Nova Scotia’s Cyber-Safety Act has been struck down as unconstitutional, with immediate effect.

The law clearly intended to restrict expression. The way it did so was held so vague as not to constitute a restriction “prescribed by law” as required by section 1 of the Charter. It was also disproportionate to the harms it sought to remedy. The court declined to suspend application of the ruling, as the Crown had requested.

Further details are in the blog of the successful counsel, David Fraser of Halifax.

Tragic circumstances do not justify a hasty or overbroad legislative response. . . . [more]

What if there was one personality attribute that made all the difference to your success as a lawyer? And it was something that you could develop in yourself?

That attribute is Grit. Grit is a by-product of a Growth mindset. And a Growth mindset is something you can actively develop in yourself.

Last month I moderated a Grit and Growth Panel with three partners and one associate from large law firms in Vancouver at the Canadian Bar Association’s Leadership Conference for Women Professionals held the weekend of November 19 and 20 in Vancouver.

Grit and Growth… truth be told, when . . . [more]

We love to rank. High and low, higher and lower yet: Social standing — whether “brow” or “class” — seats in the coliseum, credit cards, professors — whole universities¹, come to that — even art². You’ll know high art by where you find it. It’ll be in museums and grand concert halls, which are created to define high art. There’ll be a salon des refusés perhaps, for the near misses. And then — maybe even daubed on the outside of the same walls — there’s ephemera: pop, journalism, illustration, the work of hacks, jills and jacks . . . [more]

December 10th is the day on which the annual winners of the Nobel Prizes in various fields collect their awards in Oslo or Stockholm.

The Nobel Prize winners in literature, chemistry, physics, medicine and economics gather in the Swedish capital. The winner or winners of the yearly Peace Prize attend a ceremony in Oslo.

Law Library of Congress employee Jennifer Gonzalez has written a two-part post on the Library’s blog In Custodia Legis about the many lawyers and law professors who have won the Peace Prize:

• Nobel Prize-Winning Lawyers: Part One
• Nobel Prize-Winning Lawyers: Part Two

The list includes Oscar . . . [more]

When someone mentions the words “human rights”, there’s often a very romanticized notion of what that means. People might imagine a right to live, or a right to be treated fairly, and a right to live and believe in whatever we want to believe. While there may be some discrepancies, the common thread among different interpretations is the answer to the question “what is it that we are all equally entitled to?”. When it comes to “big ticket” items like the right to live, worship and think freely, it’s difficult to argue against that.

But what about issues such as . . . [more]

Whether you greeted the ascendancy of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals with rainbow-tinted visions of angels and unicorns or you prophesied Canada’s sulfuric descent into a pit of doom, all agree on one inviolable truth: change is coming.

Trudeau, and his newly appointed Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, face a ticking clock on a phalanx of legal challenges and legislative amendments many of which require immediate attention.

Marijuana

Whether it’s legalization or some form of decriminalization, this is a promise that Trudeau’s youthful fans – who turned out to vote for the party in record numbers – are not likely to sit quietly . . . [more]

I am very pleased to let you know that the Federation of Law Societies of Canada has launched the Interactive Model Code of Professional Conduct, a new free online tool that links the provisions in the Federation’s Model Code to the matching or related rules of professional conduct in every law society in Canada.

This interactive tool will allow mobile lawyers, law society staff and leaders, academic researchers and others to quickly and easily find the enforceable rules in every Canadian jurisdiction using the national Model Code as the central reference point. Users will be able to isolate specific . . . [more]

“Not only are the professions themselves a human construct, therefore, but so too is the organization of the knowledge that they dispense.” Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind – The Future of The Professions

The knowledge that the legal profession dispenses comes mostly from case law. Case law springs from precedent, creating a body of writing obsessed with the past. This obsession with the past obscures the human author and makes the law appear pre-ordained and sacrosanct rather than a human construct.

Professor Elizabeth Judge explains in “Precedent and the Individual Opinion: Judges Judging Judgments and the Creation of the Law . . . [more]

Every time there is a tragic attack on people or property, there is a cry from various authorities or politicians for law enforcement to get unfettered access to all kinds of communication tools.

But that would cause far more harm than good, and is a really bad idea.

The argument goes something like this:

These bad actors hide behind encrypted communications to plan their evil deeds. Therefore to stop them law enforcement needs to have access to all this. Therefore we need to have backdoors built into all encryption that law enforcement can use.

This is flawed in many ways. . . . [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. Royal Bank of Canada v Reddy, 2007 ABQB 613

[14] Firstly, the applicant argues that her monthly payment, equal to the cost of the mortgage, insurance and taxes, amount to some evidence of part performance. However, these payments are equally consistent with a rental arrangement entered into between family members. Secondly, the applicant mentions in her affidavit the payment of “money . . . [more]

I started my career working for the medical profession. During that time, I heard many teachers of medicine say to their residents, “Listen to the patients. They’re giving you the diagnosis.” Now, as a teacher of business development, my key message is: “Listen to your clients. They will tell you what legal services they need.”

I write this as I’m preparing a presentation for Mackrell International’s meeting of its referral network. My topic is “20 Questions for Prospective Clients”. As I try to ensure that I have a good reason for asking each of the 20 questions, it strikes . . . [more]

Tips in Ontario’s service industry are currently divided up in a variety of ways: they can be kept by the specific employee who receives them, pooled to share with other employees, or pooled to share with other employees and the employer. An act entitled Protecting Employees’ Tips Act, 2015 amends Ontario’s Employment Standards Act to prohibit employers from taking a share of tips.

Passed yesterday, the Act will take effect in six months. While there will be a few situations in which employers may be permitted to share in tips (such as when the employer regularly performs the same work . . . [more]