Over the past few weeks, @Erin Durant42 has done yeoperson’s service in responding to the anticipated closing of the Pro Bono Legal Help Centres to the extent that the Centres will now be funded for another year.

This is good news, but it also highlights one of the serious problems we have in trying to provide access to justice to those who cannot afford a private lawyer. The past years have seen the springing up of a variety of responses to the lack of access to justice (in the sense of access to legal services), many of them reliant on . . . [more]

Millions of Canadians live with serious debt, persistent housing problems and face ongoing issues with unemployment. These problems have profound effects on their quality of life. They signal lives of adversity that are impacted by the economic and social constraints that these problems impose.

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice’s (CFCJ’s) 2014 national survey of Everyday Legal Problems and the Cost of Justice[1] asked over 3,000 adults in Canada about their experiences with these markers of adversity. Separate from experiences of civil justice problems within the three-year reference period of the survey, participants were asked:

• Looking back over the

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

Checklist for Background Research
Susannah Tredwell

If you are carrying out due diligence on an individual or company, the BC Securities Commission has produced a very useful online resource on the subject called Conducting Background Research. …

Practice

Find a Great Job (Or a Great Candidate) With Slaw Jobs

In case you missed the big news, there’s a new addition to the Slaw family! Slaw Jobs, . . . [more]

Depending on who you are, what you celebrate, and your personal tolerance for holiday cheer, December 1st is a big day for many folks.

It can be seen as the officially acceptable date to begin various activities: listening to Christmas music, putting up your lights and decorations, or adding a little Bailey’s to your morning coffee.

It is also Inauguration Day in Mexico (every six years), Bette Midler’s birthday, World AIDS Day, and the day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Here in our little . . . [more]

Activist, scholarly, and administrative strands of my life have come together lately around Everett Klippert, the last Canadian jailed for consensual gay sex. Shortly after the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Klippert’s sentence, the Parliament of Canada – it was the era of Trudeau père – partially decriminalized sodomy, in 1969. Events around Klippert have reminded me of the importance of building community and speaking up about fundamental values.

Fellow LGBTQ alumni and I had been planning a fundraising campaign to endow an entrance scholarship in the McGill Faculty of Law for students having shown commitment to working with . . . [more]

On Nov. 21, 2018, Finance Minister Bill Morneau provided the 2018 fiscal update, which includes nearly $600 million in tax credits and incentives over the next 5 years for the media, as well as a temporary tax credit for subscribers to digital news media sites. Non-profit media organizations will be eligible for charitable status and may receive funding from other registered charities.

The role of the media within our legal system is emphasized in our constitution. Though commonly referred to as simply “freedom of speech,” the Charter‘s expressive guarantee under s. 2(b) is slightly more refined as,

freedom

One Sunday each month OnPoint Legal Research provides Slaw with an extended summary of, and counsel’s commentary on, an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

Johnson v Goyette, 2018 ABCA 353

AREAS OF LAW: Family law; Unjust enrichment; Joint family venture

~A trial judge’s finding on whether a joint family venture exists is a factual one, reviewable only for palpable and overriding error.~

BACKGROUND
The Appellant, Sandra Johnson, and the Respondent, Danielle Goyette, were in a 13-year common-law relationship. The Respondent was a professional hockey player and competed in three Olympic Games. The . . . [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.

Tout comme dans Chiasson c. Fillion (C.S., 2005-04-11), SOQUIJ AZ-50307092, J.E. 2005-757, [2005] R.J.Q. 1066, [2005] R.R.A. 459, la demanderesse a été victime d’un harcèlement systématique, caractérisé par une longue campagne de dénigrement basée sur des moqueries sur son apparence, la seule distinction étant que les injures, les menaces et . . . [more]

Planning – any planning – is better than doing none at all. For this reason, I encourage lawyers to engage in whatever level of complexity of planning they can muster. If that means spending a lunch hour talking about business goals with your partners, or writing down a few goals on a napkin, so be it. But for those who truly understand the value of focussed planning, I encourage you to go a step further to begin to truly manage your resources and take control of your business operations. You can do this by evolving, over time, the type of . . . [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 Law and Practice of Workplace Investigations. By Gillian Shearer. Toronto: Emond, 2016. xvii, 169 p. ISBN: 9781772551082 (softcover) $99.00.

Reviewed by Heather Wylie
Law Librarian
Alberta Law Libraries
In CLLR 43:1

The Law and Practice of Workplace Investigations is a welcome addition to the Emond Professional Employment Law Series, . . . [more]

An important resource for those who study the impact of data breaches is updated for 2018. The 2018 Cost of Data Breach Study: A Global Overview was released by Ponemon Institute, LLC.

The Ponemon Study covers numerous countries and includes a continuing focus on Canada. Some Canadian statistics show the financial impact of data breaches.

Globally, Canada has the highest direct costs from a breach at $81 USD per record including such items as engaging forensic experts, specialist law firm assistance, purchase of identity protection services and the like. Also Canada had the second highest indirect costs at $116 USD . . . [more]