The Alberta legislature passed two bills in December 2025 that are particularly important to the regulation of the legal profession. The many separate ramifications of the Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, some of which I have previously written about,[1] are important though perhaps not immediately obvious. The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, in contrast, has a clearly unifying purpose that is readily apparent – but its nuances and details deserve more attention.[2]

My view has long been that the regulation of the extra-professional conduct of lawyers, including their expression, is an important aspect of the role of the provincial and territorial law societies.[3] Having said that, the overarching goal of the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act – to prevent professional regulators from policing expression, conscience, and extra-professional conduct by their members[4] – is a completely legitimate policy choice in the exercise of provincial jurisdiction over the practice of professions, including law. As it happens, it is a policy choice that fundamentally misunderstands the concept of professional responsibility, the role of professional regulators, and the maintenance of public confidence in the regulated professions.[5] Nonetheless, the regulatory power of the Law Society of Alberta, like all provincial law societies, is delegated from the provincial legislature by statute and that delegation can be changed by statute.[6] In other words, the Regulated Professions Neutrality Act may be a bad policy decision that fundamentally undermines professional regulation, but absent any constitutional constraints, that is the legislature’s legitimate decision to make.

However, the details of this Act seem problematic and overbroad in implementing that policy choice. While these problems may well apply to many if not all professions covered by the Act, I focus here on implications for the legal profession and the Law Society of Alberta.

Among other things, the Act targets training or educational requirements imposed by regulators.

Section 7(1) provides that a professional regulator “may require a regulated professional or person seeking to become a regulated professional to complete education or training only if that education or training relates to professional competence or ethical standards for the practice of the regulated profession.”[7] However, section 7(2) clarifies that such requirements may “addres[s] a political, historical, social or cultural issue” only if three conditions are met. Such material must “specifically addres[s] a matter of professional competence or minimum ethical standards for the practice of the regulated profession”, “[be] necessary to provide the regulated professional or person seeking to become a regulated professional with effective education or training with respect to” that matter, and “not seek to dictate, expressly or by implication, the range of acceptable or unacceptable opinions or beliefs on any political, historical, social or cultural issue or on a matter of conscience.”[8] These provisions seem to be a fairly reasonable implementation of the legislature’s policy choice, understanding that the overarching goal of the Act is easier to articulate than to implement precisely in legislation.

The glaring problem comes in section 8, which narrows the scope of section 7 on the basis of an open-ended list of three phrases that can be extended by regulation:

Despite anything to the contrary in section 7, a regulatory appeal body or regulatory body must not require a regulated professional or person seeking to become a regulated professional to complete education or training that addresses one or more of the following matters:

(a) cultural competency;
(b) unconscious bias;
(c) diversity, equity or inclusion;
(d) any other matter specified in the regulations.[9]

Although I have elsewhere criticized an apparent trend to broad regulation-making authority in Canadian statutes,[10] its use here seems unsurprising.[11] The problems with section 8 are that these prohibitions are absolute and these phrases are not defined. This problematic lack of definitions is by no means a groundbreaking critique, but to my surprise I have not seen it addressed elsewhere. While defining them may be difficult, not defining them seems more problematic.

Consider, for example, the Code of Conduct rule on “clients with diminished capacity”:

When a client’s ability to make decisions is impaired because of minority or mental disability, or for some other reason, the lawyer must, as far as reasonably possible, maintain a normal lawyer and client relationship.[12]

The ability of lawyers to recognize capacity issues, an understanding of the ways in which to maintain that “normal” relationship, and knowledge of the responsibilities of lawyers in that kind of situation would seem to go directly to “professional competence” and “ethical standards” under section 7(1). Consider, for example, defence counsel and representing criminal accused with severe Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, such as in the context of plea bargaining.[13] Although FASD and its impacts would seem to be reasonably characterized as “a social issue” under section 7(1), the requirements for such issues under section 7(2) would seem to be met. However, this training would reasonably seem to be within the scope of the term “equity, diversity, and inclusion” in section 8. Thus it would presumably be prohibited.

Likewise, some communities – including cultural communities but also geographic communities – may include different understandings of the role of the Crown attorney and the judge in criminal litigation,[14] the impact of incarceration on the needs of the family and the community, and the impact of a criminal record.[15] These considerations could be important for lawyers in the contexts of criminal law and family law, among others.[16] Despite being “addressin[g] a … historical, social or cultural issue”, they would likewise seem to meet the requirements of section 7(2). But they would reasonably seem to fall within the scope of “cultural competency” in section 8. Thus training on these issues would presumably be prohibited.

The definitional issues are less squarely engaged by the term “unconscious bias”, which seems to have a narrower and more discrete meaning. Nonetheless, if Crown attorneys are to fulfill their professional obligations – among other things, “to see that justice is done through a fair trial on the merits” and to “act fairly and dispassionately”,[17] then it is not immediately clear why an awareness of at least the possibility of unconscious bias – whether by Crown attorneys themselves, or by law enforcement, or by other justice system participants – is not relevant to fulfilling those obligations. Training on these issues would again presumably be prohibited by section 8 even though they would seem to be authorized by section 7(2).

The additional topics to be prohibited by regulation may of course be less problematic. That remains to be seen.

While these terms in section 8 might epitomize the mischief at which the legislation is directed, it is unclear to me, from a drafting and policy perspective, what the intended function of section 8 is given the presence of section 7(2). In other words, if section 7(2) allows for legitimate exceptions to the prohibition, what additional work is being done by section 8? In other words, why is the prohibition on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “cultural competency” – or even “unconscious bias” – absolute instead of being qualified by section 7(2)? This problem is exacerbated by the absence of definitions. If these particular umbrella concepts are so offensive, they should be defined reasonably clearly.

Moreover, it is difficult to examine whether the positive effects of section 8 outweigh these negative effects without knowing what those ‘positive’ effects of section 8 are meant to be.

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[1] Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, SA 2025, c 22; Andrew Flavelle Martin, “The Revenge of Administrative Law? The Subtle Dismantling of the Self-Regulation of the Legal Profession” (3 February 2026), Slaw (blog), online: <https://www.slaw.ca/2026/02/03/the-revenge-of-administrative-law-the-subtle-dismantling-of-the-self-regulation-of-the-legal-profession/>; Andrew Flavelle Martin, “Statutory Immunity of the Attorney General from Law Society Discipline in Alberta: A Comment on the Justice Statute Amendments Act, 2025” (2026) 64:1 Alberta Law Review [forthcoming], online: SSRN <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6498018>.

[2] Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, SA 2025, c R-13.3.

[3] I acknowledge that that appears to be a minority position within the Canadian legal ethics community. See e.g. Andrew Flavelle Martin, “The Limits of Professional Regulation in Canada: Law Societies and Non-Practising Lawyers” (2016) 19:1 Legal Ethics 169.

[4] See Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, supra note 2, preamble.

[5] In particular, the idea that a professional is ever ‘off duty’ or that their ‘off-duty’ speech and conduct is irrelevant to their practice is fundamentally flawed. I am, of course, not an Alberta MLA or a legislator of any kind. But see Alberta Hansard, 31-2 (2 December 2025) 692 (Rhiannon Hoyle):” When you undermine regulators’ ability to enforce standards, you erode public confidence and trust in professions like law, engineering, and health care.” Several legislators emphasized that the concept of ‘off-duty’ speech and conduct does not capture the reality of professional responsibility.

[6] Likewise all provincially-regulated professions. For the few federally-regulated professions, these powers are delegated in statute by Parliament.

[7] Regulated Professions Neutrality Act, supra note 2, s 7(1).

[8] Ibid, s 7(2).

[9] Ibid, s 8 [emphasis added].

[10] Andrew Flavelle Martin, “The Duty of Legislative Counsel as Guardians of the Statute Book: Sui Generis or a Professional Duty of Lawyers?” (2021) 44:3 Manitoba LJ 116 at 142-144.

[11] It is potentially problematic that the LGIC can, by regulation, narrow the scope of a provision of the Act, but that is beyond the scope of this column,

[12] Law Society of Alberta, Code of Conduct (2025), r 3.2-15, <https://documents.lawsociety.ab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/14211909/Code.pdf> perma.cc/3VGR-MJCW [Code of Conduct].

[13] Ibid, r 5.1-8. See e.g. Palma Paciocco, “(How) Is Plea Bargaining Justified?” (2025) 58:3 UBC L Rev 737 at 755-756.

[14] See e.g. Code of Conduct, supra note 13, r 5.1-4: “When acting as a prosecutor, a lawyer must act for the public and the administration of justice resolutely and honourably within the limits of the law while treating the tribunal with candour, fairness, courtesy and respect.”

[15] See e.g. Amanda Carling, “A Way to Reduce Indigenous Overrepresentation: Prevent False Guilty Plea Wrongful Convictions” (2017) 64 Crim LQ 415.

[16] See e.g. ibid.

[17] Code of Conduct, supra note 13, r 5.1-4, commentary 1.

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Back in the day, when I was starting my mediation practice, I received the worst advice ever. It came from someone who, I believe, meant well. The advice was that I should let the world know I was a mediator by modelling neutrality. In everything I did.

Why was this bad advice? Because that is impossible! No human being can be neutral about everything, nor should they pretend that they can be.

Also, how can someone expect to successfully market themselves absent any personality? The individual who gave me the advice may have meant well but failed to grasp what makes mediators appealing to prospective clients and their representatives.

I quickly came to learn that the best mediators are their authentic selves. They lean into what makes them unique as they market, offer and deliver their services.

A mediator need not be opinion-less. They simply should not have an interest in the outcome of the dispute they are mediating. The key is remaining detached, not being impacted by any potential conclusion of the matter.

Suggesting a mediator should be without views is asking them to be inauthentic. Fake. Such an ask of mediators is really suggesting that they hide their opinions, because it is not possible to be without them. While mediators are often wise to heed the advice of Taylor Swift and think some things they never say, that applies to the conflict at hand. Not everything in life. The point is that human beings hold values, emotions and beliefs.

This concept of the role of neutrality in mediators gets confused when those with an interest in an issue attempt to step into the role of mediator. I have written about this previously, aging myself by offering an example from the television show Friends where Ross intervenes to make peace between Monica and Chandler for his own selfish reasons. Another example offers a realtor swooping in to help address an issue that risks de-railing a closing… to save their commission.

Mediation is designed to be facilitated by someone a layer removed from the dispute. It is that layer of distance that allows them to approach the matter from a place of impartiality and therein lies the benefit of bringing in the neutral facilitator.

The notion that a mediator should be impartial about everything, in addition to being impossible, is absurd. The very sentiment leads to ridiculous internal torment within many practicing mediators about the disputes that they experience personally and the sports teams they cheer for.

Mediators sometimes feel pressure to pretend that they live their lives conflict-free. Yet, conflict is a natural part of life for everyone.

At its worst, this offers folks opposing mediators in their personal conflicts the illusion that they have a “card” they can play against them. The idea that a vulnerability exists in exposing that a mediator has a personal conflict, based on the false belief that mediators should never. This type of ‘BS’ can cause new mediators a great deal of unnecessary stress.

Putting aside for a moment the fact that experiencing personal conflict actually helps mediators better empathize with their clients and appreciate the different perspectives and approaches that they encounter when rendering their services, allow me to state what should by now be obvious… mediators cannot be the mediator of their own personal conflicts because they have an interest in the outcome.

Mediators have drama, bad days and arguments. Mediators can throw down, call people names and get agitated. Mediators get divorced. They are simply not acting as a mediator as they do.

Note: Marc Bhalla is an instructor at Osgoode Hall Law School’s Master of Laws in Dispute Resolution Program and the York University School of Continuing Studies’ Certificate in Dispute Resolution. The views expressed in this column are from Marc’s capacity as a teacher and supporter of aspiring and new dispute resolution practitioners.

The post Mediators Are Human Too appeared first on Slaw.

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Condo Adviser/STACK Condo Law 2. SOQUIJ | Le Blogue 3. Welcome to the Food Court 4. BC Injury Law Blog 5. Know How

Condo Adviser/STACK Condo Law
Are Condo Owners Entitled to Access Legal Invoices?

Condo owners often want to know where their money is going. That is especially true when the corporation is spending money on lawyers and even more so when the fees are charged back to a specific owner. These situations often lead to records requests seeking access to legal invoices, leaving us with this question: “Can owners see the corporation’s legal invoices?”. Perhaps asked differently, are legal bills corporate records accessible to owners? …

SOQUIJ | Le Blogue
Devoirs des avocats: illustrations jurisprudentielles 2025-2026

Au cours des derniers mois, le Conseil de discipline du Barreau du Québec a rendu plusieurs décisions se voulant autant de rappels des obligations déontologiques des avocats trouvant notamment leurs sources dans le Code des professions (C.prof.), le Code de déontologie des avocats du Québec ainsi que dans le Règlement sur la comptabilité et les normes d’exercice professionnel des avocats. Dans ce billet, il sera plus précisément question des devoirs de l’avocat, tant envers sa profession que l’administration de la justice, ainsi que des exigences liées à l’utilisation d’un compte en fidéicommis. Usage des médias sociaux, choix de mots-clics, inspection professionnelle, mandat pro bono, charge de travail, compte en fidéicommis, voici, en bref, certains des sujets qui ont été abordés dans les décisions qui vous seront présentées. …

Welcome to the Food Court
The Credibility Problem with AI-Drafted Compliance Documents

For context, on April 2, 2026, the FDA issued what appears to be its first warning letter with a dedicated AI-manufacturing section, to Purolea Cosmetics Lab in Livonia, Michigan. The letter found that AI agents had generated drug specifications, procedures, and master production records, and that the firm used the AI-generated documents without the review CGMP requires. The firm’s owner told FDA investigators she had not known process validation was required because the AI agent had not informed her. FDA devoted a stand-alone section of the warning letter to “Inappropriate Use of Artificial Intelligence in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing.” In Canada, CFIA does not operate through warning letters in the same way as FDA does, and much of our work is learned through inspections, correspondence, enforcement files, and practice around CFIA decision-making. So, I thought we would address the Purolea question in a way that lands closer to home: when does a Canadian food operator’s preventive control plan become the subject of the same conversation? In our practice over the past year, we have started to read documents that we are confident were generated by AI. We see stylistic patterns that are immediately recognizable, particularly from less sophisticated users of LLM outputs. …

BC Injury Law Blog
Can the Government Be Negligent For Not Shutting Down A “Smoker”?

A smoker. In the combat sports world this is slang for an unsanctioned / unregulated fight. Cutting corners. Avoiding regulation. Exposing athletes to the dangers of a potentially neglectful environment. Last week the BC Court of Appeal released reasons for judgement addressing whether the government could be liable for not shutting down such an alleged event. The recent case (British Columbia Athletic Commissioner v. Simon Fraser University) involved a tragic outcome at an amateur level martial arts contest. …

Know How
House of Bills: May 25-28, 2026

Good morning, Bill enthusiasts. This is the second to last edition of House of Bills for this season – click through to see what was lost and gained last week in the Ontario Legislative Assembly. Bill 9, Municipal Accountability Act, 2026 Third reading vote, carried on division (May 26, 2026) …

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*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.

The post Monday’s Mix appeared first on Slaw.

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.

RESPONSABILITÉ : Le fait qu’Air Canada ait contrevenu à l’article 6 (1) d) de la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada ne peut constituer, au sens de l’article 1457 C.C.Q., une faute dont elle serait redevable envers les membres du groupe qui étaient en poste dans ses centres d’entretien et de révision de Winnipeg, de Mississauga ainsi que de Dorval au moment de la fermeture de ceux-ci, en 2012, qui n’ont jamais été rouverts par la suite.

Intitulé : Air Canada c. McMullen, 2026 QCCA 650
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), Montréal
Décision de : Juges Yves-Marie Morissette, Marie-France Bich et Benoît Moore
Date : 12 mai 2026

Résumé

RESPONSABILITÉ — responsabilité du fait personnel — fermeture d’entreprise — Aveos Performance aéronautique inc. — ex-employés — cessation d’emploi — Air Canada — manquement à la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada — obligation de maintenir des centres d’entretien et de révision d’avions — absence de faute — interprétation de l’article 6 (1) d) de la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada — pouvoir discrétionnaire de l’employeur — protection d’un secteur d’activité — absence de garantie d’emploi personnelle — préjudice — absence de lien de causalité — prescription extinctive — action collective — appel.

ACTION COLLECTIVE (RECOURS COLLECTIF) — jugement au fond et mesures d’exécution — ex-employés — Aveos Performance aéronautique inc. — fermeture d’entreprise — cessation d’emploi — Air Canada — manquement à la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada — obligation de maintenir des centres d’entretien et de révision d’avions — responsabilité extracontractuelle — absence de faute — interprétation de l’article 6 (1) d) de la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada — pouvoir discrétionnaire de l’employeur — protection d’un secteur d’activité — absence de garantie d’emploi personnelle — préjudice — absence de lien de causalité — prescription extinctive — appel.

PRESCRIPTION EXTINCTIVE — délai — action collective — recours en dommages-intérêts — responsabilité extracontractuelle — point de départ du calcul du délai — absence de faute continue — absence de dommages continus.

TRAVAIL — responsabilité et obligations — divers — dommages-intérêts — dommage non pécuniaire — responsabilité extracontractuelle — fermeture d’entreprise — manquement à la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada — absence de faute — absence de lien de causalité — action collective — appel.

INTERPRÉTATION DES LOIS — intention du législateur — débats parlementaires — interprétation de l’article 6 (1) d) de la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada.

Appels de jugements de la Cour supérieure ayant accueilli en partie une action collective et ayant précisé les modalités du recouvrement. Accueillis.

En mars 2012, Aveos Performance aéronautique inc., qui effectuait des tâches en sous-traitance pour l’appelante dans ses centres d’entretien et de révision de Winnipeg, de Mississauga et de Dorval, a fermé ses portes. L’appelante n’a pas repris elle-même ces activités. En 2016, l’intimé a intenté une action collective au nom d’un groupe composé notamment des anciens salariés d’Aveos, reprochant à l’appelante d’avoir contrevenu à l’article 6 (1) d) de la Loi sur la participation publique au capital d’Air Canada en ne maintenant pas les centres en activité et d’avoir ainsi commis une faute civile qui avait définitivement privé les salariés en cause de leurs emplois respectifs, ce dont elle devait assumer les conséquences.

L’appelante ne conteste plus qu’elle a contrevenu à l’article 6 (1) d) de la loi et qu’elle n’a pas pris les moyens raisonnablement nécessaires pour s’y conformer. Elle fait toutefois valoir que cette violation ne constituait pas une faute donnant ouverture à une action en responsabilité civile extracontractuelle.

Décision

M^me la juge Bich: Le fait que l’appelante a contrevenu à l’article 6 (1) d) de la loi ne peut constituer, au sens de l’article 1457 du Code civil du Québec (C.C.Q.), une faute dont elle serait redevable envers les membres du groupe qui étaient en poste dans les centres au moment de la fermeture de ceux-ci, lesquels n’ont jamais été rouverts par la suite. L’article 6 (1) d) de la loi a été adopté en 1988, alors que l’industrie aérienne était en plein changement et que l’appelante faisait face à des défis d’où résulterait sa privatisation. Le législateur n’entendait alors pas la priver de toute latitude dans la gestion de ses activités d’entretien. S’il avait pour but, par la protection accordée aux centres, d’assurer la conservation et la promotion, au Canada, d’un secteur d’activité important ainsi que, implicitement, une protection générique et globale des emplois dans ce domaine, l’article 6 (1) d) de la loi, dans sa mouture avant juin 2016, n’offrait pas une garantie d’emploi personnelle aux titulaires de ces emplois dans les installations en question. Une lecture des débats parlementaires de 1988 démontre par ailleurs une préoccupation pour les salariés de l’appelante, et notamment ceux qui travaillaient dans les centres, mais pas au point d’inclure dans l’article 6 (1) d) de la loi une garantie d’emploi véritable et individuelle ni même une discussion directe du sujet. Subsidiairement, à supposer qu’il y ait eu faute, l’intimé ne démontre pas que le préjudice allégué — ne pas avoir été réembauché dans le cadre de la remise en exploitation des centres — résulterait de façon directe, immédiate et, surtout, certaine de la faute reprochée à l’appelante. En effet, s’il est exact que cette dernière a maintenu les centres ouverts de 1988 à mars 2012, et qu’elle aurait pu les garder en activité par la suite, on ne peut en déduire que tous les salariés licenciés par Aveos en 2012 auraient été réembauchés et qu’ils auraient continué d’y travailler jusqu’à la modification de l’article 6 de la loi, en juin 2016. En effet, depuis 2004, la trajectoire de l’appelante en matière d’entretien lourd a consisté en une évolution de ses activités et en une diminution des effectifs consacrés à cette tâche. Toujours à titre subsidiaire, et dans l’hypothèse où l’appelante aurait commis la faute retenue par la juge de première instance, il faudrait conclure que la prescription extinctive était entièrement acquise au moment du dépôt de la demande d’autorisation d’exercer une action collective, en 2016. Il n’est pas question en l’espèce d’une faute continue ou répétée qui ferait que, pour chaque journée pendant laquelle les centres sont restés fermés, une nouvelle contravention entraînait un nouveau préjudice aux salariés. La faute s’est produite en 2012, dès que l’appelante a annoncé qu’elle ne rouvrirait pas les centres et qu’elle ne réembaucherait pas de salariés pour effectuer les tâches qui y étaient exécutées.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

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As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeal

Criminal Law: Sexual Assault; Conflicting Evidence
R. v. Berg, 2026 SCC 21 (41980)

Clarification re judges considering conflicting evidence.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

In late April, two groundbreaking decisions concerning legal regulators in Canada were announced — one by a court, and one by a law society.

The first decision came from the British Columbia Supreme Court, which ruled that the provincial government’s proposed overhaul of legal regulation in BC was constitutional and could proceed. I thought this was the obvious outcome from the outset, as I wrote here at Slaw two years ago, and I’m very glad to see the issue resolved — for the moment, anyway.

