This post is a detour from my series on section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Superior Court of Justice and Court of Appeal Working Families decisions (see here and here (SCJ) and here (ONCA)). (See those posts here, here, here and here). In this post I provide some thoughts about a way to think about “the special rapporteur affair”. . . . [more]

My wife was assaulted by a stranger in downtown Toronto, in January of 2020. She was walking through the underground passage from the Eaton Centre into the Queen TTC station. A man suddenly ran up and kicked her in the leg. She was rattled, and her leg was bruised, but she got over it within a few weeks.

She was lucky. A few weeks later the same man attacked another woman, in the same mall. This time he approached his victim from the back and hit her on the head. This lady suffered a serious concussion, and couldn’t work for . . . [more]

Do you have a particular portion of an e-mail or an entire e-mail that you end up sending repeatedly? It could be something as simple as a reporting e-mail or an e-mail where you discuss your fees. It could also be a just a single paragraph that you use often or even just a sentence.

Let me introduce you to “Quick Parts”. Let’s say that I always use the same text for my annual return reports to my client and I didn’t want to keep typing that out over and over again.

You can go into the last e-mail that . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Le juge de première instance a commis une erreur de principe en retenant contre l’appelant des faits rattachés à une accusation préalablement portée qui a été abandonnée conformément à une entente entre les parties; une telle erreur a eu une incidence certaine sur la peine puisque ces . . . [more]

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference Inc.

Employees who enjoy a lot of discretion and autonomy in their jobs may be tempted to submit a false expense claim. If they do, they risk upsetting the relationship of trust that is central to their ongoing employment. When that happens, even if the amount of money at issue is relatively small, the repercussions can be drastic for the employee, like the plaintiff in 2023 BCSC 635. . . . [more]

The rural mobile law van began operating in rural Wellington County, Ontario in the summer of 2019 and is now at the mid-point of a three-year extension from 2021 to 2024 in Wellington County and in adjacent Halton Region.[1] Several articles about this project have been published on The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) web site and on Slaw. This article discusses the sustainability of the Law Van project.[2]

When people think about the sustainability of a legal services project they tend to think first in terms of financial sustainability. Does it cost more than the amount . . . [more]

You don’t have to go back far in history to read about the many misbehaviors of law firm employees. Whether the media stories concern the alleged actions of partners, associates or support personnel, there is plenty of fodder to make law firms rethink its hiring practices and firm culture to keep the firm name out of the headlines. Unfortunately, they aren’t always successful in achieving that goal. While we don’t have first-hand knowledge of the details, there are several examples of alleged misbehavior that we can learn from.

Data theft

One major risk for law firms is the theft of . . . [more]

Preamble

This post is the fourth of a series considering three major issues under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: the impact of how the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has defined rights; the relationship between rights; and the relationship between guarantees of rights and freedoms and section 1 of the Charter.

I focus the discussion of these issues through the lens of section 3, which guarantees the right to vote and to be eligible to sit in the legislature. Following the exploration of the SCC jurisprudence relating to each of the three issues in relation to section . . . [more]

Back in the day, signs posted outside McDonald’s would list the number of customers they had served. While the fast food chain stopped this practice years ago, some mediators are still doing it. My question is why.

What Does the Number of Mediations a Mediator Has Conducted Tell Us?

When it comes to the mediator’s skill and competence, Elton Simoes, President of the ADR Institute of Canada, does not believe a mediation count tells us enough. Simoes says it is important for a mediator to be aware of which types of cases they can be effective in. Not . . . [more]

Recently, I became addicted to watching episodes of “Super Nanny”. It’s not because I wanted to learn how to manage my own children – they’ve long since grown up and are very good contributors to society thank you very much. And it’s wasn’t for variety. The episodes are formulaic: they all contain little hellions that, in the course of the show, go from Tasmanian devils to relatively decent human beings.

After some contemplation, I realized that I was drawn to the program as one coach watching another, and an expert one at that. I was learning from her style, choice . . . [more]