At the beginning of each month, we tell you which three English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII in the previous month and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about. 

For this past month, the three most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. Reference re Impact Assessment Act, 2023 SCC 23

[1] Environmental protection is a fundamental value in Canadian society and one that is shared by Canadians from coast to coast. The Canadian judiciary, in tandem with the other branches of government, has an important role to play in protecting the . . . [more]

With OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT-3 on November 30th 2022, it very quickly became clear to people that the innocent-sounding Large Language Models (LLMs) had crossed a historic threshold when it came to the intelligence exhibited by Artificial Intelligence. Many were seeing, for the first time, a computer responding to their questions and prompts with well informed and well-formed prose that, apart from the occasional “hallucination,” spoke directly to what was asked or prompted.

The immediate legal question was whether the resulting text, while certainly exhibiting intellectual properties, constituted the sort of intellectual property that the law was intended to encourage . . . [more]

Lawyers read more than ordinary people, and writing is the inverse of reading, so all of that reading ought to make great writers of us. Nevertheless, for many lawyers of my acquaintance, any sort of writing outside of the ordinary business of law can be a source of misery and self-torture. I have a suggestion for you—a book that inspired me to reject my self-created barriers to becoming a more serious and dedicated writer. The book is the second edition of How to Write a Lot, by Paul Silvia. PhD.

Dr. Silvia is a professor of social psychology at the . . . [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) : La juge de première instance était fondée à rejeter la requête de l’appelant de «réopter» pour un procès devant juge et jury; l’enquête préliminaire avait pris fin conformément à l’article 549 C.Cr., et la requête avait été déposée après le délai de 15 jours accordé pour choisir . . . [more]

Need to Vulnerability: A Global View

In a summary of recent global developments in access to justice delivered by Professor Avrom Sherr, Director of the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies in London at the International Legal Aid Group Meeting in Boston in June 2023, Professor Sherr observed that there is a movement in service delivery evident in many places recasting the idea of need to include vulnerability. The innovative work being done by the Mobile Rural Law Van in Wellington County and North Halton illustrates this development.

The greater attention to vulnerability is a is part of a wider re-focusing . . . [more]

Written by Christina Catenacci, BA, LLB, LLM, PhD, Content Editor, First Reference Inc.

In September 2023, the Alberta Court of Justice decided that the employer’s termination clause in the employment contract was unclear and ambiguous. As a result, the court found that after the employee was terminated without notice, the unclear clause did not extinguish the employee’s common law entitlement and “oust” the implied term in his employment contract. The employee was indeed entitled to common law reasonable notice, and he did not fail to mitigate his damages. . . . [more]

(a vent about the integrity of arbitration confidentiality)

In the world of private arbitration, the courts serve an important role. They represent a check and balance, intended to keep what occurs in the shadow of the law honest. If a participant feels that an arbitral outcome is offside, they can ask a judge to set the award aside.

With this also comes concerns of abuse by participants engaged in the arbitration process. No one likes to be on the losing side of an adversarial proceeding. If the purpose of arbitration is to bring about closure, the notion of appeal rights . . . [more]

The hype around generative AI and legal research continues, and it seems everyone has an opinion. There are concerns about use of AI in practice, but there is less clarity about how to approach finding sustainable solutions. It is however apparent that we need to consider the risks associated with using these systems, especially those that were not designed for certain uses. This is particularly important because general purpose tools like ChatGPT are likely to continue to be developed, and, given the complexity of navigating legal information, if they can be used with law they will be.

The first solution . . . [more]

Contracts are integral to how institutions operate – from government, to banks, to non-profits, to commercial markets, and beyond. However, the past few years have rocked our understanding of how we work with contracts. The effects of pandemic disruptions, rising prices, and the proliferation of artificial intelligence are just some of the system-wide changes that have filtered down into the fundamentals of contracting.

Whether your role involves drafting, negotiating, enforcing, or litigating contracts, you need to be up to date on how contract law is changing today.

Make sure you’re prepared with , running December 6, 2023. Fully updated for . . . [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 erré en permettant que soient introduites en preuve, par l’intermédiaire de déclarations sous serment des victimes d’une fraude massive, des déclarations imputées à des accusés portant sur des faits non secondaires puisqu’il s’agissait d’éléments importants de la preuve incriminante, lesquels auraient . . . [more]