At the heart of BC’s legislative overhaul (and the lawsuit that challenged its constitutionality) was the BC government’s plan to replace the Law Society of British Columbia (LSBC) with a new body called Legal Professions British Columbia (LPBC), incorporating the Society of Notaries Public of BC in the process. The government won’t win any awards for the way it went about consulting the profession on this change, and there were a number of aspects of both process and content (which I won’t address here) that raised serious concerns for legal system stakeholders.

But the heart of the overhaul, and the crux of the legal profession’s unhappiness with it, was a fundamental reconfiguration of legal regulation governance. The LSBC, like every other law society, is governed almost entirely by lawyers who are elected to board of director positions (“Benchers”) by other members of the profession. LPBC, by contrast, would be governed by a mixed board of appointed and elected directors, a bare majority of whom would be lawyers.

I supported the overhaul because I had formed the opinion that in practical terms, most law societies put the interests of the profession ahead of the public interest, especially when it comes to non-lawyer delivery of legal services. This isn’t because law societies are governed by cackling evildoers; it’s because a professional regulator whose governors are directly elected by and from the profession it’s supposed to regulate is inherently compromised. If you are elected to a position, you have a constituency, and you cannot help but prioritize that constituency and its interests in your work.

But the LSBC, supported by the Trial Lawyers’ Association of BC and the Canadian Bar Association, said the proposed governance structure, which took away the supermajority of elected lawyers on the Board, constituted an unacceptable violation of lawyers’ professional independence. The government said it wasn’t, and in my article two years ago, I agreed. In his decision, so did BCSC Chief Justice Ronald Skolrood. He found much to dislike about the legislation and the government’s process, but he ruled that the proposed governance structure did not violate the Constitution.

This is a very shorthand summary of the story and the decision; you should read the whole ruling (as well as the organized bar’s dismayed reaction) to learn more. The plaintiffs are making noises about an appeal, which I hope they don’t pursue. Among other reasons, I fear that by the time an appeal snakes up through the BCCA and the SCC, legal regulation will have been overwhelmed by other horsemen of the regulatory apocalypse now coming over the hill (more on that below).

Less than 48 hours after Chief Justice Skolrood handed down this decision, the Benchers of the Law Society of Ontario dropped a smaller bombshell of their own. They voted to endorse the recommendations of the LSO’s Governance Review Task Force that Convocation should be significantly reconfigured. The LSO’s reforms don’t go as far as BC’s did, but they’re still very notable:

• The total number of directors is reduced from 53 to 37
• The total number of elected lawyer directors is reduced from 40 to 24
• The total number of public (lay) directors is reduced from 8 to 6
• Three new appointed directors (two of whom are licensees) are added

The upshot is that the percentage of elected lawyer directors drops from 75% to 65%, while the percentage of public directors very slightly increases (from 15% to 16% — I’d have preferred at least 30%, but I’ll take what I can get).

Thankfully, the overall size of the Board was also reduced 30%, marking a welcome change from bloated to merely overstuffed. Thirty-seven directors is still way too many — the State Bar of California’s Board of Trustees has 13 members, covering a jurisdiction with 225,000 lawyers— but it’s an improvement. The changes still have to be approved by the Ontario legislature, but I don’t foresee any difficulties there.

These two developments point towards the same conclusion: The longstanding custom by which Canadian lawyers elected lawyer-heavy boards to govern legal regulators is slowly but surely coming to an end. And that’s good.

To state the obvious: Lawyer independence from state interference is indispensable. Governments should not be able to direct, intimidate, or punish lawyers because of the clients they represent, the positions they take, or the causes they advance. The rule of law — which you might have noticed is under serious pressure these days — counts lawyer independence as one of its foundational pillars.

But elected-lawyer super-majority dominance of legal regulators is neither necessary to achieve that goal nor proportionate, in its impact, to achieve it. Other professions, including those that also take their independence seriously, have come to accept the value of boards that contain both professional and non-professional, and both elected and appointed, members. The LSO report itself describes appointed directors as a way to address structural gaps that elections don’t resolve, including expertise, competencies, and the presence of Indigenous and Francophone perspectives.

But I think there’s an even deeper issue at stake here: the public legitimacy of a self-regulating profession. Legal regulators are entering a period of extraordinary challenge. Generative AI will change everything we believe to be true about who can produce legal work and what legal competence requires. Increasingly ravenous private equity investors are circling law firms with buyout offers many will find hard to refuse. Meanwhile, the access-to-justice crisis is entering at least its fourth decade, and the profession hasn’t come close to offering up a workable solution yet. Governments across the country are watching the profession — some more closely than others.

In this environment, law societies that continue to pursue a super-majority of elected lawyers on their boards risk more than just wasting money and time while more wolves gather around the profession’s door. They also risk the possibility that the general public will perceive these efforts as the actions of a legal profession increasingly focussed on what lawyers want above everything else. If that belief ever becomes widespread and entrenched in the minds of Canadians, then no amount of regulatory governance reform will do much to help us.

The post The Legal Profession’s Weakening Grip on Law Society Governance appeared first on Slaw.

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. Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16

[140] Intimate partner violence is more than the sum of its parts; it may involve physical violence, emotional abuse, or other methods of coercive control, but what the totality of that conduct produces takes a different meaning and quality in the context of an intimate partnership. In the context of intimacy, incidents of physical violence and emotional abuse that punctuate the relationship generally cause more than bodily and psychological harm. They can interfere with the victim’s autonomy and create an unequal partnership, which constitutes a dignitary harm. While certain existing torts may capture discrete incidents — or even patterns — of interference with one’s physical, psychological, or emotional integrity, they do not account for the wider and qualitatively different consequences of coercive control in intimate partnerships brought about by single acts of violence or by patterns of conduct over time.

[141] One may argue that, even though the victim’s subordination is offensive to their autonomy, it will nevertheless always correlate with, and emerge out of, physical and emotional incidents of wrongful conduct within the scope of battery, assault, and IIED. On this reasoning, a new tort is not necessary: by remedying the physical and emotional incidents of intimate partner violence, the deeper subordination that erodes dignity, autonomy, and equality, while a distinct harm, can nevertheless also be remedied as connected to those incidents. The aggravating effect of this violence between intimate partners as opposed to strangers could, on this view, be attended to through higher damage awards.

[142] I disagree. Indeed, on the facts here, Mr. Ahluwalia’s coercive behaviour towards Ms. Ahluwalia was broader in scope than physical and emotional abuse. Rather, it was the cumulative effect of multiple forms of controlling conduct that rendered Ms. Ahluwalia subordinate to Mr. Ahluwalia. The trial judge accepted that Ms. Ahluwalia “was completely subservient to [Mr. Ahluwalia’s] needs” (para. 75). While the deprivation of Ms. Ahluwalia’s autonomy did relate in part to Mr. Ahluwalia’s physical and emotional abuse, not all of it did. Separately, the trial judge found that Mr. Ahluwalia also used financial means to control Ms. Ahluwalia. He collected her earnings, monitored her spending and, upon separation, terminated her credit card and closed their joint bank accounts, both of which Ms. Ahluwalia used to cover her and her children’s basic needs (paras. 108-10). None of those instances of economic control transpired physically, nor was their design simply to cause her distress. Rather, Mr. Ahluwalia exercised a controlling hold over Ms. Ahluwalia financially and capitalized on her vulnerability as an immigrant woman in a new country by isolating her from others. Ms. Ahluwalia did not have access to extended family members who could “support her, financially or socially, if she left the relationship” (para. 75). The trial judge held that, because of her social positioning, Ms. Ahluwalia was “financially dependent on [Mr. Ahluwalia]” (para. 73).

[143] At the heart of intimate partner violence is a wrongful interference not just with physical or psychological integrity, as with the established torts, but with an intimate partner’s autonomy, rendering the victim unequal in the partnership. This is a qualitatively distinct harm from that caused, for example, by other forms of trespass to the person. The wrongful conduct interfering with autonomy may partly overlap with conduct that interferes with one’s bodily or psychological integrity. Abusive conduct often includes, as this case demonstrates, physical or emotional violence but extends beyond it. Individual incidents of physical abuse cause harm, as they would to anyone, but within an intimate partnership they also serve to subordinate the partner.

[144] Existing torts, whether separately or together, cannot remedy the full scope of the injury inflicted by intimate partner violence, specifically the coercive conduct at issue here. Although these torts capture conduct that may, in part, overlap with intimate partner violence, plaintiffs must adduce evidence of the abuse they experienced to fit into these existing legal categories only to obtain an incomplete remedy. This approach inevitably leaves aspects of the wrong and the injury unaddressed. Forcing facts into the strict confines of existing torts is both out of step with the incremental development of tort law and does not advance access to justice for victims of intimate partner violence.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation v Alberta (Chief Electoral Officer), 2026 ABKB 375

[235] I recognize that s 8.11(1) of the Referendum Act offers some protection to Aboriginal and Treaty rights. However, the case law suggests that once the referendum takes place we are in the realm of the non-justiciable. For example, in Reference re Secession of Quebec, 1998 CanLII 793 (SCC), [1998] 2 SCR 217 (Secession Reference) the Supreme Court noted as follows:

100 The Court has no supervisory role over the political aspects of constitutional negotiations. Equally, the initial impetus for negotiation, namely a clear majority on a clear question in favor of secession, is subject only to political evaluation, and properly so.

[236] The statutory framework only allows the Applicants to participate in secession once the process enters the realm of the political and is no longer justiciable. I conclude that the CEO Decision, i.e., the Crown conduct, has the potential to adversely affect Treaty rights.

[237] The third element of a duty to consult is the possibility that the Crown conduct may affect the Aboriginal claim or right. The claimant must show a causal relationship between the proposed government conduct or decision and a potential for adverse impacts on pending Aboriginal claims or rights (Rio Tinto at para 45).

[238] The Crown conduct, in this case the CEO Decision, triggers the subsequent steps that bind Government to implement the results of a referendum. For the purpose of this analysis, I must assume the Proponent will meet the signature threshold, a referendum will be held, and the results of that referendum are positive, from the perspective of the Proponent. In other words, the legislative scheme requires me to assume that the Government is required to implement the results of a referendum on secession. Given the findings in Sylvestre, and as a matter of logic and common sense, there can be no doubt that Alberta’s secession from Canada will have an impact on Treaties 7 and 8. I conclude there is a direct causal connection between the CEO Decision and the Treaty rights that are engaged. It follows that the CEO Decision has a potential adverse effect on those Treaty rights.

[239] I conclude that the CEO Decision triggers a duty to consult. All three elements of the Haida test are satisfied. The Crown has actual knowledge of Treaty rights that are engaged by the Second Proposal. The CEO Decision triggers a binding referendum on secession. Because of the sequence of events that are triggered by the CEO Decision, the CEO Decision constitutes Crown conduct. A requirement to implement secession without prior involvement of the Applicants has the potential to adversely affect Treaty rights. The CEO Decision therefore triggers a duty to consult.

[240] I hasten to add that while the Crown’s duty to consult is triggered by the CEO Decision, there is no requirement on the part of the CEO to engage in consultation, nor does he have the ability to do so. The CEO does not represent the Crown for the purpose of fulfilling the duty to consult. It is Government, as the party that would implement secession that must engage in consultation.

[241] Following the CEO Decision, the Amended CIA put in motion a series of required steps that engaged the duty to consult with the Applicants. No consultation occurred. Alberta breached its duty to consult with the Applicants.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R. v. Cooney & Hamber, 2026 ONSC 2646

[418] In my opinion, in our case, to find Ms. Cooney and Ms. Hamber guilty of the first degree murder of L is certainly in keeping with what I perceive to be their very high degree of moral blameworthiness and is certainly in agreement or harmony with the punishment for first degree murder.

[419] In our case, I repeat that the Crown must prove the following:

(i) that the accused caused the death of L;

(ii) that the accused caused the death of L unlawfully, here – by failing to provide to L the necessaries of life;

(iii) that the accused had the state of mind required for murder, that is, that the accused either (a) meant to kill L or (b) meant to cause bodily harm to L that the accused knew was likely to kill L and was reckless as to whether L died or not;

(iv) that the accused committed an underlying crime of domination, here – the unlawful confinement of L;

(v) that the unlawful confinement of L and the murder of L were part of the same series of events; and

(vi) that the accused was an active participant in the killing of L.

[420] In my view, looking at the first two requirements together, I am sure that each of Ms. Cooney and Ms. Hamber failed to provide to L the necessaries of life and that the said failure was a substantial cause of L’s death.

[421] They failed to provide to L the necessaries of life in two respects: adequate food and medical attention.

[422] The medical attention relates most specifically to what happened with L at home in November 2022, the month before he died. There is no question that L almost died on that earlier occasion and that it was a crisis situation that required an urgent and immediate visit to the nearest hospital emergency room, but the accused did nothing to get their son that medical attention.

[423] The essential elements of the failure to provide the necessaries of life offence, in the context of the evidence at trial, were reviewed above in these reasons, with regard to J. They need not be repeated here. If they were made out regarding J, which they were, then they are most certainly made out with regard to L.

[424] In fact, the issue of whether the accused failed to provide to L the necessaries of life was not really contested by defence counsel in their closing submissions at trial.

[425] It was not conceded by the defence, however, that the said failure was a substantial cause of L’s death. I am sure that it was.

[…]

[428] L’s severe and chronic malnourished condition and his wretched and weakened physical state at the time of his death were not due to anything other than the actions and inactions of these two accused. There was no other medical condition, disease, or injury that caused those things, or either of them. I reject the evidence of the accused about any alleged eating disorder, whether rumination syndrome or otherwise. I reject the entirely speculative argument by the defence about the possibility of refeeding syndrome. In fact, that argument makes no common sense because there is no reason to believe that the accused would have increased L’s caloric intake after the November 2022 incident and no reliable evidence at trial that L’s body weight actually increased at all between the date of that incident in November 2022 and the date of his death.

[…]

[431] There was no break in the chain of causation. In fact, the accused continued to fail to provide to L the necessaries of life after the serious episode occurred when L almost died in November 2022 and right up to and including the date of L’s demise. Illustrative of that is the failure of the accused to even tell the medical professionals, including Dr. Duncan, about everything that happened during that clearly life-threatening incident in November 2022.

[432] In terms of the third essential element of the offence, the Crown has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Ms. Cooney and Ms. Hamber had the requisite mens rea for murder. I am sure that the accused intended to kill L.

[433] The electronic evidence is overwhelming in this regard. The accused loathed and hated their son. They resented him. They were tired of dealing with him. They relegated him to the basement and locked him up for much of the last two years or so of his life. They persisted with their forcible confinement of L, and with their isolation of him from everything and everyone including his own little brother, and with their failure to provide him with adequate food and with required medical attention, all even though they saw what their actions and inactions were doing to the boy – causing him to waste away into nothing. That persistence demonstrates an intention to kill the boy.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

***

The three most-consulted French-language decisions were:

1. Association des ressources intermédiaires d’hébergement du Québec (ARIHQ) c. Santé Québec – Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, 2026 QCCS 1360

[1] Les demanderesses, l’Association des ressources intermédiaires d’hébergement du Québec (« ARIHQ » ou l’« Association ») et 9342-4935 Québec inc., faisant affaire sous le nom de Centre de Santé Osman (« Osman ») (ensemble les « Demanderesses »), demandent l’annulation d’une sentence arbitrale (la « Sentence ») rendue le 8 août 2025 par le mis en cause, maître […] Jeanniot (l’« Arbitre »).

[2] La Sentence rejette le différend soumis à l’Arbitre au motif que les délais prévus à la procédure de mésentente convenue entre les parties n’ont pas été respectés et qu’aucune justification n’a été avancée pour expliquer ce retard.

[3] Les Demanderesses considèrent que la Sentence doit être annulée, puisque :

3.1. la Sentence est contraire à l’ordre public (article 646, alinéa 2 et article 648 C.p.c.) en ce qu’elle impose un délai de prescription contractuel inférieur au délai de trois ans prévu par la loi;

3.2. la procédure arbitrale n’a pas été respectée (article 646, alinéa 3 et article 648 C.p.c.) puisque la Sentence s’appuie sur de la doctrine et de la jurisprudence inexistantes, ce qui permet de croire qu’elle a été rédigée en recourant à l’intelligence artificielle.

[…]

[67] Les Demanderesses allèguent que la Sentence devrait être annulée, puisque la procédure arbitrale n’a pas été suivie. Ce motif d’annulation requiert de mettre l’accent sur « l’écart entre […] la procédure arbitrale dont les parties avaient convenu dans leur convention d’arbitrage […] et […] la procédure qui [a] dans les faits été suivi[e] ».

[68] Les Demanderesses affirment qu’il existe de forts indices que la Sentence a été rédigée en utilisant l’intelligence artificielle. Ainsi, la procédure arbitrale n’aurait pas été respectée, ce qui constitue un motif d’annulation.

[69] La Défenderesse fait valoir que l’utilisation de l’intelligence artificielle n’est pas un motif d’annulation énuméré à l’article 646 C.p.c. Bien qu’elle ait raison sur ce point, cela ne suffit pas pour trancher la question.

[70] En reconnaissant la possibilité d’annuler une sentence si « le mode de nomination d’un arbitre ou la procédure arbitrale applicable n’a pas été respecté », le législateur reconnait la primauté du choix commun des parties dans l’identification d’un mode privé de règlement des différends « qui leur convient et qu’elles considèrent adéquat ». La reconnaissance du principe de l’autonomie de la volonté des parties comme « pierre d’assise de tout le droit moderne de l’arbitrage conventionnel » entraine le respect de la décision des parties de soumettre leur différend à l’arbitrage et de la procédure qu’elles ont choisie.

[71] Ainsi, même si le législateur n’a pas spécifié chacune des violations procédurales susceptibles de justifier une annulation, il faut comprendre que toute violation « importante de la procédure sur laquelle les parties s’étaient entendues » et qui met en cause « l’intégrité du processus arbitral » peut entrainer une telle annulation. À l’inverse, « une irrégularité procédurale formelle et sans importance, qui n’a pu causer aucun préjudice ou aucune injustice grave et n’a pu avoir le moindre effet sur la teneur de la sentence ou l’issue du litige, ne donnera pas lieu à censure ».

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Thermitus c. Protecteur du citoyen, 2026 QCCS 1481

[119] L’arrivée de la nouvelle présidente a bouleversé les opérations de la CDPDJ. Me Thermitus a constaté en 2017 plusieurs anomalies au sein de cet organisme, lesquelles, selon elle, exigeaient de passer à l’action. Les mesures qu’elle envisageait ou a tenté d’appliquer ont provoqué de la résistance de la part des cadres et, ultimement, les plaintes au PC. Alors qu’elle souhaitait réformer la CDPDJ, revoir sa structure et, rendre cette organisation plus agile et plus efficace, après avoir mené une carrière remarquable jusqu’alors, Me Thermitus a été plongée dans un maelstrom aboutissant à un rapport accablant et à sa démission.

[120] La transmission à la ministre de la Justice du rapport initial, lequel omet la version de Me Thermitus, est déroutante. Le processus s’en est trouvé vicié. Aussi, alors que la preuve était totalement contradictoire, le PC n’a pas motivé de façon suffisante pourquoi il juge prépondérante la version des témoins plutôt que celle de Me Thermitus. Sans faire de procès d’intention, la transgression par le PC des principes d’équité procédurale, mais aussi le caractère déraisonnable du Rapport final, tant individuellement que cumulativement, conduisent à l’annulation de ce dernier. Vu cette conclusion, il est inutile de répondre aux autres moyens proposés par Me Thermitus.

[121] Me Thermitus avance que c’est elle qui a été victime du mobbing de la part des employés de la CDPDJ et que les plaintes à son endroit ont été faites de manière malicieuse, pour lui nuire et pour s’en débarrasser. Les enquêteurs du PC concluent plutôt qu’elle a fait preuve de manquements graves dans le cadre de ses fonctions. Le présent pourvoi ne permet pas de trancher cette question. La Cour supérieure ne peut tenir une enquête à la place du PC et faire des recommandations qui auraient dû être émises. Il n’est pas possible en contrôle judiciaire, sur la base des résumés de témoignages uniquement écrits et documents divers, de trancher au vu du dossier, entre ces deux positions irréconciliables. Il est possible que le présent jugement ne soit pas tout à fait satisfaisant, car il ne confirme ni les conclusions de l’enquête du PC ni n’exonère Me Thermitus, mais le contrôle judiciaire en l’occurrence n’admet aucune alternative. Par ailleurs, Me Thermitus ne réclame que la nullité du Rapport final qui sera prononcée.

[122] Enfin, la confidentialité de certaines informations s’impose, mais non suivant l’étendue réclamée par le PC, car ce dernier ne convainc pas qu’il existe un privilège générique entourant le régime de protection des lanceurs d’alerte au Québec, ni que certaines procédures et pièces doivent être placées intégralement sous scellés. Il y a uniquement lieu de protéger la confidentialité des témoins, en fonction du test établi par la Cour suprême du Canada. Une ordonnance de caviardage suivra lorsque les parties présenteront leur position respective et détaillée sur celle-ci.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R c. Desmeules, 2026 SKKB 86

[29] Dans l’affaire R c Kazemi, 2013 ONCA 585 au para 14 [Kazemi], la Cour d’appel de l’Ontario, en examinant une loi similaire, a expliqué que, pour des raisons de sécurité publique, la disposition visait à interdire complètement l’utilisation d’un téléphone cellulaire au volant, afin de prévenir la distraction au volant. Dans l’arrêt Kazemi, les faits ont été brièvement résumés par Goudge J.A. au para. 1 :

[traduction]
[1] Les faits en l’espèce sont simples. Le 26 avril 2010, l’intimée rentrait seule de son travail en voiture. Alors qu’elle était arrêtée à un feu rouge, un policier a constaté qu’elle tenait un téléphone cellulaire à la main. Elle a déclaré que le téléphone cellulaire se trouvait sur le siège, mais qu’il était tombé sur le plancher de la voiture lorsqu’elle a freiné. Elle l’a ramassé lorsqu’elle est arrivée au feu rouge. C’est à ce moment-là que l’agent l’a observée.

