Letters of reference can be very helpful when looking for employment. However, increasingly, due to issues with liability (great letter for an employee who turns out to be terrible), management and consistency, many employers have policies that prohibit formal reference letters for all departing employees – regardless of their performance.

In most of Canada, it doesn’t appear that there is any recognized common law duty to provide a letter of reference. However, the Court of Appeal of Quebec (QCA) has recently ruled that Quebec is also a distinct society when it comes to letters of reference.

In Arseneault (Succession de) . . . [more]

It is the time of year when blogging is celebrated. The Clawbies, the Blawggies and ABA Blawg 100 winners have been announced and the ABA Blawg 100 Hall of Fame was added to. January is also a time when infrequent posters get their game on and make “this year I will post more often” promises.

Great stories have been shared on the benefits of blogging from a variety of people.

There are many benefits that have come my way from blogging. I have met some great friends, gained some street cred by being recognized by clients waiting in our . . . [more]

Utah makes family law, it seems. Perhaps because that state is the home of a large number of devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a.k.a. Mormons, and churches of all stripes care about such things as marriage — and sometimes hold beliefs about them that are at odds with those of civil society. Recently, as you may know from the news, a couple of cases from Utah have shaken things up and have raised some fundamental questions — again.

In Brown et al. v. Buhman the plaintiffs, members of a polygamous (polygynous, specifically) clan, . . . [more]

Creating a positive client experience is a team sport. Everyone who is in contact with your clients should be singing from the same song sheet so that your clients have a synchronized experience with you. Anyone off-key will bring the whole choir down, so to speak.

Your assistant, typically, has regular contact with your clients and is in a position to advance your team’s ability to deliver high quality service to your clients, resulting in client loyalty and more meaningful long term relationships.

At the risk of adding on to your assistant’s busy desk, there are a few easy things . . . [more]

When deciding, with your client, to bring an intellectual property lawsuit in Canada, one question that will need to be answered is what court should be used? In many instances, both the Federal Court and the provincial courts have concurrent jurisdiction but depending on the specific causes of action, your choice may be limited to one of the courts and other facts may influence your choice.

Jurisdiction

The provincial ‘superior’ courts have inherent jurisdiction over all causes of action that have not been explicitly provided elsewhere. The Federal Court, in contrast is purely a statutory creation (see the Federal Courts . . . [more]

For the return of Tips Tuesday in the new year, we’re presenting the top tip from each of the three areas — technology, research, and practice — as chosen by the editors of those areas. “Top” might mean editor’s or readers’ favourite, one that’s considered most useful, or one that got the most attention or garnered the most tweets. But for more than a year’s worth of great, use-ready tips, simply go to SlawTips.

Technology – Dan Pinnington Editor – DAN’S PICK: 

All the Accounts You Should Enable Two-Factor Authentication on Right Now

I have given this tip . . . [more]

The urge to mark, to record, to make art, is a very powerful one in us human beings. We doodle fanciful images on napkins, we write notes to ourselves on bathroom mirrors, we tell the owners of dirty cars to “clean me” — and we draw on flesh. The mix of human tissue and art can lead to legal problems of a somewhat unusual nature. There’s the whole matter of permission, the base position being “no art on — or in — me, without my say-so”. Which some surgeons, it seems, have trouble respecting, like the gynaecologist who burned “ingrid” . . . [more]

Cybercrime dangers are many, complex and ever-changing. Hardly a day goes by without another news report of a data breach or other cyber-related scam or theft. Cyber criminals have considerable resources and expertise, and can cause significant damage to their targets. Cyber criminals specifically target law firms as law firms regularly have funds in their trust accounts and client data that is often very valuable. This article, from the December 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine, reviews the specific cybercrime dangers law firms need to be concerned about, and how they can mitigate their risks.

Long gone are the days . . . [more]

Usually, each Monday we present you with excerpts from five randomly chosen Canadian law blogs that have been recognized in recent Clawbie award lists. This Monday we’ll do something a little different, because the list of 2013 Clawbie winners just came out and introduced over twenty Canadian law blogs that were not on our lists already. From these we’ve chosen, again by random (random.com), ten to introduce here. Because we’ve not had a chance yet to ask their permission to reproduce excerpts, we’ll resort to linking to a recent post and telling you a little about what you’ll . . . [more]

We need to change our primary focus. Too often, we focus inward on how the system operates from the point of view of those who work in it. ….. The focus must be on the people who need to use the system. … Litigants, and particularly self-represented litigants, are not, as they are too often seen, an inconvenience; they are why the system exists. … Until we involve those who use the system in the reform process, the system will not really work for those who use it.
National Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, . . . [more]

Back in 2012, at the end of the Stratford Festival’s season, the CBC arranged to have a mock appeal by Shylock of his conviction in Merchant of Venice, argued under current Canadian law and before an august court of lawyers and judges. Now the CBC’s Sunday Edition has released a 22 minute audio file of that hearing. Given Omar’s post today on the BCCA judgment about a fee arrangement, I thought this might be apt.

The five-person bench was stellar: Patricia Jackson, Justice Ian Binnie, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Earl Cherniak, and Mayo Moran.

As were the counsel: Sheila . . . [more]

The Court of Appeal for British Columbia released a scathing judgment in Mide-Wilson v. Hungerford Tomyn Lawrenson and Nichols on New Year’s eve, upholding a Supreme Court decision earlier in the year which had reduced legal fees in a contingency arrangement from nearly $17 million to $5 million, in the interest of maintaining the integrity of the legal profession. The decision has implications for the understanding and application of contingency fee arrangements, which should be reviewed for contingency lawyers when evaluating the monetary worth of work in progress on their files.

The matter dealt with the million dollar estate of . . . [more]