In 2015, practitioners in all types of firms blog. It’s a necessity of modern practice these days, and most have come around to understanding the importance of some social media presence.

If you don’t create your online footprint, someone else will for you – usually a disgruntled client.

One of the prerequisites to being appointed to the bench though is that you have to be a lawyer, usually for a good number of years. Although we’ve seen blogging lawyers appointed to the bench in recent years, and Slaw is one of the few sites where we’ve had guest judge bloggers, . . . [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:
Civil Rights – Criminal Law

R. v. Rodgerson (J.) 2015 SCC 38
Criminal Law
Summary: The accused was charged with first degree murder and convicted of the included offence of second degree murder. The trial judge imposed a sentence of life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 14 years. The accused appealed his conviction . . . [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): L’appelant a été déclaré coupable du meurtre au second degré de son frère et de tentatives de meurtre à l’endroit de ses parents; le juge ayant omis de présenter la défense d’automatisme avec troubles mentaux au jury, la tenue d’un nouveau procès est ordonnée.

Intitulé : Carrier c. . . . [more]

For the next while the Friday Fillip will be a chapter in a serialized crime novel, usually followed by a reference you might like to pursue. Both this chapter of the book and the whole story up to this point can be had as PDF files. You may also subscribe to have chapters delivered to you by email.

MEASURING LIFE
 
Chapter 22
Where Is Everybody?

Rejoicing over Legal Aid Ontario‘s (LAO’s) recent increased funding from the Government of Ontario, should be tempered by the listed “points of conscience” that follow this next paragraph.

The Government of Ontario’s 2014 budget increased Legal Aid Ontario’s financial eligibility funding of legal services by $95.7 million over the next three years. This commitment was expanded in the April 2015 budget announcement. These recent articles celebrate LAO’s increased funding:

(1) “Expanding access to legal aid for Ontarians, by Nye Thomas, Legal Aid Ontario Blog, June 5, 2015, at: http://blog.legalaid.on.ca/2015/06/05/expanding-access-to-legal-aid-for-ontarians/

(2) “Expanding LAO’s services: the road ahead . . . [more]

Slaw Contributor Adam Dodek has been awarded the Canadian Bar Association (CBA)’s 2015 Walter Owen Book Prize for his book Solicitor-Client Privilege, published by Lexis-Nexis:

“Solicitor-Client Privilege explains key aspects of lawyer-client confidentiality, analyzes the exceptions to privilege, conditions where privilege is unclear, and situations of competing interests that might bring into question the application of privilege (…) ”

“Prof. Dodek teaches public law and legislation, constitutional law, legal ethics and professional responsibility, and a seminar on the Supreme Court of Canada at University of Ottawa. He is a founding member of the faculty’s Public Law Group, the director of

The suspended Bâtonnière of the Quebec Bar Association, Lu Chan Khuong, has filed a lawsuit against the association and its administrators to overturn the suspension and reinstate her until the court determines whether the association’s board of directors had the right to relieve her of her duty. (Find the background here on Slaw.) Khuong is also seeking $95,000 in damages. . . . [more]

Thousands of years ago the Hebrew Bible records a practice of the ancient Israelites. Aaron, spiritual leader and High Priest, would select two goats designating one as a sacrifice for God while the other – designated by a red string tied around its neck – had the distinct misfortune of representing the nation’s sins and was cast off the precipice of a cliff; the original scapegoat.

Centuries later, far from the desert wilderness of the early Jews, Prime Minister Harper (along with a host of pundits, authors, and a sizeable portion of Canadians) has tied a similar crimson knot into . . . [more]

Toronto has been sitting in the spotlight for the last month as the host of the 2015 Pan Am Games, which has brought together athletes, coaches, volunteers, and Games supporters from across the world. The public attention received by the Games has not gone un-noticed by workers in the Ontario Public Service Union (OPSEU), who have been protesting the Liberal government’s privatization agenda outside of the Games venues and events.

OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas has emphasized the important role that public service workers have played in the success of the Pan Am Games, and wants Ontarians to . . . [more]

A strong west wind is blowing across my prairie landscape this week. After weeks of heat and humidity warnings and near-daily thunderstorms, there’s a change in the air. The sun is nearly set by 9 p.m. Small flocks of Canada geese are beginning their flight training. The day lilies in my garden have lost their bloom and summer is passing before my eyes.

The winds of change are blowing across Manitoba’s legal landscape as well. The Law Society of Manitoba’s latest Communique 2.0 newsletter outlines some of the changes in legal governance on the horizon for Manitoba lawyers, including entity . . . [more]

Friday July 31 is the 16th annual SysAdmin Day. A day to show our appreciation to the IT professionals who keep our computers, networks and apps working. For those of us who push the tech envelope a bit beyond a typical office setup, our thanks for not rolling their eyes every time we ask them for something new and different. And our thanks for using us as the test platform for new stuff.

In the interest of using your SysAdmin’s time most effectively, take a look at this amusing list. . . . [more]

Welcome to Vendor Quiz, a periodic feature here at Slaw in which we ask a legal marketplace supplier a series of substantive questions about their product or service. Our goal is to provide insight and guidance to Slaw readers who might be considering a purchase, and who would benefit from practical information with which they can make a more informed choice. Vendor Quiz is an advertorial service, with each post sponsored by the featured vendor.

Sync.com is a secure cloud storage platform that makes it easy to store, share and access your files from anywhere. The client’s privacy is guaranteed. . . . [more]