This prize honours Christine Huglo Robertson, Executive Director of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ) between 1992 and 2012. Its goal is to engage law students in the work of CIAJ and to promote scholarship concerning the administration of justice.

ELIGIBILITY

Competition for the prize is open only to students registered for an undergraduate degree (J.D., LL.B. or B.C.L.) a Faculty of Law at a Canadian university and only for a paper written in the twelve months preceding the closing date for submissions. Papers submitted for academic credit may be submitted for this prize. Candidates must provide . . . [more]

I’ve written a number of posts lately about tenants who abuse the system and the calls from the judiciary to have our tenancy laws reformed. A decision released two weeks ago is another all-to-familiar another example of how residential tenants can game the system to their advantage.

The tenant entered into a one year lease agreement with the landlord on July 15, 2015. He took possession of the unit on July 20, 2015. He paid his first and last month’s rent but did not make any of the other rental payments (which were to be $1,400 per month).

  . . . [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

Common CanLII Questions Answered!
Bronwyn Guiton

I recently sat down with CanLII’s Manager of Content and Partnerships, Sarah Sutherland, to learn what’s new and to ask some common CanLII questions I get from my own users — chief among them being “Are there any decisions I should know about that aren’t on CanLII?” There’s no one single tip here today, but in the spirit of . . . [more]

I’m not sure I’m old enough to give advice to young(er) lawyers or credible enough to give career advice in general. I’m also not sure that this post won’t be greeted with snark about the fact that I was lucky enough to be in law school at a very different time, economically at least, than what the current students and young lawyers experience. That caveat and acknowledgment that I almost “had it easy” being done, let’s dive in.

Slaw readers don’t need me to explain anything about the current state of the legal market. In Quebec, the Young Bar of . . . [more]

This article is by Ian Hu, Claims Prevention and practicePRO Counsel at LAWPRO.

I recently spoke about preparing your client for trial and avoiding a malpractice claim at the Advocates’ Society “Practice Essentials: Managing Your Way to Trial Success” CPD chaired by Emily C. Cole and Norm J. Emblem. The CPD spurred us to create a Client Trial Preparation Checklist to help you cover the bases with your clients. I hope the thoughts below are helpful.

As you prepare for trial, the tendency may be to overlook your client. After all, you have an opening to prepare for, statements of . . . [more]

“Here I make an intelligent being out of a bunch of old wires, switches and grids, and instead of some honest advice I get technicalities! You cheap cybernetic shyster, I’ll teach you to trifle with me!”
And he turned the pot over, shook everything out onto the table, and pulled it apart before the lawyer had a chance to appeal the proceedings.

– The Cyberiad

Happy Monday! Like F. Tim Knight, I am getting back on the “blogwagon” this morning with an overdue post… also about AI following the session I was a panelist on at the recent Canadian . . . [more]

I seem to have fallen off the blogwagon lately and am now attempting to turn my mind back to some writing. So I’ll start by reporting on one of the sessions I attended at the recent Canadian Association of Law Libraries conference held in Vancouver, from May 15 to 18. The session took place on the afternoon of May 16 and featured: Steve Matthews, Slaw publisher and contributor and founder of Stem Legal Web Enterprises; Ivan Makonov, Executive Director at Lexum; Eric Laughlin, Managing Director of the Corporate Segment, Thomson Reuters; and Nate Russell, . . . [more]

For the past two years, through my roles at the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution (Winkler Institute) and the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) I have been working on applying the principles of human-centered design to the justice system. For those who may be unfamiliar, human-centered design (HCD) is a design method used to develop products and services from the perspective of those who use them. It is an intentional process, but also a creative one. It involves immersing yourself in the problem you are trying to solve, working with the people experiencing the problem, experimenting with solutions, 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. Clicklaw Blog 2. Eloïse Gratton 3. Law & Style 4. Excess Copyright 5. McElroy Law

Clicklaw Blog
MyLawBC helps you with common legal problems

There’s no doubt that the law is complicated. What further complicates matters is when laws vary by jurisdiction (from province to province, and from country . . . [more]

Lawyers pushing for greater access to justice constantly fall back on the refrain that Legal Aid needs more funding. That might be true, but the real problem with access is the eligibility criteria for Legal Aid certificates.

This was illustrated recently in a recent criminal case in Toronto, R. v Moodie, where Justice Nordheimer reviewed a Rowbothom application. The Ontario Court of Appeal created a process R. v. Rowbotham whereby the right to fair trial can demand public funds be used for representation

[170] …where the trial judge finds that representation of an accused by counsel is essential to

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.

PROFESSIONS : La seule délivrance de lentilles ophtalmiques au Québec par une entreprise de Vancouver, comme c’est le cas en l’espèce, ne peut constituer une contravention à l’article 16 et au premier alinéa de l’article 25 de la Loi sur l’optométrie ni un exercice illégal au Québec de l’optométrie.

Intitulé . . . [more]

There is a very natural human tendency to claim the game is rigged when one loses.

“The referee was obviously biased against us,” the coach says, explaining the team’s loss.

Donald Trump kept complaining that the Republican Party primary rules were rigged against him, even though he was winning.

So, too, in arbitration, when the losing party seeks to overturn an unfavourable award. This is particularly evident in international arbitration, where there is no right of appeal. Also, in some domestic arbitration cases, where appeals are increasingly limited.

In these situations, lack of jurisdiction or arbitrator bias may be the . . . [more]