A thoughtful article by criminal lawyer Breese Davies on the challenges of taking on legal aid work, published at the Walrus.

Further to the previous post on this topic, several media articles have now been published on the topic with reference to CALE’s submissions. See the Lawyers Weekly article here, National Post coverage here, discussion on cbc.ca here and an Ottawa Citizen editorial here!

New column up at Slaw.ca discussing interaction between OSC’s new Whistleblower Program and the Rules of Professional Conduct.

An article authored by Jennifer Bond, David Wiseman and Emily Bates titled “The Cost of Uncertainty: Navigating the Boundary between Legal Information and Legal Services in the Access to Justice Sector” is now available on SSRN.

Here is the link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2821471

Here is the abstract:

The self-regulatory bodies that oversee legal professionals in Canada maintain strict control on the delivery of legal services, and access to justice projects must therefore always be conscious of activities that would violate certain restrictions. Careful adherence to these parameters is made difficult, however, by the lack of clarity about where the relevant boundaries are drawn. Using a project that provides legal assistance for refugees as a case study, this article highlights the challenges that the unclear distinction between “legal information” and “legal services” creates for access to justice initiatives. We conclude that the uncertainty can carry a variety of significant costs — including financial expense, human resource burdens, and unnecessary limits on program innovation — in a sector where affordable and creative solutions are desperately needed as a result of a persistent access to justice crisis. Ultimately, it is not merely the under-resourced access to justice sector that bears these costs, but rather disadvantaged individuals and society as a whole.

CALE has provided the attached submission in response to Justice Canada’s consultation on judicial discipline process reform.

A new article on corporate finance lawyers by Steven Vaughan and Emma Oakley is now available here. See below for the abstract:

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has released a decision upholding the Law Society of Upper Canada’s decision not to accredit TWU’s proposed law school.

A new Slaw post up by Alice Woolley that discusses problems with A2J in the criminal law area and puts forward some proposed solutions.

A new post up by Deanne Sowter on her research relating to ethical and professionalism dilemmas within family law.

On June 14, 2016, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision in the above matter, dismissing Joseph Groia’s appeal relating to the Law Society Appeal Panel’s findings of professional misconduct against him in relation to his in-court conduct towards opposing counsel and finding, inter alia:

[241]  The requirement of professionalism for lawyers, both inside and outside a courtroom, including zealous advocacy accompanied by courtesy, civility and good faith dealings, secures the nobility of the profession in which lawyers in this province are privileged to practise.  The Appeal Panel concluded that this requirement was breached in this case.  This conclusion, in my opinion, was both reasonable and correct.

For some commentary on this decision, see this article in the Toronto Star, and this blog post by CALE member Tom Harrison.