Monthly Archives: June 2022

CALE/ACEJ Awards: Nominations Now Open

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Here’s the annual nominations call for CALE/ACEJ’s two fall awards, with a due date of August 12, 2022.

The two awards are:

  • the CALE/ACEJ Best Paper Award, which recognizes the best legal ethics and professionalism paper by an emerging scholar, and
  • the CALE/ACEJ Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes sustained accomplishments in legal ethics and professionalism.

More information about the awards, including previous winners and the awards’ full terms, is at https://ethicsincanada.com/cale-awards/.

For Best Paper nominations, submit an anonymized version of the paper to basil.alexander@unb.ca (can be your or someone else’s paper) by August 12, 2022. While we cannot ensure full blind review given the nature and size of the community, we will do the best we can.

For Lifetime Achievement nominations, complete and submit the nomination form (circulated in early June to the listserv and also available on request from Corporate Secretary Basil Alexander) and the required supporting letter(s) to basil.alexander@unb.ca by August 12, 2022. If it is easier for you, the form and the supporting letter(s) may be submitted separately.

If you have any questions, contact Basil Alexander.

The selection committee for this year’s awards is Brooke MacKenzie, Pooja Parmar and Stephen Pitel.

Law Society of Ontario Approves New Competence Framework

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At its May 2022 Convocation meeting, the Law Society of Ontario approved a new competence framework. As reported by the Law Society:

“The new Competency Framework includes the creation of a practice essentials course which will be mandatory for lawyers or paralegals within one year of setting up as a sole practitioner for the first time. This will take effect as of January 2024. The approximately 30-hour online course will set new sole practitioners up for long-term success by focusing on foundational practice and business management topics.

…

As part of the new framework the Rules of Professional Conduct and the Paralegal Professional Conduct Guidelines will be amended to adopt the Federation of Law Societies of Canada Model Code of Professional Conduct commentary (Section 3.1-2) regarding technological competence.

The Law Society requires licensees who are practising law or providing legal services to complete 12 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Hours each year. Currently, there is a six-hour limit on archived or recorded CPD programs that are eligible for credit each year. The new framework waives this limitation.

The new framework also calls for the wind-up of the Certified Specialist Program (CSP). Licensees who are currently Certified Specialists may use that designation until Dec. 31, 2022. The Indigenous Legal Issues specialization will be continued subject to any future recommendation made by the Equity and Indigenous Affairs Committee to Convocation regarding the specialization.”

In November 2021, CALE/ACEJ submitted feedback in the consultation for this new competence framework. In its submissions, CALE/ACEJ took the position that, among other things, mandatory CPD should be retained for licensees and that the Federation of Law Societies of Canadian Model Code of Professional Conduct commentary on technological competence should be adopted.