I was speaking with someone the other day about whether and to what extent there were any ethical implications of lawyers’ use of artificial intelligence.

Those implications could theoretically range from minimum application (in what situations is it effectively malpractice not to use AI) to maximum application (where does a lawyer’s use of AI cross the line by substituting algorithmic outcomes for human judgment). It was all very interesting, and I plan to touch on some of these topics when I join a panel on March 2 in Toronto at the Canadian Bar Association-Federation of Law Societies of Canada Ethics . . . [more]

Service of court documents on a party evading service has always been challenging. Canadian Lawyer Magazine reported a recent case in Ontario where a judge granted effective service by Instagram,

When Toronto lawyer Tara Vasdani could not track down a defendant she was looking to serve, she turned to Instagram…

She first attempted to serve the defendant on Sept. 1, 2017, using a physical address, and her process servers were told the defendant had moved away. She then tried using email, with a read receipt, but her messages were either ignored or never read.

The order Vasdani obtained appears to . . . [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.

CONSTITUTIONNEL (DROIT) : L’application de l’article 10 de la Loi favorisant le respect de la neutralité religieuse de l’État et visant notamment à encadrer les demandes d’accommodements pour un motif religieux dans certains organismes, qui prévoit que les services gouvernementaux au Québec doivent être offerts et reçus à visage . . . [more]

Professor Eric Goldman of UC Santa Clara writes about new technology that allows adept editors to put someone’s face on a video of someone else. That can produce comic results, but it can also be a kind of revenge porn, or just nasty porn, if one puts a well-known face on a body doing pornographic things.

Prof. Goldman says it is hard to conceive of a legal remedy guaranteed to be effective for the person whose face is used. He discusses copyright and defamation and finds them limited.

He does not pay much attention to privacy, since U.S. privacy laws . . . [more]

It seems to me that Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench is increasing its reliance on endorsements. These do not appear to be published on CanLII or any other case law database. For instance, in JAP v MJP, 2018 MBQB 1, an endorsement issued by Rivoalen A.C.J. is referenced in para. 4, and in DW v Peguis CFS, 2016 MBQB 32, an unreported endorsement by Dueck J. is referred to in para. 34. Perhaps, at least in summary judgment matters, this is a response to the comments of the Manitoba Court of Appeal in Hyczkewycz v Hupe, 2016 . . . [more]

The forced resignation of Patrick Brown as leader of the Ontario Conservatives raises concerns of fairness and due process – for him and for the women accusing him. Christie Blatchford has castigated the party and other public officials for abandoning the “presumption of innocence”, and has highlighted the wrong of ruining a man’s reputation based on anonymous allegations. Others agree. Conversely, the Prime Minister reportedly said that women who made allegations of misconduct “must be believed” and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has said “I believe victims when they come forward”.

Both those responses strike me as fundamentally deficient. Deficient . . . [more]

Third party litigation funding is growing in Canada and starting to appear in commercial arbitration as well. This raises some interesting questions about an arbitration tribunal’s authority to allow (or refuse to allow) third party funding and, if it is permitted, the degree to which the tribunal should control the funder’s involvement in the arbitration.

To date, in Canada, most court decisions regarding third party funding have involved class actions. This is partly because the cost of large class actions has grown beyond the capacity of plaintiffs’ counsel to self-fund them and partly because the courts have an inherent jurisdiction . . . [more]

Back in 2014, I wrote about cycling being the new golf as a means of business development. It was something I had been thinking about for a number of years and still believe there is merit. With cycling, you may spend a day or two riding with like-minded people during an event and potentially a number of other days on training rides. That is a lot of face time (lycra time?). With a round of golf, you may spend half a day together once a year. Cycling provides plenty of time to get to know someone and their business.

The . . . [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. Persampieri v. Hobbs, 2018 ONSC 368

[159] Counsel for the Defendants submitted that since the net award was less than $25,000, and as the Plaintiff’s action was commenced and continued under the ordinary procedure, the Plaintiff should in effect be penalized in costs for failing to bring her action in the Small Claims Court or under the Simplified Procedure.

…

[162] . . . [more]

“When, not if.” This mantra among cybersecurity experts recognizes the ever-increasing incidence of data breaches. In an address at a major information se­curity conference in 2012, then-director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Mueller put it this way: “I am convinced that there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be. And even they are converging into one category: companies that have been hacked and will be hacked again.”

Mueller’s observation is true for at­torneys and law firms as well as small businesses through Fortune 500 companies. There have . . . [more]

Only “fair and reasonable” fees and disbursements can be charged by lawyers to their clients. This rule is uncontroversial, and applies across the country. Nevertheless, the following billing practices are used by some Canadian firms, and not clearly forbidden by regulation:[1]

• a retainer contract lists current hourly rates but also provides that the firm can increase those rates as much as it wants, at any point in the future without the client’s further consent
• a retainer can also allow a firm to both charge for each hour docketed, and charge the client whatever bonus the firm decides is appropriate