David Steven, the head of the secretariat of the Task Force on Justice, wrapped up three days of meetings in the Peace Palace on the challenge of delivering on Sustainable Development Goal 16.3. He looked at a fulfilled and tired audience at the end of the 9^th edition of the Innovating Justice Forum, the Justice Partnership Forum, and a ministerial meeting.

The gathering produced an important political document that can now be invoked and used to guide strategy making and implementation: the Hague Declaration on Equal Access to Justice for All by 2030. . . . [more]

“Justice is open to all; like the Ritz Hotel.”

In the article “Clients Need Legal Services But Not Necessarily Lawyers“, Mark Cohen writes about the issue of access to justice. He points out that improving access to justice does not always mean improving access to lawyers. He refers to new products that provide legal services. These products include a chatbot that helps fight parking tickets, LegalZoom, Hello Divorce, and alternative legal service providers (like in house departments) that are not built on the profit per partner model.

Cohen also refers to the scholarship by Rebecca Sandefur in explaining . . . [more]

We know that too many litigants are forced to represent themselves, sometimes with some form of assistance. These are people who cannot afford a lawyer and do not qualify for legal aid. (I am concerned here with people who would prefer to have a lawyer rather than those who want to represent themselves.) They may not even become litigants, but, where they are able, give up the opportunity to seek the justice they believe they deserve. They may then, legal problems left unresolved, find themselves spiraling downward into other problems. We know all this. But what we don’t seem to . . . [more]

The Law Students Society of Ontario (the “LSSO”) recently surveyed Ontario law students to better understand the debt load experienced by them and its effect on them. The LSSO Report provides important insights into the effects of increased law school tuition costs.

The LSSO Report has been well received and rightly so. However, the point of this column is not just to laud the report but to engage with it and its observations. In order to seriously address the observations in the LSSO Report, it is necessary to consider the report and to look at the cost of becoming a . . . [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

Henry VIII Clauses
Susannah Tredwell

The general rule of thumb is that acts are amended (or repealed) by acts and regulations are amended (or repealed) by regulations. Some acts do explicitly state that they can be amended by regulation, although what can be amended is usually minor (e.g. making changes to a schedule to an act). …

Technology

Upgrade Your Device Charge Cables
Emma Durand-Wood

I . . . [more]

The 17^th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law will take place in Montreal, Quebec this year June 17-21. Aptly the venue will be the Cyberjustice Laboratory at the Université de Montréal. This is a biennial conference organized by members of the International Association for Artificial Intelligence and Law.

The Cyberjustice Lab is international in scope and pursues a multidisciplinary approach, assembling “stakeholders, legal professionals, public actors and academics to rethink the justice system and both overcome its modern challenges as well as improve access to justice.” They investigate with a view that “technology, and especially AI, . . . [more]

The notion of “intersectionality” has become a popular buzzword in pop culture and social activist groups. It describes the notion that various grounds of discrimination, such as gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability, etc., can affect and interact with each other in overlapping and complex ways.

First coined within the feminist movement in the early 80’s to help illustrate the exclusion of racialized women from many feminist initiatives, it helped illustrate how advocacy on behalf of a discriminated or marginalized group can also inadvertently create its own patterns of oppression and exclusion, not only towards other discriminated groups, but within . . . [more]

One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all appeals as well as leaves to appeal granted so you will know what the SCC will soon be dealing with (January 26 to February 22, 2019 inclusive).

Appeals

Civil Procedure/Private International Law: Foreign Judgments
Barer v. Knight Brothers LLC, 2019 SCC 13 (37594) 

The jurisdiction of the Utah Court is recognized; presenting substantive arguments in . . . [more]

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.

Price Security Holdings Inc. v. Klompas & Rothwell, 2019 BCCA 36

AREAS OF LAW: Property; Leases; Trusts; Beneficiary; Standing to sue third-party debtor

~Special circumstances must be established to justify a departure from the general rule that a beneficiary cannot directly sue a third-party debtor of the trust.~

BACKGROUND
Fort Quadra Holdings Ltd. is the registered owner of a commercial building in Victoria. The Appellant, Klompas . . . [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.

COMMUNICATIONS : La Loi sur la presse ne s’applique pas à un article publié sur un site Internet d’information en continu; le mot «journal» dans la Loi sur la presse ainsi que le renvoi aux formalités de la Loi sur les journaux et autres publications constituent un obstacle infranchissable.

Intitulé . . . [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):

• Conflict Lawyer (Part-time) | Vancouver, Calgary, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal
  (Gowling WLG)
• Policy Counsel (Full-time) | Ottawa, ON
  (Federation of Law Societies of Canada)
• Paralegal (Full-time) | Vancouver, BC
  (Ecojustice)
• Part-Time Research Lawyer (Contract Role) | Alberta