I’m thrilled to share with all Slaw readers this great opportunity from our dedicated law students at the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law. I work closely with these students either in the Journal or in the courses I teach and I can confidently see that they are hardworking, intellectually engaged and eager to make an impact. The topics of the 2027 Symposium taking place in Tucson will include International Trade Law, Digitization of International Commercial Law, and Indigenous Peoples and International Economic Law. These areas of study have been an integral part of the Journal since its inception . . . [more]

Most of the common reasons for declining mediation are well known. These include concerns that it may be premature, that additional information is required, or that the opposing party is unreasonable. Other justifications include the belief that the law is clear, the case is strong, and mediation would only increase costs. Some of these concerns are legitimate. Not every dispute is suitable for mediation, and even appropriate cases may not be ready for mediation at a particular stage.

Ontario has now had mandatory mediation in parts of the province for more than twenty-five years. The program began in Toronto and . . . [more]

Ask ten partners in the same firm to describe their approach to client service and you will likely hear ten different answers.

One partner will insist on quarterly check-ins. Another prefers to let the client reach out when they need something. One responds to every email within the hour, while another believes that as long as the work is delivered on time, the client will be happy. Some actively introduce colleagues from other practice areas. Others rarely do.

None of these approaches are necessarily wrong. But when they all exist within the same firm, they create a challenge. The result . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. PierreRoy & Associés 2. IFLS at Osgoode 3. Michael Geist 4. Canadian Combat Sports Law Blog 5. David Whelan

PierreRoy & Associés
Dépenses d’été : comment profiter de la saison sans compromettre sa santé financière

L’été multiplie les occasions de dépenser. Et contrairement à la période des . . . [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.

PROCÉDURE CIVILE : La Cour supérieure peut rendre une ordonnance de sauvegarde concernant 2 des 3 enfants des parties; elle ne peut le faire à l’égard du cadet, qui est né après le 29 juin 2025, puisque seul le Tribunal unifié de la famille possède cette compétence.

Intitulé : Droit . . . [more]

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Leaves to Appeal Granted

Professions: Mandatory New Lawyer Oath
His Majesty the King in Right of Alberta v. Wirring, 2025 ABCA 413 (42224)

Constitutionality of new lawyer oath.

  . . . [more]

Copyright has several rules which apply automatically. If an employee creates a work in the scope of employment, and absent an agreement to the contrary, the employer is the first owner of the copyright in the work.^[1] The Ontario Court of Appeal had occasion to focus on what is meant by the words ‘in the scope of employment’ in Nexus Solutions Inc. v. Krougly, 2026 ONCA 199.

At trial, the Court held that the employer, Nexus Solutions, did not establish that the software in question was created by Krougly ‘in the scope’ of employment, even though Krougly secretly . . . [more]

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

How to Account for Trauma and Emotions in Law Teaching. Edited by Mallika Kaur & Lindsay M. Harris. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2024. ix, 214 p. Includes index. ISBN 9781035307043 (hardcover) US$130.00.

Reviewed by Alexia Loumankis
Reference and Research Librarian
Bora Laskin Law Library, University of Toronto

In How to . . . [more]

Each month, we tell you which five English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII in the previous month and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about using summaries sourced from the case text, CanLII-published AI-generated summaries of the case, or anonymized excerpts from the case text.

For this past month, the five most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. Ramsden v. Peterborough (City), 1993 CanLII 60 (SCC)

Summary from case:

This appeal concerned the constitutional validity of a municipal by‑law prohibiting all postering on public property. The issue was whether the . . . [more]

I have a vivid memory of being told I was callous for suggesting that an individual who was drafting a Statement of Claim to recover lost funds should instead report their losses to the authorities – they would likely never see their money again. To be fair (to me), they probably never did. That individual’s son convinced them to invest their savings, roughly $14,000, with his friend, a young 20-something crypto-investment “genius” who offered to use his know-how to make them rich, for free (no fees), while offering a 100% guarantee of returns. Sounds exciting! Except, that this situation resulted . . . [more]

This paper is part of a larger, multi-year project looking at representation, efficiency and outcomes in Ontario’s provincial court[1]. As outlined in an earlier Slaw piece on this project (“Using Representation Pathways to Explore Court Data”, October 2025), several parts of this research are ongoing. The paper highlights the “representation pathways” idea, which is being explored as a methodological tool and as a way of better understanding the experience of accused persons in the provincial criminal court system.

The research is being carried out using an appearance-based database from the Ontario Court of Justice (OCJ). The data . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Canadian occupational health & safety law 2. Employment & Human Rights Law in Canada 3. Legal Post Blog 4. Know How 5. ABlawg.ca

Canadian occupational health & safety law
Do you know what you don’t know? Workplace hazard disclosure and the limits of owner liability under the . . . [more]