The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled this week that Rafferty should receive publicly funded legal aid in preparation of his appeal as part of a s. 684 application.

Public anger towards Michael Rafferty is perhaps understandable. As I commented last year, Rafferty was referred to as a “monster” even by the judge presiding over his sentencing for his horrific murder of Tori Stafford.

The parties agreed that Rafferty did not have means to retain counsel, and had limited ability to do so himself as he has a grade 9 education, is imprisoned in segregation, and does not have . . . [more]

This week's summaries concern: Search & seizure of computers and cell phones / Suing government agency created by treaty:

Pénal: Une ordonnance de non-publication rendue en vertu de l'article 517 C.Cr. n'empêche pas la publication de l'information obtenue d'une autre source; en l'espèce, la publication et la diffusion de la dénonciation caviardée ainsi que du rapport d'exécution de la perquisition ayant eu lieu chez les intimés, sauf quant aux éléments expressément prohibés, sont permises.

On 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, SupremeAdvocacyLett@r, to which you may subscribe.

Summary of all appeals and leaves to appeal granted (so you know what the S.C.C. will soon be dealing with). For leaves, both the date the S.C.C. granted leave and the date of the C.A. judgment below are added in, in case you want to track and check out the C.A. judgment. (Nov. 16 to Dec. 13, 2013 inclusive).

APPEALS

Class Actions: . . . [more]

In a recent civil case, the British Columbia Supreme Court had to decide on the admissibility in evidence of a database of transactions under a contract, and the results of SQL analysis of the database that produced a number of Excel format spreadsheets. The people who generated the spreadsheets were available to testify in person about how they had run the queries: Animal Welfare International Inc. v. W3 International Media Ltd., 2013 BCSC 2193 (CanLII).

The opposing party submitted that the analysis done in extracting the data constituted expert evidence, and the witnesses needed to be qualified as experts . . . [more]

“Is it just me,” asks a regular CBA FuturesChat participant, “or is there greater discussion and interest on ABS and technology than ethics and regulation?”

It’s not just him.

Since the CBA’s Legal Futures Initiative began conducting its Tuesday night Twitter chats in October, the greatest engagement and participation came during discussions about innovating within the legal profession with new kinds of business structures, many of them made possible by technological advances.

“Ethics” seems an immutable concept, something for philosophical debate late into the evening rather than an action item – as Joshua Lenon, in-house-lawyer for Clio, said in the . . . [more]

There are things we can control (we think), and things we cannot. Most natural phenomena, big and small, fall into the latter category — which is to say damn near everything that happens. Sensibly, we avoid the dangerous much of the time and try to adapt when we can’t run away far enough. Ice age coming? Oh bother! That means up stakes, heavy coats, and a few millennia of wandering. That sort of thing. But, as a moment’s thought will confirm, our record of staying out the way of “bad” natural phenomena is, well, less than stellar. We build cities . . . [more]

Canada has a system of civil courts that would be the envy of many countries. We have a large, well- trained and dedicated legal profession. The legal aid system in Canada provides more service in civil matters than is available in many places throughout the world. Yet, with all this and all that it costs, we are not meeting the legal needs of the Canadian public. The final report of the Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, A Roadmap for Change, tackles the difficult problem of why this is the case and lays out . . . [more]

As part of my recent tour of Australia – well, the south-eastern part any way – George Beaton invited me to speak at a few of his live and taped events. One of the many points that interested me was his modelling on Axiom. As many know, Axiom provides embedded counsel to companies needing to fill gaps in its skill sets on short term bases. It has grown rapidly and profitably over the past 10 years.

According to George, Axiom, grew its revenue at a 72% compound annual growth rate from 2002 to 2011 while at the same time, . . . [more]

In early December of 2011 and 2012, I posted top 10 lists of the most consulted cases. Two lists were published each year – one for all cases consulted and the other for consultations of cases decided in within that year. With the tradition now firmly established, I’m very pleased to present for 2013 the top 10 most consulted cases on CanLII.

As in prior years, I leave it to the readers to determine the significance of any case appearing on either list.

Top 10 most consulted cases of 2013

1. R. v. Duncan, 2013 ONCJ 160
2. Meads v. Meads,

. . . [more]

If you like podcasts, and who doesn’t — it’s hard to beat learning something and getting to close your eyes at the same time — you might take a listen to the McGill Podcasts, and particularly those in their Law & Society category. There are about twenty or so “pure” podcasts and the same number again of earlier videos.

The subjects range widely, including, for instance, “The Syrian conflict and the International Criminal Court: Interview with Human Rights Watch’s Richard Dicker,” “Tax Avoidance, Tax Evasion, and Tax Justice with Professor Allison Christians,” “Racial Profiling . . . [more]

I am interested by recent discussions I have had with librarians at various law libraries about how they make decisions about what materials to keep, cancel, or discard. Many are looking at the holdings of other libraries and relying on them to provide access to less commonly used materials rather than maintaining them locally. This is understandable, but it is only a viable decision if the lending libraries continue to maintain their collections. Instead, this appears to be done without formal agreements among the libraries about retention of materials, consideration of whether it is within the supplying libraries’ mandates to . . . [more]