The recent announcement that another major Canadian bank is withdrawing from the national banking ombudsman service in favour of a private dispute resolution service for customer banking complaints raises interesting questions about independence and impartiality.

In September, the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) confirmed that Bank of Nova Scotia will no longer use the service for banking complaints as of November 1. Instead, it will join Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank in using ADR Chambers Banking Ombuds Office (ADRBO) to resolve complaints, the Globe and Mail reported.

Scotiabank will still use OBSI for investment disputes, . . . [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

The Case of the Disappearing Comma
Neil Guthrie

LinkedIn helpfully provides readymade comments on the updates that your connections post there. If your colleague Luisa has a new job, you can just click on a button below her update to post an immediate Congrats Luisa. …

Technology

Force PDFs to Download Instead of Load in Browser
Emma Durand-Wood

Are there fillable PDF forms on your website? . . . [more]

After a year off from teaching legal ethics, I need to prepare before my course starts in January. Getting up to speed with the shifting “law of lawyering” is obviously part of the job. Students need to know the rules that they will have to follow when they practice law; that’s a big part of the reason why the course is mandatory. Obeying the law of lawyering usually accords with self-interest. It keeps one out of trouble with the law society, and it’s a good career move.

However professionals are ideally more than just rationally self-interested rule-followers. Lawyers (like other . . . [more]

On Wednesday, Ontario’s new government announced a change in policy for cannabis use, indicating that they will allow it to be used anywhere where tobacco is smoked when it is legalized on Oct. 17, 2018, and not restricted to residential homes as previously planned. This move would align the province’s policy with the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) set up as the proposed regulator to issue private store licences.

One of the ancillary effects of this is that residents in the province will invariably be consuming cannabis outside of the home, and . . . [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) : a requête en exclusion de la preuve de l’accusée est accueillie notamment parce que les tests exécutés par les agents évaluateurs en reconnaissance de drogues (AERD) sont prévus au Code criminel depuis 2008 et que, 8 ans plus tard, le déploiement des AERD mis en place par . . . [more]

Over the last number of years I have been sharing my thoughts on marketing, communication and business development for lawyers and law firms on SLAW. During that time everything from Pippa Middleton and Justin Bieber, to client experience, intranets, personal branding, proposals, client meetings and social media has been written about. I have made a point to share my thoughts on how we can be better as client managers and at using the resources we have available to us.

Our industry continues to evolve as do the expectations of our clients. Our clients want more and to simple stay competitive, . . . [more]

The Administrative Labour Tribunal in Quebec recently held that an employer cannot terminate a worker with a criminal conviction for acts of sexual abuse as it constitutes discrimination based on criminal records. Moreover, the nature of the criminal offence does not automatically justify the dismissal of an employee. . . . [more]

I’ve heard many times, and I’m sure you have too, that lawyers are ”risk-averse.” That description alone isn’t very helpful — after all, most people are risk-averse, which is why much of the population lives safe and sedate lives while a very small number of people create billion-dollar companies or break their legs while cliff-diving.

What I think we mean is that lawyers are unusually risk-averse. And when we say this about ourselves, we usually say it in tone of self-mocking resignation or gentle exasperation: “Well, what are you gonna do? Lawyers are risk-averse, after all. We won’t try anything . . . [more]

Periodically on Thursdays, we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Law, Politics, and the Judicial Process in Canada, 4th Edition

Editors: F.L. Morton & Dave Snow
ISBN: 978-1-55238-990-4 (Paperback)
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Page Count: 693
Publication Date: August 2018
Regular Price: $49.99 CAD / $49.99 USD

Excerpt: Introduction to Chapter 11: The Harper Conservatives and the Canadian Judiciary, by F.L. . . . [more]

The ABA’s technology journal has an article advocating legislation to give consumers (or everybody) a right to repair their devices. What this does is prohibit manufacturers from making their devices impossible or dauntingly difficult for the owner to repair, and often for professional mechanics to do as well.

The article gives several examples of the difficulties deliberately created by manufacturers to this end. Its focus is electronic devices, but many other types of goods have also raised the question.

Sometimes repairs can be done by service centres related to the manufacturer, but even then the repairs can be very expensive, . . . [more]

You may have read about the Supreme Court of Canada deciding Rogers can be paid its costs for telling a copyright owner the identity of movie downloading customers. What isn’t talked about is the notice and notice system that puts this in motion.

A summary of the Rogers v Voltage decision is here. Omar has written about this on Slaw as well.

This is a complex and controversial issue. The essence is that sections 41.25 and 41.26 of the Copyright Act allow the owner of a copyright (eg a movie studio) to create a notice to send to people . . . [more]