On March 30, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Green v. Law Society of Manitoba with the majority agreeing with the courts below that the Law Society of Manitoba (“Law Society”) can impose rules that couple a mandatory CPD program with a possible suspension for failing to meet the program’s requirements.

Justice Abella and Justice Côté authored a dissent, holding (as described in the headnote) that:  “A rule that leads to an automatic suspension for failing to attend 12 hours of continuing professional development is so far removed from ensuring the public’s confidence in lawyers that it is manifestly unjust, and therefore, unreasonable.”

This past week, Slaw.ca hosted several very interesting blogs on legal ethics written by law students. They are worth a read! Professor Adam Dodek’s introduction is excerpted below:

In a decade of teaching legal ethics, I have come to realize that students bring different and often fresh viewpoints to their analysis of ethical issues in the profession. Slaw founding Publisher Simon Fodden agreed to provide a forum for our future colleagues at the bar to share these perspectives with a wider audience. We are fortunate that his successor Steve Matthews has continued to do so.

This year seven University of Ottawa students produced interesting and provocative that will be published by Slaw over the course of this Student Week (March 27th through 31st). The issues range from how and where to learn competency, humility as an ethical value and expanding the public safety exception to confidentiality and privilege to include reporting on intimate partner violence. Other papers deal with the professional responsibility of lawyers in dealing with self-represented litigants, government lawyers as superheroes and lawyers behaving badly. And Atticus Finch and To Kill a Mockingbird. Of course. I hope you are challenged by these students as much as I was. And I hope you enjoy their writing as much as I have.