Author Archives: amysalyzyn

J McNish, C Tait and K Cryderman: Bay Street law firms advised Griffiths on Chad deal

Posted on by

Jacquie McNish, Carrie Tait, and Kelly Cryderman

TORONTO and CALGARY — The Globe and Mail – posted HERE

Published Saturday, Jan. 26 2013, 8:00 AM EST; Last Updated again Jan 28, 2013

Prominent Canadian law firms Heenan Blaikie and Macleod Dixon provided legal services in connection with a $2-million payment by Griffiths Energy International Inc. to the wife of an African diplomat, a transaction that led the company to pay a $10.35-million fine in a bribery case this week.

According to people familiar with the case, the junior oil and gas company turned to the blue chip corporate law firms to help guide it in the late 2000s through a series of difficult negotiations with officials from Chad, which ranks as one of the world’s most corrupt countries. When a new slate of Griffiths executives uncovered the $2-million (U.S.) bribe in 2011, it alerted police, sparking an investigation that culminated this week in a settlement agreement and fine that a Calgary judge on Friday called “an embarrassment to all Canadians.” Continue reading →

S Fodden: Documents in the Edgar Schmidt Whistleblower Case

Posted on by

Simon Fodden

Posted on Slaw website HERE on January 23, 2013

As most everyone will know, the story broke last week that lawyer Edgar Schmidt is suing the federal Attorney General because of a practice within the Department of Justice, where he is employed, that too easily finds legislation passing the Charter “sniff” test. Two documents in that case are available on Slaw via the links below. Continue reading →

B Curry: Judge raps Justice officials for treatment of whistle-blower

Posted on by

BILL CURRY

OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jan. 16 2013, 6:00 AM EST; Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 16 2013, 6:24 PM EST

Ottawa is crafting legislation that risks running afoul of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms without informing Parliament, a federal lawyer charges.

In a highly unusual case, Department of Justice lawyer Edgar Schmidt is challenging his own department in Federal Court and revealing details about the internal guidelines used by federal lawyers. The department accuses Mr. Schmidt of violating his duties as a lawyer and public servant and has suspended him without pay. Continue reading →

A Salyzyn: A Comparative Study of Attorney Responsibility for Fees of an Opposing Party

Posted on by

(2012) 3 St. John’s Journal of International and Comparative Law (Forthcoming)

Abstract: This paper compares the American practice of requiring an attorney to pay personally the fees of an opposing party where the attorney has been found to improperly conducted himself or herself to analogous practices in two other common law jurisdictions, England and Canada. Continue reading →

Rueter Scargall Bennett LLP Essay Prize in Legal Ethics

Posted on by

Please circulate and encourage students to apply.

Print Version

The Chief Justice of Ontario’s Advisory Committee on Professionalism, with membership spanning from across the Bench and the Bar, the Law Society and the Academy, focuses on a number of initiatives to support the teaching of professionalism in our law schools and throughout the profession.

As part of this effort, the Committee established an annual award in 2010, sponsored by the law firm of Rueter Scargall Bennett LLP, to encourage law students to think and write about the legal profession and acknowledge the best student papers on any subject relating to legal ethics and professionalism.

The prize is awarded annually by the Chief Justice of Ontario’s Advisory Committee on Professionalism to three law students registered in a JD or LLB program at a law school in Ontario for the best previously unpublished papers on any topic relating to legal ethics and professionalism.

Papers must be at least 2,000 and not more than 6,000 words inclusive of footnotes or endnotes. Submissions must be in a Microsoft Word compatible format. The applicant’s name and university should be noted on the front page of the essay, but must not be shown on any other pages of the essay.

The author of the best paper will be awarded $3,000. The authors of the other two award winning papers will each be awarded $1,000. The first-prize paper will be published in a suitable venue. Additionally, all winners will be invited to a dinner with the Chief Justice of Ontario and the Treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Papers for the 2013 award should be submitted by email to Jacob Bakan in the Office of the Chief Justice of Ontario [at jacob.bakan at ontario.ca] no later than February 28, 2013. The awards will be announced following the end of the 2012-2013 academic year.

