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 & Writing

You Can Quote Me
Neil Guthrie

First off, the verb is quote and the noun really should be quotation – but I would be fighting a pointless rearguard action in trying to stop people from talking about a quote. Single and double quotation marks: In the UK, single quotation marks (usually called ‘inverted commas’) are the default, with anything quoted within a quotation going in double quotation . . . [more]

We spend so much of our time, energy and money on attracting and keeping clients that the thought of firing one seems defeatist. But firing clients can be good for business. Here’s why.

1. Bad clients waste out time. One of the annoying elements of a bad relationship is that it tends to take more of our time to manage than a good relationship. This, in turn, lowers our productivity which has consequences to our overall financial performance and activity goals for the year. And really, who needs that kind of drag in their life?
2. Bad clients almost always dispute their

Email encryption, data breaches and a lawyer’s duty to choose technologies with competence—these are recurring topics here on Slaw and elsewhere. At least two revelations in the last week call us to hark back on this.

First, there is the Law Society of BC’s recent fraud alert from January 19 about fraudsters again targeting lawyers disbursing trust funds. Millions of dollars in a real estate transaction payout were redirected by fraudulent notice of changes in instructions. The recent LSBC alert warns “We do not yet know how the fraudster knew the details of the transaction.” This is eerily similar to . . . [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. Meurrens on Immigration  2. StartupSource
 3. Susan on the Soapbox  4. Off the Shelf  5. Blogue du CRL

Meurrens on Immigration
Understanding Judicial Review

Where a visa application has been refused and an applicant is convinced that the decision is unreasonable then it may be advisable to . . . [more]

According to Statistics Canada data from the annual Civil Court Survey[1] over the most recent five years for which data are available, between 2010-11 and 2014-15, the number of civil cases has fallen. The total number of cases initiated between 2010-11 and 2014-15 declined by 4.7% from 493,785 to 470,622. The total number of active cases declined by 1.5% from 921,328 to 907,206 and the number of active cases with a disposition within the fiscal year declined by 2.8%from 553,597 to 537.909.

The number of general civil cases has declined by 10.0% over the five-year period. Cases involving bankruptcy . . . [more]

Almost exactly one year ago, I shared a decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice which created a new privacy tort (the second after Jones v. Tsige) for public disclosure of private facts.

One of the inherent limitations of the decision is that it was decided on summary judgment. The defendant failed to file a defence, and failed to appear on the motion, sending an email to the plaintiff stating, “… nor am I filing a defence so you can do what you need to.”

Here was yet another privacy tort, and one with the promise to provide . . . [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 se penche sur l’utilisation et la recevabilité en preuve de l’outil de navigation virtuelle Google Street View dans une affaire d’infraction au Code de la sécurité routière.

Intitulé : Granger c. Montcalm (Municipalité de), 2016 QCCS 6008
Juridiction : Cour supérieure (C.S.), Terrebonne (Saint-Jérôme), . . . [more]

Much of the research and writing on access to justice issues in the last five years, including that of the Canadian Bar Association and Julie Macfarlane’s National Self-Represented Litigants Project, has discussed unbundling as a potential, albeit partial, remedy.

The idea here is that the usual full-service retainer, ever so commonplace in civil litigation, makes lawyers’ services unaffordable and prevents many litigants from accessing justice. (Professor Macfarlane’s landmark 2013 study on the issue of self-representation found that “inability to afford to retain, or to continue to retain, legal counsel” was the overwhelming reason why the litigants she spoke to . . . [more]

In December, the UK Competition & Markets Authority released its Legal services market study focused on individual consumer and small business experience of purchasing legal services in England and Wales. Not surprisingly, this report (the “CMA Market Study”) found:

Overall, we have found that the legal services sector is not working well for individual consumers and small businesses. These consumers generally lack the experience and information they need to find their way around the legal services sector and to engage confidently with providers. Consumers find it hard to make informed choices because there is very little transparency about price, service

What makes CLEBC publications so popular with BC lawyers? There’s no doubt our talented editorial and production staff make a great contribution, but I believe the magic ingredient is the combined wisdom of our excellent authors and editorial boards.

Once the authors have made their submissions, their work is carefully reviewed—page by page—by the legal editor and the editorial board. Editorial board meetings usually involved spirited discussions of law and practice. The implications of recent decisions, the significance of new statutory requirements, a new practice or understanding that has arisen within the BC legal community—all are flagged and discussed to . . . [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. Jane Doe 464533 v N.D., 2017 ONSC 127

[44] I am not persuaded that the motion judge erred in his consideration of the evidence of N.D. that he would not file a defence and the plaintiff could do what she needed to do. In his discretion, the motion judge identified other factors that mitigated that statement. Although he did not make . . . [more]

The paperless-office religion probably makes you uncomfortable. The preacher says kill the paper, printing is a sin. Don’t fret. Here is why you should not be ashamed to print.

I write this for lawyers, and I am not talking about mandatory printing. Courts are more likely to go extinct when blockchains end commercial disputes and self-driving cars eliminate motor vehicle accidents than to go completely electronic. (But courts hearing criminal and constitutional cases will be with us forever it seems.)

I am also not criticizing paperless. I am a huge fan. I am sure you know why paperless is . . . [more]