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.

Practice

Three Letters = One Powerful Question
Allison Wolf

Who? Who could help me with this? One of the biggest mistakes a lawyer can make is not asking for help. Help can mean many things. It can mean getting advice on a file. Many lawyers the mistake of going it alone, only to realize too late that turning to another lawyer for guidance would be the best course of . . . [more]

For generations, Canadian lawyers have been regulated themselves. Law Societies, with elected lawyer benchers and, more recently, with appointed lay benchers, have governed the legal profession. We refer to this as professional self-regulation.

It is increasingly recognized that legal needs are not fully satisfied by lawyers. Some legal needs are satisfied by others. Some legal needs are not satisfied at all. It is now understood that access to justice is an important and difficult policy challenge. In Ontario, section 4.2(2) of the Law Society Act now expressly states that the Law Society has “a duty to act so as to . . . [more]

There are some who believe that the 80:20 rule applies to almost everything. Also known as the Pareto principle or the principle of factor sparsity, it suggests that approximately 20% of activity produces 80% of results. Conversely, in approximate terms we have 80% of population owning only 20% of wealth and other such examples in every sphere of activity, and so it goes on. I am inclined to agree.

As I look at law publishing businesses, particularly the smaller ones which are still engaged in print and book publishing, I’m sure that around 20% of their activity . . . [more]

Class proceedings were introduced, in part, to promote access to justice, and continue to play an important role in addressing social wrongs. The Supreme Court of Canada described this in Western Canadian Shopping Centres Inc. v. Dutton as follows,

28 …by allowing fixed litigation costs to be divided over a large number of plaintiffs, class actions improve access to justice by making economical the prosecution of claims that would otherwise be too costly to prosecute individually. Without class actions, the doors of justice remain closed to some plaintiffs, however strong their legal claims. Sharing costs ensures that injuries

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.

PERSONNES : Les demandeurs sont autorisés, pour une durée de 60 jours, à soigner contre son gré une jeune femme de 20 ans qui souffre d’anorexie extrême ainsi que d’un trouble de la personnalité limite, qui refuse catégoriquement de s’alimenter et qui est à risque de décès; le plan de . . . [more]

This is the first of a two part series exploring how teams can operate effectively in organizations and environments characterized by complexity and constant change.

Each of us works in multiple teams. Think law firm partnership meetings, law firm committees and practice groups, professional organizational teams, project teams, pro bono teams, multi-disciplinary teams working on a large client file, etc. In the “old days”, teams were stable and relatively homogeneous. They set goals, used Gantt charts, planned the work and worked the plan.

Today, the environment in which we work is complex and constantly changing, team members come and go . . . [more]

In a recent decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal clarified that the limitation period for a wrongful dismissal claim does not start at the end of employment, but rather as soon as working notice is provided. . . . [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.

Indigenous People and the Criminal Justice System: A Practitioner’s Handbook

Author: Jonathan Rudin
Foreword: The Honorable Justice Harry S LaForme, Ontario Court of Appeal
General Editors: Brian H. Greenspan and Justice Vincenzo Rondinelli

ISBN: 978-1-77255-304-8
Publisher: Emond Publishing
Page Count: 305
Publication Date: August, 2018

Regular Price: $115
Series Subscription Price: $100 . . . [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. Toure v. Canada (Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness), 2018 ONCA 681

[26] The question regarding any issue in immigration habeas corpus matters, other than in the case of lengthy detentions of uncertain duration, will be, whether there is a complete, comprehensive and expert alternative remedy that is as broad and advantageous as a habeas corpus application: Chhina v Canada (Public Safety . . . [more]

The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) has launched a call for comments on potential governance reforms. Reform is long overdue. The governance of the LSO is archaic and in no way approximates the structure of a modern, effective board. To its credit, the LSO appears to recognize the problem and is attempting to move towards modernizing its governance.

There are currently 90 members of “Convocation” – the archaic name for what is supposed to be a Board of Directors at the LSO. These 90 consist of 45 elected licensees (40 lawyers and five paralegals), 8 lay benchers appointed by the . . . [more]

Yesterday, the Ontario Cannabis Store (the “OCS“), which will initially be the province’s sole retailer (and later will morph into a wholesaler), announced that it has entered into supply agreements with 26 federally licensed producers after having completed its first competitive product call.

Patrick Ford, President and Chief Operating Officer of the OCS, noted that the agreements allow the province to “safely and securely provide a broad variety of cannabis products to adult consumers when online sales begin” on October 17, 2018.

Although the details of particular products and sizes have not yet been released, the OCS stated . . . [more]