[30] La question était de savoir si Mme Kazemi « tenait » son téléphone cellulaire au volant. Le juge de paix a conclu que l’aveu de Mme Kazemi, selon lequel elle avait le téléphone cellulaire en main, établissait qu’elle le tenait aux fins de l’infraction. Le juge d’appel de la déclaration de culpabilité par procédure sommaire a rejeté l’accusation, concluant qu’il devait y avoir une tenue physique soutenue de l’appareil pour satisfaire à l’exigence d’« en tenant » et qu’une manipulation momentanée n’était pas suffisante.

[31] En appel devant la Cour d’appel de l’Ontario, celle-ci a statué que l’interprétation correcte de l’expression « holding » (« en tenant ») était d’avoir le téléphone cellulaire en main, sans tenir compte de la durée pendant laquelle la personne le tenait. Cette interprétation était conforme au sens courant du mot et assurait le mieux l’objectif de la loi, soit la protection des usagers de la route en Ontario : Kazemi aux paras 11-12.

[32] Dans l’arrêt Kazemi au para 14, la Cour d’Appel a jugé que l’objectif de la loi était d’interdire complètement la prise en main d’un téléphone cellulaire au volant, par mesure de sécurité publique, afin de prévenir la distraction du conducteur :

[traduction]
[14] La meilleure façon d’assurer la sécurité routière est d’interdire totalement la prise en main d’un téléphone cellulaire au volant. Une interdiction totale permet également de mieux concentrer l’attention du conducteur sur la conduite. Elle élimine tout risque de distraction du conducteur par les renseignements affichés sur le téléphone cellulaire. Elle élimine toute tentation d’utiliser le téléphone cellulaire au volant. En outre, elle empêche toute possibilité d’interférence physique entre le téléphone cellulaire et la capacité du conducteur à conduire. Bref, elle supprime les différentes façons dont la sécurité routière et l’attention du conducteur peuvent être affectées si un conducteur a un téléphone cellulaire à la main pendant qu’il conduit.

[33] L’arrêt Kazemi a été cité avec approbation dans l’affaire Lukic c R, 2021 SKQB 221 [Lukic]. Dans cette affaire, la juge MacMillan-Brown a conclu que l’appelant utilisait son cellulaire au volant, contrairement à l’art. 241.1(2) de la Loi, même si son véhicule était arrêté à un feu rouge. Elle a estimé qu’il conduisait puisque son véhicule était sur la voie de circulation et dans le flux de circulation, même s’il était brièvement immobilisé et en position de stationnement au feu rouge.

[34] L’infraction prévue à l’art. 241.1(2), soit le fait de tenir un téléphone cellulaire au volant, constitue une infraction de responsabilité stricte. Pour établir que M. Desmeules avait commis cette infraction, la Couronne devait prouver hors de tout doute raisonnable que M. Desmeules avait commis l’acte prohibé (l’actus reus), lequel comprenait les éléments suivants :

a) M. Desmeules était au volant d’un véhicule à moteur ;

b) Il conduisait le véhicule sur une voie publique ; et

c) Pendant qu’il conduisait, il tenait, regardait, utilisait, ou manipulait un téléphone cellulaire.

[35] La version des faits de M. Desmeules a établi chacun de ces éléments hors de tout doute raisonnable. M. Desmeules a admis qu’il conduisait le RAV4 sur Idylwyld Drive, une voie publique de Saskatoon. Il a avoué que, lorsqu’il était arrêté à une intersection, il a ramassé son téléphone cellulaire à ses pieds, l’a tenu pendant cinq à sept secondes, puis l’a mis sur la console de son véhicule. Le témoignage de M. Desmeules à cet égard concorde avec celui de l’agent Fortugno.

[36] Bref, les faits de la présente affaire sont aussi simples que ceux de l’affaire Kazemi. Le 6 juillet 2021 à 14 h 45, M. Desmeules conduisait un véhicule sur la route Idylwyld à Saskatoon, en Saskatchewan. La route Idylwyld est une « voie publique » au sens de l’art. 2(k) de la Loi. Le véhicule de M. Desmeules a été arrêté à un feu rouge. Bien que son véhicule était immobile, il se trouvait sur une voie de circulation et conduisait : voir Lukic au para 65. Alors qu’il était arrêté, il a ramassé son téléphone cellulaire qui se trouvait sur le plancher à ses pieds. Il l’a tenu en main pendant cinq à sept secondes, regardant brièvement l’écran avant de le poser sur la console centrale. Donc, M. Desmeules a contrevenu à l’art. 241.1(2) de la Loi puisqu’il a tenu un appareil de communication électronique au volant d’un véhicule à moteur sur une voie publique.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

* As of February 2025 we measure the number of unique pageviews that a case gets; as well, a case once mentioned won’t appear again for three months.

The post Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII? – May 2026 appeared first on Slaw.

In my last column, I wrote about the hidden economics of law firm student recruitment and the substantial investment firms make in attracting and hiring students. The conclusion was relatively straightforward. Most firms devote enormous attention to recruitment, but the return on that investment is largely determined after students arrive.

That return is shaped through hundreds of small interactions that rarely receive much scrutiny. How work is delegated. How instructions are delivered. How drafts are reviewed. How students learn what is expected of them.

In most firms, these processes are informal and highly variable. That is understandable. Lawyers are busy. Each lawyer has a different working style, different expectations, and different levels of tolerance for detail. Some provide extensive context. Others provide very little and expect the student to work things out independently. Some review assignments line by line. Others make revisions quickly and move on to the next issue.

None of this is necessarily problematic.

But as someone who develops strategic plans for law firms and regularly reviews financial performance, I often see another side of the equation that receives far less attention. I see the amount of student and junior lawyer time that gets written down or written off entirely. I see the lost realization. I see how difficult it can be for firms to convert student effort into usable and billable work.

More importantly, I see how avoidable some of that inefficiency actually is.

The quality of a student’s work is often determined before the assignment even begins.

A student who understands how a piece of work will be used makes different decisions. Is the assignment intended for a client, a partner’s internal thinking, a chambers application, or a quick risk assessment? Is a short practical answer required, or more extensive analysis? How much time should reasonably be spent?

That last question matters more than many lawyers realize.

Students and new associates are typically trying to calibrate two things simultaneously: the quality of the work and the amount of time that should be invested in producing it. When neither expectation is made clear, students often overwork assignments in an effort to avoid disappointing the assigning lawyer.

The result is familiar.

A research memo that is technically strong but far too long for the issue at hand. An analysis that explores every conceivable argument when only a practical recommendation was required. Hours spent perfecting work product that was never intended to receive that level of attention.

Over time, those extra hours often reappear quietly through prebills, write downs, and reduced realization.

Most students do not understand the economics of this yet. They see their time entered, then reduced or removed. Repeated often enough, that can become discouraging. I hear from many students about how eager they are to make a real contribution. It can create the impression that their work has little value, when in reality the issue is frequently one of calibration rather than capability.

Rightly so law firms generally accept that students and junior associates are long term investments. Few expect new lawyers to become immediately profitable. But helping students develop sound judgment around scope, efficiency, and billing practices earlier in their careers benefits both the individual and the firm.

In many cases, five or ten additional minutes spent framing an assignment will save far more time later.

In practical terms, effective instructions tend to include:

1. Scope: what question is being answered and how it fits into the file
2. Purpose: who will read the work and how it will be used
3. Format: memo, email, bullet points, or something more informal
4. Level of detail: quick answer or more developed analysis
5. Timing: when it is needed and whether the deadline is fixed or flexible
6. Priority: how this assignment compares to other work
7. Effort: how much time it should reasonably take
8. Resources: where to find precedents or similar work, the client file, or other lawyers or staff who can answer questions
9. What a strong result looks like: a brief indication of the expected outcome
10. Check ins: when to follow up or confirm direction

None of this requires a formal training program. It simply requires making explicit what is often left unsaid.

There is also another dimension to this conversation that firms should not ignore.

Many senior lawyers were trained in environments where ambiguity, pressure, and minimal feedback were normalized. Younger generations of lawyers often enter the profession with somewhat different expectations around mentorship, communication, meaningful work, and workplace culture. Some senior lawyers may not fully relate to those expectations and perhaps do not need to.

But firms still need to develop and retain this generation.

These students and associates are the future successors of firms. The long-term health of most firms depends on whether these young professionals become capable, confident, productive lawyers who want to stay.

That does not mean lowering standards. It means recognizing that professional development is itself part of the investment firms are already making.

I still remember working with certain intimidating partners early in my own law firm career as a young marketing manager. I did not want to spend one unnecessary second in their offices. I was anxious, trying not to make mistakes, and likely absorbing only part of what they were saying.

Looking back, I probably left many of those conversations without the clarity I actually needed.

Most lawyers can likely remember some version of that experience from early in their careers.

Students who are uncertain or intimidated often do what many people do in high pressure environments. They guess. They proceed with partial understanding rather than ask another question or risk appearing incapable.

The consequences are usually not catastrophic. They are cumulative.

Across a summer, articling or internship term, patterns begin to emerge. Some students become easier to work with. Their work product aligns more closely with expectations. They require less revision. Lawyers begin returning to them with more assignments and better files.

Others may simply need more context, more feedback, or more opportunities to understand how the work is actually being evaluated.

This is why consistency matters.

Not rigid standardization. Not formalized scripts. Just slightly more intentionality around how work is delegated, reviewed, and explained.

Student recruitment will always matter. But once students arrive, the real opportunity lies in how effectively firms help them become productive, confident, and trusted professionals.

That is where much of the actual return on investment is either realized or quietly lost.

The post The Hidden Economics of Delegation to Law Students appeared first on Slaw.

On 6 May 2026, Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) announced that it had eliminated 91 positions, including 45 layoffs, in response to a $15 million deficit. The deficit followed a $9.4 million reduction to NSCC’s operating grant by the Province of Nova Scotia earlier in the year and reduced international tuition revenue, due to previous federal and provincial caps on international students. The cuts included student advisers and other professional support workers, but a whopping 25% of those cuts were librarians. All campus librarians were eliminated. NSCC’s campus librarians partner with faculty to facilitate critical information and digital literacy instruction to students across programs. This partnership, in the words of the NSCC libraries, “enhances students’ information and digital literacy skills and fosters lifelong learning.” NSCC is not the only Nova Scotian institution facing these decisions. The Halifax Regional Municipality and the Halifax Regional Centre for Education announced the ratification of a new five-year supplementary education funding agreement on 13 May 2026 that phases out municipal funding for school librarians by August 2031.

Though these Nova Scotian examples spurred this post, in the context of Slaw, the topic is relevant to all Canadian legal professionals. The decision to cut librarians comes at exactly the moment when information reaches us through a wider range of channels and mediums than ever before, each carrying its own evaluative challenges. Cutting librarians who teach critical information and digital literacy skills may have downstream legal consequences. While there are many types of librarians who take on many different roles, most librarians who work in education teach these skills in some capacity.

I teach legal research, a field that requires a high level of critical information and digital literacy. In law, research is focused on the evidentiary value of a source. Lawyers are trained to interrogate authority explicitly. But the concept of information as evidence and the connected skillset is not specific to the legal profession. It is generalist in nature, highly valuable, and can reduce potential legal issues for everyone. The same questions lawyers ask of cases, statutes, and secondary sources are fundamentally the same questions we all must ask of our news, social media, advertising, AI-generated summaries, and more.

Information and digital literacy skills are taught by a range of educators in primary and secondary education, with librarians supporting that learning process. At the post-secondary level, librarians are often the ones leading and coordinating that instruction through one-off sessions, workshops, and curated materials. Librarians teach people how to identify what kind of source they are looking at. How to figure out who created the information and whether they have the standing to make the statement. How to identify the perspective being presented and what it might leave out. How to notice when a citing a source is missing, and how to follow a citation chain. How to flag when information has been removed from its original context. How to avoid plagiarism. How to tell a generated answer from a human one. How to verify sources within a generated output. How to recognize that articulate writing may not be factually correct. Essentially, librarians teach what questions must be asked of information to determine its reliability, or evidentiary weight.

Most people will never take a legal research class, but they will spend their lives encountering situations that require information be applied as evidence (the links in this paragraph are doing some heavy lifting, I recommend viewing them). They will access the news online. They will rent housing, pay utilities, and manage other costs. They will vote, requiring interpretation of competing voices presented via a range of mediums. They will work, often in fields where misinformation carries professional risk. They will navigate health care, and weigh options for treatments and products. They will sign leases, file their taxes, and review insurance policies and financial documents. They will be targeted with advertisements and marketing claims. Each of these involves at least one moment where the decision to act on the information depends on an individual’s ability to evaluate what they are reading, watching, or hearing. Many of those moments have legal stakes even when the person making the decision does not realize it.

Our daily lives are now flooded with plausible sounding but incorrect summaries, fabricated sources, and content in various mediums curated by an algorithm. This affects everyone. A high school student writing a paper on vaccines requires the same basic critical information and digital literacy skills as a law student evaluating a source in their medical negligence course, which is the same evaluative problem as a retiree trying to figure out whether a piece of medical advice is accurate. The skills are the same, and they are taught, deliberately, by librarians whose professional training is rooted in critical information and digital literacy. When librarians are cut, there is no guarantee that this teaching is redistributed elsewhere.

The NSCC libraries’ own framing of their role emphasizes “lifelong learning.” The information environment shifts continuously, and so do the skills required to navigate it. Several Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) programs in Canada have become Masters of Information (MI) programs in recent years, the title change emphasizing a focus on connecting people with information. The University of Toronto’s program acknowledges that “information penetrates all aspects of our digitally-mediated society,” creating “an increasing need for information professionals, who know how to handle the myriad forms of information in effective, innovative, and ethical ways, and who also understand the societal consequences of rapidly changing information practices.” Dalhousie’s program names digital and technological literacy, evidence-based practices, and lifelong learning as core competencies. These are precisely the qualifications required to teach critical information and digital literacy in our evolving information society.

Advances in information technologies may improve access to justice for those who cannot afford legal advice or are navigating the system without representation. But whether those gains will balance against the new issues they simultaneously create remains an open question. Those issues may result in an increased need for legal advice, small claims and class actions, and other legal recourse.

Cuts to library staff compound. Individuals who cannot evaluate sources may rely on bad ones, and bad sources, in aggregate, are likely to result in a population more vulnerable to fraud, manipulated content, misinformation, and other information distortions that carry downstream legal consequences. The law assumes a citizenry capable of distinguishing reliable information from unreliable information. Librarians, at every level of the education system, are a professional group continuously working to maintain that capacity at a pivotal time. Critical information and digital literacy are public-interest competencies, and the justice system will absorb some of the consequences if those skills erode. All levels of government and institutions should consider whether the savings, calculated against the librarian positions that are being cut, are savings at all.

The post The Legal Cost of Cutting Librarians appeared first on Slaw.

Canadian securities law has long resisted narrow or technical definitions of the term “security.” Instead, both legislatures and courts have embraced an intentionally expansive and purposive conception, one designed to capture a wide range of investment arrangements rather than a closed set of financial instruments. The oft‑invoked proposition that “a security is what the law says it is” reflects not interpretive casualness, but a deliberate regulatory strategy. Overbreadth in the statutory definition of “security” is not an accident of drafting; it is a conscious design choice that enables securities regulation to respond to evolving forms of capital formation and investment.

This article argues that Canadian securities legislation and jurisprudence work together to resist transactional formalism and regulatory circumvention. Legislatures employ open‑textured statutory language, while courts interpret that language purposively, focusing on economic substance rather than labels or private characterizations. The development of this approach can be seen in early judicial treatment of the definition of “security,” including the locus classicus test set by the Supreme Court of Canada in Pacific Coast Coin[i] and the more recent decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal in Stevenson[ii]. Together, these cases illustrate a coherent regulatory philosophy: securities law is concerned not with form, but with function and purpose.

The Statutory Architecture of “Security” in Canadian Legislation

Provincial securities statutes across Canada define “security” using inclusive, open‑ended language rather than exhaustive lists. While the specific wording varies by jurisdiction, the defining feature is consistency in technique. Legislatures enumerate familiar categories—such as shares, bonds, debentures, and notes—while also extending the definition to less formal instruments and arrangements. References to documents evidencing capital or indebtedness, profit‑sharing or participation interests, and investment contracts are common.

This drafting strategy is significant. By avoiding a closed or technical definition, legislatures preserve regulatory flexibility. New financial instruments and business models can be captured without constant statutory amendment. The definition of “security” thus functions not merely as a classificatory provision, but as a gateway into the regulatory regime. Once an arrangement is characterized as a security, the full apparatus of disclosure, registration, enforcement and other regulatory requirements becomes applicable.

The breadth of the definition also reflects the preventive and protective purposes of securities legislation. Securities law is not designed solely to police traditional capital markets, but to protect investors from informational asymmetries and abusive practices wherever they arise. A narrow definition would invite regulatory arbitrage, allowing promoters to structure transactions to evade oversight. Open‑textured statutory language minimizes that risk.

Overbreadth is a Feature, not a Flaw

Critics sometimes view broad statutory definitions as imprecise or over‑inclusive. In the context of Canadian securities law, however, overbreadth is best understood as a feature rather than a flaw. Securities regulation is inherently forward‑looking. It must anticipate financial innovation and respond to schemes that may not yet exist at the time of drafting.

Deliberate over‑inclusiveness serves this purpose. By casting a wide definitional net, legislatures signal that the focus of regulation is not the technical form of an instrument, but its economic function. The question is whether an arrangement involves the investment of capital with an expectation of profit, accompanied by risks that justify regulatory protection. This approach in statutory definition is particularly beneficial in the context of digital assets. Absent this feature, most digital assets would escape classification as securities, leaving regulators unable to exercise effective oversight. This would necessitate frequent legislative amendments, requiring securities regulators to repeatedly approach the Legislature for changes—an impractical approach given the dynamic and innovative nature of capital markets.

This approach stands in contrast to form‑driven or transactional conceptions of securities law, which risk becoming obsolete as markets evolve. Canadian legislatures have consistently chosen adaptability over precision, trusting courts to apply the definition purposively and contextually rather than mechanically.

Judicial Interpretation: Substance Over Form

Canadian courts have largely vindicated the legislative choice of breadth by adopting an interpretive approach that emphasizes substance over form. Courts routinely reject attempts by parties to contract out of securities regulation through characterization or structural design. Labels chosen by the parties—such as “private agreement,” “promissory note”, “membership interest,” or “joint venture”—are not determinative.

Judicial resistance to formalism manifests in several ways. Courts have rejected arguments that a transaction falls outside securities legislation merely because it is private or bespoke. They have declined to accept re‑labelling strategies designed to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Most importantly, courts have focused on the economic reality of the arrangement, asking whether it functions as an investment vehicle rather than whether it conforms to a traditional category.

A crucial doctrinal feature of this approach is the treatment of what constitutes a “security” as a question of law rather than a question of contract. By framing the issue this way, courts promote consistency and coherence across cases. The meaning of “security” does not fluctuate based on the intentions or descriptions of the parties but is anchored in statutory purpose and judicial interpretation.

Pacific Coast Coin: Supreme Court Confirmation of Regulatory Purpose

The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Pacific Coast Coin represents a definitive affirmation of the expansive, purposive interpretation of “security.” In this case, the Court situates the definition of “security” squarely within the broader objectives of investor protection and market integrity.

Rather than approaching the definition as a technical taxonomy, the Court emphasizes legislative intent and regulatory purpose. The decision underscores that securities legislation is designed to prevent harm before it occurs, not merely to remedy wrongdoing after the fact. Narrow or formalistic interpretations would undermine this preventive function. The Court set the following criteria used to determine when a scheme constitutes an “investment contract” under securities law:

• Investment of Money – Participants must contribute money (or money’s worth) into the scheme.
• Common Enterprise – The fortunes of investors must be interwoven with those of the promoter or other investors. This can include pooling of funds or a functional interdependence between investor and promoter.
• Expectation of Profit – Investors must enter the arrangement with the expectation of profit.
• Profit to Come Significantly from the Efforts of Others – The expected profit must depend primarily on the efforts, skill, or expertise of the promoter or a third party, not the investor.
• Substance Over Form – Courts look at the economic reality of the arrangement, not its label or formal structure.

Pacific Coast Coin was significantly influenced by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in SEC v. Howey[iii], but the Canadian Supreme Court adapted and expanded the U.S. approach to fit Canadian securities law. The language of the U.S. Howey test originally required profit to emanate solely[iv] from the efforts of others for a scheme to be deemed an investment contract. In contrast, Pacific Coast Coin requires the significant effort of others. In essence, Pacific Coast Coin while inspired by the core logic of Howey, reshaped it into a more flexible, substance‑focused test, with added determinative leverage. It is noteworthy that the requirement in the U.S. was replaced by the essential managerial effort requirement in latter cases[v].

Pacific Coast Coin also sends a clear signal that avoidance strategies will not be rewarded. By reinforcing the importance of substance over form, the Court discourages promoters from structuring transactions to skirt regulatory obligations. The decision confirms that definitional breadth is essential to effective securities regulation and not an interpretive anomaly to be corrected.

Stevenson: Sustaining Judicial Signals of an Expansive Approach

The decision in Stevenson illustrates how courts engage with the statutory definition of “security”. While the factual and doctrinal specifics of the case can be developed in greater detail elsewhere, its analytical significance lies in the court’s methodology.

In Stevenson, the court demonstrated a willingness to look beyond the parties’ descriptions of their arrangement and to assess its economic substance. Rather than treating the transaction as immune from securities regulation based on its form or context, the court examined the nature of the interest being offered and the expectations of the participants.

The reasoning in Stevenson aligns closely with the broader legislative purpose of securities law. The case reflects an understanding that the statutory definition of “security” is designed to be elastic, and that judicial interpretation must preserve that elasticity.

Myths vs. Truths About the Definition and Nature of a “Security”

Stevenson decisively dismantled several recurring arguments advanced in attempts to constrict the statutory definition of a “security.” The Court’s reasoning exposes these misconceptions and reaffirms the key legal principles, which are summarized in the table below.

The Definition of “Security” as a Tool of Regulatory Adaptability

Taken together, statutory drafting and judicial interpretation reveal that the definition of “security” functions as a dynamic regulatory instrument. It allows securities law to adapt to financial innovation, evolving business models, and hybrid investment schemes that defy traditional categorization.

