This article is by Ian Hu, claims prevention & practicePRO counsel at LAWPRO.

In recent years more focus has turned to alternative fee arrangements as a way to offer clients more predictable costs and affordable legal services. Hughes Amys LLP, based out of Hamilton and Toronto, offers alternative fee arrangements which have proven successful for them. Here is a look at how they’ve done it.

“We’ve been doing alternative fee arrangements for over 20 years,” says managing partner William (Bill) S. Chalmers. “In the early days it was a blended rate, where the client would pay one hourly rate regardless . . . [more]

People have long used technology to help them make and carry out their contracts. Even an old-fashioned vending machine offers goods to the public, understands an order for particular goods, recognizes execution by the buyer through the deposit of the appropriate payment, and delivers the goods.

However, we do not usually think of the vending machine as smart or its implied contract of sale to be a smart contract. Apparently we need to see a computer to attach that label. A smart contract these days is generally considered a contract the performance of whose terms is judged by technological means, . . . [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. University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog  2. Global Workplace Insider 3. Combat Sports Law Blog  4. Clio Blog  5. Canadian Immigration Law Blog

University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog
What is Section 91?

Dear Sir or Madam: Today we write to you regarding the emergence of section . . . [more]

A university student walks on to campus, wearing a hat that appears to support Donald Trump. Controversy ensues. Oh yeah, the campus was in Canada.

The video of the incident attracted far broader attention, including renewed discussions of the role of “safe spaces” on campus. The debate in Canada followed right after a similar discussion at the University of Chicago, where the Dean of Students told the incoming class of 2020,

We do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings,’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual

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 Cour rend jugement dans le dossier type concernant la divulgation de la preuve en matière d’alcootest à la suite de l’arrêt de la Cour suprême R. c. St-Onge Lamoureux (C.S. Can., 2012-11-02), 2012 CSC 57, SOQUIJ AZ-50908040, 2012EXP-3884, J.E. 2012-2079, [2012] 3 R.C.S. 187.

Intitulé :  . . . [more]

The use of patent prosecution history is a standard part of analysing patents in the United States but the courts in Canada have resisted using the prosecution history for parsing the words of patent claims. A recent decision highlights a situation where the use of the patent prosecution history would have resulted in a different analysis in Canada and the trial judge asks whether it is time to consider the prosecution history and imposing consequences on parties that argue differently at court than before the patent office.

During the patent filing process, the applicant, through their patent agent, often makes . . . [more]

Gavin MacKenzie, Amy Salyzyn and I participated in August in the Ethics Debate at the Canadian Bar Association Legal Conference. Amy moderated the debate. Gavin and I were the debaters. The topic was Should lawyers have a monopoly on the provision of legal services? I argued for the proposition. Gavin argued against.

The general topic was broken up into three separate propositions, each of which was separately debated. My role was to support the first two propositions and to argue against the third.

• There is no good reason to allow anyone other than lawyers to provide legal services.
• Professional

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.

One of a Kind: A Proven Path to a Profitable Law Practice
© 2016 Attorney at Work. Reprinted with permission.

Jay Harrington is an attorney and co-founder of Harrington, where he leads the agency’s Brand Strategy, Content Creation and Client Service teams to help lawyers and law firms increase market awareness and improve . . . [more]

Women lawyers, between 2006 and 2015, applied for superior court judicial appointments in Canada at roughly half the rate of men in the same time period, reports Cristin Schmitz in the September 16, 2016 issue of The Lawyers Weekly. In her article, Women Not Applying for Federal Benches, Schmitz reports the following previously unpublished statistics on who is seeking federal judicial appointments in Canada:

• 1,531 women and 3,244 men applied between January 23, 2006 and October 19, 2015
• 188 women and 396 men were appointed to federal courts during this same decade
• Judicial advisory committees recommended 1,236 of the 3,003

CASL, the Canadian anti-spam legislation, came into force on July 1, 2014. July 1, 2017 will be an important date for CASL, as a private right of action will become available. Anyone (class actions are likely) will be able to sue CASL violators. Statutory damages means that it won’t be necessary to prove actual damages.

CASL is a complex, illogical statute. Many businesses don’t comply because they don’t think emails they send could possibly be considered spam. After all, spam is about illicit drugs, diets and deals scams, right? Not according to CASL.

Nor do they understand they must keep . . . [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. R. v. Duncan, 2013 ONCJ 160

1. “You should get out of town”, the man said.

2. And so began the journey that resulted in my path intersecting with Matthew Duncan’s path. And thence to these reasons, with a slight detour through territory that might have confused Lewis Carroll.

3. I suppose that I should clarify that there was no menace . . . [more]

Over 225 persons from 18 countries attended the annual conference of the Association for Canadian Clinical Legal Education (ACCLE) held in conjunction with the conference of the International Journal for Clinical Legal Education (IJCLE) at the University of Toronto from July 10-12, 2016. This was the first time that IJCLE had held its conference in North America, and the first time ACCLE had an international aspect to its conference.

Papers and presentations came from all over the globe – Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Thailand, Kenya, and the usual suspects in Canada, the UK, and the US. The program was broad, . . . [more]