On October 21, 2023, CALE/ACEJ held its annual meeting of members at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria. In his report, President Stephen Pitel outlined CALE/ACEJ’s activities over the past year, including: the transition of the Chief Information Officer role from Amy Salyzyn to Basil Alexander; transitioning the listserv from UOttawa to Google Groups; implementing a Travel Grant Program to support graduate students and post-doctoral fellows attending the conference; partnering with the CBA and FLSC for the 2023 Ethics Forum; submissions to the FLSC’s National Requirement Review Committee re: ethics and professionalism and to the FLSC’s Model Code Committee re: former judges returning to practice; and other director submissions and activities that build awareness of CALE/ACEJ.
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Commitment to CPD on Indigenous Intercultural Competence
CALE/ACEJ is aware that a motion has been brought by lawyers in Alberta challenging the basis on which continuing professional development (CPD) on Indigenous intercultural competency has been mandated by the Law Society of Alberta (or other specific CPD the LSA may mandate).
In November 2021, CALE/ACEJ responded to a consultation by the Law Society of Ontario about competency requirements, particularly those about general and mandatory CPD, including specific CPD requirements. In its submission, it advocated that to meet the obligations under Call to Action 27, the LSO should require that all of its licensees complete Indigenous intercultural competence training.
This remains CALE/ACEJ’s position, not only in respect of the LSO but also in respect of the regulators of the legal profession in all provinces and territories. All legal regulators should develop and adopt such a requirement.
More information about the importance of general and mandatory CPD, including mandatory Indigenous intercultural competency, can be found in CALE/ACEJ’s November 2021 submissions (available below).
A Dodek: The Ethics of Articling
It has long been an open secret that our articling system is deeply flawed. But is it unethical?
Articling today is a system that would be equally at home in Downton Abbey and in Booker Prize Winner Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall.
While I don’t think articling is inherently unethical, I do believe that it is inherently unequal and therefore creates an environment where unethical behavior is possible. Articling takes a vulnerable and powerless law student who is often carrying a significant financial debt and requires her to be at the beck and call of an experienced lawyer with largely no oversight. Desperate students will do almost anything to obtain articles and they will put up with almost anything to fulfill their articles. Some students even article for free, a possibility that exists only because articling is exempt from general wage and hour legislation that protects most employees.
Read the rest of the post on SLAW here: http://www.slaw.ca/2013/12/09/the-ethics-of-articling/
Seizing the Opportunity: Lawyer Licensing and Legal Education for the Future
From Blogging for Equality, and posted on November 3, 2012
Seizing the Opportunity: Lawyer Licensing and Legal Education for the Future
Professor David Wiseman
The Ontario legal community is being presented with an historic opportunity to forge a new partnership between legal regulators and educators on the nature and content of professional licensing and education. To seize this opportunity, we need to bring together all the stakeholders at a table that is set for open identification of wants and needs(and interests and impacts), meaningful engagement with issues, difficult discussions about resources and collaboration on innovative problem-solving. The law schools and legal regulators should have equal seats at the table, which ought to be at arms-length from both, and which should also include law firms and lawyers, practitioner associations, Legal Aid, legal clinics, pro bono law, law students, equality-seeking groups and the general public(to name the most obvious). The results could usher in a new horizon of experiential legal education with integrated lawyer licensing that harnesses the profession’s practical expertise and promotes knowledge and skills for systemic advancements in access to justice. Imagine!
For the full post, click HERE.
Canadian Association for Legal Ethics / Association canadienne pour l’éthique juridique 