This adaptability is particularly important in an era of rapid financial change. New technologies, unconventional financing arrangements, and novel asset classes continually test the boundaries of existing regulatory frameworks. An expansive definition, coupled with purposive interpretation, ensures that securities law remains effective without requiring constant legislative intervention.

Courts’ reluctance to narrow the definition preserves the integrity of the regime. By maintaining a broad gateway into securities regulation, courts support the legislature’s preventive and protective objectives and reinforce public confidence in capital markets.

Conclusion: Regulatory Purpose Over Transactional Formalism

Canadian securities law embraces an intentionally broad conception of “security.” This breadth reflects a principled commitment to substance, consistency, and investor protection rather than a failure of statutory precision. Legislatures have chosen open‑textured definitions to preserve regulatory flexibility, and courts have responded with purposive interpretations that resist formalism and evasion.

The decisions in Stevenson and Pacific Coast Coin exemplify this approach at different stages of the jurisprudence. Together, they demonstrate judicial fidelity to legislative purpose and confirm that overbreadth in the definition of “security” is not merely tolerated, but essential. In Canadian securities law, a security is indeed what the law says it is—and what regulatory purpose requires it to be.

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed by the authors of this article are solely theirs and do not necessarily reflect the those of their employer and/or colleagues.

— Ronke Balogun and Solomon Ngoladi

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[i] Pacific Coast Coin Exchange v. Ontario Securities Commission, [1978] 2 S.C.R. 112

[ii] R. v Stevenson, 2017 ABCA 420

[iii] SEC v. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946)

[iv] Justin Henning, “The Howey Test: Are Crypto-Assets Investment Contracts?” (2018) 27:1 University of Miami Business Law Review 68. – The main reason for the change from solely to essential managerial efforts was due to the “policy of affording broad protection to the public and the U.S. Supreme Court’s admonition that the definition of securities should be a flexible one”.

[v] SEC v. Glenn W. Turner Enterprises, Inc. is 474 F.2d 476 (9th Cir. 1973); Hocking v. Dubois, 885 F.2d 1449 (9th Cir. 1989)

The post “A Security Is What the Law Says It Is”: Legislative Breadth and Judicial Purpose in Canadian Securities Law appeared first on Slaw.

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Meurrens on Immigration 2. Legal Post Blog 3. Employment & Human Rights Law in Canada 4. Family LLB 5. Canadian Securities Law

Meurrens on Immigration
Duress and Inadmissibility to Canada

The Supreme Court of Canada has “clarified” the elements of the duress defence. The defence is important because it can affect admissibility. For example, in Guerra Diaz v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2013 FC 88, the Federal Court of Court determined that the Immigration and Refugee Board improperly applied the test of whether duress applied, and ordered a new hearing by a different member. Duress and Inadmissibility It is basically trite law that where there is duress, then a person does not have the mens rea do either commit a crime or be a member in a group that renders the individual inadmissible to Canada. In Jalloh v. Canada (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2012 FC 317, the Federal Court stated that: In my view, …

Legal Post Blog
How workplace investigations quietly stripped power away from CEOs

Howard Levitt: What I see in my board advisory work is that the most influential voices are external investigators. Twenty years ago, the most powerful people inside major corporations were obvious. The CEO. The board chair. Perhaps the founder. Occasionally the CFO. Today, during moments of internal crisis, the balance of power inside many organizations is very different. What I see in my board advisory work is that the most influential voices are external investigators, HR executives, employment lawyers, reputational advisors, governance consultants and communications strategists. Quite a team — and not often for the better. …

Employment & Human Rights Law in Canada
Mentoring in the Age of AI

Mentoring has always required a deliberate and intentional approach. It is not something that happens automatically, even in traditional workplaces. In a virtual environment, that becomes even more apparent. Without the benefit of informal, in-person interaction, mentoring has to be built into how the organization operates. That includes recurring check-ins that are actually scheduled, as well as peer buddy systems so people have someone they can go to with day-to-day questions, brain-storming and support. It also means ensuring access to more senior team members in a way that feels natural, not overly formal and that removes the mentee’s fear of “bothering” the mentor. …

Family LLB
When Family Heirlooms Become Legal Battles

Family heirlooms often carry deep emotional significance, but when relationships end, they can also become sources of legal conflict. Understanding how Ontario law treats gifts, inherited property, and sentimental items can help prevent disputes and protect both financial and emotional value. This overview guides you through key considerations when family treasures are on the line. …

Canadian Securities Law
Proposed Amendments to Canadian Issuer Bid, Take-over Bid and Beneficial Ownership Reporting Rules

The Canadian Securities Administrators (“CSA”) have published for comment proposed amendments to Canada’s issuer bid, take-over bid and beneficial ownership reporting regimes (the “Proposed Amendments”). If adopted, the Proposed Amendments would be the first material amendments to these regimes in over a decade and, among other things, address issues that have arisen in practice and regulatory hearings during the past 10 years. The CSA have stated that the Proposed Amendments are also intended to provide issuers with greater flexibility to repurchase their own securities, enhance transparency of ownership of derivative interests in certain circumstances and reduce regulatory burden through clarifying amendments and supplemental policy guidance. Comments on the Proposed Amendments are due by August 12, 2026. …

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*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.

The post Monday’s Mix appeared first on Slaw.

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 soupesé tous les aspects du dossier pour déterminer la peine à infliger, soit une absolution conditionnelle, à une jeune femme ayant commis des vols d’argent totalisant une somme considérable à l’égard de 11 personnes âgées; la poursuite ne démontre aucune erreur autorisant l’intervention d’une cour d’appel.

Intitulé : R. c. Benbouhoud, 2026 QCCA 632
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), Montréal
Décision de : Juges Martin Vauclair, Mark Schrager et Stephen W. Hamilton
Date : 8 mai 2026

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — infractions contre les biens et la propriété — vol — complot — plus de 5 000 $ — «fraude grand-père» — accusée ayant collecté l’argent auprès des victimes — 11 victimes — personnes âgées — accusée âgée de 20 ans — vulnérabilité des victimes — mauvais traitement à l’égard d’une personne vulnérable (art. 718.04 C.Cr.) — gravité de l’infraction — implication opportuniste de l’accusée — facteurs atténuants — preuve de réhabilitation convaincante — changement de style de vie — actif pour la société — formation en soins infirmiers — jeune âge de l’accusée — absence d’antécédents judiciaires — absence d’équivalence mathématique entre les heures de travaux communautaires et le temps d’incarcération — arrêts rendus à la suite d’une conférence de facilitation pénale — absence de valeur de précédent — réinsertion sociale — dénonciation — dissuasion — absolution conditionnelle — intérêt véritable de l’accusée — accès à la profession d’infirmière — appel — erreur sans incidence.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — infractions relatives aux armes — divers — possession d’une arme prohibée — arme à impulsion électrique — poivre de Cayenne — accusée âgée de 20 ans — facteurs atténuants — preuve de réhabilitation convaincante — changement de style de vie — actif pour la société — formation en soins infirmiers — jeune âge de l’accusée — absence d’antécédents judiciaires — absence d’équivalence mathématique entre les heures de travaux communautaires et le temps d’incarcération — arrêts rendus à la suite d’une conférence de facilitation pénale — absence de valeur de précédent — réinsertion sociale — dénonciation — dissuasion — absolution conditionnelle — intérêt véritable de l’accusée — accès à la profession d’infirmière — appel — erreur sans incidence.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — infractions contre l’ordre public — divers — possession de pièces d’identité qui concernent d’autres personnes — 24 pièces d’identité frauduleuses — «fraude grand-père» — accusée âgée de 20 ans — facteurs atténuants — preuve de réhabilitation convaincante — changement de style de vie — actif pour la société — formation en soins infirmiers — jeune âge de l’accusée — absence d’antécédents judiciaires — absence d’équivalence mathématique entre les heures de travaux communautaires et le temps d’incarcération — arrêts rendus à la suite d’une conférence de facilitation pénale — absence de valeur de précédent — réinsertion sociale — dénonciation — dissuasion — absolution conditionnelle — intérêt véritable de l’accusée — accès à la profession d’infirmière — appel — erreur sans incidence.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — principes généraux — facteurs à prendre en considération — absence d’équivalence mathématique entre les heures de travaux communautaires et le temps d’incarcération — dissuasion spécifique — dissuasion générale — dénonciation — exemplarité — arrêts rendus à la suite d’une conférence de facilitation pénale — absence de valeur de précédent — appel — erreur sans incidence.

Appel de la peine. Rejeté.

L’appelant estime que l’absolution conditionnelle, assortie d’une ordonnance de probation de 2 ans et de plusieurs conditions, n’est pas la peine indiquée, compte tenu de l’infraction commise par l’intimée, soit des vols d’argent totalisant une somme considérable auprès de 11 personnes âgées et vulnérables, de même que d’autres infractions constatées au même moment. Le rôle que jouait l’intimée dans le stratagème consistait à recueillir l’argent extorqué auprès des personnes âgées. Une victime ciblée avait préalablement été jointe par un tiers qui lui faisait croire que son petit-fils était détenu et qu’une somme d’argent était nécessaire pour payer une caution afin d’obtenir sa libération.

Décision

M. le juge Vauclair: Le juge de première instance a soupesé tous les aspects du dossier pour déterminer la peine, et l’appelant ne démontre aucune erreur autorisant l’intervention de la Cour. Tout d’abord, le juge n’a pas omis de tenir compte des autres infractions. La preuve ne permet cependant pas de leur donner un effet aggravant aussi important que le souhaite l’appelant. Si les fausses cartes d’identité pouvaient servir à l’intimée afin de tromper les victimes et avaient donc un lien avec le crime de vol, le juge a accepté que l’arme à impulsion électrique et la bonbonne de gaz irritant qui étaient en la possession de cette dernière lui servaient pour sa sécurité personnelle lorsqu’elle fréquentait les boîtes de nuit et qu’elles étaient donc sans lien avec le vol.

Ensuite, la pondération des objectifs de la peine relevait du juge. Puisque les victimes étaient des personnes vulnérables, celui-ci a accordé une attention particulière aux objectifs de dénonciation et de dissuasion. De plus, il était bien conscient de la gravité générale des gestes commis par l’intimée (même si sa participation semblait davantage opportuniste et n’allait pas au-delà de la mission de récupérer les enveloppes). Or, l’appelant ne démontre aucune erreur révisable du juge dans l’exercice de son pouvoir discrétionnaire en raison des circonstances particulières révélées par la preuve, en particulier les efforts de réhabilitation entrepris par l’intimée. Cette dernière a fait des acquis importants, notamment en obtenant son diplôme en sciences infirmières, qu’une condamnation anéantirait. Elle témoigne qu’elle a changé ses fréquentations et son style de vie, soit, dans les circonstances, 2 changements porteurs de sa réintégration sociale.

Même s’il est vrai que l’infraction en cause choque la décence et interpelle en principe une peine conséquente pour tenir compte de sa gravité et des effets sur les victimes vulnérables, l’analyse soignée du juge ne permet pas à la Cour de conclure que la peine est manifestement non indiquée.

Cependant, l’équivalence qu’a établie le juge entre des heures de travaux communautaires et une période d’incarcération constitue une erreur. Celui-ci s’est appuyé notamment sur l’arrêt Grondin c. R. (C.A., 2018-03-15), 2018 QCCA 429, SOQUIJ AZ-51478750, et il n’aurait pas dû le faire. En effet, cet arrêt est le résultat d’une conférence de facilitation, soit une procédure consensuelle qui permet de solutionner des affaires méritant d’être résolues sommairement, en dehors de la procédure normale. Par conséquent, les débats ne sont pas aussi exhaustifs que dans le cadre d’un appel contesté et contradictoire. Généralement, il existe une multitude de raisons qui motivent les parties à rechercher une issue prévisible à un appel en se fondant sur des erreurs commises et l’arrêt ne cherche pas toujours à exprimer de façon exhaustive l’ensemble de ces considérations. C’est la raison pour laquelle les arrêts rendus à la suite d’une conférence de facilitation pénale n’ont aucune valeur de précédent.

La Cour d’appel n’a jamais avalisé quelque équivalence mathématique que ce soit entre les travaux communautaires et le temps d’incarcération. On constate néanmoins que cette mesure peut ajouter un poids à la peine; au mieux, l’ajout de 240 heures de travaux communautaires exprime une composante de contrainte et d’exemplarité. Cela rejoint en quelque sorte l’idée que l’absolution conditionnelle peut être adaptée et encadrer des situations plus sérieuses.

En l’espèce, le juge souhaitait avant tout appuyer l’idée de donner à la peine une sévérité accrue. Dans ce contexte, compte tenu de l’objectif de préserver la réinsertion sociale de l’intimée, l’appelant ne démontre pas que l’erreur du juge a eu un effet sur la peine.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

The post Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ appeared first on Slaw.

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeal

Criminal Law: Delay; Joint Trials
R. v. Jacques-Taylor, 2024 ONCA 458, 2026 SCC 20 (41430)

Joint trials re Jordan.  

Criminal Law: Delay; Case Complexity Analysis (Clarified Test)
R. v. Vrbanic, 2026 SCC 19 (41741)

Clarified Jordan test re complexity.

[Appeal Reasons released 05/29/2026. Judgment rendered Dec 4, 2025]

Leaves to Appeal Granted

Agriculture: Fertilizers
Biogénie Canada Inc. v. Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 2025 FCA 150 (42060)

Federal regulations re fertilizer composition.

Charter: Language Rights
Forum des maires de la Péninsule acadienne Inc. v. Minister of Justice and Public Safety, 2025 NBCA 99 (42073)

Language rights re court services.

Corporate Litigation: Derivative Actions
Hougen Co. Ltd. v. Su, et al., 2025 BCCA 164 (41946)

Issues, including limitations, in derivative action.

Criminal Law: Failure to Blow
R. v. Emereuwa, 2025 SKCA 83 (42075)

Offence elements of failing to blow.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

If you think civil lawsuits take way too long in Canada, you’re in good company. But one high-profile suit recently went from claim to final hearing in less than 30 hours. Ontario v Doe was certainly an unusual case, and one that has been widely debated for reasons that have nothing to do with civil procedure. And yet it also offers three important lessons for people who care about making justice speedier in mainstream civil litigation.

The Facts: A Last-Minute Injunction

A rally was planned for the afternoon of Saturday March 14th, on University Avenue in downtown Toronto. Just before 3pm on the day before (March 13), Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that he would instruct the Attorney General to seek an injunction forbidding the rally.

Ontario’s application record and factum were sent to the Superior Court of Justice at 10:52 a.m. the next morning. Responding materials from the event organizers arrived at 11:44 a.m.

The Hearing: in a Hurry

The oral hearing started before Justice Robert Centa at noon, just three hours before the rally was planned to begin.

An awkward moment occurred early on. The law is clear that Attorneys-General are to act independently, and yet the Premier had told the Province the day before that he had “instructed” the AG to bring the application that was now being brought. Justice Centa asked about this, and accepted the representation of the AG’s lawyer that the decision to bring the application was the AG’s alone.

After two hours of submissions and questions, Justice Centa dismissed the Attorney General’s application at 2:05 pm. His Honour’s written reasons were released before the end of the day.

The Decision

Justice Centa found “no evidence” in the record that the rally would attract or encourage violence, or that it would create any material risk of injury (at para 21). Freedom of peaceful assembly is guaranteed by section 2(c) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the police were already mandated to respond to any criminality that might occur. For these reasons, the application to pre-emptively cancel the rally was dismissed.

The premise of the decision — that the police would be able to handle any problems arising from the rally — seems to have been vindicated. Two individuals involved in a counter-protest were arrested for relatively minor offences, but media accounts of indicate no injuries or damage to property.

Why Ontario v. Doe Matters: not for Con Law, but for Civ Pro

The case will not make it into any constitutional law books. No new law was developed, and it wasn’t a “close call” delineating the boundaries of the law. A quia timet injunction against Charter-protected assembly requires strong evidence, and according to Jutice Centa’s reasons the applicant’s record came nowhere close.

However, I do plan to teach Ontario v. Doe in my civil procedure class, for two reasons.

1. A Minimum Viable Product for Civil Procedure?

First, it proves just how quickly a case can get from “glimmer in the client’s eye” to final adjudication. Slowness is considered by many to be the biggest problem with the civil justice system in Canada.

Ontario’s Civil Rules Review is trying to cut the timeline-to-trial for the average civil case in half, from the current 4 or 5 years down to 24 months. Some observers doubt this is possible, without a major infusion of new judicial resources.

Ontario v Doe demonstrated that justice can be done in about 30 hours, or roughly 1/700th of the average time-to-trial sought by the Civil Rules Review. Of course it was an exceptional case, a purported emergency, and the procedure applied to it was not as thorough as it might have been. And yet, this procedure might be considered a “minimum viable product” for those trying to devise a workflow for civil lawsuits that is both quick and just.

In software development, the minimum viable product is the version stripped down to only its most essential elements. After an MVP is developed, more features can be added, if and only if their benefit can be proven to justify the costs they add in time and money.

Ontario v Doe included the essential bits of civil procedure: pleadings, evidence, argument, adjudication, and written reasons.

An interesting experiment would be to start with Ontario v Doe’s 30-hour procedure and then determine the necessary additions to make it viable for a broader variety of cases, instead of trying to find stages that can be cut from the current five-year timeline.

2. A Benchmark for Quick Work?

The blistering pace of Ontario v Doe might also be a useful benchmark, for evaluating the more leisurely efforts of justice system participants in other cases.

• Justice Centa drafted written reasons, which seem reasonably thorough to this reader, in six hours after the hearing on March 14th. Must we really allow six months (730 times as long) as the timeline for judges to release written reasons, as do the Canadian Judicial Council’s Ethical Principles (at page 27)?
• If the lawyers in Ontario v Doe prepared serviceable factums overnight, should any factum require dozens of billable hours, stretching over many weeks, for counsel to prepare?

The answer to both these questions might be “yes.” And yet this model of speedy justice switches the onus to justify more time-consuming efforts, in a provocative and helpful way.

3. Why People Litigate

The third lesson from Ontario v Doe, for students of civil procedure, is about why civil claims are brought in the first place. Civil procedure assumes that, in general, a party litigates because they believe their position has legal merit. It also assumes that parties are interested in settling, and will welcome opportunities to do on a reasonable basis.

Ontario v Doe is a reminder that some civil claimants don’t want to settle, may not believe they are correct in law, and may not even want to win. They may be litigating mostly to send a message to a group or constituency not directly involved in the case.

Starting a lawsuit can:

(i) Garner political or material support from other opponents of the defendant,

(ii) Make the claimant appear to be a victim of wrongdoing or agent of justice, and/or

(iii) Deflect critical attention away from the claimant’s own conduct, toward the defendant.

Pursuing such goals is more attractive if, as in Ontario v Doe, the legal fees can be paid by someone else (i.e. the taxpayers of Ontario). Such a litigation strategy would also be made more attractive by the fact that, for reasons that not entirely clear to the author, Justice Centa made no costs award against the unsuccessful applicant.

Going to Court in Good Faith?

There are a few reasons to question whether this particular application might have been not only unfounded in law, but also brought in less-than-impeccable-faith:

• If Ontario genuinely believed the rally posed a threat to public safety or fostered hate speech, it could have brought its injunction application much sooner than 24 hours beforehand. The timing of the March 14 rally was predictable, given that its predecessor events had occurred every year in Toronto for over a decade.
• If seeking in good faith to protect public safety, Ontario would probably have sought to negotiate with the rally organizers to address its concerns on a consensual basis, before resorting to litigation.
• It could also have introduced legislation to refine the balance between Charter freedoms and public safety or the prevention of hate speech, not only for this protest, but for all others going forward.

The loss in court might not have been unanticipated or even unwelcome. The Premier was able to declare himself “extremely disappointed” in the outcome, and file the government’s “effort” to prevent the rally for future highly targeted political communications. The entire episode seemed to be complete in one news cycle, until a new chapter unexpectedly dropped in May of 2026. The organizers of the rally are now suing the Premier for defamation, based on the March 13th news conference which started it all.

For civil-proceduralists, the good news from Ontario v Doe is that it is possible in principle to do civil justice much faster than we are doing it in the average case today. The bad news is that starting civil lawsuits will always be appealing to some whose motives are far indeed from the legitimate purpose of civil procedure.

The post Ontario v Doe: The 30 Hour Lawsuit appeared first on Slaw.

Several Canadian governments have been using politicised rhetoric against “self-interested” lawyers and “biased” courts to garner popular support for increased control of the legal system. This column examines threats to the independence of the legal profession in Canada and explores how the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer (Luxembourg Convention) could fortify the rule of law.

The Luxembourg Convention: “Survival mechanism for the Rule of Law”

Threats to lawyers and judges in the United States (US) have triggered worldwide alarm. In 2025, research by Canadian law societies uncovered widespread public concern that erosion of the rule of law could also occur in Canada.

Several provincial governments have fuelled this uneasiness through rhetorical and legislative moves against Canada’s legal profession and judiciary. Canadian lawyers are resisting the spectre of government interference through public education, advocacy, and litigation. Globally, lawyers’ organisations are examining the potential of the Luxembourg Convention to protect the independence of the legal profession.

Concern about threats to lawyers in several European countries led the Council of Europe (COE) to draft the Luxembourg Convention. Since its adoption in May 2025, 31 of the COE’s 49 member States have signed it. It will enter into force once eight European countries have ratified it. It will then be open for accession by other countries, including Canada.

The United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on independence of judges and lawyers and several international bar organisations are recommending that countries around the world join the Convention. The Commonwealth Lawyers Association calls the Convention “an urgent survival mechanism for the Rule of Law.”

The Convention is grounded in international law and standards, particularly the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers (Basic Principles). While the 1990 Basic Principles are not a binding treaty, they are authoritative, representing the longstanding international consensus that people’s rights to equal access to justice and fair trials require an independent and impartial judiciary sustained by a competent, independent bar. Equal access to justice entails provision of legal aid where needed in criminal, civil, and administrative matters. The Basic Principles require self-governance of the legal profession and cooperation between the legal profession and governments to ensure equal access to legal services (Preamble; Principles 24, 25).

