Introduction

In June of 2022, the Government of Canada tabled Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act,[1] making it one of the earlier countries in the world to commence work on a national level Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulatory framework. Unfortunately, due to a complex array of factors—including criticisms of its scope, legislative delays and political instability—the bill now faces a significant risk of failure.

Bill C-27 is an omnibus bill that contains three pieces of legislation including the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPA) and the Artificial Intelligence Data Act . . . [more]

In November, I’m presenting to law students about plain language and the importance of good communication. As always when preparing for a presentation, my first consideration is ‘who is my audience’ and ‘how best can I deliver my message to this audience’. In this circumstance, who my audience is and the impact on their communications has become the message.

The majority of these students will be in their mid to late 20s: Millennials on the upper end and Generation Z on the lower end. In the 20 years since I graduated with my fellow Gen Xers, communication channels, styles, preferences . . . [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 juge de première instance, qui a imposé une peine de 8 mois d’emprisonnement à l’accusé, dont la conduite dangereuse avait causé la mort d’un motocycliste, a erré en orientant sa décision uniquement en fonction de la conséquence tragique du délit et en évacuant les principes de . . . [more]

Professor John Lande has just published a terrific article “Theory and Practice of Mediation Representation”. He has also posted a summary here. Professor Lande acknowledges that there is much more written about how to mediate (as mediator) than how to represent clients in mediation (as counsel). Given that it is very common for lawyers to support clients in mediation, he gathers the best existing literature on the subject and presents both a theoretical framework for analyzing mediation representation and practical techniques for lawyers to use. There are helpful tables and checklists describing tasks for both lawyers and mediators. . . . [more]

The week of October 7th this year was quite something for Artificial Intelligence (AI). It was the object of two consecutive Nobel Prizes, awarded just days apart. The first, in Physics, went to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton (a British Canadian) for laying the foundations of machine learning. The second in Chemistry, won by Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, and David Baker, was for utilizing AI to predict millions of intricate protein structures that are key to understanding molecular interactions.

In stark contrast to this double triumph are some 20 copyright infringement suits filed against OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, . . . [more]

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

[This is Part One of a two-part series on Strategic Growth in the Legal Services Market and the foundation for the first half of my September 2024 keynote address to the Alberta Civil Trial Lawyers Association in Calgary, Alberta.]

In 2008, a global financial crisis considered the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s marked the end of the traditional law firm’s 20-year bull run.

Since then, life in the global legal services . . . [more]

CALL/ACBD is accepting nominations for the 2025 Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries has long had an annual award for excellent legal publishing. Some years ago, we renamed the award we present after Queens University Professor Hugh Lawford (1933-2009) to recognize his contributions to legal publishing in Canada. As a group of legal information specialists, our work depends on being able to access and share high-quality legal knowledge.

We value innovation and this award is open to legal content in all information formats.

The award honours a publisher (whether for-profit or . . . [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) : La peine totale de 17 ans d’emprisonnement imposée à un homme ayant commis 19 vols qualifiés avec usage d’une fausse arme à feu est manifestement non indiquée; le lien existant entre ces crimes commis sur une courte période de 2 mois aurait dû atténuer l’effet aggravant des . . . [more]

The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has issued ethical guidelines for judges on the use of social media. These guidelines could be a useful template for updating or expanding codes of ethics for tribunal members. In this column I identify some of the key parts of the guidelines as well as some of the shortcomings.

The CJC defines social media, using the Oxford English Dictionary definition as its foundation:

 … social media is defined as “websites and applications which enable users to [access], create and share content or to participate in social networking.” This definition encompasses a wide variety of tools,

The Canadian Foundation for Legal Research has announced its award for the 2023 Walter Owen Book Prize to Modern Criminal Evidence (Toronto, Emond Publishing) for exceptional legal scholarship in Canada.

The Walter Owen Book Prize honours its namesake (1904–1981) who privately practised law for 40 years; served as President of the Canadian Bar Association; and in 1959, became the Foundation’s first President.

A Jury appointed by the Foundation recommended prize recipients from a list of 35 book nominees after more than four months of deliberation. All selections by the Jury were unanimous.

On behalf of the Jury, Professor John N. . . . [more]

From the reassuring distance of not relying significantly on the professional information industry to pay my creditors, I can permit myself to comment, on or off message at whim, on the requirement, for some others, to remain on it, and always promote the party line. The obvious result, if this is the case, is that much of what we read and hear is likely to be public relations nonsense, and even lies.

I would also admit that, particularly over the period during which I have been writing and pondering on law publishing, and reflecting on the totality of . . . [more]