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. Michael Geist 2. IFLS Osgoode 3. Canadian Class Actions Monitor 4. Susan on the Soapbox 5. National Magazine Blog

Michael Geist
Former Copyright Board Chair Vancise Takes Aim at the Board Critics

The Honourable William Vancise, the former Chair of the Copyright Board of Canada, recently delivered a combative . . . [more]

Last night Dean Strang & Jerry Buting, two American attorneys, stopped by in Toronto to give a talk. The lawyers are known from the Netflix original crime documentary, Making A Murderer, which might be Netflix’s most successful show to date.

Strang and Buting were defence lawyers for Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, WI who was exonerated through DNA testing after serving 18 years of a 32 year sentence for rape and attempted murder. The controversy over the documentary though deals with Avery’s second charge, over the murder of another woman after his release. The purpose of . . . [more]

On one Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all appeals and leaves to appeal granted, so you know what the S.C.C. will soon be dealing with ((May 12 – June 8, 2016 inclusive).

Appeals

Professions: Professional Secrecy in Québec
Canada (Attorney General) v. Chambre des notaires du Québec, 2016 SCC 20 (35892)

Professional secrecy is a principle of fundamental justice within the meaning of . . . [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) : Reconnu coupable de fraude, de complot pour fraude et d’abus de confiance, l’ancien maire de Boisbriand Robert Poirier est condamné à une peine d’emprisonnement de 18 mois.

Intitulé : Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales du Québec c. Poirier,
2016 QCCQ 3775
Juridiction : Cour du Québec, . . . [more]

The College of Law Practice Management InnovAction Awards is a worldwide search for lawyers, law firms, and other deliverers of legal services who are currently engaged in some extraordinary innovative efforts. The goal is to demonstrate to the legal community what can be created when passionate professionals, with big ideas and strong convictions, are determined to make a difference.

Each year at its Futures Conference, the College of Law Practice Management presents the coveted InnovAction Awards to those unsung heroes and rising stars within the legal profession who dare to think differently and succeed by doing so.

Submit an . . . [more]

A funny thing happens when lawyers set out to write articles or blog posts. Even though they’re told the required number of words, they write twice that number. Ironically, the worst offenders are those who refuse to read long email messages—or indeed anything longer than a page.

Brevity is not only the soul of wit, it’s also very effective in communication. Whether you’re summarizing your argument before a judge or writing a blog post about why it’s important to have a will, keep it short! One of McCaffery’s Maxims is that half as long is probably twice as good.

I . . . [more]

On May 17, 2016, the federal government tabled Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. . . . [more]

The debate between law societies and universities about the contours of law degrees has been at the forefront of discussions between law schools and law societies for the past ten years. In order to control entry into the market of new Canadian faculties of law or foreign universities offering Canadian Law degrees, the Federation of Law Societies has sought to define what is a Canadian law degree. It has defined “core” competencies. Provincial Law Societies also describe the “competencies” required of their members. For example, the Law Society of Upper Canada conditions entry to the Bar to the acquisition of . . . [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.

‘By the Court’: The Untold Story of a Canadian Judicial Innovation

Peter McCormick
Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Vol. 53(3), 2016, Forthcoming

Excerpt: pp 1-6, 18-27. Footnotes omitted. They can be found in the original via the link above.

What do the BCE case of 2008, the Securities Reference case of 2010, the . . . [more]

Last week, the Toronto Star ran a widely publicized story about a criminal proceeding, in which the accused was charged with drug offences. He earned $16,000 in 2015, which was too much for legal aid but not enough for a lawyer. Therefore, Justice Ian Nordheimer of the Ontario Superior Court stayed the proceedings until the government paid for counsel.

Sadly, stories like this are too common. The legal system, too convoluted to navigate without a law degree, means that the most vulnerable are left in the lurch. Compelled to interact with the judicial system yet unable to afford counsel and . . . [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. Anspor v Neuberger, 2016 ONSC 75

[1] This application involves a dispute over who owns two Toronto Maple Leafs (the “Leafs”) season tickets (the “Tickets”).

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Ramdath v George Brown College, 2016 ONSC 3536

[2] This is that rare class action that actually went to trial and in doing so generated new . . . [more]

The 15^th annual ODR conference, which took place in The Hague. on May 23^rd and 24^th 2016, addressed the very a propos topic that is: “Can ODR Really Help Courts and Improve Access to Justice?” As we’ve discussed in previous posts, more and more courts (e.g. British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal, tribunals (e.g. Ontario’s proposed online Administrative Monetary Penalty System), and other public bodies are incorporating online dispute resolution tools, mechanisms, and practices into their processes.

Of course, incorporating ODR mechanisms into a Court or a tribunal’s processes implies that said court or . . . [more]