In the midst of the Covid-19 emergency, the courts have ground to a standstill. Civil jury trials, in particular, have been suspended indefinitely. This week, in Higashi v. Chariot, an Ontario Superior Court judge issued an order stating a civil action arising from a serious automobile accident should not be heard by a jury, because…
In most professions, excessive caution in giving a range out outcomes can be as wrong as a lack of it. In medicine, telling a patient about a remote cancer diagnosis without adequate data could be considered negligence if the patient suffers nervous shock. In law, a lawyer who causes a real estate closing to fail…
What if the Ontario auto accident benefits regulation, the federal privacy commercial legislation and the regulatory oversight of health professionals walked up to a Bar? In Vol. 50, no. 2 of The Advocates’ Quarterly (2019), you can read my article to find the answer. For a pdf of the article (posted with permission of the…
After a week in which the Law Society of Ontario moved to repeal a requirement that lawyers and paralegals make an annual private pledge to promote equality, diversity and inclusion (“EDI”), the Bar must now reflect on the root cause of this public policy failure: Asking a privileged group to give up its perch, or…
Canadians’ interest in legal ethics continues to remain very high. What, then, are the ethics of a lawyer’s secret recording of a telephone call with a client, including the employees of a client? Rule 7.2-3 of the Ontario Rules of Professional Conduct provides: 7.2-3 A lawyer shall not use any device to record a conversation between the lawyer…
What is cabinet confidentiality? How does it restrict what a minister of the Crown can reveal in public discourse? How can a court, tribunal or parliamentary committee compel disclosure, and how can that process be blocked? Cabinet confidentiality is a feature of Canadian constitutional law derived from Part III of the Constitution Act, 1867, in which…
Out of the blue, solicitor-client privilege is a meme. The subject excites legal ethics nerds but is not recommended dinner-party conversation. Until now. If the public weren’t confused enough by this legal principle, a former Attorney-General hires a retired Supreme Court judge as her legal counsel. The former minister declines comment to reporters on the…
On December 10, 2018, the Law Society of Ontario chose to stay the course on its dual streams for lawyer licencing. Apart from a few substantive enhancements such as the requirement for paid internships, a candidate for membership in the legal profess ion must either article under an approved lawyer or pursue an experiential education…
In case you missed it, the Law Society of Ontario now requires lawyers to prepare and embrace a ‘Statement of Principles‘ regarding diversity in their practices. I have been critical of the initiative because, at the end of the day, it requires no more than yet another act of lip service to fix real diversity…
