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’accusé est reconnu coupable de fraude pour avoir encaissé un chèque émis par son employeur, une municipalité, afin de rembourser sa cotisation professionnelle qu’il n’a jamais payée à l’Ordre des urbanistes du Québec

Intitulé : R. c. Blackburn, 2016 QCCQ 4482
Juridiction : Cour du Québec, Chambre . . . [more]

The article, “7 Reasons Why European Cities Are Going To Beat U.S. Cities As Hubs For Innovation” reminded me of two cities: Toronto and Sydney. These cities had quite a few legal IT commonalities starting 30 years ago:

• Both had 5 out of the 10 largest law firms standardise on lawyer-friendly graphical user interfaces (GUI) years before the rest of the legal world got it,
• By democratising access to computers, a community of lawyers interested in lawyer-enhancing IT bloomed, and cross-pollinated each other from across the world,
• Toronto was first out of the blocks with Peter Hart’s Legalware

Much has happened with copyright law over the past few years. New amendments to modernize the Copyright Act for the internet age were added in 2012. As well there have been several court cases interpreting the impact of digital technologies on copyright doctrine. It is now possible to speak of “digital copyright” as an area of law. In the newly released book Digital Copyright Law published by Irwin Law, I track and analyze these developments. Below I discuss 5 prominent issues which are raised by these changes and that are elaborated upon in the book:

1. What is a . . . [more]

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.

Looking for Ashley: What Re-Reading What the Smith Case Reveals About Governance of Girls, Mothers and Families in Canada
© 2015 Demeter Press. Reprinted with permission.

Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich, Professor, Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University (@RebeccaBromwich)

Excerpt: Chapter 1: The Project

Telling Stories

Once upon a . . . [more]

Makerspaces (sometimes called hackerspaces) are community workspaces – generally in the tech and digital arena. Entrepreneurs might use them as workspaces and to collaborate with colleagues. Hobbyists might use their tools to make something. They often put on workshops – typically around tech and equipment – such as 3D printers. They perform a valuable service to foster learning, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

I learned how to use a Raspberry Pi yesterday at a workshop at UnLondon. (Harrison Pensa is a sponsor of UnLondon, and of their recent Explode conference.) The first project was to wire and code (in Python) an . . . [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. Strudwick v. Applied Consumer & Clinical Evaluations Inc., 2016 ONCA 520

[115] With respect, however, I am of the view that in assessing the quantum of punitive damages the motion judge fell into legal error in two respects. First, he viewed Applied Consumer’s failure to try to conceal the misconduct or failure to profit from the misconduct as mitigating the company’s . . . [more]

Regulation of legal services differs in important ways across the common law world. In Canada, self-regulation is generally[1] the approach. Canadian law societies are authorized by provincial legislatures to decide who can practice law and provide legal services[2]. The substantial majority of the governors of the law societies are lawyers elected by lawyers. In Ontario, paralegal benchers are elected by regulated paralegals.

In England and Wales, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board are the regulators. The majority of the governors of these regulators are not solicitors or barristers.

In the United States, the state . . . [more]

The new “augmented reality” game Pokemon Go has in a few days more downloads than Tindr. Perhaps the age range of the players is wider.

In any event, to augment your reality, the makers (a spinoff from Google) want a LOT of personal information. TechCrunch has the story, or one version of it. Is the reason that the game is not yet available in Canada our privacy laws, notably PIPEDA, which requires (as well as informed consent) that the collection, use and disclosure of PII be reasonable? Can the game maker justify the extent of the information collected by . . . [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 and writing, practice, and technology.

Research & Writing

Said, Same, Such
Neil Guthrie

I think you’ll agree that ‘said’ (as in ‘the said party’ when you’ve previously referred to that party) is a little fusty-sounding, and has no place in your jazzy client-focused blog post or article. And even in contractual drafting, it sounds more than a little antiquated. Said is an unnecessary archaism: be done with it. …

Practice

Join Team Tile . . . [more]

Much of the current discourse and activity in our industry seems to be focused on evolving approaches to fees and pricing, budgeting, project management, better leverage of technology, and insourcing/near-shoring/outsourcing. While these are critically important aspects of modernizing law firm service delivery models, is our focus on value – discretely defined as the monetary worth of something – distracting us from thinking about value in a more holistic or integrated way?

I offer some data points based on my own recent experiences. Earlier this month, I attended a client panel discussion featuring four senior-level in-house lawyers representing different segments of . . . [more]

This article is by Nora Rock, corporate writer & policy analyst at LAWPRO.

Recreational properties present a unique set of challenges. Here are some issues to keep in mind when obtaining title insurance policies for your clients’ purchases of recreational properties, to help ensure your clients’ interests are protected.

Legal description: If the property was created years ago, the thumbnail description on the PIN may be brief, for instance, “as in instrument 123456,” but the actual description in that instrument can be long and complex. It may have multiple elements: “Firstly,” “Secondly” and more. Older descriptions may not refer . . . [more]