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has cited the Basic Principles as part of the “overwhelming evidence of a strong and widespread consensus concerning the fundamental importance in democratic states of protection against state interference with the lawyer’s commitment to his or her client’s cause.” The Basic Principles elaborate on fair trial rights outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Canada acceded to the ICCPR in 1976 and incorporated the Covenant’s fair trial rights into the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter).

Canada’s domestic commitment to equal access to justice and fair trials established by the ICCPR and the UN Basic Principles, plus Canada’s status as a COE observer State, make accession to the Luxembourg Convention a logical step to guarantee independence of Canada’s legal profession as articulated in international human rights law and standards.

In summary, the Luxembourg Convention requires States Parties to ensure:

• lawyer-client confidentiality and privilege, including prompt, confidential access to clients, including those in custody;
• protection of lawyers from discrimination, threats, assaults, intimidation, or harassment, including politicised or discriminatory discipline;
• protection of lawyers from adverse consequences of being identified with clients or clients’ causes;
• lawyers’ freedom of expression; and
• self-governing bar organisations free from State or non-state interference, including the requirement that governments consult lawyers’ professional associations on legislation affecting lawyers.

Why Canadians need the Luxembourg Convention

Independence of Canada’s legal profession is inextricable from independence and impartiality of the judiciary. Constraints on lawyers that hinder their zealous advocacy of clients’ rights can result in flawed judicial decisions that fail to incorporate the full range or weight of available arguments. Judicial impartiality relies on advocacy by fearlessly independent lawyers who have confidence that their lawful work will not result in adverse consequences, including discipline by regulatory bodies that lack independence from political or other powerful interests.

Together, the independence of judges and lawyers forms a single, intertwined pillar essential to everyone’s right of access to justice and fair trials. This pillar stands alongside other pillars of the rule of law: separation of powers and democratic governance.

Independence of judges and lawyers is deeply-rooted in international human rights law and standards and Canada’s Charter. Despite these safeguards, some provincial and federal politicians in Canada have been undermining the independence of lawyers, prosecutors, and judges. Canadians need the specifically-worded protections of the Luxembourg Convention.

Politicised criticism of lawyers and courts

A cardinal principle of the legal profession is that lawyers must retain their independence, advocating for lawful fulfilment of their clients’ legal rights. Lawyers are not mere “mouthpieces” for their clients. Lawyers often represent clients in unpopular or controversial cases, including people they dislike or with whom they disagree. Canadian lawyers’ ethical standards affirm that while lawyers may choose not to represent someone, they should not decline clients merely because they or their causes are unpopular or notorious, or because representing them might offend powerful government or private interests.

The UN Basic Principles affirm that lawyers “shall not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes as a result of discharging their functions” (Principle 18). When lawyers’ security is threatened because of their work, “they shall be adequately safeguarded by the authorities” (Principle 17). The Luxembourg Convention requires States Parties to “ensure that lawyers do not suffer adverse consequences as a result of being identified with their clients or their clients’ cause” (Article 5).

British Columbia: Chilling zealous advocacy

Despite these well-established principles, lawyers’ organisations in British Columbia (BC) have expressed concerns that BC’s Premier and Attorney General (AG) have criticized lawyers and courts in ways that undermine “public confidence in the administration of justice.”

For example, during the lengthy, highly publicised 2023 jury trial of a man accused of sexual assault and murder of a 13-year-old girl, defence lawyers received numerous threats of violence. The lawyers expressed concern about inadequate response to their requests for better court-room security. BC Premier David Eby (a lawyer) said he was troubled by the threats to lawyers. The jury convicted the accused. After the trial, Premier Eby castigated the defence lawyer for making closing arguments that were “profoundly offensive” to the memory of the victim. The Premier called the case an example of how the legal system fails victims, saying the AG was working on reforms. The defence lawyer countered that neither the judge nor prosecutors had objected to his closing arguments. He accused the Premier of “undermining zealous representation,” saying that the Premier’s comments could have a chilling effect on the work of defence lawyers in other cases. The case remains under appeal.

In 2025, the Law Society of BC (LSBC) and the Canadian Bar Association’s BC Branch (CBABC) criticized the Premier for his statement in the legislature that the person accused in a Vancouver mass killing “should spend the rest of his goddamned life in prison.” Thus, he prejudged the guilt and sentence of the accused. The Premier subsequently apologized for “intemperate language,” declaring his confidence in the independence of judges and their ability to withstand his “feelings about what should happen to this individual…” He did not retract the substance of his opinion about the accused. Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada warned that the Premier’s comments could “have a chilling effect on the work of lawyers and judges.”

Manitoba: Expelling a lawyer from a political party

In 2024, the ruling political party in Manitoba expelled from its caucus a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Mark Wasyliw, because the MLA’s law firm represented a man convicted in notorious sexual assault cases. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew (not a lawyer) said the MLA could be affiliated with the Party or affiliated with the convict, but “can’t do both.” Two weeks later, Premier Kinew apologized and backtracked – in part. He articulated respect for “defence lawyers as a profession” and “for the independence of the justice system” but confirmed the reasons for expelling the MLA. In December 2025, the now-independent MLA sued the Premier and others for defamation.

In October 2025, Premier Kinew criticized a bail decision in another ongoing case. The CBA’s Manitoba branch said that the Premier’s statements could affect the fairness of the trial, “undermine public confidence in the administration of justice and run counter to the constitutional principles that separate the judicial and legislative branches of government.”

Ontario: Threats against a lawyer amid political pressure on a judge

In 2021, Ontario Premier Doug Ford (not a lawyer) and Toronto mayor at that time, John Tory (a lawyer), criticized a judicial decision granting bail for a man charged with murdering a police officer. In a social media comment, the Premier said it was “beyond comprehension” that the man “responsible for this heinous crime” would be released pending trial. He later deleted part of his comment prejudging the man’s guilt. The accused’s lawyer received death threats for taking the case. A jury acquitted the accused in 2024. In 2026, an Ontario Provincial Police report contradicted judicial concerns about police untruths in the case. Premier Ford and the Toronto Police Association demanded that the judge apologize, leading to judicial and bar concerns about attacks on judicial independence.

Federal MPs: Criticism of Crown prosecutors

In 2024, Members of Parliament, including federal opposition leader Pierre Poilievre, criticized prosecutors for seeking prison sentences for organizers of the 2022 Ottawa truckers’ convoy and blockade. The Ontario Crown Attorneys’ Association called Mr. Poilievre’s comments an attack on prosecutors’ independence. The defence lawyer for one of the accused commented that while he “liked” what Poilievre said, he should not have said it, because the “separation of…legislature from judiciary, is…highly valued in our country.”

The sub judice principle is being selectively ignored in Canada. Politicians decline to comment on ongoing cases when it suits them but increasingly criticize lawyers, prosecutors, or judges when it fits their political objectives.

Politicisation of judicial appointments: Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan

Judges are drawn from the legal profession. Federally-appointed judges are recommended by independent Judicial Advisory Committees comprising representatives of federal and provincial governments, the provincial law society, the CBA, and the judiciary.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have publicly denounced judges for decisions they dislike and are seeking judicial selection processes that would produce judges aligned with their political parties. In March 2026, Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan Premiers wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney “requesting that federal judicial appointments for superior trial courts and courts of appeal of the provinces be chosen from candidates recommended and approved by the relevant provincial government…” The CBA pushed back against this attempt to politicise judicial appointments. Canada’s Minister of Justice declined these provinces’ request.

Politicization of judicial appointments would not only threaten judicial independence and impartiality but would also discriminate against lawyers seeking judicial appointments whose views differ from those of the government in power.

Self-governance of the legal profession: A “privilege” or an imperative?

The UN Basic Principles stipulate that lawyers’ professional associations must be self-governing and that the “executive body of the professional associations shall be elected by its members and shall exercise its functions without external interference.” The Luxembourg Convention stipulates that “Parties shall refrain from adopting any measures or endorsing any practices that would undermine the independence and self-governing nature of professional associations” (Article 8.10) (emphases added).

The Convention specifies that States Parties “shall ensure that professional associations are consulted in a timely and effective manner on proposals by government for any change in legislation, procedural and administrative rules directly affecting the professional activities of lawyers and the regulation of the profession” (Article 4.3) (emphasis added). The Convention requires Parties to ensure the right of lawyers, including professional associations, to “take part in public discussion on the substance, interpretation and application of existing and proposed legal provisions, judicial decisions, the administration of and access to justice and the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as to make proposals for reforms concerning these matters” (Article 7.2).

Critics of lawyers’ self-governance often portray it as a “privilege,” saying self-regulation is historically and currently based more on lawyers’ self-interest than the public interest. The SCC has called self-regulation a “privilege.” Views portraying self-governance as optional are inconsistent with both the Basic Principles and the Luxembourg Convention and put Canadian law societies on their back foot when defending longstanding self-regulation mandates.

Alberta: Regulating lawyers’ education

In December 2025, Alberta’s government, without apparent consultation, amended Alberta’s Legal Profession Act to allow the Minister of Justice to make regulations regarding lawyers’ education and training. In early 2026, the Law Society of Alberta said it was reviewing the legislation to determine its impact on the public and legal profession. The CBA‘s Alberta branch raised concerns about this intrusion on independence of the legal profession. The Advocates Society urged the Alberta government “to return the regulation of the legal profession to lawyers.”

British Columbia: The 2024 Legal Professions Act

In 2024, the BC government adopted a new Legal Professions Act (LPA) which, after a transition period, will replace the LSBC with a regulatory board of 17 persons, of which five will be lawyers elected by the BC’s 14,000 lawyers. The other Board members will be elected by paralegals and Notaries Public or appointed by government. Four additional lawyers will be appointed by the board. A bare majority of nine of 17 board members will be lawyers.

The BC government promoted the legislation as providing improved access to justice through licensure of lawyers, Notaries Public, and paralegals under a single regulator. However, it was not clear just how this plan would improve access to justice, and the BC government did not substantially address years of concern about inadequacy of legal aid.

The LPA was co-developed with Indigenous lawyers’ groups including the BC First Nations Justice Council to align the legislation with the requirements of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). Ongoing Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives are provided through Indigenous representation on the Board and an advisory Indigenous Council.

Otherwise, consultation with lawyers and the public on the draft law was limited. The new regulatory body was designed by the government in consultation with some (but not all) benchers of the LSBC and other selected unnamed legal consultants, including some members of Indigenous lawyers’ associations, all under non-disclosure agreements. The government allowed no consultation with the public or BC lawyers on the full text of the draft legislation, rushing it through the legislature amid hurried criticism and without full legislative debate, thus promulgating it in violation of democratic principles.

Legal challenges to the LPA’s intrusions on independence of the legal profession by the LSBC and the TLABC resulted in a Supreme Court of BC (SCBC) decision on 29 April 2026, which recognises independence of the bar as an unwritten constitutional principle “necessary for maintaining an independent judiciary and the proper administration of justice” and confirming that “independence of the courts is…inextricably tied to the independence of the Bar.” Nevertheless, the SCBC upheld the constitutionality of BC’s Legal Professions Act, agreeing with the BC government that: “Self-regulation is a model in which the government delegates to a profession the privilege to regulate itself on the basis that it must do so in the public interest” (emphasis added). The SCBC found that the government’s lack of consultation had “minimal bearing” on the issues before the Court. In May 2026, the LSBC and the TLABC issued notices of appeal to the BCCA.

Ontario: Mitigating risk of losing self-regulation

Soon after the BC government adopted the 2024 Legal Professions Act, the Law Society of Ontario (LSO) formulated a “good governance” plan that includes reducing the proportion of lawyer-elected benchers. The LSO engaged in public consultation on its proposals and, on 30 April 2026, voted to propose to the Ontario government that the LSO board’s size be reduced while maintaining a 65 percent majority of benchers elected by lawyers, with remaining seats comprising elected paralegals, lay benchers appointed by the Ontario government, and benchers selected by the other benchers themselves.

Not all lawyers favoured the change. The proponents expressed concern about “a risk of losing the ability of our profession to self-regulate if we do not have good governance.” Opponents of the change, including the Ontario Bar Association president, argued: “We can’t protect self-regulation by taking the ‘self’ out of ‘self-regulation.’” However, the changes were adopted by a vote of LSO members themselves after consultation with lawyers and the public.

Meaningful consultation: Not optional

A central issue is the international law duty of consultation required by the ICCPR and confirmed in the Luxembourg Convention. The right of public consultation is grounded in the ICCPR which guarantees the right of all people to participate in public affairs (Article 25).

In Canada, public consultation is a “Constitutional convention.” Constitutional conventions are not justiciable. Indigenous Peoples have a justiciable right of consultation on matters that adversely affect treaty rights under Section 35 of Canada’s Constitution. Yet, according to UN Guidelines on the Right to Participate in Public Affairs, welcomed by consensus of the UN Human Rights Council in 2018, all States should ensure non-discriminatory public consultation on the full text of draft laws before tabling them in the legislature. BC and Alberta passed laws affecting the legal profession without meaningful consultation with lawyers or the public. Failure to ensure meaningful consultation contradicts the plain meaning of independence.

Conclusions

Canadian lawyers need to begin now to take firm measures to protect the independence of the legal profession. Public education, advocacy, and litigation are important but not enough. Recent efforts by several provincial governments to seek control over lawyers and courts require firmer measures. Lawyers and bar organisations need to engage in consultations with their members and with provincial and territorial governments to build momentum and political will for Canada’s accession to the Luxembourg Convention, which would require all levels of government to implement the details of the Convention in their laws, policies, and practices.

The post Why Canadians Need the Luxembourg Convention on Protection of the Legal Profession appeared first on Slaw.

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Unravelling MAiD in Canada: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide as Medical Care. Edited by Ramona Coelho, K. Sonu Gaind & Trudo Lemmens. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2025. 552 p. Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 9780228023692 (softcover) $39.95; ISBN 9780228024538 (ePUB); ISBN 9780228024521 (PDF).

Reviewed by Sasha Dhesi
Library Technician
Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP

Unravelling MAiD in Canada offers various perspectives on Canada’s rollout of medical assistance in dying (MAiD), an area in which Canadian law has inadvertently become a major influence elsewhere as access to MAiD in Canada has expanded to include groups outside of those immediately dying. Unravelling MAiD in Canada clarifies legal intricacies, offers perspectives considering the ethical dilemmas faced by healthcare practitioners, and reviews the impact on palliative, supportive, and psychiatric care.

The editors bring their own professional experiences of MAiD in Canada to the book. Dr. Ramona Coelho, a family physician, draws from her experiences caring for end-of-life patients to reconsider her own preconceived perceptions about suffering and how non-traditional solutions, such as peer support and allied healthcare workers, can dramatically improve a patient’s standard of care. Coelho fears that expanding MAiD will make it the easiest option, rather than considering other new ways to support patients. Psychiatrist and professor Dr. K. Sonu Gaind, who was elected president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) in 2015, has chaired various committees regarding MAiD and has spent the past decade reviewing and consulting upon its nuances. During his time as president of the CPA, Gaind grew wary of the lack of evidence in favour of politicking, which he discusses at length in his chapter “Fall of Duty: The Breach of Trust and Moral Failure of Canada’s Entrusted Experts.” Finally, Trudo Lemmens, a professor of health law, has been studying the euthanasia laws of other countries for years and has acted as an expert witness for various Parliamentary committees and hearings. While supportive of earlier versions of Canadian MAiD laws, with their key safeguards restricting broad use, Lemmens describes various ethical dilemmas posed by the introduction of broader assisted-dying laws.

The book comprises four sections. The first section provides a primer on the evolution of MAiD in Canada and the arguments underlying its legal framework. The second section looks at MAiD’s effect on patient care, with a focus on how elements such as ableism, ageism, economic injustice, and colonialism interact with MAiD in practice. The third section focuses on the planned expansion of MAiD to include mental illness as a sole criterion, while the fourth section discusses federal recommendations for future expansions.

The book’s structure lends itself well to acting as a primer for those unfamiliar with MAiD and the concerns regarding its implementation in Canadian healthcare. Each of the editors have engaged with MAiD and have taken part in the debates about various aspects of Canada’s MAiD regime.

The book also includes a range of perspectives from those who engage with MAiD issues, particularly disabled persons, who have largely been ignored in Parliamentary debates about MAiD expansion in Canada. Chapter 8, “Creating a Killable Class and Manufacturing Selective Suicidality: Thoughts of a Past and Future Ironing Board,” by Gabrielle Peters, was especially illuminating.

Overall, Unravelling MAiD in Canada offers readers a review of Canada’s implementation of MAiD and the many different viewpoints on its implementation. Although it is largely critical of MAiD, the book nonetheless does an excellent job of presenting the rationale for the implementation of the law alongside the critiques. As a primer for this complex topic, Unravelling MAiD is better suited for law school libraries with substantial health law courses but could still be of value to law firms who may be delving into this area of health law for the first time. This book will serve readers well as they parse through the many legal and ethical dilemmas posed by MAiD in Canada.

The post Book Review: Unravelling MAiD in Canada: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide as Medical Care appeared first on Slaw.

In previous articles, I introduced the RECLAIM model as a cultural operating system for law firms and explored the first three elements: Respect, Equity, and Clarity. This month, I turn to L: Learning.

In February 2014, Satya Nadella stepped into the role of CEO at Microsoft. The company he inherited was dominant but adrift, slowed by internal competition and a sense that it had been left behind by the cloud and mobile shifts. Nadella opened with a bold move.

Microsoft, he said, would go from being a know‑it‑all culture to a learn‑it‑all culture.

That single reframe became the spine of one of the most‑studied corporate turnarounds of the last decade. Inspired by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on the growth mindset, Nadella spent years rebuilding how Microsoft hired, reviewed, promoted, and ran meetings around one premise: the learn‑it‑all does better than the know‑it‑all. Microsoft’s market value rose from roughly $300 billion in 2014 to over $2.5 trillion a decade later.

If you want to read more on what Nadella did and how, three good non‑paywalled accounts are Fortune’s retrospective, Fast Company on the three‑word description of the new culture, and Nadella’s own interview at Next Big Idea Club.

The reason I open with Nadella is that the same reframe is one law firms can grab hold of. And the reason matters more than ever.

Why Learning Is Not Optional in a Law Firm

Law firms are people businesses. I have said this in every article in this series. There is a second thing worth saying.

Law firms are people businesses whose work product is the intellectual output of the people. Lawyers do not make widgets. They produce judgment, analysis, advice, strategy, and advocacy. The firm’s revenues are a direct function of the quality of that thinking.

AI changes the stakes.

The more routine work such as listing documents from an affidavit, first‑pass research, and basic drafting is increasingly being done well by AI with humans in the loop. What clients will continue to pay senior rates for is the distinct, high‑judgment intellectual output that AI cannot reliably produce. That is the work of well‑trained lawyers who have built deep knowledge through practice and reflection.

The law firms that will survive and thrive in the coming years are going to have to get better at being learning organizations. Not occasionally. Continuously.

There are exceptions. If your practice is genuinely a volume game — residential real estate conveyancing, for example — then process efficiency may matter more than continuous learning. But for any firm in civil litigation, energy, corporate finance and securities, business law, employment, tax, family, or any area where the work is genuinely bespoke, the firm’s ability to learn is its competitive moat.

Learning is not a perk. It is a strategy.

What a Learning Culture Actually Looks Like in a Law Firm

A learning culture is, first and foremost, a mindset. The orientation shifts from being good to getting better. The focus shifts to “how are we getting better?” — about the work, about our own performance, about how the firm runs.

To take hold, this learning mindset has to be operationalized in specific places. Four are worth naming.

The work itself

The simplest expression of a learning culture is a regular conversation about the work. A highly respected estates and trusts firm I know holds a regular team meeting where lawyers and key staff bring forward files in progress and talk through the trickier aspects together. After significant matters close, they do a short post‑mortem. An employment firm I heard from at a recent presentation does the same: they review how the client was served, how the legal work landed, what worked, what did not, and what to carry forward. The key is, these firms have embedded a deliberate process into their legal practice.

Mistakes

This is where a learning culture either lives or dies. The literature here is Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety, and the finding is clear: teams perform better when people can surface errors and uncertainty without fear of humiliation or punishment. In a law firm, this means a missed limitation period, a calendared date that slipped, a closing document that went out wrong, has to be reportable upward without the messenger getting their head taken off.

Leaders carry the weight of this one. The first job is self‑management: not flying off the handle, not punishing, not blaming. The second job is the sentence that comes next. Something close to: “Thank you for surfacing this. How can I help you make it right?” Then the team works the problem and asks, calmly, what can be learned from it.

A powerful multiplier is when senior lawyers talk openly about mistakes they have made, how they were corrected, and what those mistakes taught them. So do mid‑level associates with juniors. As do experienced legal assistants mentoring new team members. When error becomes a topic of normal conversation rather than a source of shame, the firm gets faster, safer, and stronger. Some of the deepest professional learning anyone does comes from a hideous mistake. The question is whether the firm makes it possible to learn from those moments together.

Annual planning and performance reviews

Many firms have elaborate professional development plans that serve more as a box to check that a meaningful planning exercise. I prefer simpler plans which include four or five questions connected with learning, asked once a year and revisited at the half‑year mark:

• What did I get better at last year? What did I learn?
• What skills or knowledge do I want to develop this coming year?
• What concrete actions will I take to make that happen?
• What do I need from the firm to support this?

These plans then become the spine of the performance conversation. CPD investments stop being generic spending and start being tied to specific growth goals. A mid‑year check‑in keeps the plan from disappearing into a drawer.

The AI question

Every firm with associates is going to have to rethink how it trains them. If AI can pull a list of documents ready for submission to the court (after a human in the loop review) from an affidavit accurately and in minutes, what is the associate doing? The temptation will be to skip the foundational work and move straight to the AI‑assisted version. That temptation has to be resisted.

There is no shortcut for building the neural pathways of legal judgment. Associates need to do the work the long way before they do it the AI way so that when they review AI output, they recognize what good looks like and what is missing. How a firm structures associate development in the age of AI is going to be one of the most important pieces of intentional work in the coming years.

