
• Chief of Legal

How can we find ways to connect lawyers and paralegals to those who do not have access to legal services? How can we reduce linguistic, geographical, socio-economic and other barriers that make it harder for people in need of legal services to get them? What innovations might help address these challenges?

One area for innovation to facilitate access to justice is regulatory innovation. To make lawyer and paralegal services more accessible to the province’s most vulnerable, the Law Society of Ontario recently implemented a new regulatory framework that enables lawyers and paralegals employed by civil society organizations (CSOs), such as . . . [more]

The New Brunswick Labour and Employment Board had to decide whether or not the employee received the written notification that he had been dismissed for cause, as required under the Employment Standards Act, and whether the employee is entitled to the statutory notice.

What happened?

The employee worked for the employer as a meat cutter for more than five years.

One day, the employer called the employee back into the office to fire him. The employer handed the employee a copy of the termination letter that contained written reasons for the employee’s dismissal. However, the employee stormed out without . . . [more]

This is the second column of a series on the Ten Laws of (Legal) Project Management. I’ll recap the ten laws at the end of this column, but for this month, let’s focus on the first two, which revolve around the misunderstood idea of effectiveness vs. efficiency.

1. First Effectiveness, Then Efficiency

Efficiency is doing things right, but effectiveness is doing the right things.

Efficiency is easy… for a consultant. For every process, there is often a more efficient way to do it – something that will save a little time, offer a slightly better result, create just a . . . [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.

The Misery of International Law: Confrontations with Injustice in the Global Economy. By John Linarelli, Margot E. Salomon & Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. iv, 304 p. Includes bibliography and index. ISBN: 978-0198753957 (hardcover) $125.00.

Reviewed by Humayun Rashid
Head of Cataloguing & Reference Librarian
Bora Laskin 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. Davies v. The Corporation of the Municipality of Clarington, 2019 ONSC 2292

[1] If there was ever any case that demonstrates how expensive it is to litigate in the 21st Century, this case is the gold standard. Few in this country could afford to litigate a case where the costs sought by Mr. Zuber total close to $7,000,000, and the costs . . . [more]

There appears to be a sentiment pervasive in the legal blogosphere that lawyers are “behind”:

• “The pace of change in legal services is not slowing down while lawyers’ day-to-day practice of law continues to lag far behind” (Remaking Law Firms)
• “Law Is Lagging Digital Transformation” (sic.) (Forbes)
• “’Change’ Is a Mantra for Law Firms, But Will They Tune In?” (com)
• “When It Comes to Innovation, Lawyers Are Being Left Behind” (com)

Given that “behind” is a relative term, you would think that every other industry has totally reinvented itself. Yet that is . . . [more]

One of the themes the Canadian Judicial Council has identified as part of its review of its Ethical Principles for Judges is judges’ use of social media. This is an etirely new area since the release of the current Principles 20 years ago and it has rapidly become a complex and sometimes dangerous area to navigate. Tempting though it might be to tell judges that they cannot use social media, this would be fruitless. Better to incorporate training for judges about its use, clear limits about subject areas and guidelines about the risks into judges’ initial education sessions, which should . . . [more]

28,872. That is how many clients Pro Bono Ontario (“PBO”) served across the province in 2018 through services like its Free Legal Advice Hotline, 3 Law Help Centres, 6 medical-legal partnerships, 2 children’s programs and projects serving low-income start-ups and non-profits. In the past decade, demand for PBO’s services has increased by 272%. Yet the same year that PBO helped a record number of people, the charity narrowly avoided closing its court-based centres because the resources afforded PBO to meet these growing needs have barely budged. This is simply not good enough. It is not good enough because the private . . . [more]