At what point do concerns over the conduct or competency of a lower court judge rise to the level that an appellate court should report that judge to the relevant judicial council? Appellate courts are naturally hesitant to do so, lest they infringe on judicial independence. However, at some point a judge’s conduct may cross the line and compel an appellate court to report them in the name of protecting the integrity of the administration of justice and maintaining public confidence in the same. The Alberta Court of Appeal’s review of the judgment of Judge Robin Camp in R v. . . . [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

Use CanLII to Compare Two Versions of an Act
Susannah Tredwell

Most CanLII users know that CanLII provides point-in-time versions of legislation. However, one feature of CanLII that is less well known is that it allows users to compare two versions of an act. …

Practice

How to Deal With Difficult People
David Bilinsky

James C. Collins wrote the best seller: “Good to Great: Why . . . [more]

While the primary responsibility for wellness rests with the individual, nothing is more important to a law practice than its lawyers and staff. The “firm” – Big Law or a solo practice – can do nothing without people; the better those people feel, the more productive they will be, and the more profitable the firm will be. It follows that a firm has an interest in helping its people be healthy and well. How can a firm help?

Wikipedia defines the Nudge theory as “a concept in behaviour science, political theory and economics which argues that positive reinforcement and indirect . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from sixty 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. Library Technician Dialog  2. Excess Copyright 3. Legal Sourcery  4. Henry J. Chang’s Canada-US Immigration Blog  5. The Factum

Library Technician Dialog
I Can’t Get No Respect

When I first joined the profession, I was interested in the debate of librarian as service professional amidst a world of doctors . . . [more]

The New York Times recently published a pair of scathing articles about the state of arbitration in the United States. The articles focus mainly on the effect of arbitration on consumer and class action litigation and raise important issues of fairness, transparency and access to justice.

Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice (Oct.31, 2015) details how it has become almost impossible for a consumer or small business to apply for a credit card, use a cellphone, get cable or Internet service, or shop online without agreeing to private arbitration. The same applies to getting a job, renting a car . . . [more]

The purpose of government, when it is functioning properly, is to pass laws. These laws should be carefully contemplated, debated, and revised before drafting.

But sometimes there’s a greater urgency in this function, which has arose in the aftermath of Carter v. Canada, where the Court ruled in February of this year:

Section 241 (b) and s. 14  of the Criminal Code  unjustifiably infringe s. 7  of the Charter  and are of no force or effect to the extent that they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination

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.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS : L’article 500.1 du Code de la sécurité routière, qui interdit toute action concertée destinée à entraver la circulation des véhicules routiers, est déclaré invalide; il porte atteinte aux libertés d’expression et de réunion pacifique protégées par les chartes.

Intitulé : Garbeau c. Montréal (Ville de), 2015 . . . [more]

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week’s summaries concern: Aliens – Criminal Law – Statutes – Bankruptcy – Constitutional Law – Highways – Motor Vehicles

Tran v. Canada (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) 2015 FCA 237
Aliens – Criminal Law – Statutes
Summary: Tran, a citizen of Vietnam, was a permanent resident in Canada. In 2012, he was convicted of producing . . . [more]

Law librarians are used to receiving requests for help in locating government documents and reports, with requesters often expressing a preference for materials in digital format.

Relatively recent materials should not be too hard to locate. In fact, there are new portals that have been created for the very purpose of tracking down digitized government documents. One example is GALLOP, launched a few years ago by the Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada.

When it comes to earlier materials, documents, if they have been digitized, may pop up in any number of places, such as HeinOnline for federal statutes. . . . [more]

There’s a kind of pleasure you can get from contemplating an unopened parcel. I think of it as the “brown paper packages tied up with strings” phenomenon. Of course part of the delight is in the anticipation of what might lie within, the knowledge of (and control over?) a coming discovery or surprise, as though you’d called a time-out after the set-up and before the punch line of a joke in the way the best comics can work their timing.

There’s enjoyment, too, in attending to the wrapping itself, I find. That’s easy when the wrapping is artful in some . . . [more]

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser: in fees, and expenses, and waste of time. As peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”

Abraham Lincoln
Notes on the Practice of Law
The Library of America, Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858

John-Paul Boyd is the executive director of the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family. The Institute is a federally-incorporated charity established in 1987 and is affiliated with the University of . . . [more]

In a recent speech to the world’s insurance companies, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England (and formerly of the Bank of Canada), warned of the risks of lawsuits “by parties who have suffered loss or damage from the effects of climate change [who] seek compensation from those they hold responsible.”

While not presenting such lawsuits as a sure thing, Mr. Carney alluded to multi-billion dollar lawsuits against the Asbestos industry and said that the risks of such litigation “will only increase as the science and evidence of climate change hardens.”

West Coast Environmental Law made a . . . [more]