Reproduced in the September 2013 issue of LAWPRO Magazine is a sample of the report we get when a lawyer reports a claim using our online claim report form. It is a classic textbook example of a bad cheque fraud where the lawyer was duped. Upon discovering these frauds, banks generally reverse the credit that was given on the deposit of the fake cheque. Because the lawyer already disbursed funds in reliance on the fake cheque, this reversal removes trust funds belonging to other clients and/or leaves the lawyer’s trust account with a negative balance.

Please read the claim report . . . [more]

Droits et libertés : e refus de Bombardier de donner suite à une demande d'un citoyen canadien, d'origine pakistanaise, pour une formation de pilote sous licence canadienne n'était pas discriminatoire (C.A.).

Summaries of selected recent cases are provided each week to Slaw by Maritime Law Book. Every Sunday we present a precis of the latest summaries, a fuller version of which can be found on MLB-Slaw Selected Case Summaries at cases.slaw.ca.

This week's summaries concern: Public interest evidentiary privilege / Criminal law restitution:

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. (September 14 - October 4, 2013 inclusive).

with the Ontario Court of Appeal playing the role of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland.

See R. v. Metron Construction Corporation, 2013 ONCA 541.

A fine which bankrupts a corporation is the equivalent of a beheading.

I’m not slighting the tragedy that resulted in charges but, given what happened in Metron and why — all you need to do is read paras. 1 – 15, particularly paras. 9-15 — do you agree with the general deterrence rationale? It seems questionable, at best, to me. General deterrence of whom? (Consider the aphorism about “stupidity” in “Forest Gump”.) . . . [more]

Industry standards are wonderful things. They help keep us safe in myriad contexts; they promote economic efficiency; they form a kind of “democratized” and rational element to a lot of legislation, typically by being incorporated by reference.

And they’re really rather expensive to consult.

So, according to an article in Next City, Carl Malamud is buying copies of safety standards across the US, scanning them, and putting them online for anyone to consult for free. The folks who develop these standards object. They’ve launched a lawsuit claiming that Malamud is infringing on their copyrights. In order to defend the . . . [more]

It has been held in a US case that allegations made in comments on blog posts are not sufficiently reliable to be used in cross-examination. In this case an expert was testifying in a product liability case that the defendant’s products had never caught fire before (as the plaintiff’s had). The plaintiff’s counsel wanted to point to a number of comments in blogs about fires in some of the same manufacturer’s products. The court denied the right to use those examples.

Is that right? How much reliability do you need? Are blog comments the cross-examiner’s Wikipedia? (It was not suggested . . . [more]

Earlier this week I had one of those discussions/debates with a friend of mine whereby neither of us could remember a certain point. However, our discussion was quickly laid to rest with a quick perusal of the nearest search engine. In our particular case we were trying to remember all the characters that have been in KISS (avec make-up). Trust me, it is not as easy to recall as you might think (absent enlistment in the KISS army).

This occasion brought home a lament of mine, that the interweb has killed the bar stool argument, one no longer goes back . . . [more]

“Looking out for Number One is the conscious, rational effort to spend as much time as possible doing those things which bring you the greatest amount of pleasure and less time on those which cause pain.” Looking Out for Number One-Robert J. Ringer

I recently attended a wonderful evening hosted by Above the Law with key comments provided by Bruce MacEwen, a well known law firm strategist, commentator and lawyer who runs the consultancy and blog titled Adam Smith, Esq. Not surprisingly, Mr. MacEwen rightly has a large American following and an immense level of credibility among the AmLaw200 . . . [more]

You sidle up to the bar and ask what beers they’ve got. Suppressing your disappointment that it’s all in bottles, you quickly run by the alcowater from down south that passes for so much beer nowadays and seize upon the only import available. “I’ll have a — ” Now, how will you say it? If you happen to know German, as I do, you’ve got a bit of a problem. If you say Löwenbräu — pronounced something like lerven-broy, you’re likely to get a glassful of incomprehension; but if you say Lowenbrau — low-en-brow — not only might a . . . [more]

Have you ever felt like there aren’t enough hours in the day? In professional life it just seems like a given.

Whether you are a working parent with kids at home, or have aging parents to care for, or even an energetic dog who requires long walks daily, or a combination of all three (lucky you!), or a whole different set of responsibilities, chances are you feel stretched a lot of the time.

The truth is that our prosperous professional lives are full to overflowing. This is a good problem to have. And it is also a kind of suffering. . . . [more]

UNESCAP, the United Nations Economic Commission on the Asia-Pacific region, has been working on a regional trade agreement focusing on electronic commerce. The agreement, once made, could affect the interests of businesses in Canada and the US (and other countries in that region…).

There is a meeting in Bangkok in November to make some decisions about the document. It would be helpful for anyone who wants to influence the document to get on the record before then, in order to have a place in the conversation in the later stages.

So: I invite anyone interested to comment. Should the Canadian . . . [more]