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. Law Society of Upper Canada v Robson, 2015 ONLSTA 18

[15] Mr. Robson has communicated with the Tribunal and Law Society counsel on multiple occasions in ways that are properly characterized as deeply offensive and appalling. However, given our conclusion above, it is unnecessary for us to consider whether his conduct would have disqualified him from a favourable costs order, had . . . [more]

Law firms and legal departments often rely on technology to create cost-effective training options. Mistakes can be costly, though. If you choose the wrong platform or make incorrect assumptions, both you and your program could lose credibility.

In the second half of an interview with Holly MacDonald, driving force behind Canadian e-learning innovation consultancy Spark &+Co, we learn what to consider when creating an e-learning module, and which trends might help sustain progress. (The first half of the interview discussed what individual lawyers should look for when selecting an e-learning course.)

Q. Which mistakes do organizations commonly . . . [more]

Subject to limited exceptions, all parties litigating in Superior Court have the right to have the issues of fact tried, or the damages assessed, or both, by a jury.

Despite this fundamental right, civil jury trials are much more rare than trials conducted by judge alone.

A recent decision of Mew J., provides an excellent, comprehensive, summary of the law on civil jury trials including the law pertaining to the fundamental right to a jury trial and a detailed discussion of the law pertaining to a judge’s discretion to strike a jury notice.

The decision is a useful read for . . . [more]

When Walmart, Target, and the ultra-conservative Koch brothers stand shoulder-to-shoulder on an employment issue, you could be forgiven for thinking that a workplace apocalypse is brewing. This trifecta is more likely to be found campaigning against union certifications or decrying a minimum wage hike than singing hymns on a picket line with the likes of ColorOfChange.Org, The Center for American Progress, and the American Civil Liberties Union. And yet the lion doth lay down with the lamb.

Several weeks ago Koch Industries added its ample voice to the chorus of “ban the box” promoters. The “box” being “banned” in . . . [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 technology, research and practice.

Research

What Is Your Legal Research Project Status?
Shaunna Mireau

I despise long deadlines for legal research projects. Give me a complex project that has to be completed by the end of the week over a complex project that I must pick away at over a month or two any day. Why? With a longer project I must use formal project management – on myself. …

Practice

Hacker’s Guide to . . . [more]

Why, if lawyers are supposed to be good communicators, are the majority of LAWPRO claims related to communication issues? In 2014, for example, the broad category of communications accounted for about almost a third of claims reported and claims costs. In the article “Let’s Get Talking: A Look at Communications Breakdowns“, from LAWPRO Magazine we asked some lawyers to give their opinions on how lawyer-client communications can break down. This excerpt deals with lawyers giving clients the impression they don’t really care:

How can lawyers understand what clients truly want if they don’t listen? And how can lawyers . . . [more]

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the Public Review of LegalDocML’s Akoma Ntoso v1.0. If you’re interested in legal XML and want to learn more about the Akoma Ntoso XML standard there are a couple of courses being offered at the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia this summer.

The first is the Basic Course offering an, “introduction to Akoma Ntoso XML standard and to basic XML technologies for drafting and managing standard-compliant legislative and legal documents.” The second part, an Advanced Course, will provide, “in-depth analysis of the higher levels of Semantic Web technologies . . . [more]

A 7 year battle over a day of paid personal leave has finally reached a conclusion.

The dispute centred around the interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement governing a unionized employee of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The employee, during the span of one fiscal year, moved from one position within the Agency to another. Each position was in a different bargaining unit with its own collective agreement. Each collective agreement entitled workers to one paid personal day per fiscal year. The employee took a personal day under each agreement (in the same year). The Agency refused to . . . [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. The Stream 2. Administrative Law Matters3. Excess Copyright 4. Law & Style 5. Clio Blog

The Stream
Asked & Answered: Can I text in the Courtroom?

Texting is a great way to communicate. It’s fast and, with an ever-growing number of emoticons to choose from, it’s fun too! . . . [more]

We all covet the latest and greatest of technology, not to mention possessing the fastest computer. One way to increase the speed of your computer is to use a solid state drive (SSD) instead of a mechanical one. Essentially, SSDs are flash memory devices that appear as a hard disk to the computer. It is very fast to write and read from memory as opposed to accessing data from the rotating platters of a mechanical disk drive. Solid state drives are three to four times faster than their mechanical counterparts when writing or reading large files. Sound good? Then you’ll . . . [more]

Lawyers have always needed to stay current with developments and changes in our field. The proliferation of information online has changed this responsibility, and creates new challenges as well as new opportunities.

In 1998, David Blunkett, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, stated in a green paper called The Learning Age,

We are in a new age – an age of information and global competition. Familiar certainties and old ways of doing things are disappearing. The types of jobs we do have are changed as have the industries in which we work and the skills they need.

At

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) : La directive donnée par le juge à propos du témoignage d’un témoin taré était insuffisante, compte tenu des circonstances particulières de l’affaire et de la nature de la preuve avancée par la poursuite; par conséquent, l’accusé devra subir un nouveau procès pour meurtre au second degré.

Intitulé . . . [more]