Polar bears are adorable. I have nothing against Beluga whales. But if we save just one thing this year, I hope it’s Ontario’s Bail Program.

To properly grasp the value and importance of the Bail Program it is first necessary to internalize a quick primer on Ontario’s bail situation. Despite a Criminal Code that endorses pre-trial detention only where absolutely necessary for public safety, decades of ‘bail creep’ have made it more or less standard for police officers and crown attorneys to insist on ‘show cause’ hearings in all but the most trifling of cases. Practically speaking this means that . . . [more]

Answer – When it appears in the McGill Law Journal’s Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation (the “McGill Guide”)

In the McGill Guide, a case citation to decision of a court or tribunal in an online database is described as “an online case identifier”. It does not qualify to be considered as a case citation like any other. This makes no sense.

What is a case citation anyway?

Simply stated, a case citation is a reference to a reliable source of the full text of the decision of a court or tribunal. In his Foreword to the McGill Guide John . . . [more]

The federal Privacy Commissioner has just released a report giving guidance on the privacy implications of police wearing body-worn cameras, and what police need to do to comply with privacy laws.

It points out that the issues around body-worn cameras are more complex than on fixed cameras.

As is usually the case with privacy issues, it is about balance – in this case balancing the advantages of the cameras with privacy concerns.

The report has this to say about balance:

There are various reasons why a LEA might contemplate adopting BWCs. LEAs could view the use of BWCs as bringing . . . [more]

When I was a new, fresh lawyer, I often lamented the lack of a network of legal professionals who could mentor and support me in my career development. I came from a rural, agricultural background and didn’t know a single lawyer before I went to law school. As I soon learned, that put me at something of a disadvantage in both job seeking and finding the right career path for me.

In the result, I learned early the value of forging and nurturing relationships within the legal profession and began to work hard at developing my own networks.

These days, . . . [more]

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. Lloyd v. Napanee (Town), 2015 ONSC 761

[170] Having identified Rankins Corner as a “hot spot”, I find that Napanee either knew or should have known that in a winter event such as the snow fall on January 3, 2003, Rankins Corner would likely become an unreasonable risk to users of Cty Rd 9 and would, for that reason, require special . . . [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

Use the TAB Key to Move From Field to Field in an Online Form*
Dan Pinnington

If you buy something online, you will likely have to enter various details into a form of some sort (e.g., name, address, phone number, email, credit card number, etc.). This can be a tad tedious if there are many fields on the form – you type a few characters, stop, reach for the . . . [more]

According to the Energy & Policy Institute, Ontario is a world-wide hot-spot for litigation opposing wind energy. Opponents of wind power often have a heartfelt and deeply held belief that wind farms threaten their health and property values. But they have lost all Ontario legal cases based on concerns about human health, now including a constitutional challenge.

Wind farms have been actively expanding in Ontario since the Ontario Green Energy Act, 2009, took away municipal power to block wind farm development, and a Feed in Tariff for selling the resulting power provided a solid economic case. Such farms . . . [more]

I must preemptively refer you to John Gregory’s post from last year when it comes to canvassing the laws, and lack thereof, around how third party services (like Google, Facebook, PayPal, etc.) are obliged to act upon the death of an account holder. The whole legal terrain is fascinating, and consists of a stewing heap of conflicting rationales, policies, privacy legislation and common laws around the rights of heirs, deceased people, states and private corporations. It’s all heading in a better direction, probably, with the advent of uniform legislation like FADA, but for some time it has been quite . . . [more]

I’m still thinking about the “great disruption” that John O. McGinnis has been talking about and thought it might be useful to revisit the Disruptive Innovation in the Market for Legal Services conference held at the Harvard Law School in March of last year. Specifically the first panel of speakers where Clayton Christensen (author of the Innovator’s Dilemma and Harvard business administration professor) outlined what constitutes “disruptive innovation” in the market place.

Christensen defines disruptive innovation as something that transforms products or services “which are complicated and expensive into things that are so affordable and . . . [more]

It’s easy to think that, at least in your office, a major claim couldn’t possibly happen. But LAWPRO’s experience shows that errors, innocent oversights and gaffes in any type of practice can lead to big problems. And if you or your firm don’t have adequate insurance in place to address the claim, you could be facing personal exposure. The number of LAWPRO claims with values that exceed $100,000 has risen sharply in recent years and often the mistakes that lead to such claims result from very simple errors. Below are scenarios drawn from reported cases of alleged lawyer-negligence that show . . . [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 Lean Law Firm 2. Michael Geist 3. Access to Justice in Canada 4. Legal Feeds 5. Library Boy

The Lean Law Firm
Grappling with your CPD credits? Here’s a new way to access continuing legal education in Canada

Continuing legal education, professional development, formation continue (for those of . . . [more]

Some firms have taken the approach that they no longer wish to spend money on exposure. They believe that through healthy partnerships, they will be able to increase revenues with current clients and through the referral process continue to grow their business. Is that possible, quite likely but are there possible problems, absolutely.

By exposure I’m referring to everything from advertising to sponsorship to community events. There are so many different ways to spend money and countless people hoping you will spend it with them but there is only so much that can go around. How do you decide how . . . [more]