In a recent defamation decision, the plaintiff spent nearly $550,000 on legal fees only to recover a $10,000 judgment. The plaintiff was not alone in racking up a large legal bill. The defendant spent nearly $250,000 on legal fees defending the claim.

After the conclusion of trial both sides sought their legal costs from the other side.

The plaintiff argued that it was successful in the result and therefore ought to be entitled to costs.

The defendant argued that the plaintiff should have brought its case in Small Claims Court, or under the Simplified Procedure, and should not be . . . [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

Legislative History in Case Law
Shaunna Mireau

I was reminded that sometimes you can find a decent review of the history of a piece of legisaltion within written decisions. For instance, a discussion of the Election Act for Alberta was published in Engel v Alberta (Executive Council), 2015 ABQB 226 and includes a bit of legislative history. …

Practice

Getting Your Legal Writing Right
Garry Wise

I remember the . . . [more]

Last month, as part of a five-year SSHRC funded research project exploring the costs of justice, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice released the first data from its national legal problems survey, “Everyday Legal Problems and the Cost of Justice in Canada”. Completed in 2014 with over 3000 respondents, the survey finds that everyday legal problems are ubiquitous in the lives of adult Canadians. Over any given three-year period almost 50% of adult Canadians will experience at least one legal problem that they find series and difficult to resolve.

What Are Everyday Legal Problems?

Everyday legal problems are the . . . [more]

Every year, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) hands out the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

It honours a publisher that has demonstrated excellence by publishing a work, series, website or e-product that makes a significant contribution to legal research and scholarship.

The nominees for this year are:

• BC Laws (British Columbia Queen’s Printer)
• CanLII Connects (CanLII)
• Centre de documentation et de ressources informationnelles [CDRI] (Chambre des notaires du Québec)
• Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History book series (University of Toronto Press)
• Quickscribe 2.0 (Quickscribe 2.0 Services Ltd.)
• Saskatchewan Builders’ Lien Manual, 2^nd ed.

Following up on his previous post on lawyers’ personality traits, Ian Hu (practicePRO and Claims Prevention Counsel at LAWPRO) discusses autonomy, a trait that helps lawyers do their job but makes them poor bedfellows in a law firm environment.

Dr. Larry Richard states in our LAWPRO magazine article “Herding Cats: The Lawyer Personality Revealed” that studies suggest high achieving lawyers score in the 89^th percentile of this trait, which measures the degree to which a person is sensitive to externally defined rules, policies and procedures. A high autonomy score means that the person is more likely to be unresponsive . . . [more]

Hello!
On the day that the new E-Laws site went live, I sent them an email to ask where I could find the Detailed Legislative History Tables.
Here is their reply:

Dear Ms. Demers:

Thank you for your e-mail concerning the new e-Laws web site (www.ontario.ca/laws).

Detailed legislative history (DLH) tables are no longer being maintained. As of April 10, 2015, there were 3,971 regulation tables and 998 statute tables, which were regularly being updated manually in Word format. In their current format, the DLH tables could not meet the web accessibility requirements set out under the Accessibility . . . [more]

I had the opportunity to gather with fellow “repositorians” in Williamsburg, Virginia, last month. It was the first meeting held to discuss the development and maintenance of institutional repositories for law and legal resources. The event was called, “Law Repositories: Shaping the Future,” and was made possible through a grant from the AALL/Bloomberg Continuing Education Grants Program and the sponsorship of both bepress and the Legal Information Preservation Alliance (LIPA).

Jona Whipple, Digital Resources Librarian, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, has provided a nice report on the event and I refer . . . [more]

Have you noticed the growing reports about drought? Cities like Sao Paolo, Atlanta and Austin are nearly out of water. Utah may be entering a 1000 year drought. Australia is struggling. California has only one year of water left in its reservoirs. And so on around the world.

An Op Ed by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory senior water cycle scientist Jay Famiglietti calls for immediate water rationing, groundwater management legislation, long-term water management strategies, and public ownership of the issue. He emphasizes the need for an honest, transparent and forward-looking process, concluding: “Most important, we must make sure that there . . . [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. À bon droit  2. The Factum 3. Global Workplace Insider  4. All About Information  5. National Blog

À bon droit
La passation de titre n’est possible que dans la mesure où elle se fonde sur une offre valide

La passation de titre est l’ultime expression de la volonté du . . . [more]

Perhaps the best way to raise awareness of the 2015 Bencher Elections is to highlight what the function of the law society is. The LSUC website states,

The main function of the Law Society of Upper Canada is to ensure that all persons who practise law or provide legal services in Ontario are competent, follow proper procedures and behave ethically.

Ethical behaviour is generally interpreted through the lens of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and is one of the main disciplinary functions of the law society. Discipline, though rarely pleasant, is one of the necessary components of self-regulation. Understandably . . . [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.

TRANSPORT ET AFFRÈTEMENT : Le contrat par lequel l’assuré de la demanderesse a retenu les services du défendeur pour naviguer son bateau d’un point à un autre, moyennant les modalités de paiement indiquées au contrat, n’est pas un contrat de transport régi par l’article 2030 C.C.Q., mais plutôt un contrat . . . [more]

For the next while the Friday Fillip will be a chapter in a serialized crime novel, interrupted occasionally by a reference you might like to follow up. 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 7
Town and Country