Category Archives: Civil Litigation

Why Civil Litigators Have to Keep Current on Criminal Law

In the privacy of mediation rooms, I often listen to assertions made by counsel about certain facts, such as soft-tissue injuries suffered in a car crash, and then I ask: How are you going to prove that?

I may as well have asked a question about Heidegger’s thoughts on the revelation of reality.  The lack, most of the time, of a satisfactory answer to my question comes from the apocryphal nature of the rules of civil evidence in Canada, and from the dearth of actual trial experience among litigators called to the bar in the last 15 years.

(la version française suit)

So much of the practice of civil litigation is now not about evidence but information.  An entire industry called E-Discovery has grown in large firms which has little to do with litigation as it does about searching for dots in complicated constellations of (hoped for) exceptions to the hearsay rule.  Parties in large commercial cases are tempted to settle after shuddering at the size of the bill for a round of E-Discovery.  Very few of the lawyers involved in such matters actually have much sense of what the case is about.  The holy grail is server full of coded productions, whether or not any of it might end up being used by the court as proof of fact or legal theory. Continue reading →

Inside the life of a reserved summary judgment

Some welcome editorial comments this week from Justice D. M. Brown, of the Superior Court of Ontario, in

Western Larch Limited v. Di Poce Management Limited, 2012 ONSC 7014.

Starting at para. 269 of the decision, the judge candidly describes the disproportionate time required to make rulings on complex summary judgment motions. In a nutshell, he takes aim at one area of judicial allocation, judgment writing time. He says the internal scheduling protocols should be updated to reflect the time needed to deal with summary judgments, which may take up little hearing time but deal with issues as complex as many commercial trials.

In the concluding paragraph, Justice Brown writes, “

If we are to restore the health of Ontario’s ailing civil litigation system, as judges we must not only call on those who appear before us to change their litigation culture, we also must look at our own internal scheduling culture and change it to meet the realities of our times.”

In a paper delivered at a September 12, 2012, meeting at the Ontario Bar Association, Justice Brown had disagreed with comments this writer made to the Canadian Lawyer in a August, 2012, article about the need to allocate judicial resources to meet higher demand for summary judgment motions. In fairness, Justice Brown did not, as I did, propose a separate motion court for summary judgments, separate from procedural motions. But his words are timely and represent an awakening to the need for court modernization.

Judge Brown deserves our praise for speaking candidly about the role of judicial resource administration in problems we face in the justice system. We in the practicing Bar can only encourage more transparency from the judiciary. Judges blaming lawyers will never replace cleaning out the stables. This author, in any event, will offer thanks to him for encouraging the debate. This time, you met me half way.

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Beyond First Principles in Arbitration Practice

For many lawyers, barristers and solicitors, and corporate clients, commercial arbitration may seem like a parallel or alternate universe.  Not quite there.  Maybe not quite legal.  Certainly difficult to get past the initial ‘Take me to your leader’ moment with the denizens of the other world.  As a club of senior practitioners, the arbitral practice has some of the hallmarks of commercial litigation circa 1950.  It need not be that way.

The truth about commercial arbitration is that, for the most part, we make it up as we go along.  New lawyers are probably better suited to navigate the various domestic and international codes which sanction arbitration.  Read them (eg., the Arbitration Act) and you’ll actually see that they are meant to set basic ground rules only.  Tailor the rules to suit your dispute, and that’s when you start gaining an advantage for your client.  Once you’re past the entry gate, advocacy starts with good imagination, more than anything else.  Rules are meant to be rewritten.  Evidence and fact-finding to be streamlined.  You want to agree that the arbitrator will take judicial notice of facts on Wikipedia?  Why not, if you are confident about the key facts and want to save tens of thousands in client dollars otherwise spent on expert witnesses?  In my paper, Front End Advocacy in Commercial Arbitration (link to paper) I lead you into this alternate universe.  Once you take the leap, you will realize that advocacy, like playing chess, starts from the opening move.

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Pour de nombreux avocats, l’arbitrage commercial peut sembler un univers parallèle. Pas tout à fait là. Peut-être pas tout à fait légal. Certainement difficile à franchir le moment initial du ‘Emmenez-moi à votre leader’ avec les habitants de l’autre monde. En tant que club de praticiens experimentés, la pratique arbitrale a quelques-unes des caractéristiques du litige commercial d’environ 1950. Mais il ne faut pas être comme ça.

La vérité de l’arbitrage commercial, c’est que, pour la plupart, nous créons nous-même les règles. Les nouveaux avocats sont probablement mieux placés pour naviguer dans les différents codes domestiques et internationaux qui sanctionnent l’arbitrage (ex., la Loi sur l’arbitrage). Dès que vous avez passé la porte d’entrée, le vrai travail commence avec l’imagination avant tout. Les règles sont faites pour être réécrites. Les preuves et les faits sont là pour être rationalisés. Vous voulez que l’arbitre puisse avoir le constat judiciaire de faits sur Wikipédia? Pourquoi pas?  Si vous êtes confiant sur les principaux faits et que vous voulez économiser des dizaines de milliers de dollars pour vos clients, par ailleurs consacré à des témoins experts, les clients ne diraient-ils pas oui? Dans mon article,  Front End Advocacy in Commercial Arbitration (cliquez) je vous conduis dans cet univers alternatif. Une fois que vous démarrez votre voyage, vous vous rendrez compte que le travail de l’avocat, ainsi que le jeu aux échecs, commence à partir du mouvement d’ouverture.

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Reading Insurance Law – Of Emperors and Clothes

We lawyers can sometimes adopt a herd mentality.  A senior lawyer or judge says something.  You go back and read the case.  You may be reluctant to voice your difference.  That’s how we, as a profession, can just get things wrong.  The example here comes from insurance law, but you can apply it to your area of expertise. Continue reading →

Advocacy on Summary Judgment Motions post-Combined Air

Did the Court of Appeal of Ontario’s decision in Combined Air Mechanical Services v. Flesch leave you perplexed?  Do you dumb down your argument to make it look simple?  Or describe every nook and cranny, to satisfy the “full appreciation” test?  The linked paper, delivered at the Ontario Bar Association on September 12, 2012, tries to navigate this tricky terrain.

(click on fork in the road graphic to the right)

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Vous restez perplexe, chaque fois que vous lisez Combined Air Mechanical Services c. Flesch pour préparer un argument dans une motion de jugement sommaire?  Simplifier ou creuser dans les détails?  Dans cet essai, donné au conférence de l’Association du Barreau de l’Ontario le 12 septembre 2012, j’ai tenté quelques conseils …

(cliquez sur le phot de la fourche dans le chemin, dessus)

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