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. Henry v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 24

[2] Mr. Henry brought a civil suit against the City of Vancouver (“City”), the Attorney General of British Columbia (“AGBC”), and the Attorney General of Canada (“AGC”), seeking damages for his wrongful convictions and imprisonment. The claims against the City and the AGC are not at issue in this appeal. We are . . . [more]

Not all countries prosper … Why?

There are over 190 countries in the world today. Some prosper, some do not. Why?

Some answers to such a question is the subject of a book by Francis Fukuyama in 2014 titled Political Order and Political Decay.

Some elements of prosperity include the free market ideas of Adam Smith plus an honest and effective government. Apparently democracy is not required for a country to prosper, even though a majority of countries (over 115) are today democracies.

An effective government provides an array of public goods, such as clean air, defense, public safety, public . . . [more]

What’s it like to be the only woman in the room during corporate board meetings? Or the first woman to chair a financial regulation authority in the midst of an economic crisis? Last week, three groundbreaking leaders – all lawyers by training – came together to talk about their experiences as women affecting change in a male dominated industry.

The event was hosted by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Moderated by Ron Suskind, a journalist and leader of the Center’s Project for Public Narrative, the panel featured:

• Mary Schapiro, past chair of the

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.

– Kahlil Gibran

As I looked at quotes about the word “control”, I was struck by the variety of themes that emerged. My intention with this article was to talk about the effect of trying too hard to have control. But many people struggle with the need to take control. Where is the happy line between taking control of your life, and letting control overwhelm your life?

I’ve been told many times over the years, by various people, that I have “control issues”. This . . . [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.

Technology

Remove the Background of a Picture or Clipart in PowerPoint, Word or Excel
Dan Pinnington

When adding a picture or clipart to your PowerPoint or Word document, you may run into a situation where you don’t want its background to appear. This happens most frequently to me when I place a logo or symbol onto a PowerPoint slide and its background is a different colour than the background of . . . [more]

When it comes to technology, are we not always hearing about the breakneck speed of change? The inexorable pace and ubiquity of it? How technology is revolutionizing law and practice? Our magazines, CLEs and law bloggings are replete with calls to brace for one type of Lawmageddon or another—the imminent (or at least happening really, really, probably, rather soon) confluence of events that will change lawyers’ lives forever. Anything short of fully encrypted communication between lawyer and client will spell negligence. You will become or be devoured by an alternative business structure. Cybersecurity will become the mantra by which you . . . [more]

OASIS* is a “nonprofit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society.” Under the OASIS umbrella is the LegalXML Member Section a group of “lawyers, developers, application vendors, government agencies and members of academia” working on the creation of “standards for the electronic exchange of legal data.”

The OASIS LegalDocumentML (LegalDocML) Technical Committee recently announced a month long review period to gather feedback for a number of standards they have development.

“The OASIS LegalDocML TC works to advance worldwide best practices for the use

Following up on his previous posts on lawyers’ personality traits (autonomy, skepticism,urgency), and sociability) Ian Hu (practicePRO and Claims Prevention Counsel at LAWPRO) discusses “resilience”, a measure of how well lawyers bounce back from setbacks.

A lawyer high in resilience is receptive to criticism and feedback and is not defensive. He is less likely to take criticism personally and is better at focusing on accomplishing the task at hand. If he suffers a loss or is rejected, he will bounce back easily. With all the challenges lawyers face, you’d think we score high on resilience. . . . [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. Eloïse Gratton 2. Social Media for Law Firms 3. ABlawg 4. University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog 5. SOQUIJ

Eloïse Gratton
Damages awarded for the recording of intimate activities without consent but with limited broadcasting

In the recent case of L.D. c. J.V., Superior Court judge Lukasz Granosik . . . [more]

Ten years ago Marc Lauritsen spoke at one of our conferences on the future of law. He projected ahead to 2015, and threw in a prediction as to who would be the US President. While the name was unknown to the Australian audience, the absurdity of his suggestion was highlighted by a supporting photo. Yes, the world was changing, but not THAT much, that soon.

Anything that Marc says has my instant attention. His development of choice boxing is a concept that definitely warrants serious exploration. This is a pioneering decision-support tool that results from 30 years of insight. Marc . . . [more]

When Ontario made wide-sweeping changes to automobile insurance and personal injury law in 2010, the intent was to reduce insurance premiums for the public. Although insurance companies did save money, much of these savings were not passed on to the consumers.

The amount of claims observed in Ontario did decrease in this period, but still remain the highest in the country. In 2006, accident benefits claims were $331, and rose to $588 per insured vehicle in 2009. This dropped down to $313 per vehicle in 2013 after the reforms.

Following the 2014 Cunningham Report, many anticipated that further . . . [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) : Les nouvelles dispositions de la Partie XX.1 (art. 672.1 à 672.95) du Code criminel prévoyant la possibilité de déclarer une personne jugée non responsable pour cause de troubles mentaux «accusé à haut risque» ne s’appliquent pas rétrospectivement.

Intitulé : R. c. C.R., 2015 QCCQ 2299
Juridiction : . . . [more]