What does it all mean? Many people are asking themselves that on this day after the US general election.

If your personal ‘what does it all mean’ relates to the laws of Alberta (and why wouldn’t it) there is a new tool to assist you with an answer. The Alberta Queen’s Printer is now providing ‘high level descriptions’ to provide context to search and browse results for legislative information.

Wondering what the Judicature Act is all about? The description offers:

This act provides for the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal of Alberta and the Court of Queen’s Bench of

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. R. v. Pelletier, 2016 ONCJ 628

[9] I will not detail in my decision the trauma you have suffered. Physical, sexual, and emotional trauma. Even when you were so young. A child. To do so in such a public way as in a judicial decision will not help you heal. I will say this though. Ms. Hughes testified that in the . . . [more]

An unusual five-member panel of the Federal Court of Appeal re-considered the appropriate standard of review in the Federal Court. The decision simplified the standard of review by focusing on the Housen standard described the Supreme Court of Canada (see 2002 SCC 33). The court also emphasized the importance of prothonotaries in the Federal Court, which is of particular significance to intellectual property proceedings which are almost always case managed by a prothonotary.

The court decided to expand its usual three member panel to a five-member panel in order to revisit its earlier Aqua-Gem decision (Canada v. Aqua-Gem . . . [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

Try a different browser
Susannah Tredwell

I was asked what the library equivalent was of our help desk’s standard “try turning it off and back on” advice. I’m not sure there’s an equivalent, but “try a different browser” comes close. …

Practice

And the numbers show… (Part 3)
Andrea Cannavina

And Finally: Volume. I think the last reason attorneys are spending so much time doing administrative tasks . . . [more]

Commercial Law Reform

Commercial law almost always follows commercial practice. Businesses innovate and the law tries to catch up, validating some practices and regulating others.

It is risky for law reform to get out in front of commercial practice, for a number of reasons. The rules may fail to have their desired effect, because business can be more complex than legislation. The rules may restrict innovation, because the methods by which they grant legal effectiveness channel practices into known and safe directions. The rules may simply be wrong, because the rule-makers have not appreciated the dynamics at play among the . . . [more]

I’m looking forward to reading Gillian Hadfield’s new book, “Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent It for a Complex Global Economy,” which was released at the beginning of this month. As reported in a recent article in The Lawyers Weekly, Hadfield has been exploring the relationship between law and technology and how it impacts access to justice.

At a conference on civil justice and economics sponsored by the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ) she described it like this:

“We need to attract some of the capital

For more than 30 years Richard Susskind has been a thought leader on the future of the legal profession.

This is despite the Law Society of England and Wales saying he did not understand confidentiality and was bringing the legal profession into disrepute by suggesting that email would become the predominant way lawyers and their clients would communicate in his 1996 book, The Future of Law.

Susskind’s most recent book, The Future of the Professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts, is a must read for anyone who wants to gain insights into where . . . [more]

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s Eight Report: Delaying Justice is Denying Justice: An Urgent Need to Address Lengthy Court Delays in Canada (published, August, 2016), must produce a final report by March 31, 2017.

1. The Major Shortcomings of the Committee’s Report

Appendix A to the Report is this List of Recommendations (p. 16):

Recommendation 1: The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada work with the provinces and territories as well as with the judiciary to examine and implement best practices in case and case flow management across Canada to reduce the number of unnecessary appearances and . . . [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. Canadian Class Actions Monitor  2. FamilyLLB 3. Legal Sourcery  4. Legal Feeds  5. DroitDu.net

Canadian Class Actions Monitor
Araya v. Nevsun Resources Ltd., 2016 BCSC 1856: British Columbia Supreme Court refuses to allow a “common law class action” alleging human rights violations at Eritrean mine

In an important decision . . . [more]

The bar has often lamented the lack of “plain language” by the bench, a necessary prerequisite for transparency and open access to the public.

At times, the need for this approach has been criticized as overlooking the needs of the parties. Sometimes, like in the Meads case, this approach is intended to address broader, systemic problems. As I told Canadian Lawyer Magazine a few years ago,

“I think the fact that the judge even made this ruling suggests how big a problem it is,” says Toronto lawyer Omar Ha-Redeye. “This is a hot issue. Family law is in crisis

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) : L’article 10 b) de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés donne à la personne détenue par les policiers le droit d’avoir recours à l’assistance d’un avocat et non pas un droit constitutionnel limité à «un seul appel» pour joindre un avocat.

Intitulé : Stevens c. R., . . . [more]