 

S.G.A. Pitel & W. Bortolin: Revising Canada’s Ethical Rules for Judges Returning to Practice

Posted on by

Judges and ethics have been in the news a lot lately.

Slaw posted an excerpt from the Pitel and Bortolin article “Revising Canada’s Ethical Rules for Judges Returning to Practice” as the Thursday Thinkpiece on January 10, 2013, at Slaw.ca.

The full article can be found on SSRN if you click HERE, in in print (2011) 34 Dalhousie Law Journal 483 Excerpt: pp. 515-520

Abstract: 
It has recently become more common for retired Canadian judges to return to the practice of law. This development raises an array of ethical considerations and potential threats to the integrity of the administration of justice. Although most codes of legal ethics contemplate the possibility of former judges returning to practice, the rules on this particular topic are dated, under-analyzed, and generally inadequate. This article reviews the Canadian ethical rules that specifically relate to former judges and identifies their shortcomings. In doing so, the authors consider, for comparative purposes, Canadian ethical rules directed at former public officers who return to practice and American rules directed at former judges. These rules have been developed in a different context, but involve many of the same issues and are more comprehensive. Following this analysis, the authors propose a series of new rules for judges who return to practice. These rules are not intended as the final word on the subject, but rather as starting points for further discussion of the issues involved. They illustrate the competing considerations with which law societies need to grapple as more judges return to practice.

Legal Ethics Volume 15, Number 2, December 2012

Posted on by

The new edition of the journal Legal Ethics (Hart Publishing) has now been published is available for order if you click HERE

Comparative Studies of Lawyer Deviance and Discipline

There is a fair bit of Canadian content including:

  • An article by Alice Woolley (Calgary) titled “Regulation in Practice: The ‘Ethical Economy’ of Lawyer Regulation in Canada and a Case Study in Lawyer Deviance”
  • A report on the ILEC V Conference by Alice Woolley and Richard Devlin, co-chairs of the conference, titled “Merging Worlds, Emerging Discourses”
  • The Correspondent’s Report from Canada by Amy Salyzyn (Yale SJD) available for free if you click HERE.
  • And a Book Review by Alice Woolley, “Crime and Guilt”

Enjoy!

B Livesey: Discipline Dichotomy

Posted on by

Written by Bruce Livesey

Posted on the Canadian Lawyer website, from the January 2013 issue. For the Canadian Lawyer website, click HERE.

Few recent legal scandals have generated as much Sturm und Drang as the one caused by Winnipeg lawyer Jack King. Years ago, he tried to coerce a client into having sex with his wife, Lori Douglas, today an associate chief justice in Manitoba. This past summer, the salacious details of King’s actions were exposed during a Canadian Judicial Council hearing set up to determine whether Douglas should remain on the bench. Continue reading →

The Canadian Judicial Council to review the conduct of the Honourable Michel Girouard

Posted on by

Press release from the Canadian Judicial Council website.  For the CJC website, click HERE.

Ottawa, 8 January 2013 – The Canadian Judicial Council has confirmed that the Honorable François Rolland, Chief Justice of the Quebec Superior Court has requested that a review of the conduct of the Honourable Michel Girouard of the Quebec Superior Court be undertaken.  The review  concerns his conduct prior to his appointment to the Bench and includes an allegation that the judge would have participated in a transaction to purchase an illicit substance from a police informant.  This is only an allegation: no facts have been established in this matter.

As part of the review, all relevant information will be carefully considered by the Vice-chairperson of the Judicial Conduct Committee of Council. The judge will have a full opportunity to make representations about the allegations.

Since making this request to Council, the judge’s Chief Justice has not assigned any new work to Justice Girouard.

Council takes the review of all complaints seriously and deals with every complaint in accordance with its Complaints Procedures.  Information about the Council, including its Complaints Procedures, can be found on the Council’s website at www.cjc-ccm.gc.ca.