The annual conference was held on October 23-25, 2025 at the Fort Garry Hotel, organized by the Faculty of Law of the University of Manitoba. Gillian MacNeil was the conference coordinator. She and her colleagues did a terrific job and made all attendees very welcome.

The conference was generously supported by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the Manitoba Law Foundation, the Marcel A. Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law, the Law Society of Manitoba and the University of Manitoba.

Two distinguished judges made significant contributions to the conference. The keynote speech was by Glenn Joyal, the Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba. His speech was entitled “The Paradox of Judicial Independence and the Importance of Judiciousness: The Unavoidable Challenge and Opportunity”. He outlined challenges facing chief justices and associate chief justices in dealing with situations, including those created by other judges, that require balancing the need to remain independent and apart with the need to intervene to promote public confidence in the administration of justice. Following the keynote, Justice Sheilah Martin of the Supreme Court of Canada provided reaction and commentary. She stressed the importance of guidance from collective principles such as those contained in Ethical Principles for Judges (2021).

The regulation panel addressed the issue of ungovernable lawyers. Using several cases as examples, the panelists discussed both procedural and substantive issues in having a lawyer declared ungovernable. The cases are highly varied: they can involve mental health issues, defiance of the regulator’s authority or jurisdiction, and ceasing to practice without taking proper steps to resign.

The teaching panel discussed a new course in government lawyering to be offered at the University of Ottawa, legal ethics as viewed through Indigenous perspectives, and dealing with student concerns about potentially controversial guest speakers.

There were 11 presentations of research in progress, covering a wide range of topics. These included dealing with the fabrication myth in intimate partner violence cases, preparing sexual assault complaints to testify, lawyer wellness, a restorative justice approach to legal ethics, the role of lawyers in combating money laundering, second opinions about whether to prosecute in criminal cases, and ethical issues raised by generative artificial intelligence. One session was devoted to judicial ethics, covering the impact of judicial identity, an analysis of the first eight Canadian Judicial Council decisions imposing intermediate sanctions on judges, and the use of scenarios in teaching judicial ethics.

All sessions ended with challenging and thoughtful questions from an engaged and supportive audience. This aspect continues to make the conference a venue of choice for presenting work in progress.

CALE/ACEJ presented its two annual awards during the conference. For details, see the separate awards post on this web site.

The conference was held in a boardroom at the Fort Garry hotel. Its downtown location gave attendees an excellent opportunity to visit the nearby Canadian Museum of Human Rights. The conference provided opportunities to discuss and debate issues and to catch up with colleagues old and new. Several attendees were at the conference for the first time. Some attendees gathered in the evenings to watch the Blue Jays play in the World Series.

The 2026 conference will be hosted in Toronto by the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University.