Asking questions about professional reliance in BC

BC’s new NDP government recently announced a wide-ranging review of “professional reliance.” Environment and Climate Change Minister, George Heyman, was accompanied at the announcement by Green MLA Sonia Furstenau, who has been on the forefront of pressing for this review after her own experience (prior to her election) in opposing contaminated soil disposal in her own community.

West Coast Environmental Law welcomes this review, which has the potential to improve legal protection for human health and the environment by addressing a major approach to deregulation that has been implemented in BC over the . . . [more]

“Images of the future are shaped by experiences of the past.” – Michael Lewis in the Undoing Project

The Globe and Mail recently reported about the court’s obstacles with handling an aging population. The article is titled: “Case of Calgary man with dementia highlights challenges courts face as population ages”

The defendant Fred Van Zuiden recently turned 87 years old. He grew up in Nazi-occuped Holland. As a young Jewish boy he hid in strangers’ homes and a chicken coop. In October 2016, he was charged with second-degree murder of his wife. He called 911 after his wife’s . . . [more]

The seismic industry is of considerable significance to Canada’s oil and gas business. In Geophysical Service Incorporated v Encana Corporation, 2016 ABQB 230 the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench had an opportunity to assess both claims to copyright in seismic data and the power of certain regulatory boards to release copies of such data to the public.

The Court of Queen’s Bench found seismic data was protectable under Copyright law but also found that the conduct of the applicable boards under the legislative schemes authorized their conduct and legitimized their dealing with the copyright works. The decision pertaining to . . . [more]

The Canadian Press conducted a survey recently of journalists, nearly 47% of whom voted the closure and controversies of Sears Canada as the 2017 Business News Story of the Year.

The public interest in the story was fuelled in no small part by its iconic status, but also the $270-million pension deficit that is unlikely to be fully serviced in light of other outstanding debts. As Michael Powell, incoming president of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners points out, it really shouldn’t be so significant,

Sears should not be the Canadian Press 2017 Business News Story of the Year

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) : Adèle Sorella, que le jury avait déclarée coupable de meurtre au premier degré de ses filles de huit et neuf ans, voit ces verdicts annulés; la Cour d’appel ordonne la tenue d’un nouveau procès.

Intitulé : Sorella c. R., 2017 QCCA 1908
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), . . . [more]

This column gets published on December 22, when just about the last thing anyone will be doing is reading a column about marketing a law practice. That’s the Friday when everyone who hasn’t already taken off for the holidays is trying frantically to get out of the office by noon for the final frenetic round of shopping. Still, I have to assume that you’ll be back in the cold light of January and looking for something to kick-start the engines for another year. So here are ten New Year’s resolutions to rejuvenate your marketing plan for 2018.

1. Set a . . . [more]

This is CanLII Connects’ 4th year end, and it’s gratifying to see the ongoing growth on the site. CanLII Connects contributors have written about 39,000 cases, that cover 150 years of Canadian caselaw from the first decision issued by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1867 to last week.

Here are the top commentaries and summaries from the last year:

‘Trinity Western: Did the Chief Justice of Canada make an illegal (or questionable) order?’ – Trinity Western University, et al. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, 2017 CanLII 8575 (SCC), by Patrick F. Baud and Maxime . . . [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.

GUTHRIE’S GUIDE TO BETTER LEGAL WRITING

Author: Neil Guthrie

ISBN: 978-1-55221-472-5
Publisher: Irwin Law
Page Count: 200 pp
Publication Date: December 2017

Regular Price: $55

© 2017 Irwin Law. All rights reserved.

Excerpt: Preface.

______________

This book began out of frustration.

Frustration at the turgid, pedantic, Latin-filled, jargon-ridden, misspelt, ungrammatical, and . . . [more]

[articles cited without authors are mine]

Lawyers remain the passive victims of the benchers[1] that we ourselves elected to be the law societies’ managers, instead of demanding that they get busy solving the problem of unaffordable legal services (“the problem”). The benchers are to regulate the legal profession so as to, “maintain and advance the cause of justice and the rule of law,” and, “facilitate access to justice,” and, “to protect the public interest,” being, for example, among the express duties of LSUC (the Law Society of Upper Canada),[2] being duties expressly set out in legislation such as . . . [more]

[This post is being published simultaneously on our blog]

At the end of a year that saw the news take a more central role in our lives and when so much is uncertain, some things remain constant and one of them is the list of cases that is most accessed on CanLII. All of the top three cases were in the top three last year, and only one of the top 10 cases was issued in 2017. Eight of the cases were on the list last year. Six of the cases are the same as were on . . . [more]

The rules of civil procedure in Manitoba are about to undergo significant changes. Amendments to the Court of Queen’s Bench Rules, effective January 1, 2018, will introduce an overarching requirement that the Court considers proportionality in making orders and directions under those Rules.

A new Practice Direction outlines the breadth of the changes about to come into force in respect of case management of civil proceedings, scheduling of trials, use of judicially assisted dispute resolution and summary judgment proceedings.

The Practice Direction describes the objectives underlying all the changes as follows:

Animating the comprehensive amendments to the Court of

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. R. v. Jones, 2017 SCC 60

[1] The appellant, Mr. Jones, was convicted of several firearms and drug trafficking offences. His convictions rest on records of text messages seized from a Telus account associated with his co-accused pursuant to a production order obtained under s. 487.012 (now s. 487.014) of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46 (the “Production Order”). . . . [more]