The police cannot force someone to talk and then use the answers against them; can environmental regulators do so?

The courts have always allowed them to. In 1969, the Ontario Court of Appeal convicted Strand Electric [1968 CarswellOnt 291, [1969] 1 O.R. 190, [1969] 2 C.C.C. 264] of failing to maintain a scaffold in good condition contrary to the Construction Safety Act. The only evidence against the company was an oral statement made by its supervisor to a government inspector, a statement that he was required to make under the Act. The Court ruled that since the Company had a . . . [more]

Site news for those who read Slaw only via RSS or email

1. Comment Watch:

In the last week there were 35 comments. You might be particularly interested in:

• a long and thoughtful comment by “A Recent Grad” on The Future of Articling in Ontario
• the other 8 comments on Omar Ha-Redeye’s post on The Future of Articling in Ontario.
• the comments to Jason Wilson’s provocative column, I Am Now an App.

You can subscribe to the comments on Slaw either as a separate matter (RSS, email) or as part of a subscription combining posts and . . . [more]

Lawyers are often rebuked — and sometimes mocked — (it’s those very hard ‘k’s that do the damage, isn’t it?) for delighting in doublets and, heaven forfend, even triplets. You know what I mean: null & void, cease and desist, right and title, &cet. Of course, “doublet” suggests that these word-pairs are identical twins when to a discerning solicitor they’re often barely fraternal. Even so, wise heads recommend that we not chase perfection down both forks of the road (and certainly not trivia) and instead content ourselves with a broader term in a proper context, trusting in the good sense . . . [more]

This is a post in a series to appear occasionally, setting out some articles, videos, podcasts and the like that contributors at Slaw are enjoying and that you might find interesting. The articles tend to be longer than blog posts and shorter than books, just right for that stolen half hour on the weekend. It’s also likely that most of them won’t be about law — just right for etc.

Please let us have your recommendations for what we and our readers might like.

In his book, Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. discusses many factors that affect how persuasive you can be with others. Cialdini was also one of the authors of Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, co-authored by Noah J Goldstein and Steve J. Martin.

Lawyers can use these persuasive techniques to help them increase the percentage of inquiries or initial consultations that turn into paid client engagements.

People like people who are like themselves; they hire people that they know, like and trust. In your initial consultation, you need to build up the . . . [more]

Posted about a half hour ago:

More:

• GG Speech: 100th Anniversary of the Appointment of the First Canadian JAG
• Office of the JAG
• Current JAG: Brigadier-General Blaise Cathcart
• JAG Role and Responsibilities

The Supreme Court of Canada begins another season of hearings on Tuesday, October 11, 2011. If you click on the name of any upcoming case, you can find a summary of the issues as well as copies of factums that were filed by the parties with the Court’s Registry.

The Sept. 30, 2011 issue of The Lawyers Weekly presents some of the big cases that will be heard this fall:

“Veiled witnesses, copyright wars and hate speech are some of the hot-button issues facing the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in the busy fall session starting next month.”

Suzanne Deliscar is a Canadian lawyer-linguist who translates in the French-English and Spanish-English language pairs. She focuses on legal and official document translation. Ms. Deliscar was called to the Bar of the Province of Ontario in 2004. She can be reached via her website at www.treasurestranslations.ca. 

There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers.
Edith Hamilton (American Educator and Author. Known for popularizing classical Greek

The newspaper reported on the Labour Day weekend that September is one of the busiest months for family lawyers. Tense spouses see the kids back to school and finally call their lawyer to initiate legal proceedings that were put on hold over the summer.

Most of us are conditioned to think of the Tuesday after Labour Day as the start of the New Year. For years, the return to school meant new teachers, friends, courses, crayons and even new clothes. January 1^st, stuck in darkest winter seems to be the wrong time of year to think about fresh . . . [more]

We mourn the passing of Steve Jobs, whose singular achievements are recounted by the HuffPost, MTV on his impact on music, Washington Post , Wired and the Daily Telegraph.

For the legal community, the perspective is slightly different. Jobs contributed to a host of patents reviewed here. Law firms toyed with Apple computers for a while in the 1980s, but currently the only firms that are using that platform tend to be IP and media law firms who are following their clients – the creative community has always loved Apple machines. And of course there are . . . [more]

I’m new to the cloud, just having opened a Dropbox account a couple of weeks ago. Still even to a newbie like me its clear that cloud computing on a larger scale can raise many legal issues about privacy and security. As it turns out the potential new law and policy issues are many. To address these issues the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law is hosting an all-day conference on Friday October 14 entitled Cloudlaw: Law and Policy in the Cloud. The conference will consider the issues that may arise . . . [more]

I have the pleasure of presenting today in Calgary at an Advanced Legal Research Seminar sponsored by the Legal Education Society of Alberta. Included on the panel with me are a number of experienced legal researchers from Alberta, including SLAW’s own Shaunna Mireau.

What makes the seminar interesting is the variety in topics covered, including core research competencies and how to effectively approach research, traditional and non-traditional gathering paths, comparative research (the art of comparing and analyzing), foreign and international legal research, and advanced legislative research. In addition, there is what we are calling a “speed dating” session after lunch . . . [more]