Client feedback

A learning culture also looks outward. Firms that periodically and seriously ask key clients how they are doing and what they could do better are firms that keep getting better. Whether through internal partner conversations or an external interviewer, structured client feedback turns the firm itself into a learner.

Operationalizing Learning

Three concrete moves a partner can put in motion this quarter:

1. Schedule the conversation. Put a standing meeting on the calendar for your practice group to talk about live files and recently closed matters. Not a status update. A learning conversation. Protect it from being eaten by the urgent.
2. Change your first response to mistakes. The next time someone brings you bad news, before you react, say the sentence. “Thank you for telling me. How can I help fix it?” Debrief once the problem is contained. Your associates and staff are watching what happens, and the story will travel.
3. Adopt the simple plan. If you have a lengthy and complex professional plan template, simplify it, and make sure it builds in reflection about skills developed, lessons learned, and the learning plan for the coming year. Ask each person on your team to complete one, talk through it with you for thirty minutes, and check in at six months. That is enough to start.

Learning lights us up

There is one more reason to take this seriously.

When people’s basic needs are met, safety, fair pay, decent working conditions, the drive to learn, grow, and master something difficult is a fundamental human need, not a perk. Lawyers in particular are a self‑selected population of high achievers who chose a profession built around mastery. The drive is already there.

When firms build the conditions for it to be expressed, motivation spirals up. People come to work for reasons beyond the paycheque. Discretionary effort rises. Quality rises with it. Senior lawyers want to stay. Good juniors want to join.

If you are looking for one place to start with the RECLAIM model in your firm, L is a strong choice.

The know‑it‑all firm is the firm AI is most likely to flatten.

The learn‑it‑all firm is the adaptive firm with an opportunity to deliberately design how it evolves.

The post RECLAIM: L Is for Learning appeared first on Slaw.

In recent years we have made significant strides in recognizing the prevalence of mental health issues amongst lawyers and attempting to defeat the stigma that discourages lawyers from disclosing their challenges and seeking support.

It is now well-known and accepted that “legal professionals are almost twice as likely to experience mental health issues like anxiety, stress, depression and addiction as the general population”.[1]

Leaders in our profession are speaking up. In 2022, former Chief Justice of Ontario George R. Strathy published a thoughtful paper acknowledging this reality and calling for top-down change in our approach to mental health as a legal profession. Around the same time, former “Big Law” partner Erin Durant published an excellent book, It Burned Me All Down, detailing her story of a mental health crisis and recovery along with recommendations on how law firms can and should build a happier and healthier environment for their staff (previously reviewed on Slaw here). These are but two of many examples (I recommend reading both).

As a profession, we no doubt can “talk the talk”—but I remain skeptical that we “walk the walk”.

In my practice as a lawyer for lawyers who are the subject of Law Society complaints, investigations, and discipline proceedings, I regularly witness firsthand how mental health issues intersect with professional conduct issues.

And a review of Law Society Tribunal decisions reveals that mental illness, burnout, and the consequent impairment of one’s ability to serve clients and manage their practice underlie a sizable proportion of professional misconduct findings.

To its credit, the Tribunal regularly recognizes underlying mental health struggles as a mitigating factor when determining the appropriate penalty for findings of misconduct.

But a reactive approach that punishes misconduct that occurred due to (or at least in conjunction with) mental illness or a mental health crisis does little to fulfill the Law Society’s statutory mandate to protect the public interest. It addresses the effects but not the cause. And it is too little, too late for clients whose interests were adversely affected by, for example, missed deadlines, missed red flags, or communication breakdowns.

To be clear, the Law Society of Ontario does have programs and processes in place for earlier intervention. It takes both a proactive and reactive approach to lawyers’ mental health.

Based on what I have seen and experienced as counsel to lawyers over the past several years,[2] however, I worry that various aspects of the Law Society’s[3] existing approach may have the unfortunate unintended effect of discouraging lawyers from disclosing and seeking early intervention for mental health concerns:

• Where a lawyer discloses to the Law Society that they are struggling with their mental health—for example, by requesting an extension of time to respond to a complaint because they are experiencing a depressive episode—the Law Society may consider this information as suggestive that the lawyer may be incapable of meeting any their obligations as a licensee by reason of mental illness, and may commence an investigation into the lawyer’s capacity.[4]
• When the Law Society commences a capacity investigation, they typically require the lawyer to answer numerous questions about their mental health symptoms, substance use, diagnoses, and treatment.
  • The questions—which the lawyer must answer in accordance with their professional obligation to respond to the Law Society—request details about treatment, including a list of any medications with dosages and name of prescriber, and copies of “any written reports, professional summaries and/or assessments completed” regarding the lawyer’s condition.
• If a lawyer experiencing mental illness enters into an undertaking not to practice or to practice with restrictions while they focus on their recovery, the Law Society may publish this undertaking on the online directory; even where personal health information is omitted or redacted, there remains a residual concern that the publication of this restriction itself may draw unwanted attention to the lawyer’s health struggles.
• The Law Society often requests the lawyer’s consent to obtain medical and other health records directly from the lawyer’s treating professionals (which, to its credit, the LSO emphasizes is a voluntary choice and not compelled by the duty to respond). It is entirely unclear, however, who at the Law Society can and will see the lawyer’s health records, how long the Law Society will keep these records, and what happens to them (and for what purposes they can be used) after the investigation.

I appreciate why the Law Society requests the information it does given its role to protect the public from the potential prejudice that may flow if a lawyer’s mental unwellness interferes with their ability meet deadlines, communicate with clients in a
timely manner, exercise their best judgment, and otherwise meet their professional obligations.

But it is also reasonable for a lawyer to feel uncomfortable about sharing detailed personal health information with their regulator, particularly without a clear understanding of who within the Law Society will see it, how the information might be used, for how long it will be retained, and whether there are appropriate limits and safeguards in place given the deeply private nature of such information.

Both “sides” have important interests and legitimate concerns, but there is a significant power differential between the regulator and the licensee. Given the licensee’s duty to cooperate, I often (reluctantly) advise a client that they have little choice but to truthfully respond to the inquiries.

Reflecting on this problem, I thought about a series of infomercials in the 90s where a person struggles with a household task before the narrator interjects: “There’s got to be a better way!” The commercial shifts from black and white to technicolour, and a magical “As Seen on TV” solution is presented to make that pesky task manageable.

Managing the risk of prejudice to clients that may result if a lawyer experiences a mental health crisis is an important task for the Law Society. But, in my respectful view, the way this task is performed at present leaves much to be desired. There’s got to be a better way.

An approach that encourages lawyers to disclose mental health concerns and receive support at an early stage—without fear of a regulatory investigation and its potential consequences—is both in lawyers’ interests and in the public interest.

In future columns, I intend to explore these ideas further to continue the conversation and work towards more productive approach.

____________

[1] https://lso.ca/lawyers/well-being-resource-centre; see underlying studies and papers at: https://lso.ca/lawyers/well-being-resource-centre/research-and-reports

[2] I hasten to acknowledge that in this capacity I do not have a complete picture of how the Law Society handles such matters. I am writing based on an admittedly limited perspective, but welcome additional information from those more knowledgeable than me in my quest to pursue a more productive regulatory approach to managing lawyers’ mental health issues.

[3] References to any policies or practices by the “Law Society” refer to the Law Society of Ontario, which is the regulatory body with which I have the most experience as an Ontario lawyer. To the extent other law societies take different approaches I would be pleased to learn about them.

[4] Indeed, when the LSO writes to licensees informing them of an investigation, under the heading “Accessibility and Accommodation” it warns licensees: “Please note, to the extent the information received suggests that you may be, or may have been, incapacitated within the meaning of s. 37 of the Act, an investigation into this issue may be instructed. Further, this information may be used within a proceeding should one be authorized…”

The post There’s Got to Be a Better Way! Law Societies’ Approach to the Regulation of Lawyers With Mental Health Issues appeared first on Slaw.

I find it at the same time strange and reassuring that, looking primarily at law publishing within the jurisdictions which make up the British Isles, I seem to note the extent to which law book and periodical publishing, linked to electronic delivery and integration with electronic tools, appears to be still thriving, or certainly surviving. It is understandable that the smaller law and related professional and academic publishers are primarily engaged in producing traditional publications, but the surprise is at the top end, notably from Thomson Reuters and Lexis Nexis, which are the main objects of these present observations.

Access to Thomson Reuters’ electronic content, solutions and tools are delivered through a handful of connected web sites, but standing slightly apart from them, are those focused on Sweet and Maxwell, for the UK generally and transnationally; for Scotland, it is W. Green and for Ireland, Round Hall Press. Through these sites, the deep legitimacy of and history behind the products and services on offer are highlighted, reinforcing the ties of trust and reliance by the professions in question and relating to legal academic learning and professional training. In many ways, the presentation of these portfolios does not look as if it has changed dramatically, despite the evolution of markets and technology.

A search on the Sweet and Maxwell web site unashamedly reveals its opening message as “Law books and more for the UK and Ireland…… Celebrating 225 years of legal publishing excellence”, and the trend continues throughout. At W. Green, the message is “W. Green provides an unparalleled range of legal content and solutions in multiple formats…… Our products from Scotland’s leading legal publisher are trusted and relied upon across the country, built on a history of excellence and innovation that spans over 150 years. At Round Hall, it is “Round Hall, a Thomson Reuters business…… Providing the Irish legal profession and law students with an unparalleled range of legal texts and resources”. All three publishing houses put emphasis on their renowned ranges of books, periodicals and looseleaf services, many, but not all of which are also delivered in electronic media. There is little to terrify a conservative and cautious market of barristers here.

Lexis Nexis is not significantly dissimilar to Thomson Reuters, with visible prominence being given to its legacy publishing brands, including Butterworths, Tolley and Jordan Publishing. Its web site employs less traditional publishing-related language, focusing more on interactive media and integrated solutions, but there is no doubt that it is a prolific publisher of legal and tax books, periodicals and looseleaf services.

From both publishers, what is also surprising is the still high number of books being published every year, not just new editions of established titles, as one might expect, but also of new and innovative titles; profitable content creation, of necessity and in response to customer demands, goes on.

Lexis Nexis, if its web site is correct, would appear to show a commitment to around 70 books in 2026, to enhance its existing portfolio of around 500 titles. As for Sweet and Maxwell and its sister brands, its claim is that “Combined, we are one of the largest legal book, loose-leaf and periodical publishers in Europe, working with world-renowned authors to publish hundreds of titles across all areas of law, some in partnership with professional organisations”. They report publishing over 200 new books and new editions per year and, even still, maintaining around 100 looseleaf services.

I have the impression, looking from a great distance and with no claim to detailed knowledge, that, by contrast, Thomson Reuters has been more inclined to suppress the Carswell and Canada Law Book brands in Canada, even though the web site claim is that “More than 1400 legal print and online law resources are featured in the Carswell and Canada Law Book law collection.” Whereas the historic brand names have a small degree of visibility behind Westlaw Canada, at Lexis Nexis, the Butterworths name has mainly disappeared in favour of Lexis Nexis Canada. Nevertheless, it too maintains a formidable law book backlist and an extensive programme of new book publishing for the future.

I also find it interesting to see the two publishers, both in the British Isles and in Canada, actively soliciting, via their web sites, for new books and ideas, and detail guidance and support is offered for prospective and current authors and editors. All this indicates a positive and active, rather than passive approach to what can still be a profitable source of revenues.

It seems to me, and I am content to be persuaded otherwise, that if the two international market leaders remain active in modern law publishing, the smaller competitors and the relevant university presses are, for the most part, still steeped in it, and that, even in overall decline, it has life left in it. Especially in those jurisdictions about which I am more comfortable about expressing opinions, perhaps a key factor is the particular structures, rules and traditions for professional legal practice. This might also be the case for some civil law jurisdictions, for different reasons, but with similar consequences, reflecting the differing training, roles and functions of notaries and advocates. Globally and generally, I am happy to rely on House of Butter’s Sean Hocking, in his analysis of current state of play’. His Crawling the planet indexing everything – Legal Data Hunter makes for both entertaining and insightful analysis of these and adjacent matters, with almost every word making sense, at least, to me. If it is the case that artificial intelligence will soon have the lawyers spending all their time playing golf, sailing their yachts or overseeing the work of their gardeners, added-value law publications might not have much of a place, but I consider it foolish to predict or demand the next big thing, with a pretence of certainty as to time frames and functionality. This might be suggested by the fact that we still have vinyl records and compact discs, internal combustion-engine motor vehicles and, indeed, books and periodicals in general. As an example, I was pleased but astonished to read that, in 2026, the unsettled, troubled and fractured country of my own birth was selected as the European base for a new international arbitration hub aimed at resolving commercial disputes between US and European companies. Lesson learned, that, occasionally, mercifully, things do not always work out in predictable ways and, without making a judgment in one direction or another, I would suggest that there is sometimes a great difference between reality and corporate hyperbole. Maybe unpredictability will eventually triumph in the tediously long-running Thomson Reuters v. ROSS saga too, but not for now, it would seem.

The post Ye Olde Law Publishing appeared first on Slaw.

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. Canadian Appeals Monitor 2. Michael Geist 3. Labour Pains 4. Canadian Combat Sports Law Blog 5. Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog

Canadian Appeals Monitor
McCarthy Tétrault names Awanish Sinha as Regional Managing Partner, Ontario

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Awanish Sinha as Regional Managing Partner, Ontario. He succeeds Caroline Zayid. Awi’s appointment comes at a time of increasing complexity across markets, where clients are navigating rapidly evolving and often uncertain conditions. His practice has long focused on advising organizations in high-stakes situations where the path forward is not clearly defined, bringing a steady, strategic approach to complex commercial, regulatory and reputational challenges. His work advising on major projects and unprecedented macro-market challenges uniquely positions him for this role at this time to meet the evolving demands of sound judgment, adaptability and perspective. …

Michael Geist
The Online Streaming Act Bill Comes Due: Why the CRTC’s Latest Ruling Guarantees Years of Trade and Legal Battles

The CRTC yesterday released its much-anticipated Online Streaming Act decision that has been years in the making. Given the likely opposition from many stakeholders, it is virtually certain to lead to protracted trade and legal battles. From the moment the government introduced Bill C-10 in 2020, its goal was to impose regulatory obligations on Internet streaming services, treating them as online broadcasters and mandating that they pay into the Canadian system. This week’s ruling puts a number on the payments, building on an earlier 5% interim levy with an additional 10% in expenditure requirements. The combined 15% places Canada among the most expensive operating jurisdictions in the world for streaming services, with consequences that will undoubtedly affect consumer streaming prices. Moreover, …

Labour Pains
Application Best Serves Proportionality, Efficiency, and Justice in Wrongful Dismissal Case: ONSC

Applications remain an appropriate vehicle, if not the preferred approach, for the resolution of wrongful dismissal cases. In an endorsement released May 12, 2026, the Honourable Justice Marc Garson of the ONSC refused a request to convert a wrongful dismissal application into an action. In providing reasons for decision, Justice Garson observed, “Proceeding by application best reflects the principle of proportionality in light of the issues raised. It is also the most efficient, cost-effective and timely means of achieving a just result.” Adding, “While many wrongful dismissal claims involving employment contracts proceed by way of an action, there is no requirement that this case do so.” …

Canadian Combat Sports Law Blog
Can the Government Be Negligent For Not Shutting Down A “Smoker”?

A smoker. In the combat sports world this is slang for an unsanctioned / unregulated fight. Cutting corners. Avoiding regulation. Exposing athletes to the dangers of a potentially neglectful environment. Last week the BC Court of Appeal released reasons for judgement addressing whether the government could be liable for not shutting down such an alleged event. The recent case (British Columbia Athletic Commissioner v. Simon Fraser University) involved a tragic outcome at an amateur level martial arts contest. …

Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog
Backgrounder for Canadians on the Big International Court of Justice Right to Strike Decision

On Thursday, April 21, the International Court of Justice will announce its long-awaited decision on a referral submitted by the International Labour Organization on the question of whether a “right to strike” is recognized in international law. This decision is huge in labour law and it could eventually influence the trajectory of Canadian labour and constitutional law. I will post a summary of the decision, but here is a primer on the case for a Canadian audience. …

_________________________

*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.

The post Monday’s Mix appeared first on Slaw.

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) : Dans le contexte d’un procès devant une juge de la Cour du Québec exerçant la compétence prévue à l’article 552 C.Cr., sans enquête préliminaire, le plafond présumé applicable selon l’arrêt R. c. Jordan (C.S. Can., 2016-07-08), 2016 CSC 27, SOQUIJ AZ-51302609, 2016EXP-2173, J.E. 2016-1212, [2016] 1 R.C.S. 631, est celui de 30 mois.

Intitulé : Seepersad c. R., 2026 QCCA 605
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), Montréal
Décision de : Juges Patrick Healy, Stéphane Sansfaçon et Peter Kalichman
Date : 4 mai 2026

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — procédure pénale — procédure fédérale — arrêt des procédures — droit d’être jugé dans un délai raisonnable — application du cadre d’analyse de R. c. Jordan (C.S. Can., 2016-07-08), 2016 CSC 27, SOQUIJ AZ-51302609, 2016EXP-2173, J.E. 2016-1212, [2016] 1 R.C.S. 631 — plafond applicable — choix de l’accusé d’être jugé par un juge sans jury et sans enquête préliminaire — article 552 C.Cr. — juge de la Cour du Québec — controverse jurisprudentielle — interprétation de «juge d’une cour provinciale» — calcul du délai — qualification du délai — événement distinct — récusation du juge gestionnaire — admission erronée sur une question de droit — complexité du dossier — caractère justifié du dépassement du plafond présumé par le délai net — production de cannabis — complot — faux — vol d’identité — usage de faux documents — appel — norme d’intervention — déférence — absence d’erreur de droit.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — garanties fondamentales du processus pénal — droit d’être jugé dans un délai raisonnable — arrêt des procédures — application du cadre d’analyse de R. c. Jordan (C.S. Can., 2016-07-08), 2016 CSC 27, SOQUIJ AZ-51302609, 2016EXP-2173, J.E. 2016-1212, [2016] 1 R.C.S. 631 — plafond applicable — choix de l’accusé d’être jugé par un juge sans jury et sans enquête préliminaire — article 552 C.Cr. — juge de la Cour du Québec — controverse jurisprudentielle — interprétation de «juge d’une cour provinciale»— calcul du délai — qualification du délai — événement distinct — récusation du juge gestionnaire — admission erronée sur une question de droit — complexité du dossier — caractère justifié du dépassement du plafond présumé par le délai net — production de cannabis — complot — faux — vol d’identité — usage de faux documents — appel — norme d’intervention — déférence — absence d’erreur de droit.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS — droits judiciaires — personne arrêtée ou détenue — droit d’être jugé dans un délai raisonnable — arrêt des procédures — application du cadre d’analyse de R. c. Jordan (C.S. Can., 2016-07-08), 2016 CSC 27, SOQUIJ AZ-51302609, 2016EXP-2173, J.E. 2016-1212, [2016] 1 R.C.S. 631 — plafond applicable — choix de l’accusé d’être jugé par un juge sans jury et sans enquête préliminaire — article 552 C.Cr. — juge de la Cour du Québec — controverse jurisprudentielle — interprétation de «juge d’une cour provinciale» — calcul du délai — qualification du délai — événement distinct — récusation du juge gestionnaire — admission erronée sur une question de droit — complexité du dossier — caractère justifié du dépassement du plafond présumé par le délai net — production de cannabis — complot — faux — vol d’identité — usage de faux documents — appel — norme d’intervention — déférence — absence d’erreur de droit.

Appels d’un jugement ayant rejeté une requête en arrêt des procédures pour délais déraisonnables. Rejetés.

La juge de la Cour du Québec a rejeté la requête de type Jordan de l’appelant dans les 2 affaires qui le concernaient. La principale question en litige est de savoir quel plafond présumé (18 mois, comme le prétend l’appelant, ou 30 mois, selon l’intimé) s’applique lorsque, au Québec, un accusé choisit d’être jugé par un juge sans jury (au sens de l’art. 552 du Code criminel (C.Cr.)) et sans enquête préliminaire. Cette disposition énonce que, lorsque le Code criminel mentionne un juge sans jury, il s’agit d’un juge «de la Cour du Québec».

Décision

M. le juge Sansfaçon: L’arrêt R. c. Jordan (C.S. Can., 2016-07-08), 2016 CSC 27, SOQUIJ AZ-51302609, 2016EXP-2173, J.E. 2016-1212, [2016] 1 R.C.S. 631, n’a pas tranché toutes les questions et, plus particulièrement, celle que soulève le présent appel. La Cour conclut que le plafond présumé applicable est de 30 mois lorsque, au Québec, un accusé opte pour un procès devant un juge sans jury (au sens de l’art. 552 C.Cr.), sans qu’il y ait eu d’enquête préliminaire. Cette solution respecte davantage l’architecture du Code criminel et garantit que les accusés bénéficient dans l’ensemble du Canada d’une égale protection du droit que leur confère la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés à un procès dans un délai raisonnable.

Que les juges de la Cour du Québec soient nommés par la province de Québec ne fait pas d’eux des juges d’une «cour provinciale» aux fins de l’application du cadre énoncé dans Jordan lorsqu’ils président un procès en vertu de l’article 552 C.Cr. Dans le Code criminel, le terme «juge d’une cour provinciale» ne fait pas référence à un juge nommé par une province, mais plutôt à un juge exerçant la compétence prévue par les articles 553 et 785 C.Cr.

Aussi, le fait que les juges de la Cour du Québec puissent également exercer la compétence d’une «cour provinciale» en vertu de l’article 553 C.Cr. ne signifie pas qu’ils sont considérés comme des juges d’une «cour provinciale» aux fins de l’application du cadre énoncé dans Jordan si le procès est tenu conformément à l’article 552 C.Cr. Lorsque des juges de la Cour du Québec président un procès sans jury pour un acte criminel en vertu de l’article 552 C.Cr., ils exercent une compétence conférée aux juges des cours supérieures dans le reste du Canada.

