What does it mean to be a lawyer?

Is it to possess an encyclopedic knowledge the law? To use this knowledge to make money? Is being a lawyer simply just another way to make money (as some who correctly identify the lack of business skills among lawyers as one of the major challenges for innovation or reform point out)?

What differentiates the law from other businesses are the professional responsibilities imposed on a lawyer, through the Model Code of Professional Conduct and its implemented versions across Canada. Some of these responsibilities, such as the duty to the court and 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.

VENTE : La somme à laquelle les acheteurs de pièces de navire ont droit en raison d’un bris prématuré causé par un vice caché est limitée à 78 900 $; en outre, c’est le régime de la responsabilité délictuelle de la common law qui s’applique au contrat visant la fourniture . . . [more]

On 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 and leaves to appeal granted, so you know what the S.C.C. will soon be dealing with (August 24 –October 13, 2017 inclusive).

Appeals

Aboriginal Law: Document Retention/Destruction
Canada (Attorney General) v. Fontaine, 2017 SCC 47 (37037)

The Indian Residential Schools Settlement records can be destroyed. Interpreting the Agreement is a question of mixed fact . . . [more]

Written wholly by Doug Macleod Employment and labour lawyer at MacLeod Law on First Reference Talks

Despite a number of legislative initiatives that are intended to reduce and ultimately eliminate sexual harassment in society, sexual harassment continues to be a problem in Ontario’s workplaces.

One of the more nuanced areas of sexual harassment law is what kind of language a male can direct towards a woman in the workplace. Sometimes there is a fine line between complimenting a female co-worker and sexually harassing her.

An occasional non-sexualized compliment is usually not a problem but a comment of a sexual nature . . . [more]

How can you save time and money marketing your law firm? Drop a few clients.

Yes, drop. Some lawyers are better than others at saying no to taking on certain clients. Some groups can more easily spell out the criteria for their ideal client than others. And some firms are better than others about enforcing client intake policies. But very few lawyers, practice groups, or firms have committed to regularly culling their client lists for The Clients Who Aren’t Worth the Trouble.

But how do you know who those clients are? That’s where client classification comes in. Classifying your clients . . . [more]

Anyone interested in cars and the data they will increasingly collect should read the article in the November Automobile magazine titled The Big Data Boom – How the race to monetize the connected car will drive change in the auto industry.

It talks about how much data might be generated (4,000 GB per day), how that sheer volume will be handled, and how it might be monetized. And the challenges of cybersecurity and privacy.

Auto makers are well aware of the privacy issues. Challenges will include how to deal with privacy laws that vary dramatically around the world. Will . . . [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. R. v. Lloyd, 2016 SCC 13

[1] Parliament has the power to proscribe conduct as criminal and determine the punishment for it, and judges have the duty to apply the laws Parliament adopts on punishment to offenders. But individuals are also entitled to receive, and judges have a duty to impose, sentences that are constitutional having regard to the circumstances of . . . [more]

In the past few years, sexual harassment allegations against several high-profile media executives have generated significant discussion, including on social media. Last week’s New York Times story titled “Decades of Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein” is no exception. My Twitter feed was alight with comments and commentary moments after the story was published. A couple of tweets in particular grabbed my attention:

https://twitter.com/annfriedman/status/916007341312454657

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/916006424596975617

One of the reasons that these tweets struck me is because they reminded me of something that I heard a very established senior litigator say at a lawyer social event years back when I was . . . [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 research, writing, and practice.

Research

Check the Source Law (Not the Consolidation)
Susannah Tredwell

If you’re having difficulty finding the amendments made to an act by another act, make sure you’re consulting the original act rather than the consolidation. Consolidations generally omit amendments to other acts. …

Writing

Just How Frequently Is That?
Neil Guthrie

Bi– H.W. Fowler refers in Modern English Usage to the ‘misshapen brood’ of bi– words that are . . . [more]

Great post by John Sheridan over on VoxPopuli blog: “Deeply Intertwingled Laws.”

He starts off with this comment:

“There is no other form of written texts quite like legislation, nor a form so suited to the web. In retrospect, readers of legislation had been waiting a long time for a hypertext system, such as the web, to be invented.”

Sheridan is currently the Digital Director for the National Archives of the United Kingdom and led the team that brought us legislation.gov.uk the “official home” for UK legislation from 1237 the present.

Anyone who has done any legislative history . . . [more]

As the old song goes, we all need somebody to lean on. However, we can’t always have somebody to stand with – or against – us. In administrative law matters, there are two aspects of standing. One is the ability of a decision making body to participate in or commence judicial review proceedings. The other, which is the focus of this article, is the ability of individuals or corporation to appear before a tribunal or in judicial review proceedings.

One of the fundamental tenets of natural justice and procedural fairness is the right to a hearing, whatever form that might . . . [more]