Three delightful legal curios remind us that when neighbours fall out, balance and judgment cascade out the window – or are defenestrated.

Let’s start with Monsieur Proust – who was sensitive beyond sensitivity. Yet even a cork-lined writing room couldn’t shield him from shoes on wooden floors and thin walls, from the harp-playing wife of an American dentist, Marie Williams.

Gallimard published the recently found letters as an epistolary novel, Lettres à sa voisine, last year. The catalogue descibes it thus::

«C’est un vrai petit roman, fondé sur une surprise : la découverte de ces vingt-trois lettres

. . . [more]

I’m pleased to welcome Yves Faguy as a new blogger to Slaw. Yves will be joining our Thursday group of writers.

You may recognize Yves as the Senior and online editor of National Magazine, where he has also been a noticeable part of their blogging team in recent years.

Prior to working as a journalist with the CBA, Yves co-founded a Montreal-based company, Nimonik Inc., an environment, health & safety (EHS) solutions provider. He is also currently a principal at Station C, a co-working space in Montreal’s Mile End.

And of course, you can also follow him on twitter: . . . [more]

I’m not sure it’s wise, for my first post on Slaw, to discuss a topic somewhat outside my comfort zone. But having just completed reading the 15,000-word cover story of the June issue of the Atlantic, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I’m finding it hard to resist.

For those who haven’t read it, TNC’s essay is an introspective look at the United States’ “national economic plunder” of African-Americans. That plunder, as he describes it, was carried out over centuries. Worse yet – and this is the part that is most striking about the essay – much of it was rooted in deliberate . . . [more]

On May 22, 2014, with the approval of all four of Quebec’s major political parties, the newly elected Liberal government re-introduced Bill 52, An Act respecting end-of-life care at the same stage as before the election.

Legendary reporter Christie Blatchford has long been feared by Toronto-area criminal defence lawyers. I personally have experienced a clawing sense of unease on those occasions when I have glanced over my shoulder before embarking on a difficult cross-examination and noted her at the front of the public gallery, pen poised to scratch furiously into notebook. Blatchford’s style for many years has been incisive, descriptive, graphic, and often ruthless when she (more often than not) reaches the conclusion (usually well in advance of the trial judge or jury) that your client is a fiendish monster. So legendary is her vitriol and . . . [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.

Publishers note: We at Slaw would like to congratulate our columnist Adam Dodek on the release of his new book, which follows his prior work on The Canadian Constitution (2013).

Solicitor-Client Privilege
Adam M. Dodek
Lexis Nexis, 2014

Excerpt pp. XXVI – XXX

INTRODUCTION

Solicitor-client privilege is the strongest privilege protected by law.[ . . . [more]

The cloud has been touted as a significant revolution in computing – providing scalable, secure, and cost effective alternatives to owing and managing your own computing infrastructure. It has also been criticized for being insecure, unreliable, and a potential threat to the future of your business if something goes wrong.

So which is it? It can be both, actually.

Done right – with the right application, the right vendor, the right agreement, and with proper attention to issues like security, encryption, privacy, and continuity – it can work very well.

Done wrong – without those details being considered – it . . . [more]

When I first started blogging here on Slaw, I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew all the objective reasons why it would be good for me at a professional level, but some of the personal aspects of the process proved to be a genuine surprise.

A few observations gleaned from my first months of blogging:

1. It will take longer than you expect to write your first blog posts.
   My first post took 10 hours to write. Really. I even hired an editor to review it. I always thought I was a “good” writer. Until I realized how inefficient

. . . [more]

Twenty-month old Jaylene Redhead was killed by her mother on June 29, 2009 while both were resident in a second-stage housing facility in Winnipeg. Jaylene had been apprehended from her mother’s care at birth by Awasis Agency of Northern Manitoba but had been returned to her mother’s care at the Native Women’s Transition Centre in the months before her death.

The Inquest Report of Judge Lawrence Allen into her death, released May 23, reveals the awful details of this child’s short life. The inquest was called in 2011 under the provisions of Manitoba’s Fatality Inquiries Act to:

• inquire into the

. . . [more]

In the early 1980s, I lived for several years in Germany, pursuing post-graduate studies in the history of printing at the University of Cologne, thanks to a generous scholarship from the German government. I made many friends there, and we still telephone and visit regularly; and through these friends I made many acquaintances across Germany. Among them were several interesting and amusing individuals in East Berlin, whom we made a point of visiting whenever we could, despite the indignities of having to pass through the Wall. We’d bring them gifts from the West, especially things that were unavailable and sometimes . . . [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. Morland-Jones v. Taerk, 2014 ONSC 3061

[21] The antics have only gotten worse since then. Ms. Morland-Jones has shouted at the Taerks from her front yard, and Ms. Taerk has given Ms. Morland-Jones “the finger” from her front driveway. The Defendants have apparently called the police on the Plaintiffs numerous times in recent years; the Plaintiffs have responded by retaining a . . . [more]

Last week I shared my new title with Slaw. Today, I was excited to be in a room of passionate people attending the Canadian Association of Law Libraries Conference where the session title was “Should We Still Be called Librarians?” The debate and various points of view were thought provoking.

As a panelist for this session, I was delighted to share “sage on the stage” duties with Allan Fineblit, CEO, Law Society of Manitoba, Ron Greasley, Senior Brand Strategist at Deschenes Regnier, Melanie Hodges Neufeld, Director of Legal Resources, Law Society of Saskatchewan, and Sonia Poulin, Director of Alberta Law . . . [more]