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Call for Nominations: CALE/ACEJ Awards

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Nominations are once again open for CALE/ACEJ’s two annual awards, with a due date of August 7, 2026.

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.

Information about the awards, including previous winners and the awards’ terms, is available at https://ethicsincanada.com/cale-awards/. This year’s selection committee is Amy Salyzyn (chair), Andrew Bernstein and Pooja Parmar, and the awards will be presented during CALE/ACEJ’s next annual conference on October 22-24, 2026.

For Best Paper nominations, submit an anonymized version of the paper to basil.alexander@torontomu.ca (can be your or someone else’s paper) by August 7, 2026. 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 (available on request from Basil Alexander, CALE/ACEJ’s Corporate Secretary) and the required supporting letter(s) to basil.alexander@torontomu.ca by August 7, 2026. The form and the supporting letter(s) may be submitted separately.

If you have questions about the awards, please contact Basil Alexander.

Call for Topic/Paper Proposals – CALE/ACEJ 2026 Conference: Guidance and Accountability Towards a More Just Society

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The Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University is pleased to host the next annual CALE/ACEJ conference in 2026. We look forward to welcoming you in person on October 22-24, 2026, in Toronto, Ontario.

We invite presentation proposals on topics or papers related to: 1) research and scholarship about legal ethics and professionalism, which includes professional and judicial regulation; and 2) teaching legal ethics and professionalism.

We welcome proposals from junior scholars (including graduate students) and from those working on legal ethics outside the academy. The final presentation format will likely be 15-20 minutes plus a Q&A. You are welcome to present a work in progress.

The TMU Law Review is also hoping to publish a special issue of papers presented at this conference. If you think you might be interested and will have a draft paper ready in advance of the conference, please let us know. Revised papers would then be due 2.5-3 months after the conference.

We look forward to receiving your proposal by June 30, 2026, via e-mail.

For research-related proposals and questions, please email both:

For teaching-related proposals and questions, please e-mail:

Please include in your submission:

  • your name (and the names of your co-presenters, if applicable)
  • your bio(s) (100 words max / each)
  • presentation title
  • an abstract (200 words max)
  • whether you are interested in submitting your paper for peer-review and publication by the TMU Law Review.

Graduate students and post-doctoral fellows are also encouraged to apply for the CALE/ACEJ Travel Grant to attend the conference. More information about the Travel Grant program can be found at https://ethicsincanada.com/?p=2862.

Conference Recap 2025

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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.

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2025 Conference Registration Open

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Thanks to conference coordinator Gillian MacNeil and her team, you can now register for the upcoming CALE/ACEJ conference to be hosted by the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg on October 23-25, 2025.

Register here.

The conference will take place at the Fort Garry Hotel in downtown Winnipeg. At the bottom of the conference page, you will find a link to the hotel website that will allow you to book one of the rooms in our block (conference room rate is $209 per night). Book by September 22, 2025 to obtain the conference rate.

As usual, there will be an informal dinner on Thursday, October 23, 2025 so do plan to arrive so as to be able to attend. The conference program will be shared in advance of the start of the conference. The conference typically concludes in the early afternoon on the Saturday.

Call for Presentation Proposals: Annual Conference 2025 in Winnipeg

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The next annual CALE/ACEJ Conference will be held October 23-25, 2025, hosted by the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. It will take place in person.

Proposals are now invited for presentations on either teaching legal ethics or research and scholarship about legal ethics and professionalism. The latter includes research relating to the regulation of the profession.

We invite anyone interested in presenting on a topic to submit a proposal. We welcome proposals from junior scholars and from those working on legal ethics outside the academy. The eventual format of the presentations will depend on, among other things, the number of proposals we accept, but we expect that each presenter would have about 15-20 minutes plus time for questions. There is no need to have a formal paper accompanying your presentation: slides or oral remarks alone are fine. You need not have a finished product: works in progress are welcome.

One of the reasons for asking for proposals at this early stage is that we understand that for some applicants it can be easier to obtain funding to attend the CALE/ACEJ conference once you have been accepted as a speaker. We therefore aim to communicate acceptances as soon as we can so that you can leverage that acceptance to obtain funds.

Submit your proposal by e-mail. The deadline for submissions is June 27, 2025. To submit a teaching proposal, e-mail both Amy Salyzyn (amy.salyzyn@uottawa.ca) and Gillian MacNeil (gillian.macneil@umanitoba.ca). To submit a research proposal, e-mail both Andrew Martin (andrew.martin@dal.ca) and Brandon Trask (brandon.trask@umanitoba.ca).

Call for Nominations: CALE/ACEJ Awards

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As a sign of the coming spring, nominations are once again open for CALE/ACEJ’s two annual awards, with a due date of August 8, 2025.

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.

Information about the awards, including previous winners and the terms of the awards, is at https://ethicsincanada.com/cale-awards/.

For Best Paper nominations, submit an anonymized version of the paper to basil.s.alexander@gmail.com (can be your or someone else’s paper) by August 8, 2025. 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 (available on request from Corporate Secretary Basil Alexander) and the required supporting letter(s) to basil.s.alexander@gmail.com by August 8, 2025. The form and the supporting letter(s) may be submitted separately.

The awards will be presented at the annual conference (October 23-25, 2025) at the University of Manitoba.

If you have any questions, contact Basil Alexander.

The selection committee for this year’s awards is Amy Salyzyn (chair), Andrew Bernstein and Pooja Parmar.

Ethics Forum 2025

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Registration is now open for the 2025 Ethics Forum, which is presented in partnership between the CBA, FLSC and CALE. It will be held on Friday, March 28, 2025 at the CBA conference centre in downtown Toronto. For more information, including a detailed agenda with topics and speakers, see this web page.

This year’s four panel sessions are entitled “Harassment, Bullying and Discrimination within the Profession”, “The Limits on Resolute Advocacy”, “Professional Ethics and Client Selection” and “Judicial Ethics Update”. Attendees can attend in person or virtually.

The Ethics Forum has been a popular event in previous years and so early registration is encouraged.

John Law Receives CALE/ACEJ Lifetime Achievement Award

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On October 25, 2024, during its annual conference at the Dalhousie University, CALE/ACEJ presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Emeritus Professor John Law. The award is for having demonstrated “sustained accomplishments in the field of legal ethics and professionalism”.

John was a professor at the University of Alberta for many years and was appointed as the Thomas Lawlor Professor of Legal Ethics in 2013. In the 1980s and 1990s he played a leading role in the creation of the Alberta Code of Professional Conduct, which was highly influential across Canada due to the guidance it provided.

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Conference Recap 2024

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The annual conference was held on October 24-26, 2024 at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Richard Devlin, founding President of CALE/ACEJ, was the conference coordinator. He was assisted by Rebecca Parker. They did a terrific job and made all attendees very welcome.

The conference was generously supported by the law school, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, the Law Foundation of Nova Scotia, Cox & Palmer and McInnes Cooper.

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