Every lawyer probably got that phone call. Someone owes me a thousand dollars. Can you help me? Someone cut a branch on my tree without my permission. Can we sue them? Or the toughest question of all when random strangers call you for advice: do I have a case? No, you don’t. Well, wait: you’re frustrated because no responsible lawyer can answer this question on the spot, and you’re frustrated because you know that even if they have a case, they probably should not hire you because of your fees. It’s a simple cost/benefit analysis.

Let’s focus on the second . . . [more]

Legal marketing has begun to run amok in many major cities in Canada.

I raised attention to this nearly 2 years ago in National Magazine, and since then the mainstream media has picked up on it as well. In particular, the Toronto Star has run a series of articles, focusing primarily on the personal injury bar. There were apparently 604 complaints about licensee advertising in Ontario between 2011-2015, over half of which were initiated by the Law Society of Upper Canada itself.

In response to this, Convocation last Friday introduced a number of changes. The first was to implement . . . [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.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Le tribunal refuse d’appliquer la peine minimale obligatoire de un an d’emprisonnement prescrite par l’article 7 (2) b) (iii) de la Loi réglementant certaines drogues et autres substances à l’accusé, qui s’est reconnu coupable de production de marijuana dans une affaire où il a agi à titre . . . [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.

Vancouver Community College v. Vancouver Career College (Burnaby) Inc., 2017 BCCA 41

AREAS OF LAW:  Intellectual property; Internet Law; Trade-marks Act; Passing off; Goodwill

~It is lawful to use a competitor’s name as a keyword in Internet advertising, provided the resulting advertisement does not use a confusingly similar trademark, including in the domain name displayed in the advertisement. The test requires measuring the likelihood of confusion when . . . [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 (Jan. 28 – Feb. 23, 2017 inclusive).

Appeals

Criminal Law: Drug Impaired
R. v. Bingley, 2017 SCC 12 (36610)

The drug recognition expert can, in this case, testify about their determination under s. 254(3.1) of the Criminal Code . . . [more]

What does ethical criticism of a judge or judgment require? Or, to put it slightly differently, on what basis might we say that a criticism of a judge or judgment is improper?

Recent comments by Donald Trump make this question seem straightforward. The President’s tweets were clearly inappropriate. It is not acceptable for the President to refer to a Federal Court trial judge as a “so-called judge”, to describe the judge’s decision as terrible (Feb 4), to call a Federal Appeals Court judgment a “disgraceful decision” (February 10) and, most chillingly, to say “Just cannot believe a judge would put . . . [more]

The U.S. 2016 presidential election and post-election is causing much debate, criticism, and protest outside of America. Canadians have actively participated in public marches and protests in response to Trump’s comments and proposed policies, as well as the recent U.S. ban on entry to that country from certain Muslim nations. According to a recent CNN/ORC poll, more than eight-in-10 Americans have said that the U.S. was more deeply divided on major issues in 2016 than in the past several years.

With this in mind, we need to ask where does political talk fit in the workplace? Or more importantly, . . . [more]

In his February 3rd, 2017, Slaw article entitled “Build, Baby Build”, Colin Lachance describes his experience of having individuals share with and seek his advice on building some “app/service/tool that could very well make a valuable contribution to public or professional engagement with legal information or the legal system.” Having come from a law and technology background, I have had the same experience. Often times the questions from aspiring legal tech entrepreneurs center on struggling to understand how or where to begin. I have found that this leads some to overthink things and to not get going. I . . . [more]

Each Thursday 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.

Fake News Now Legal in Canada! (Not so fast…)

© 2017 by Michael G. Crawford. Reprinted with permission

Michael G. Crawford, LL.B. is a recognized expert in media law, with more than 25 years’ experience as a broadcast and print journalist. He is the author of The Journalist’s Legal Guide, now . . . [more]

In my first post on Slaw last summer, I highlighted 5 questions that face digital copyright law. There are of course many unanswered questions in this remarkably dynamic area of the law. Below I discuss 5 more issues that are elaborated upon in my Digital Copyright Law book:

1. What is a copy in the digital age?

The copy concept in copyright law was simple before the internet. An author received compensation for copies purchased by consumers. Digital technologies, which are copy dependent for the production and transmission of content has created new kinds of copies. These are “technical copies” . . . [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. Adam v. Canada (Environment), 2011 FC 962

[35] Considering all of the foregoing, and keeping in mind that “[i]nterpretations of treaties and statutory provisions which have an impact upon treaty or aboriginal rights must be approached in a manner which maintains the integrity of the Crown” (Badger, above), the Minister clearly erred in reaching his decision by failing to take into . . . [more]

Civil justice resources should be deployed so that there is a gravity-assisted, downhill run to the courtroom where disputes will promptly be judicially determined, if mediation fails. Unless the parties decide otherwise, failed mediation and the judicial determination step should be linked.

There can be no doubt that promotion of the settlement of civil disputes through mediation, is a wise policy. But it must not effectively be the final step in the civil justice process.

If parties are at the point of emotional and financial exhaustion by the time they reach mediation, it will not be practical for them to . . . [more]