Canada’s online legal magazine.

What the Minutes Show: Boards and the Governance of AI

Over the past several years, artificial intelligence has moved steadily from the margins of organizational life toward the centre of ordinary operations. It now appears throughout the systems organizations rely upon and the work their people perform, frequently arriving without any deliberate decision to adopt it. For a growing number of organizations, the question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will appear in some form. It has already arrived, and that development carries real implications for boards of directors.

I have spent a fair amount of my career in and around boardrooms, working on questions of corporate governance, non-profit governance, . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Technology

Voice Is Not Enough: Co-Creating the Future of Child-Inclusive Mediation

Rachel Birnbaum and Nicholas Bala’s recent discussion paper, Shaping the Future of Child-Inclusive Mediation in Canada, is an important contribution to the ongoing evolution of family mediation practice in Canada.

The paper provides a thoughtful overview of the research supporting child-inclusive mediation and reaffirms the principle that children should have opportunities to participate in decisions that affect their lives. As the authors note:

“The objective of child-inclusive mediation is not to have children making decisions but adding their input to the decision-making process. The research demonstrates that when children are consulted and included, they have better outcomes.”

Yet despite . . . [more]

Posted in: Dispute Resolution

Monday’s Mix

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 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. Legal Feeds 2. The Trauma-Informed Lawyer 3. Michael Geist 4. Double Aspect 5. Timely Disclosure

Legal Feeds
SCC affirms 7-2 that methods of medical treatment cannot be patented in Canada

Methods of medical treatment cannot be patented under Canadian law, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in . . . [more]

Posted in: Monday’s Mix

Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Leave to Appeal Granted

Sentencing: Mandatory Minimums
Quebec (Attorney General) v. Denis, 2026 SCC 25

Mandatory minimum of six months for obtaining sexual services from minor is constitutional.

Intellectual Property: Patents
Pharmascience Inc. v. Janssen Inc., 2026 SCC 26 (41209)

What is/is not . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ

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) : L’usage que faisait l’appelante de son téléphone cellulaire au moyen d’un dispositif mains libres intégré à son véhicule n’était pas un usage autorisé en raison du fait qu’elle tenait en main son appareil durant la conversation téléphonique admise.

Intitulé : Rahme c. Ville de Laval, 2026 QCCA . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

A Woman’s Work Is Never Done. or Valued Appropriately.

“Where’s my book?”

“On your bookcase.”

A pause. “Where on the bookcase?”

“The middle shelf.”

Another pause. “Where on the middle shelf?”

I let that hang for a second, my hands covered in the pie pastry I’d been rolling out. Maybe, if I just gave it some time, the book would reveal itself from its sophisticated hiding place of … the middle shelf of a tiny three-shelf bookcase.

It did not. So, I did what mothers do and retrieved the book.

I used to tell this story from my kid’s childhood for laughs, but it points to a deeper truth. . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Information

New Perspectives on the Legal Treatise

Now in an era in which it is uncommon to find much discussion and newly written commentary on aspects of law publishing, as distinct from artificial intelligence technology, it was a pleasant surprise to encounter New Perspectives on the Legal Treatise. The content of the book was edited by Femi Cadmus, who, at the time, was law librarian and Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Nicholas Mignanelli, Assistant Dean and Director of the Mabee Legal Information Center [sic] and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa College of Law. Its contributions are based . . . [more]

Posted in: Book Reviews, Legal Publishing

What Does It Mean to Be a Competent Lawyer in the Age of AI?

At a conference of law teachers at Western in June, I took part in discussions among professors and lawyers about whether facility with AI should be a core competence in a Canadian law degree at this point in time. This gave rise to larger questions about whether law profs now have an ethical or pedagogical duty of some kind to familiarize themselves with AI and develop methods of teaching students how to use it effectively. This, in turn, pointed to the even larger question of what it means to be a competent lawyer in the age of AI.

Put another . . . [more]

Posted in: Legal Technology

Monday’s Mix

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 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. Canadian Class Actions Monitor 2. Know How 3. Canadian Appeals Monitor 4. David Whelan 5. Welcome to the Food Court

Canadian Class Actions Monitor
Submission to Finance Canada as part of its Pre-budget Consultations in Advance of the upcoming 2025 Fall Federal Budget

There has been a . . . [more]

Posted in: Monday’s Mix

Summaries Sunday: Supreme Advocacy

One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from April 18 – June 25, 2026 inclusive.

Appeal

Civil Litigation/Elections: Collateral Attack; Abuse of Process; Parliamentary Privilege; Immunity
Resler v. Anglin2024 ABCA 1132026 SCC 23 (41298)

Can an unsuccessful election candidate bring a civil claim against an elections officer for the tort of . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ

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) : Un examen inégal des témoignages de l’appelant et de la victime d’agression sexuelle allant au-delà de la méthodologie est démontré; l’analyse de la crédibilité de l’appelant a mené à un renversement du fardeau de la preuve, et la Cour d’appel ordonne la tenue d’un nouveau procès.

Intitulé . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Leave to Appeal Granted

Bankruptcy: Contempt
Lymer v. Jonsson, 2025 ABCA 423 (42227)

Civil contempt issues in bankruptcy.

Civil Litigation: Contempt; Charter s. 11 (c)
Estate of Craig Sutherland, et al. v. Murphy, 2025 ONCA 227 (41818)

Civil contempt issues in injunctions and . . . [more]

Posted in: Summaries Sunday

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This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada | Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce au gouvernement du Canada