La logique interne du cadre énoncé dans Jordan repose donc sur une distinction entre les procès devant une cour provinciale et ceux devant une cour supérieure (catégorie qui comprend les procès relevant de l’art. 552 C.Cr.), d’où la conclusion de la Cour. L’argument de l’appelant entraînerait de sérieuses incohérences et une disparité interprovinciale.

Quant aux autres moyens d’appel, ils sont rejetés. La juge n’a pas erré en soustrayant de la durée totale du délai la période du 20 février au 11 avril 2019, soit la période attribuable à la décision du premier juge gestionnaire de se récuser, ni en concluant que ce délai, dont la durée nette dépassait le plafond présumé, était raisonnable, compte tenu de la complexité des affaires. Sur le premier point, la question de savoir si l’intimé a admis que cette période ne constituait pas un événement distinct justifiant sa soustraction est futile; un juge n’est pas lié par une admission erronée sur une question de droit. Par ailleurs, la juge n’a pas erré dans la qualification du délai; la décision du juge gestionnaire de se récuser constituait effectivement un événement distinct. Quant au second point, la complexité et le caractère justifié du dépassement du plafond présumé par le délai net sont 2 considérations propres à chaque espèce qu’un juge doit apprécier conjointement. Des caractéristiques semblables sur le plan de la complexité dans 2 affaires ne justifieront pas forcément un dépassement du plafond présumé ou le même délai. La juge est parvenue à des conclusions différentes dans les 2 affaires en cause sur la question de savoir si la complexité de l’affaire justifiait un dépassement des plafonds présumés. Elle a fondé ces conclusions sur sa propre analyse des raisons des retards, et l’appelant n’a pas démontré qu’elle avait commis d’erreur révisable à cet égard.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

The post Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ appeared first on Slaw.

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeal

Criminal Law: Hearsay
R. v. Saddleback, 2026 SCC 18(41567)

Impermissible hearsay; new trial.

Leaves to Appeal Granted

Criminal Law: State Agents
R. v. Pham, 2025 BCCA 324 (42101)

Courier depot employees as state agents.

Mining/Aboriginal Law: Duty to Consult
British Columbia (Chief Gold Commissioner) v. Gitxaala Nation, et al., 2025 BCCA 430 (42200)

Duty to consult; justiciability of U.N. Declaration.

Securities: Constitutionality of Summons
Ontario Securities Commission v. Binance Holdings Limited, 2025 ONCA 751 (42156)

Constitutionality of Security Commission summons.

Torts: Wrongful Prosecution
McCormack v. Evans, et al., 2025 ONCA 767 (42170)

Wrongful prosecution, negligent investigation, and other civil torts.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

Much of the work of the BC Family Justice Innovation Lab (FJIL) has focused on our Youth Voices initiative. Coming out of an intensive design process centering the lived experience of young people, the Youth Voices Initiative aims to improve the well-being of children and youth experiencing parental separation. An important lesson learned was that while the family justice system formally acknowledged the importance of the “best interests of the child”, and there were some programs that sought the view of kids about decisions which affected their lives, the kids’ experience was often that it was “too little, too late”. We knew voice was important but was it enough?

At the heart of this work is Article 12 of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Note 1. It defines children’s right to have their views given due weight. It is deeper and richer than you might think.

This is a right of the child, not a privilege offered by adults.

The inspirational work of Professor Laura Lundy (Queen’s University Belfast) transformed our thinking and approach. Professor Lundy’s original study in 2005 identified lack of compliance with Article 12 – limiting interpretation to “voice” alone. In the study, young people consistently reported frustration that their views were not being listened to and taken seriously. Professor Lundy found that phrases like “voice of the child”, “the right to be heard” and “the right to have a say” were imperfect descriptions of the fullness of what Article 12 intended to address. Something was missing. In response, she proposed a model for rights-compliant children’s participation which suggests that implementation of Article 12 requires consideration of four inter-related concepts:

• SPACE; Children must be given the opportunity to express a view
• VOICE: Children must be facilitated to express their views
• AUDIENCE: The view must be listened to
• INFLUENCE: The view must be acted upon, as appropriate

This model changed the global understanding of child participation. It has been used by the United Nations, governments, national and international organizations and other agencies / NGO’s in many different social contexts including education, policy development, city planning, health and justice.

Since then, Professor Lundy has deepened and enhanced the model to require careful process design:

SPACE: Duty bearers must actively create a safe and inclusive space for the child to express their views. Kids will not often insist on expressing views on their own.

Also, the right to express a view is not dependent on the child’s age or maturity (those factors are relevant ONLY to weight).

VOICE: This is a right of the child and not a duty (some will choose not to express their view). Also, the child must have a choice in the mode of expression and they may need help to form and express their views.

AUDIENCE: This may be the most crucial aspect. The rights holder (child) needs to know that the actual duty bearer (decision-maker/person with influence over their life) listens to and hears their views. This may require formal channels of communication. Note 2

INFLUENCE: The child’s views must be given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. This highlights children’s autonomy and self-expression. It is not about the child’s incompetence and need for socialization. The duty bearer(s) must give feedback to the child about the extent of influence they have had. There should be a formal response. Note 3.

The Lundy Model could be the key to unlock meaningful system transformation for kids in family justice in BC. Attention to thoughtful process design both in and out of court could improve well-being of kids and their families. The work of FJIL, in collaboration with Access to Justice BC and the Transform the Family Justice System Collaborative, aims to shift our attitudes, processes and tools to that end.

Voice is good but not enough. Consideration of all four aspects of the Lundy Model is required.

Excellent resources include:

• Ireland’s National Strategy on Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision-Making 2015-2020
• Ireland’s National Framework for Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision-making (which includes helpful checklists and feedback forms)
• Professor Lundy’s video presentation to the Early Childhood Voices Conference 2020

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Note 1: Canada officially ratified the UNCRC in 1991.

1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.

Note 2: Conflict resolution professionals will recognize the need for “active listening” i.e. listening to understand not to defend. In addition, thoughtful design (or perhaps co-design) of conflict resolution processes will be critical. Professor Lundy recommends “Creating a children’s plan with children” Kotsanas, Smith, MacNaughton research report 43 May 2014 which includes good examples of kids’ views being used in planning decisions in Melbourne Australia.

Note 3: In other jurisdictions, Judges have chosen to write their decisions involving children in the form of a letter to the child which specifically details the child’s views and how they were considered and acted on, if appropriate.

The post Meaningful Participation of Children and Youth in Justice: Voice Is Not Enough appeared first on Slaw.

I learned what a “third place” was long before I knew the term. At the time, it didn’t feel like a lesson. It felt like a demotion.

When I was practising law at the City of Toronto, space was at a premium. New hires were placed wherever a desk could be found

As a junior lawyer, it was only a matter of time until a more senior hire bumped me out of my office.

But I wasn’t expecting to be reassigned to a desk in the law department library.

To add literal injury to insult, this happened just after I’d sprained an ankle. I remember sitting at my new desk, no door or walls to hide my awkwardly propped up leg, feeling exposed, sidelined, and a bit bitter about my circumstances. Okay, let’s be honest: a lot bitter.

Offices matter in law. They signal belonging, status, and legitimacy. Losing mine felt like losing more than square footage. I was acutely aware that I had been displaced from what looked, and felt, like the real centre of work.

What I didn’t expect was how much that desk in the library would reshape my experience of practice.

Because of where I was sitting, people stopped. Lawyers from departments I rarely interacted with struck up conversations. They asked what I was working on, shared what they were dealing with, compared notes on process problems and institutional pressures.

One kind person lent me a pillow she usually kept in her office to make my elevated leg more comfortable.

I began to learn things from my fellow City lawyers in a way I previously hadn’t, including how much legal work turns on soft knowledge and skills rather than formal doctrine.

And then there were the librarians. Watching them work was a quiet education. They didn’t simply retrieve sources. They helped lawyers articulate half‑formed questions, redirected research paths before they became dead ends, and supplied context that made doctrine usable.

In retrospect, what they were offering looked very much like mentorship—just without a formal program. At the time, I wouldn’t have called any of this mentorship. But that’s exactly what it was.

The Third Space: Neither Firm nor Elsewhere

That library wasn’t a courthouse library; it was a law department library. But what mattered wasn’t the label. It was the function.

The library occupied an in‑between space, one embedded in practice, yet offering opportunities to slow down, voice tentative questions, and learn informally from one another in ways that formal workplaces rarely make possible.

Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third space.” He identified public places that are neither work nor home—cafes, parks, public libraries, or community centers—but are essential for building community, fostering social connection, and reducing loneliness.

Looking back, it strikes me that the law library functioned like a third place for legal practice, and how beneficial these spaces are.

Mentorship Needs Space Before It Needs Structure

Much of the current conversation about mentorship in law focuses on formal programs with assigned mentors, scheduled check‑ins, and tie-ins to professional development plans.

These are valuable!

But they assume a baseline level of institutional support that many lawyers simply do not have, especially the sole practitioners and small firms that make up the majority of courthouse library users.

Mentorship can be just as valuable, arguably more so, when it is a natural, voluntary, and unstructured relationship. For all that law is an adversarial profession, lawyers are generally collegial, and many seasoned practitioners are happy to offer guidance to those coming up behind them.

This type of mentorship grows organically, often evolving from professional admiration or friendship without formal matchmaking or strict timelines. And it needs a place to take seed.

Without space, learning is pushed into formal channels that are necessarily limited and, often, inaccessible to those outside larger institutional settings.

How Courthouse Libraries Help

This is where courthouse libraries play a particularly important role.

Courthouse libraries are often used most heavily by solo practitioners and lawyers in small firms—precisely the segment of the profession least likely to have access to formal mentorship structures. These lawyers do not have practice group meetings, in‑house training sessions, or a steady supply of colleagues down the hall to consult.

For them, the courthouse library is not an auxiliary service. It is part of the learning environment of practice.

These libraries function as third places not just socially, but professionally. They are shared spaces where isolation is softened, and where learning happens collaboratively rather than competitively.

In a profession that leaves fewer places for the informal learning that is crucial to the administration of justice, courthouse libraries quietly continue to make room.

The post How I Learned About Mentorship by Being “Exiled” to the Library appeared first on Slaw.

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada’s award­-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from more than 80 recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. IFLS at Osgoode 2. Family LLB 3. Canadian Appeals Monitor 4. Double Aspect 5. Legal Feeds 

IFLS at Osgoode
Osgoode honours alumni making an impact across law and society

The 2026 Alumni Awards recognized graduates whose careers reflect leadership, service and a commitment to justice. Across Canada and beyond, Osgoode alumni are advancing justice in courtrooms, communities, classrooms and public institutions. From strengthening Indigenous governance and expanding access to justice, to shaping public policy, mentoring future lawyers and leading with compassion on the bench, this year’s alumni award recipients reflect the breadth and impact of the Osgoode Hall Law School community. “At Osgoode, we see the law as a tool for building a more just and equitable society,” said Dean Trevor Farrow. “What’s so inspiring about this year’s recipients is how they are putting that into practice—through leadership, service, and a deep commitment to the communities they serve.” …

Family LLB
Enforcing Child Support in Ontario: What Happens When Payments Stop and How to Get Results

Most parenting and support issues in family law turn on judgment and discretion. Enforcement is different. When child support is ordered or agreed to, it is not optional. If payments stop, there is a structured system in Ontario designed to collect, enforce, and in some cases compel compliance. This article explains how enforcement actually works, what tools are available, and what both payors and recipients need to understand. …

Canadian Appeals Monitor
Inclusion Now Annual Report 2025

McCarthy Tétrault is proud to release our Inclusion Now Annual Report 2025, offering a closer look at how inclusion is shaping the way we work, lead, and contribute across the Firm. Inclusion lives in the everyday decisions we make — how we lead, how we collaborate, and how we show up for one another. This idea is at the heart of this year’s report. From education and leadership engagement to talent initiatives, community partnerships, and pro bono advocacy, the report brings to life how our Inclusion Now strategy informs our day‑to‑day work and our broader impact on the legal profession and the communities we serve. The stories we share and initiatives we highlight showcase our commitment to building a culture where people feel respected, supported, and able to thrive. …

Double Aspect
You Can’t Have a Pony

Legal Feeds
Landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision creates new tort of intimate partner violence

In a landmark 6-3 decision on Friday, a Supreme Court of Canada majority recognized a new tort of intimate partner violence, paving the way for litigants to pursue damages against their romantic partners for a range of conduct beyond physical violence, including isolation, humiliation, surveillance, financial control, sexual coercion, and intimidation. …

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*Randomness here is created by Random.org and its list randomizing function.

The post Monday’s Mix appeared first on Slaw.

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) : Les peines minimales obligatoires de 1 an d’emprisonnement pour les infractions de production et de distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile sont incompatibles avec l’article 12 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés et sont déclarées invalides en vertu de l’article 52 de la Loi constitutionnelle de 1982.

Intitulé : R. c. Gagnon, 2026 QCCA 583
Juridiction : Cour d’appel (C.A.), Montréal
Décision de : Juges Yves-Marie Morissette et Patrick Healy; Lori Renée Weitzman (diss.)
Date : 29 avril 2026

Résumé

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — infractions de nature sexuelle — publications obscènes — possession, production et distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile — accusée âgée de 54 ans — participation à des sites Internet faisant la promotion d’activités sexuelles — protection contre tous traitements ou peines cruels et inusités — peine minimale — détention — production et distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile — invalidité constitutionnelle — déclaration d’inopérabilité constitutionnelle — gravité de l’infraction — culpabilité morale — quantité de matériel — ampleur limitée de la distribution — durée de l’infraction — situation personnelle de l’accusée — absence de risque de récidive — proportionnalité de la peine — dénonciation — dissuasion — réinsertion sociale — détention — peine discontinue — appel — erreur de principe — substitution de la peine — condamnation avec sursis — peine concurrente — probation.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — détermination de la peine — principes généraux — les peines et la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés — protection contre tous traitements ou peines cruels et inusités — peine minimale — détention — production et distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile — application du cadre d’analyse de Québec (Procureur général) c. Senneville (C.S. Can., 2025-10-31), 2025 CSC 33, SOQUIJ AZ-52166252, 2025EXP-2453 — situation hypothétique — situation raisonnablement prévisible — peine disproportionnée — invalidité constitutionnelle — déclaration d’inopérabilité constitutionnelle — gravité de l’infraction — culpabilité morale — quantité de matériel — ampleur limitée de la distribution — durée de l’infraction — situation personnelle de l’accusée — effets de la peine minimale sur l’accusée — proportionnalité de la peine — dénonciation — dissuasion — réinsertion sociale — appel.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — garanties fondamentales du processus pénal — protection contre tous traitements ou peines cruels et inusités — peine minimale — détention — production et distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile — application du cadre d’analyse de Québec (Procureur général) c. Senneville (C.S. Can., 2025-10-31), 2025 CSC 33, SOQUIJ AZ-52166252, 2025EXP-2453 — situation hypothétique — situation raisonnablement prévisible — peine disproportionnée — invalidité constitutionnelle — déclaration d’inopérabilité constitutionnelle — gravité de l’infraction — culpabilité morale — quantité de matériel — ampleur limitée de la distribution — durée de l’infraction — situation personnelle de l’accusée — effets de la peine minimale sur l’accusée — proportionnalité de la peine — dénonciation — dissuasion — réinsertion sociale — appel.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS — droits judiciaires — protection contre tous traitements ou peines cruels et inusités — peine minimale — détention — production et distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile — application du cadre d’analyse de Québec (Procureur général) c. Senneville (C.S. Can., 2025-10-31), 2025 CSC 33, SOQUIJ AZ-52166252, 2025EXP-2453 — situation hypothétique — situation raisonnablement prévisible — peine disproportionnée — invalidité constitutionnelle — déclaration d’inopérabilité constitutionnelle — gravité de l’infraction — culpabilité morale — quantité de matériel — ampleur limitée de la distribution — durée de l’infraction — situation personnelle de l’accusée — effets de la peine minimale sur l’accusée — proportionnalité de la peine — dénonciation — dissuasion — réinsertion sociale — appel.

DROITS ET LIBERTÉS — réparation du préjudice — déclaration d’inopérabilité constitutionnelle — protection contre tous traitements ou peines cruels et inusités — peine minimale — détention — production et distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile — invalidité constitutionnelle — appel.

PÉNAL (DROIT) — procédure pénale — procédure fédérale — procureur général du Québec (PGQ) — autorisation d’interjeter appel en tant que partie dans un appel entrepris par le Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) — appel de la peine — application de l’article 676 (1) d) C.Cr. — pouvoir en matière de poursuites — intérêt et qualité pour agir du PGQ — observations sur la validité constitutionnelle d’une règle de droit — peine minimale obligatoire — pouvoir partagé avec le DPCP — article 23 de la Loi sur le Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales.

CONSTITUTIONNEL (DROIT) — institution constitutionnelle — procureur général du Québec (PGQ) — autorisation d’interjeter appel en tant que partie dans un appel entrepris par le Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) — appel de la peine — application de l’article 676 (1) d) C.Cr. — pouvoir en matière de poursuites — intérêt et qualité pour agir du PGQ — observations sur la validité constitutionnelle d’une règle de droit — peine minimale obligatoire — pouvoir partagé avec le DPCP — rôle du PGQ — indépendance — Loi sur le Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales.

Appel de la déclaration d’inopérabilité des peines minimales obligatoires pour la production, la distribution et la possession de matériel de pornographie juvénile. Rejeté. Appel de peines. Accueilli. Requête en autorisation d’appel du procureur général du Québec (PGQ). Accueillie, avec dissidence.

L’intimée a plaidé coupable sous 3 chefs d’accusation de production, de distribution et de possession de matériel de pornographie juvénile. Les infractions ont eu lieu alors que cette dernière, une femme de 54 ans, vivait une période difficile. C’est dans ce contexte qu’elle a intégré un réseau de rencontres virtuelles et a échangé ses fantasmes pédophiles avec le coaccusé. Pendant une semaine, elle lui a transmis plusieurs photographies pédopornographiques. La juge de première instance a conclu que, pour l’intimée, les peines minimales obligatoires seraient totalement disproportionnées au sens de l’article 12 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés et étaient inopérantes. Elle a ordonné des peines de détention discontinue de 3 mois sous chacun des chefs. La demande d’autorisation d’appel a été présentée conjointement par le Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) et le PGQ; ce dernier sollicite l’autorisation à titre d’appelant.

Décision

M. le juge Healy: L’article 676 (1) d) du Code criminel autorise le «procureur général» à porter en appel une peine, ce qui inclut toute déclaration selon laquelle une peine minimale est inopérante ou invalide. Trois éléments appuient la conclusion voulant que le PGQ puisse solliciter l’autorisation d’interjeter appel à titre de partie dans un appel entrepris par le DPCP: l’évolution de la fonction de procureur général en tant que premier conseiller juridique de l’État; le cadre législatif québécois régissant les fonctions de PGQ et de DPCP; et la pratique actuelle. Ainsi, aucune barrière constitutionnelle n’empêche d’accorder au PGQ l’autorisation de participer au présent appel à titre de partie et de faire des observations portant uniquement sur la validité constitutionnelle des peines minimales obligatoires pour les infractions en cause.

Quant à la peine, l’analyse de la Cour suprême du Canada dans Québec (Procureur général) c. Senneville (C.S. Can., 2025-10-31), 2025 CSC 33, SOQUIJ AZ-52166252, 2025EXP-2453, est tout aussi pertinente pour les infractions de production et de distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile qu’elle l’est pour les infractions de possession d’un tel matériel et d’accès à celui-ci. La Cour convient que les peines minimales prévues pour les infractions de production et de distribution sont incompatibles avec l’article 12 de la charte. Cela se justifie notamment par le fait que, si l’on applique la situation raisonnablement prévisible énoncée dans Senneville en l’adaptant au présent cas, une peine minimale obligatoire de 1 an serait d’une sévérité disproportionnée. Les infractions couvrent un large éventail de situations allant d’actes d’une gravité relativement mineure à d’autres qui dénotent une grande criminalité. Or, la situation raisonnablement prévisible adaptée au présent cas offre un exemple d’infractions qui se situent au bas de l’échelle de gravité et démontre par ailleurs que les peines minimales obligatoires s’appliquent avec la même force à des situations exigeant l’imposition de peines lourdes qu’à d’autres ne l’exigeant pas.

D’autre part, s’il est vrai que le tort causé par les infractions de production et de distribution de matériel de pornographie juvénile peut excéder celui causé par les infractions de possession et d’accès, ce n’est pas le cas en l’espèce. On ne peut affirmer que, dans tous les cas, les infractions de production et de distribution exigent une peine plus sévère qu’en présence d’une infraction de possession. Les infractions commises par l’intimée, quoiqu’elles soient empreintes d’une gravité inhérente, ne sont pas parmi les plus graves. Certains éléments peuvent se comparer à la situation raisonnablement prévisible adaptée aux besoins de l’espèce. Les peines minimales sont disproportionnées parce que les objectifs de justice punitive ne peuvent valablement éclipser les objectifs de justice corrective dans les cas où la peine proportionnée se révèle moins sévère que la peine minimale.

Bien que les gestes de l’intimée ne fassent pas partie des cas les plus graves de pédopornographie, seule une peine plus sévère pourra satisfaire aux exigences de la proportionnalité. Rien n’indique que l’intimée représente un danger immédiat ou futur pour la société. La dissuasion spécifique n’est pas un objectif pertinent dans le présent dossier. L’intimée a démontré qu’elle avait réellement pris conscience de sa responsabilité et elle a reconnu le tort qu’elle avait causé. Bien que ces éléments n’atténuent aucunement la gravité des infractions ni sa responsabilité, la preuve mène à la conclusion que rien ne justifie de la condamner à une peine d’emprisonnement continue dans un établissement correctionnel. Ainsi, des peines concurrentes d’emprisonnement avec sursis de 12 mois sous les chefs de production et de distribution ainsi que de 9 mois sous le chef de possession sont substituées aux peines prononcées par la juge.

