Resilience is the ability to adapt or ‘bounce back’ from negative experiences such as criticism, rejection or significant sources of stress arising from family issues, health problems and, as lawyers, all of the stressful elements that we face everyday in the workplace.

While each of us is born with a certain degree of resiliency, environmental factors can also influence our ability to move past difficult life experiences and recover more quickly. As a result, some people are highly resilient while others are not, if at all. Unfortunately, studies have shown that lawyers overall have low levels of resilience which likely . . . [more]

No, not the Face Time app on your iPhone, “face time” as in one-on-one meetings with direct reports and others in your firm.

As organizations pursue efficiency by automating processes, collecting loads of data and creating “lean” teams, more of us are deliberately disengaging from our work.

And we often blame management when things don’t improve. Bad management, to be exact. A 2014 Gallup poll showed that companies fail to hire proper management 82% of the time. Ouch.

What exactly makes a “good” manager? Harvard Business Review recently published a summary of research done in studies of knowledge-based . . . [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.

Practice

3 Reasons to Embrace Uncertainty in 2017
Jackie Porter

It seems there is never a shortage of bad news going around. 2016 has certainly had its share. Brexit, the unexpected presidency of Donald Trump, corporate restructures, not to mention turbulent financial markets. Most people approach the New Year with excitement and hope. However, what happens after the first bit of bad news hits your world? Whether its job loss, . . . [more]

In 2016, there was a small flurry of concern about the delays in appointments of judges by the federal government. In early December, the Ontario Auditor General highlighted delays in the appointments of Order in Council appointees (adjudicative, regulatory and advisory positions) of up to 16 months. This did not receive much, if any, media attention. The impacts on the administration of justice and on access to justice as a result of delays in appointing of adjudicators can be significant.

There are 3,647 appointees in Ontario (as of July 2016). Of these, there are 47 adjudicative and regulatory entities that . . . [more]

Still relatively new in Canada, title insurance is not fully understood by many consumers. Even certain less-sophisticated lenders lack detailed knowledge of the product. The responsibility for explaining title insurance to those who purchase it – and for supporting insureds in obtaining coverage that suits their needs – falls squarely on lawyers’ shoulders.

Lawyers are also responsible for communicating accurately with the proposed insurer about the details of a real estate transaction, the property to be purchased, and the expectations and needs of the purchaser and lender.

At the Law Society of Upper Canada’s recent Real Estate Summit, LAWPRO’s Vice . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from seventy 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. Administrative Law Matters  2. The Court 3. FamilyLLB  4. Legal Feeds  5. McElroy Law Blog

Administrative Law Matters
Law’s Abnegation by Adrian Vermeule

I have not mentioned as many books and articles as I would have liked to over the course of the year. Let me try to make . . . [more]

The much anticipated appeal in Awan v. Levant was released today by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Superior Court of Justice decision, now largely upheld on appeal, was important because it deals with defamation against a lawyer, but also provided salient points for understanding the nuance of online defamation in the modern era.

Central to the plaintiff’s claim of defamation was that he was referred to as a liar by the defendant. Justice Feldman, for the court, referred to paras 26-27 of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson,

[26] … Brown’s

Data are recorded about much that we do these days. We all leave a digital trail. The resulting data are a rich source of insight, but in their raw form, they don’t tell us much. We need to analyze data properly and methodically to make sense of it.

The recent poor performance of opinion polls in both the UK’s referendum on remaining in the European Union (“Brexit”) and the US Presidential election left me wondering what they tell us about our dependence on data analytics? Sometimes the models, and the assumptions underpinning them, need to be questioned.

In the case . . . [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.

Being Well in the Law: A Guide for Lawyers

© 2016 The Law Society of New South Wales | Authors: Tony Foley, Ian Hickie, Vivien Holmes, Colin James, Margie Rowe and Stephen Tang

Being Well in the Law is a new Australian guide on wellbeing and mental health for lawyers. It has been . . . [more]

New Brunswick drivers are required by the Motor Vehicle Act to carry with them or in their vehicle a card issued by their insurer in a form approved by the government. A motorist who was asked for the card produced an image of a genuine card on her mobile phone. The New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench recently held that the image was not good enough. R v Albert, 2016 NBQB 154.

The Decision

At a first trial before a provincial court judge, the court held that the phone display satisfied the demand to show the “card”.

The Crown . . . [more]

[This post is being published simultaneously on our blog]

Each year we compile lists of the most popular cases in the past year. This year is no exception, because one of the comforting things in life is consistency, and the most read cases on CanLII.org give you that this year. Five of the cases on the list were on last year’s list too, and the top two cases are unchanged from last year; four of the cases on this year’s list were on the top 10 list in 2014.

As ever we invite discussion of the cases . . . [more]

For those of you enjoying your well-earned holiday vacation.

March 1601 wasn’t that long ago, from the sequoias and redwoods perspective; even some oaks.

From “The Workhouse: The Story of an Institution” http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Oxford/

Robert Phillis, weaver, shall be delivered unto him twenty powndes towards the settling on worcke in spynning of lynnen and in carding and sorting of wollen with the cytty and suburbes, wherein specyall regard must bee had that the idle and loytring sort be sett on workce, and yf they refuse and doe their worcke amysse, that they be punnyshed by whipping

That probably wouldn’t work under . . . [more]