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.

Non-Citizens in Canada: Status and Rights
Emily F. Carasco
Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2012

Excerpted sections from Chapter 1

Citizenship Status, Non-Citizenship Status and Human Rights

Citizenship status is a critical determinant of the extent of human rights protection available to an individual. The relationship of an individual to the state in which he . . . [more]

I’d like to use this space to profile an upcoming event hosted by The Public Legal Education Association of Canada/L’Association canadienne des organismes d’éducation et d’information juridique . On October 9 and 10, 2013, the National PLEAC Conference and AGM will take place in Vancouver.

Wednesday, October 9 will see the AGM and the business meetings of the members of PLEAC/ACOEIJ, along with a social celebrating public legal education and, specifically, PLEI in BC.

Scheduled for Thursday, October 10, is what looks to be a stimulating and worthy event called Opening Doors. This day is planned to be

a public

Data about individuals is very valuable. It can be used to discern trends, popular thought, individual buying habits, customer behaviour, do medical research, and many other things. But it is important that the collectors and users of that data use it in a privacy friendly manner.

One of the deflections by the NSA is that they don’t record conversations, just metadata about phone calls and other communication. Metadata means information about information, and can be just as personal and invasive as the data itself.

The Ontario Privacy Commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, recently published a paper entitled A Primer on Metadata: Separating . . . [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. Pascua v Khul-Schachter 2013 CanLII 47860 (ON SC)
   

   1. The plaintiff claims $25,000 for damages for wrongful dismissal and breach of the employment contract.

   4. The plaintiff, Sunshine Pascua, was employed as a full-time nanny and live-in caregiver for the two children of the defendant, Michelle Khul-Schachter, also known as Shashena, pursuant to a written employment contract. The plaintiff’s work included child care,

Can a member of the public post a tweet about a sentencing hearing as it is taking place in a Canadian courtroom? It depends on which court and in which province, but in most of Canada the answer is no. And what about checking email during the course of a long-winded closing submission? The answer, is yes, in most jurisdictions, but only if you’re a legal profession insider.

The Canadian Centre for Court Technology (“CCCT”) has posted a Canada Wide Summary of Court Policies on Live, Text-Based Communications from the Courtroom as of June 2013. The Summary confirms what Dean . . . [more]

Preparing for the bar exam was one of the most challenging things I have ever done.

I attended law school because I wanted to use the law to foster systemic change. I knew law school would be challenging. And it was, not just due to the work load, the social pressure and job application process, but also because the road well-travelled for law students is a corporate one. The law is conservative, slow changing and it looks backwards. Nevertheless, I flourished by taking a mixture of ‘black letter’ law classes, critical theory seminars and clinical legal programs.

Students often talk . . . [more]

There is a perceived reluctance to use private dispute resolution (either mediation or arbitration) to resolve intellectual property (IP) disputes.

One reason is that IP rights (patents, trademarks and copyright) are statutory monopolies, granted on a national basis. Therefore, rights holders must look to government authorities and national courts to establish and enforce these rights.

However, the most valuable IP rights are commercialized internationally, so national enforcement and dispute resolution is very costly, time-consuming and inefficient. IP litigation is also public and potentially fatal to confidential information and trade secrets. That’s why there is a compelling case for both owners . . . [more]

A recent American case has raised questions (more, again) about the future of privacy rights in the digital age and how to adapt current laws to an ever evolving technological world.

On July 18, 2013, in State of New Jersey v. Earls, 22 A.3d 114, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the New Jersey Constitution protects an individual’s right to privacy in the location of his or her cell phone and that police must therefore obtain a search warrant, based on probable cause, to access this information. The section of the New Jersey Constitution at issue in State . . . [more]

Last week there was a a challenge and a follow up thread at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog. The challenge was a plea from Nina Platt that law librarian bloggers write about issues that would be useful to us (as opposed to writing about the future of law or legal publishing news). The challenge was answered with a list of themes and ideas that I urge you to read.

Nina identified law librarian issues, including topics like these

• How we can support changes in the legal industry?
• What technology will help get us through these changes?
• What staffing,

Your tools are a law degree, and a country bound by the rule of law.

Your obstacles are law school debt; an ever-growing access to justice crisis; an economic downturn that has raised the volume on client demands for more services at a lower cost; and a regulatory system made increasingly complex by the globalization of business and trade.

Your mission – should you choose to accept it, Agent LLB – is to find a way of doing business that uses the tools at hand to overcome the obstacles and create a successful legal practice.

This message will not self-destruct, . . . [more]

The Uniform Law Conference of Canada is holding its 95th annual meeting in Victoria, BC. As noted last week, the ULCC has adopted more than 120 model or uniform acts to date. What’s the difference between the two forms?

As set out on the ULCC website, uniform acts (lois uniformes) are recommended for implementation by all relevant governments across Canada. For example, at the 2012 meeting, the ULCC adopted the Uniform Reviewable Transactions Act and the Uniform Trustee Act. In comparison, model laws (lois types) are put forward as a tool for harmonising laws . . . [more]

Blogging these days is as natural as breathing. Everyone has a blog. My firm has a blog. You’re reading this column on a blog. Heck, if the television shows my children watch are to be believed, even dogs have blogs. So, it takes something fairly special to attract the cynical interest of an over-blogged lawyer such as myself.

Enter Legal Aid Ontario’s (LAO) new blog – the first ever by a Canadian Legal Aid plan.

The blog bills itself as “stakeholder communication meets social networking” and is seeking to walk a fine line, catching the essence of a . . . [more]