A new smartphone app has been developed to guide and assist members of the public through often difficult and contentious police interactions.

LegalSwipe is a free app, available on both the iTunes and Android markets. It provides step-by-step interactions through a decision tree, prompting the user to ask specific questions such as whether they are under arrest. It then tells the user what they should or should not be doing or saying with these police interactions.

The app is the brainchild of Christien Levien, a law student who completed his articles in criminal law and is currently studying for . . . [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) : La défenderesse, grièvement blessée lors d’un accident de route, possédait une expectative raisonnable de vie privée, ce qui inclut les renseignements sur son alcoolémie divulgués par le personnel médical aux policiers qui l’ont escortée à l’hôpital; cette information était confidentielle et il y a lieu d’exclure la . . . [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 17
A More or Less Random Run

Three recent cases have brought to light bad behaviour by criminal prosecutors.

In R. v. Suarez-Noa, 2015 ONSC 3823 Justice Reid ordered a mistrial after the prosecutor suggested “to the jury that the accused had behaved like an animal rather than a human being,” calling the characterization “highly improper” and incapable of being “erased from the minds of the jurors” (para. 10-11)

According to the CBC, in the Nuttall/Korody bombing trial British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce said the prosecutors “took my breath away” with the “impropriety” of their decision to show a video to the jury . . . [more]

A recent decision from the California Labour Commission (the Commission) has held that drivers from the popular Uber service are employees and not independent contractors. This decision has sparked public interest as its implications could bring trouble for the successful mobile-based start-up.

In coming down on the side of the drivers, the Commission concluded that the employer was involved in “every aspect of the operation” of the ride hauling service. Uber, however, has appealed the decision emphasizing the significant degree of driver autonomy as the basis for their operations and stating that “the number one reason drivers choose to use . . . [more]

By Richard Susskind

In her introduction to ‘A Guide to Strategy for Lawyers’, a booklet that I have written for CBA members, Michele Hollins, the CBA President, quotes Jack Welch, the former CEO and Chairman of General Electric, who advises organizations to ‘change before you have to’. I had not heard this phrase before, but will undoubtedly use it again, because it so succinctly sets the agenda for practising lawyers in Canada and advanced jurisdictions around the world.

The legal marketplace, in my view, is in the middle of a period of unprecedented upheaval. Indeed I believe we . . . [more]

On June 3, 2015—the 10th anniversary of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)—Ontario’s government introduced an accessibility action plan, which establishes measures to meet the goal of an “accessible Ontario” by 2025. The action plan also responds to the Report on the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act review released in February 2015. . . . [more]

Each Thursday we present a significant excerpt, usually from a recently published book or journal article. In every case the proper permissions have been obtained. If you are a publisher who would like to participate in this feature, please let us know via the site’s contact form.

Why There Should Be No Constitutional Right to Contact Counsel from a Police Car
Originally published in the Western Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 5 [2015], Iss. 4, Art. 5

Terry Skolnik, LLL (UOttawa), LLM (Cambridge), SJD candidate (University of Toronto)

Excerpt: Introduction, Part III & IV

[Footnotes omitted. They can be found . . . [more]

As part of the BCAMI Symposium held June 8 and 9 2015 in Vancouver, Jean Greatbatch conducted a workshop entitled the “Neuroscience of Conflict”. Jean is an experienced mediator and arbitrator with a special focus on workplace conflict, a member of the board of Mediate BC Society and a busy conflict consultant. She completed her LLM in Conflict Resolution at Osgoode and wrote her thesis on the topic of how the brain deals with conflict. In this post I will provide some highlights of her fascinating and insightful presentation. In 90 minutes she managed to provide a great overview of . . . [more]

The most used app on my phone, after the camera, is probably the weather app. It’s the farm girl in me, I think, that remains a little obsessed with what’s on the way.

Growing up on a prairie farm, we learned to watch weather patterns closely. To keep abreast of what was coming, we monitored:

• A thermometer for temperature
• A weather vane for wind direction
• A rain gauge for rainfall
• The Farmer’s Almanac for long range forecasts
• Fog (we counted 100 days after fog and expected rain)
• Radar for approaching storms
• And of course, weather forecasts from local and regional

Several amendments were made last week to PIPEDA, the federal private sector privacy legislation. This has been sitting around in draft for a long time. Except for sections creating a new mandatory breach notification scheme, the amendments are now in force. The breach notification scheme requires some regulations before it comes into effect. More on that at the end of this post.

Several of these changes were long overdue, and bring PIPEDA more in line with some of the Provincial Acts that were drafted after PIPEDA.

Here are some of the highlights that are in force now:

• The business contact

I have been thinking about discoverability of legal information materials for some time and worrying that in many cases it isn’t as good as it could be. At the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in Moncton last month the exhibitor hall was full of people with the goal of selling attendees information products in various forms. There were fewer people there with the goal of helping make those purchased materials accessible once they are acquired.

Legal information materials’ primary users have generally been subject experts (of various degrees), and this has meant that there has been less pressure to improve . . . [more]