M^me la juge Weitzman, dissidente: Le PGQ ne peut se pourvoir en appel ni en vertu du Code de procédure civile, inapplicable au présent cas, ni en vertu du Code criminel puisqu’il n’a pas pris en charge l’affaire conformément à l’article 23 de la Loi sur le Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales. Cela ne signifie pas pour autant qu’il n’a pas voix au chapitre. Puisqu’il était partie au litige en première instance, le PGQ est mis en cause dans le cadre de l’appel interjeté par le DPCP et, à ce titre, il a le droit de produire un mémoire et des annexes ainsi que de demander à la Cour de prononcer des conclusions contraires au dispositif du jugement de première instance.

Le texte intégral de la décision est disponible ici

The post Summaries Sunday: SOQUIJ appeared first on Slaw.

As a supplement to our Sunday Summary each month, Supreme Advocacy LLP in Ottawa presents Supreme One-Liners, a super-short descriptive guide to the most recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers its more comprehensive weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, summarizing all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted.

Appeal

Torts: Intimate Partner Violence
Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16 (41061)

New tort: intimate partner violence

Leaves to Appeal Granted

Criminal Law: Homicide
R. v. Dussault, 2025 QCCA 1433 (42169)

Sentencing issues re consecutive jury trials.

The post Summaries Sunday: Supreme One-Liners appeared first on Slaw.

Those familiar with my writing will know that I usually write about artificial intelligence in terms of regulation, governance, and risk. This piece is a slight departure. What follows is a set of reflections for young professionals working in AI, or considering work in the field, at a moment when the pace of change, the visibility of the space, and the pressure to find one’s place in it can easily create more anxiety than clarity. I use the phrase “young professional” in a broad sense. It follows a familiar tradition in reflective writing, but I do not mean it strictly by age. In a field like AI, a person can be well established in one profession and still quite new to the work of finding their place in this one.

Part of the reason I wanted to write this piece is that I increasingly think one of the risks in AI is not only model failure, weak governance, or poor regulation. It is also the possibility that we scare away or burn out the people trying to work responsibly in this field. That may sound like a softer concern than the others, but I do not think it is any less real. A professional environment that rewards urgency, overcommitment, and constant public repositioning can take a considerable toll on the people inside it. Even by the standards of emerging fields, AI feels unusually intense. The pace is faster, the visibility is greater, and the pressure to position oneself convincingly is unusually strong.

Lawyers, of course, are not strangers to that problem. Mental health challenges in the legal profession have been with us for a long time, and they do not disappear simply because the subject matter becomes more modern or more exciting. I do not say that from a comfortable distance. Some years ago, I had my own burnout moment and learned, more forcefully than I would have preferred, that professional intensity has limits. That experience left me more attentive to the role of restraint in building a sustainable working life.

I offer these reflections with some humility. AI is moving too quickly, and the world around it remains too unsettled, for complete certainty to be a particularly convincing professional pose. Much of this field is still being built in real time, and most of us are learning while we work. What follows, then, is simply a set of notes for those trying to orient themselves in a professional environment that often creates more confusion than clarity.

You are probably not as behind as you feel

One of the defining features of the current AI moment is speed. New tools arrive constantly. New reports circulate almost weekly. New conferences, institutes, advisory groups, credentials, and public statements continue to proliferate. It is very easy to look at the landscape and conclude that one is already late.

That feeling, in my view, is often misleading. Part of the difficulty is that AI is not only moving quickly, but moving quickly in public. The field generates a constant stream of visible activity, much of it presented with confidence and urgency. You are not simply trying to understand a changing area of work. You are also exposed to a steady flow of signals suggesting that others are understanding it faster, speaking about it more fluently, and positioning themselves more effectively.

This can create a persistent and unnecessary sense of professional inadequacy. In reality, many people are still trying to find their footing. They may sound certain, but certainty and clarity are not always the same thing. A fair amount of what looks like settled expertise is still early experimentation, provisional positioning, or an understandable attempt not to appear uncertain in a field that does not reward hesitation.

There is, in other words, an important difference between being late and simply being thoughtful. The latter may look slower from the outside, but it is often more durable in the long run.

Public signals often exaggerate actual adoption

Public signals about AI adoption tend toward the optimistic. Professional networks and industry forums present a picture in which organizations are already using AI in sophisticated, embedded, and highly strategic ways, and in which practitioners have rapidly developed genuine expertise across a wide range of emerging roles. That picture is understandable. In a competitive and fast-moving field, there are real incentives to present progress confidently, and most people doing so are responding reasonably to the pressures around them.

Experience suggests a more restrained reality. AI adoption remains uneven. In some organizations, the tools are being used actively and with real effect. In many others, however, use is still tentative, fragmented, informal, or relatively shallow. Sometimes a small number of employees are experimenting while senior leadership remains uncertain. In other cases, a formal AI strategy has been announced even though the organization is still struggling with the basics of procurement, data governance, staff training, and oversight. In still others, there is considerable enthusiasm at the rhetorical level but very little disciplined operational integration.

This gap between public performance and institutional reality matters because it affects how professionals understand their own progress. If one is constantly comparing oneself to a curated picture of universal adoption, one may begin to assume that one is missing something fundamental. Often, that is not the case. Often, what one is seeing is a mixture of aspiration, selective disclosure, and the ordinary tendency to present progress more confidently than it is actually being achieved.

For younger professionals in particular, this point is worth remembering. Visibility is not the same as substance. Public alignment with AI is not always evidence of deep capability or careful judgment.

Governance around AI is less mature than it appears

A similar dynamic exists in the governance world. If one were to judge by public discussion alone, one might think that AI governance is already highly developed. The vocabulary has expanded quickly and, in many respects, usefully. Yet much of the actual governance work remains underdeveloped.

This is not to say that no serious work is being done. Quite the opposite. Many thoughtful people are trying to build credible governance systems under difficult conditions. But it is important to be honest about how early much of this work still is. The language of maturity should not be confused with maturity itself.

For professionals entering the field, that can actually be reassuring. If the governance landscape feels unsettled, that is often because it is unsettled. You are not failing to perceive a stable system that everyone else already understands. More often, you are seeing the truth of the situation.

The scramble for credentials and relevance is real, but it should not govern your life

Another feature of the current environment is the scramble for position. New affiliations appear quickly. Titles evolve quickly. Invitations matter. People understandably seek ways to locate themselves within a growing field and to communicate relevance to employers, clients, institutions, and peers.

Some of this is legitimate. People do change their work in response to important developments. They acquire new knowledge, develop new practices, and build new expertise. There is nothing inherently suspect about that. At the same time, one should understand that AI has also created a strong incentive for professional relabelling. A person can easily begin to feel that everyone else is accumulating credentials, invitations, and designations at an impossible pace.

This can create its own form of anxiety. Why was I not invited to that event? Why am I not on that panel? Why have I not yet joined that network or completed that program? Why does everyone else appear to be accelerating while I am still trying to do careful work?

Some version of those questions will be familiar to many professionals in this space, and they are ones that I have asked myself throughout my career. But over time I have become less persuaded that frantic accumulation is the right response. In fields like this, a reputation built too quickly can become fragile just as quickly. In the long run, careful work, sound judgment, and an identifiable area of contribution matter more than trying to appear everywhere at once.

This is also one reason that a willingness to be wrong matters so much. It keeps a person from becoming overly invested in performance. It leaves room for learning. And it provides at least some protection against the temptation to confuse visibility with substance.

You may need to choose a narrower lane than the field encourages

When I first began working more intensively around AI, I found myself pulled in many directions at once. That is partly the nature of a fast-moving field. Opportunities emerge quickly. Requests multiply. Everything seems important. The temptation is to say yes broadly, particularly if one is trying to establish a place in the conversation.

There can be value in that at the beginning. It can help a person understand the landscape, identify where real needs exist, and determine where one’s experience is most useful. But I have come to think that remaining in that posture for too long carries real costs.

At some point, for reasons of both strategy and sanity, it may become necessary to narrow one’s scope. In my own case, I have increasingly limited my work to governance, risk, and compliance related matters, together with board-facing work. That has not reflected a lack of interest in the wider AI field. Rather, it has reflected a growing sense that one cannot do serious, sustainable work while trying to respond to every opportunity that presents itself. Some selectivity is not a retreat from ambition. It is often what allows professional judgment to remain intact.

For younger professionals, this may be one of the harder lessons. The fear of missing out is real. In AI especially, it is easy to feel that every invitation declined is a door closing. But a career cannot be built on perpetual overextension. It is entirely possible that the best thing you can do in this environment is not to cover the whole field, but to identify the part of it where your skills, values, and temperament are best suited.

Calm is underrated

The final note is perhaps the simplest. In a field shaped by noise, speed, and visible ambition, calm has become an underrated professional quality.

By calm, I do not mean passivity or indifference. I mean the ability to remain measured in a setting that rewards urgency, to maintain perspective when others are performing certainty, and to keep one’s professional identity from being reorganized every time a new model, announcement, or institutional initiative appears. That kind of steadiness is not glamorous, but it is useful. It supports better judgment. It also makes a professional life more livable.

There is much in AI that is genuinely important and exciting. There are real opportunities here for meaningful work, especially for those who want to contribute to governance, accountability, and the responsible shaping of institutions. But those rewards are more likely to endure if one learns early that judgment matters more than speed, that visibility can mislead, and that restraint is sometimes the wiser part of professional seriousness.

If these notes have any common theme, it is simply this: the AI field generates a great many false signals. It can make thoughtful people feel late, peripheral, and underprepared even when they are none of those things. It can also encourage a style of working that is difficult to sustain and, in some cases, harmful. That too belongs within the conversation about AI risk.

Note: Generative AI was used in the preparation of this article.

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Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law.

Trial by Numbers: A Lawyer’s Guide to Statistical Evidence. By Adam Chilton & Kyle Rozema. New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. 207 p. Includes list of figures and tables, notes, glossary, and index. ISBN 9780197747858 (hardcover) $90.00; ISBN 9780197747865 (softcover) $35.00.

Reviewed by Katarina Daniels
Research Lawyer, Library Services Lead
Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP

In Trial by Numbers: A Lawyer’s Guide to Statistical Evidence, authors Adam Chilton and Kyle Rozema offer a timely and welcome introduction to empirical methods tailored for the legal community. Their book provides an accessible and well-structured guide to understanding statistical evidence as it appears in litigation, policy work, and legal scholarship.

One of the book’s notable strengths is its clear and logical progression. Comprising eight chapters, it builds from foundational concepts to more advanced techniques. Chapter 1 sets the stage by outlining the authors’ aims and distinguishing their approach. Rather than teaching readers how to conduct empirical research, Chilton and Rozema focus on cultivating the ability to interpret and critically evaluate statistical reasoning in legal contexts. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce probability and basic statistics, respectively, laying the groundwork for Chapter 4’s discussion of causal inference and experiments. The remaining four chapters focus on the empirical methods most relevant to the legal profession, used for causal inference: regression, difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, and instrumental variables. These methods are presented in a way that emphasizes their logic and legal relevance.

Each chapter follows a consistent and pedagogically effective structure. Concepts and methods are introduced with a brief overview, followed by a legal example that is carried throughout the chapter. Subsections are clearly delineated, and each chapter concludes with a summary that synthesizes the main ideas and revisits the example to demonstrate how the method helps to investigate or clarify the legal issue at hand.

The exclusive use of legal examples is another of the book’s key strengths. Despite being grounded in American law and social realities, the examples are engaging for readers from other jurisdictions, many of whom will be familiar with the referenced legal controversies through media coverage or will have encountered similar issues in their own legal systems. This legal framing sustains reader engagement while underscoring the importance of empirical literacy in contemporary legal practice.

Thankfully, the authors recognize the needs and limitations of their intended audience. Definitions are repeated where appropriate, and the most important concepts in each chapter are clearly highlighted, while a glossary is available at the end for easy reference. Unlike traditional statistics texts, the book features just a single equation, which is then modified and applied across successive methods. While the authors attempt to simplify the math, the notation may nonetheless be challenging for readers unfamiliar with statistical symbols. Understanding how the equation is crafted and how it should be interpreted can also be difficult. Some sections may benefit from multiple readings, especially as the methods become more complex.

Readers hoping to conduct their own empirical studies will need further training, but that is not the book’s purpose. Chilton and Rozema are transparent about what the book does and does not cover, enhancing its value as a foundational resource for further study. Additionally, they include substantial footnotes directing readers to more advanced materials.

More importantly, the book equips legal professionals to understand and critically evaluate empirical arguments as they appear in expert reports, policy analysis, and legal scholarship. What is particularly useful is that the book enables readers to recognize key concepts and methodological choices in expert reports, fostering a more critical approach to how evidence is framed and interpreted. The presentation of evidence depends on how research questions are constructed, variables are defined, and parameters are selected. Given the many ways in which this statistical evidence can be presented, awareness is essential for legal professionals assessing the credibility and relevance of expert analysis.

Trial by Numbers would be a valuable addition to any legal curriculum that includes empirical methods and is a worthwhile recommendation for practitioners who encounter statistical evidence in their work. As generative AI begins to play a role in shaping expert output, lawyers must be equipped to interpret, assess, and, where necessary, challenge the use and interpretation of data in litigation. This book offers readers a starting point for that critical engagement.

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The legal services sector is in for rough times for the foreseeable future after which we will see a rebirth of legal services entities that bear little resemblance to those operating in the market currently. This is why your firm’s foundational rebuild must happen now.

Law firms are in the midst of grappling with a tsunami of changes within the legal services market that are impacting both practice and business. This is especially true after coming to terms – if we can honestly claim that – with the ravages of the pandemic. I understand that many people would like to put the pandemic in the past. While that would be ideal, it would also ignore the fact that its impact remains with us now and will continue to affect us for some time to come.

The pandemic was a black swan event the likes of which none of us has experienced in our lifetimes when both individuals and businesses were focused on staying healthy and alive.

If we learned nothing else from the pandemic, it’s that the old adage of a five-year business strategy died along with the 7,113,407 reported pandemic-related deaths according to the World Health Organization as of March 15, 2026.

Enormous waves of change have come crashing in since the pandemic began in December 2019, including the ongoing seesaw of work-from-home versus return-to-office, never mind artificial intelligence. The result is that law firm strategy has, in many respects, been cast aside in favour of skipping straight to tactics that for all intents and purposes boils down to “add more talent” and “do more stuff.”

Strategy Backassward

Adding talent through lateral acquisition has been happening at a more frenzied rate over the last few years with lawyers changing firms like they change shirts. These days you almost need a program to tell the players. Goosing law firm growth by adding laterals is similar to my recipe for a law firm merger: Add more nuts and stir.

Unlike individuals involved in mergers, laterals require strong support at all levels and for a much longer time than one might assume. The difference between merged talent and individual lateral acquisition is that ongoing support for a lateral is an investment from the firm and its people. This requirement can be at odds with a perception that if a lateral is as desirable and draftable as they purport to be, then they can self-start, self-propel, self-develop, etc., as well as bring over their clients and billable work. In reality, that isn’t necessarily so and it usually isn’t that simple or easy.

And then there’s “do more stuff” that, at least for a time, makes people feel as though they’re – guess what? – doing more stuff. But is this stuff based on a strategy that supports an objective? No, it most often is not, and has the scattergun approach and busywork hallmarks of spinning one’s wheels: You expend energy and go nowhere.

Setting the Objective

The trick is to create a core business objective that sets you distinctively apart as one of one from the competition: The one thing you do better than anyone else. From there, the task is to set strategies, build supports, and execute on explicit, time-bound, measurable, and accountable tactics that enable the core objective.

The core objective acts as true north from which you never deviate. However, strategy, plans, and execution may occasionally require flexibility to accommodate business and legal market changes. That said, flexibility does not mean elasticity in order to be reactive, never mind accommodating to every single thing, condition, person, or whim.

Strategy is often considered exciting and sexy while objective is deemed the exact opposite. This is why, within law firms, there are always discussions about strategy. However, it is very rare that the firm’s objective is discussed, never mind nailed down.

This is because determining the objective is the hardest part of a discussion. Setting and sticking to an objective requires difficult, yet honest evaluations and conversations that are usually intensely political and often divisive. Reinforcing the objective also requires accountability of individuals as well as the grit of leadership to stay the course, come hell or high water and people who have political sway or think they do.

My Transformation Template

My focus is on business, which is at the core of every law firm regardless of practice.

In my life before law, I successfully restructured businesses in trouble. This is where I learned and applied the following transformation template that worked every time. While this template looks deceptively simple, it is not.

It is based on making hard choices that not everyone will like but will advance the entity to a better position demonstrated by increased profitability, deeper market penetration, key talent attraction, etc. Most vitally, it demands a hard deadline for completion and an iron will to get it done.

Transformation Template

Objective: A transformative outcome. Hard deadline. Measurable proof of success.

Strategy: A set of decisions to achieve the objective. Strategy supports Objective.

Plan: Short-, mid- and long-term measurable tactics. Plan supports Strategy.

Execution: Assignment of tactics and accountability. Execution supports Plan.

The challenge begins with Objective and, as mentioned earlier, is usually a hellacious struggle in the best of circumstances, and worse when dealing with lawyers. This is because, for many law firms, deciding on a single overall transformative objective is rife with contention and politics with symptoms such as, input from anyone who has an opinion and deems themselves right, pipping up and piling on by those who must hear themselves talk, machinations from protectionists of their own practice, and so on.

The other challenge is that the word “strategy is often paired with the word “plan”, ergo, “strategic plan.” Strategic plans or planning sounds important, but really it is a dead giveaway of lazy business.

Strategy is one thing; planning is another. They are distinctly different and need and deserve to be treated as such. Otherwise, as I have said before, lumping the two together leaves many lazy law firms faffing about with aspirational imaginings that culminate in them being as beige and gray as porridge and as fungible as peanut better and, worse yet, leaves them no further ahead than before they began the process.

Get Real

I have heard managing or founding partners say (usually at budget time) that their firm’s objective is “to make $X-million more” in the upcoming fiscal year. When asked about their strategy to accomplish this objective, they have no clue. This is when the process rattles off the rails and the firm reverts to its usual ways of “doing stuff.” Nothing changes, nor does the firm advance.

So, to get real: If you get the Objective nailed down, great. Next, determine a set of – say, three or four – Strategies that will enable achievement of the Objective.

The Plan comes next and, frankly, is the part most people enjoy because it’s tactical. Consider three to four sets of plans that support each of the three or four Strategies.

Execution is what people tend not to enjoy and where the whole exercise usually falls apart. This is because execution relies on assignment of and accountability for individuals charged with leading action on time lined tactics as well as reporting results. Very often, this is when a plethora of excuses pop up, such as having to handle or manage client work, supervise juniors, etc. It is also at this juncture where the firm’s leadership is judged on both its rigour as well as its mettle to lead from the front by demanding accountability and taking swift and decisive action for failure.

Or Don’t

Unfortunately, what usually happens is that in deference to going along to get along, people and firms will decide that doing nothing is easier than doing something. They will defer to what they are used to doing and bumble along living on hope that nothing untoward will happen.

This is why the ostrich syndrome continues to be alive and well and living in law firms.

It is also why foundational rebuilding separates winners from losers like wheat from chaff. Rebuilding is not done off the side of a managing partner or anyone else’s desk, or in conjunction with client work. It is a big, tough, full-time-and-more job that will not result in the person leading it to win any popularity contests. Consider it fair warning from someone who has done heavy restructuring more than once that whoever leads this initiative will have to pull knives out of their back – and probably their front – before lying down to rest.

Transform or Innovate

My template results in transformation, not innovation. And, yes, there is a world of difference. Transformation is not for the faint of heart. On the negative side, it can often cause hurt. On the positive side, it enables space and foundation on which to rebuild.

Agents of transformation act with intensity and speed. The outcome is a complete transformation of the business. Transformation or restructuring – which is often considered a frightening or even a threatening word – is warrior’s work. It is why transformation is usually best led by an outside agent who, while they need to work well with people, must be laser-focused on getting what needs to be done, done.

Innovation is the preferred term used by law firms that, by their nature, shy away from transformation for fear of upsetting someone or a bunch of someone’s apple carts.

Get over it. Or as a restructuring colleague of mine says, “Get on the bus or under it.”

I suggest those who have “Innovator” or something like it in their job title focus on transforming the business of legal services rather than innovating practice. Why? Because those who pay a law firm’s freight – namely clients – don’t care about practice; they care how you do business and how your business benefits their business.

Risk or Reward

Evaluating risk versus reward is where law firms can trip up due a fear of being wrong. I am not talking about being wrong in terms of practice or advice, but daring to take a calculated risk that has the potential to propel change in ways never experienced before that can land an individual, team, or firm in a whole new experience, environment, or business.

This kind of risk resistance is often based on fear of the unknown, whether the results could be positive, negative or neutral.

As an advisor, I will often ask a client, “What’s the worst that could happen?” The answer is often, “Failure.” And therein lies the fear factor that can result in doing nothing.

Embrace Fearlessness

Fear results in a combination of paralysis and inertia that, in my opinion, is both ludicrous and pointless since change, whether it is positive, negative, or neutral, impacts each of us in numerous and different ways every single day.

As a sidebar, and in a fear-versus-fearless vein, you may be amused but not surprised to learn that in a recent meeting with a group of lawyer colleagues, I was asked not to scare people with my remarks pertaining to business impacts of artificial intelligence. Imagine my response.

Being a realist, I can’t unknow what I know, which is that many traditional law firms are decaying primarily due to traditional structures, processes, and hierarchy with the knock-on effect of AI’s impact on the antiquated billable hour model. I have been predicting, opining, and advising on this for years. Now it is finally happening and with speed.

The hitch is that the legal services sector seems stuck in an ongoing loop that needs to be broken apart completely in order to be entirely reinvented and rebuilt rather than being patched or fixed using the same original components, a new widget or two, and some spare parts.

As a participant as well as a student and observer of the global legal services sector for the last three decades, here is what I know for absolute sure: The legal services industry is in for rough times for the foreseeable future after which we will see a rebirth of legal service entities that bear little resemblance to those operating in the market now.

As a realist as well an optimist, I expect continuation of the former – for as long as it takes to evolve – and look forward to witnessing the latter.

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