In her remarkable new book Life Sentence (Doubleday Canada, 2016), Christie Blatchford describes the Canadian judiciary as “unelected, unaccountable, entitled, expensive to maintain and remarkably smug” (at pp. 33-34). She argues that the process for judicial appointments and judicial discipline, along with the structure and conduct of an ordinary trial, create judicial arrogance. And that arrogance, even if not universal, is both systemic and common enough to corrode and undermine the pursuit of justice. She also suggests that actors in the legal system are complicit in judicial arrogance while simultaneously having considerable arrogance of their own: lawyers and judges alike . . . [more]

There have been many articles written suggesting that lawyers should learn how to code software. This Wolfram Alpha article is a good one, although many of the articles are far more adamant that every lawyer needs to learn how to code. The rationale is that because software will have an increasing effect on how lawyers practice, and who will be competing with us to provide our services, we should learn to code.

So should we learn how to code? For most lawyers, probably not.

I knew how to code before law school, and for me it has been very useful. . . . [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. Schrenk v. British Columbia (Human Rights Tribunal), 2016 BCCA 146

[44] Applying those principles to the case at bar, the Tribunal certainly has jurisdiction in relation to an allegation that a person has forced the complainant, expressly or otherwise, to endure harassment at work. It had jurisdiction to address the response of the complainant’s employer to his complaint. It does not, . . . [more]

The Ontario Land Titles Act pushes onto an owner the risk of the owner’s transfer being void. It does so, even if the owner took proper care when buying. This is an outdated idea. Most modern land titles systems don’t use it.

Ontario’s Bill 27, the Burden Reduction Act, 2016, includes a major change to the Ontario Land Titles Act. The bill aims to modernize Acts and reduce their burden. The bill would put a new definition of a “fraudulent instrument” into the Ontario Land Titles Act. This would push even more risk onto an owner. It . . . [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.

Research & Writing

Search Strategy—Cast Your Net Wide
Ken Fox

Good keyword searching practice varies from database to database, depending on how the data is structured and how the search engine works. But there are some principles that apply to most situations. …

Confusing Pairs, Part 1
Neil Guthrie

Words you mix up at your own peril. Adverse: unfavourable (‘adverse weather conditions); opposite (‘adverse in interest’). Averse: against, opposed to . . . [more]

Donald Trump and his polarizing ideas have attracted widespread criticism. However, I suspect that few expected to find a harsh, vocal critic in a United States Supreme Court justice. Judges, after all, are held to the highest standards of impartiality, and political statements can easily raise the question of judicial bias. Against this backdrop, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s comments about Trump’s presidential campaign present an interesting case study. What happens when a judge is openly opposed to a presidential candidate but has no relevant case on the docket? Could such a comment lead to a finding of bias in Canada? . . . [more]

In the 4,000-year history of the legal profession, unbiased information sharing has never been the norm. Instead, insights have remained siloed in large institutions—or traded anecdotally among groups at networking events.

That changes with today’s release of the Legal Trends Report. The Legal Trends Report is being published by Clio, the world’s most widely-used legal practice management platform (disclosure: I am the founder and CEO of Clio). By leveraging anonymized, aggregate data from 40,000 active Clio users and over $60 billion in billing volume, the Legal Trends Report provides new insights into topics including average billing rates by state, . . . [more]

The Law Society of Upper Canada created the Challenges Faced by Racialized Licensees Working Group in 2012 to identify the challenges faced by racialized lawyers and paralegals and consider strategies for enhanced inclusion at all career stages.

After gathering extensive information about the challenges faced by racialized licensees and best practices to address these challenges, the Working Group prepared a consultation paper, which was presented to Convocation on October 30, 2014. The paper included a series of questions for the professions and public to consider and provide feedback. Consultation meetings were held in key cities during the winter of 2015. . . . [more]

There is a growing trend to bring the tools of data analysis into legal practice, and much of the media coverage references Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game*, or perhaps the movie based on the book:

With so many things being described as being “like moneyball”, I started to wonder what Moneyball actually said. It also made me wonder what analytics can best be used to illuminate legal information, and where the data could come from, so I read the book:

Lewis discusses the development of the statistics required to adequately measure baseball . . . [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. Susan on the Soapbox  2. Slater Vecchio Connected 3. McElroy Law Blog  4. IPilogue  5. Pensions & Benefits Law

Susan on the Soapbox
Never Watch a Presidential Debate When You’ve Got the Flu

Ms Soapbox has the flu and missed Thanksgiving dinner last night with her family and friends. . . . [more]

Donald Trump is estimated to have been involved in over 3,500 lawsuits, unprecedented for any presidential nominee. Most recently, he threatened to sue for defamation over further allegations of groping. Sources, however, indicate he hasn’t actually sued a news outlet in decades, and his threats may have a boomerang effect.

It’s clear that he has other legal disputes on this side of the border as well. Many of them involve the tower in downtown Toronto which bears his name. Only one of them has been reported though, and the Court of Appeal recently weighed in on this action . . . [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) : Accusés de complot, de corruption et d’importation de drogue à l’issue de l’opération policière «Projet Colisée», les appelants voient leurs verdicts de culpabilité confirmés par la Cour, ainsi que les peines de détention à purger au sein de la collectivité qui leur ont été imposées.

Intitulé :  . . . [more]