Lindsay Cameron‘s best-selling novel BIGLAW is billed as “The Devil Wears Prada meets One L, BIGLAW provides an insider’s view of the cut-throat world of big New York law firms.”

Most of the partners in the book are bullies. The book is a good read not so much because the characters and the storylines are outrageous but rather because both are credible and familiar. Cameron, a graduate of UBC’s Faculty of Law, was a corporate associate for six years in large law firms in both Canada and the United States. During that time, she no doubt accumulated a . . . [more]

I was a law student in the mid-1970s. At that time, the curriculum in common law Canadian law schools reflected a widespread, if not universal, consensus on the content and scope of the core body of legal doctrine that would prepare students for a career in the legal profession. At my law school, in addition to the common first year subjects – torts, property, contracts, criminal law, legal systems and judicial process and legal writing – we were required to take administrative law, evidence, civil procedure, insurance, constitutional law (division of powers, that is – the Charter was not yet . . . [more]

A panel of three Ontario Divisional Court Judges have held that residential landlords are not permitted to photograph a property while it is occupied by a tenant unless the lease explicitly permits such photographs to be taken, or the landlord obtains the express consent of the tenant.

The Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board ordered a tenant to be evicted when she refused to allow the landlord access to the property for the purpose of photographing it so that it could be listed for sale. The tenant refused on the basis that her privacy would be invaded if photographs of her . . . [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.

Practice

Tackle That (In)Box
Elizabeth Mah

When people ask “How are you doing?” I think most people answer on behalf of their inboxes. “Full”, some might say, or “Crazy” say most as they glance at the notice saying that there are 99,999 email messages in their inbox and then glance at the clock indicating the time remaining in their day. …

Research & Writing

Think of Your Reader . . . [more]

This article is by Cynthia Miller, Unit Director & Counsel at LAWPRO.

Counsel representing clients who seek compensation for injuries caused by another’s negligence or wrongdoing are encouraged to be mindful that the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care may also be entitled to recover its costs for health care and medical treatment provided to the injured party from the tortfeasor. Failure to advance OHIP’s subrogated claim can lead to adverse consequences for both the injured plaintiff and plaintiff ’s counsel.

Accordingly, solicitors are wise to develop a working knowledge of the principle of subrogation, and to implement file management . . . [more]

There have been a number of things written lately about lawyers and technology indicating that this conversation has begun to emerge.

Here are a few selections that have crossed my screen over the last couple of months:

• Bennion, Jeff. 2016. ‘Debunking 3 Legal Technology Myths’. Above the Law. Accessed March 31. http://abovethelaw.com/2016/02/debunking-3-legal-technology-myths/.
  • “Lately, I’ve talked to a lot of people who have some misconceptions about what it means to be a tech-friendly law office.”
• Casanovas, Pompeu, Monica Palmirani, Silvio Peroni, Tom van Engers, and Fabio Vitali. 2016. ‘Semantic Web for the Legal Domain: The next Step’. Edited by Pompeu

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. First Reference Talks  2. Pensions & Benefits Law 3. Combat Sports Law  4. SOQUIJ  5. Clio

First Reference Talks
Maciel vs. Fashion Coiffures: pregnancy and employer’s continued obligation under the “Code”

The applicant, Jessica Maciel, was just over four months pregnant when she applied for, and was hired as . . . [more]

If you have ever had the un-enviable job of re-building a corporate intranet you will know where I am coming from. Corporate intranets tend to be a mass repository of just about everything, from everyone that your firm has ever produced. Intranets unintentionally become dumping grounds that are never cleaned up. Of course much of the content was important at some point, so how do you turn a vast wasteland of information into something usable, friendly and fit within your culture? It starts with a rethink.

There are many articles about how to get the project started, approved, launched, etc. . . . [more]

Lawyers like to think they’re unique.

This exceptionalism can explain in part our resistance to change, and our inability to adopt best practices from other industries. Sometimes it limits our ability to recognize that our challenges are part of larger societal trends which everyone is facing.

In The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the nature of legal services, Richard Susskind explored alternative methods of providing legal services, while pointing to some of the many failings of the existing models of delivery. In Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future, he goes further, and describes the types of new jobs . . . [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 délai de 48 heures prévu à l’article 108 de la Loi sur le système de justice pénale pour les adolescents permettant au directeur provincial de renvoyer le cas d’un adolescent arrêté pour examen est un délai de rigueur.

Intitulé : LSJPA — 1560, 2015 QCCQ 14868 . . . [more]

Although its use is of questionable significance in the age of the internet, many of us mark our public writing, including our public legal education materials, with a copyright statement asserting an exclusive right to control the use and distribution of our work. This is a fairly normal thing to do, and almost universal among legal aid providers; after all, when you’ve sweat blood over something, you want to keep it for yourself and you don’t want to discover someone else claiming it as their own or using it for their own purposes.

I certainly felt that way and my . . . [more]

According to Security Magazine, the number of ransomware attacks is predicted to increase in 2016. For the second quarter of 2015, more than 4 million samples of ransomware infections were identified as compared to 1.5 million in the third quarter of 2013. That’s a pretty big increase.

Ransomware

So what is ransomware? Ransomware is a piece of malware that encrypts your data and holds it hostage until you pay a ransom. The idea is that after you pay the ransom, you receive the decryption key in order to decrypt your data and make it accessible again. The payment is made . . . [more]