Spring is upon us. Law school exams are over but students are still in law libraries, studying for the bar exam. These students are looking forward to becoming articled students and then lawyers. Others have received acceptance letters and are looking forward to starting law school in the fall. It is the circle of law.

I recently met a future law student, full of enthusiasm and excitement at the prospect of soon beginning law school. He was kind enough to write to me after the brief meeting and seek my advice on what to read to prepare for law school; . . . [more]

Thanks to everyone who re-tweeted and gave other shout-outs to my last Slaw post on vendor demos and webinars. Considering the feedback, I thought I’d continue on with a vendor theme in a few more posts.

In this post, I’ll relate a few vendor horror stories and explain why vendors should never ever ever repeat them. Of course, a caveat: I gathered these from a variety of sources/firms, who shall remain nameless.

But – I’d like to repeat that vendors are absolutely integral to our legal technology ecosystems, and note that most of my interactions, and those of my colleagues, . . . [more]

When the legislature codifies principles of common law, it can be perceived as a pruning of the living tree, helping to direct the law in growing in a specific direction, and sometimes preventing it from growing in other directions entirely.

The area of occupier’s liability is a perfect example of this. The Supreme Court of Canada conducted an exercise of statutory interpretation over the Occupier’s Liability Act, which was created in 1980, in the 1991 case of Waldick v. Malcolm. At the time, provincial legislatures across Canada were attempting to consolidate this area of law in their respective jurisdictions. . . . [more]

One Sunday each month OnPoint Legal Research provides Slaw with an extended summary of, and counsel’s commentary on, an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

Garrioch v Sonex Construction Ltd., 2017 ABCA 105

AREAS OF LAW:   Torts; Motor vehicle accident; Vicarious liability; Consent of owner

~ Under s. 187 of the Traffic Safety Act, a vehicle owner’s vicarious liability extends only to the person to whom the owner gives consent to possess the vehicle. The owner is not vicariously liable for the actions of any third party to whom that person might then . . . [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.

PROFESSIONS : La bâtonnière du Barreau du Québec échoue en appel du jugement de la Cour supérieure ayant rejeté son recours en nullité d’une décision du Comité d’accès à la profession qui avait déclaré l’intimé admissible à l’inscription au tableau de l’Ordre

Intitulé : Synnott c. Émond, 2017 QCCA 676 . . . [more]

University of Alberta Copyright Librarian Amanda Wakaruk is asking people to sign the petition she started to get the Canadian government to fix Crown copyright.

Her text has been shared widely in the past few days on social media and on various librarian discussion lists:

“Canada is one of many countries stating a commitment to Open Government. It is also, conversely, one of a decreasing number of countries to retain a legal provision that gives the government the sole right to reproduce and distribute works produced for public consumption. For example, the vast majority of federal US government works

I’m going to take a crack at a list of things that your law practice probably tracks and measures:

• The number of hours each lawyer works
• The number of hours each lawyer bills
• The amount of money the firm receives for the work it bills
• The percentage of that money that should be allocated to the originating partner
• The amount of money the firm spends to provide its services
• The amount of overall profit the firm generates in a given period of time
• The amount of that profit distributed to each equity partner
• How that amount compares to profits distributed

After a recent review of Alberta’s employment law, the Alberta government tabled Bill 17, Fair and Family-friendly Workplaces Act on May 24, 2017 to make a number of significant amendments to the Employment Standards Code and Labour Relations Code. If enacted, the majority of changes will take effect January 1, 2018.

Both the Employment Standards Code and Labour Relations Code have not been significantly updated in almost 30 years and according to the Alberta government, the nature of work and family life have changed a lot since then. . . . [more]

[Download the accompanying spreadsheet here]

Quantifying the value of legal information is difficult: the most valuable commodity in a law firm is the knowledge in the minds of the people who work there, and in the written information firms produce and acquire that elucidates their work. In the event of a bankruptcy, it’s possible that the only assets left to settle debts is the art on the walls, because the value can’t be recovered from the people’s heads when they leave — I always look at the art in law firms. The value of this information is more . . . [more]

This article was updated June 1, 2017

On May 30, 2017, the Ontario government decided to move forward with some of the 173 recommendations from the Changing Workplace Review final report which includes broad ranging amendments to Ontario’s Employment Standards Act.

At the same time, the government also announced that they will be increasing the minimum wage effective January 1, 2018, which was not included in the report. . . . [more]