Tag Archives: annual conference

Early Reminder of 2024 Conference

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As winter turns to spring, we ramp up the planning for the annual conference. At this point we want to get the dates and location out to potential attendees so they can start thinking about their travel plans.

The conference will take place October 24-26, 2024. It will be in Halifax, Nova Scotia, hosted by the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. Professor Richard Devlin is the conference organizer.

The conference will start on the evening of Thursday, October 24 with an informal social get-together. The sessions will start on the morning of Friday, October 25 and will run to mid-day on Saturday, October 26.

The planning group will issue a call for presentation proposals later in the spring. As usual we will have sessions on research, teaching and the regulation of the profession. Please start thinking about a possible topic to propose.

Registration and accommodation information will follow in the summer. For now, save the dates and start contemplating your trip to Canada’s Ocean Playground.

Annual Meeting 2023

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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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Conference Recap 2023

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The annual conference was held on October 19-21, 2023, at the University of Victoria. Pooja Parmar, the Vice-President of CALE/ACEJ, was the conference coordinator. She was assisted by Alan Treleaven, Robert Tapper, Laura Hamilton and Tayana Simpson. They did a terrific job and made all attendees very welcome.

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Register for the 2023 Annual Conference

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Thanks to conference coordinator Pooja Parmar and her team, details of the upcoming (October 19-21, 2023) CALE/ACEJ conference at the University of Victoria are now available and registration is open.

All the information you need is here.

The program, registration link, hotel information and a handy things-to-do document (prepared by Rob Lapper) are available. The conference features over 25 presenters covering a wide array of topics.

Your registration is not confirmed until you receive an e-mail from Laura Hamilton.

Due to room capacity issues, there is an upper limit on the number of people who can attend the conference. If you plan to attend, do not delay in registering.

New Conference Travel Grant Program

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As a result of funds generated from production and sales of Woolley, Devlin & Cotter, Lawyers’ Ethics and Professional Regulation, 4th ed (2021), CALE/ACEJ is able to announce that it is creating a new conference travel grant program. Thanks are due to all involved in the preparation of this casebook.

Starting in 2023, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in the field of legal ethics and professionalism are eligible to apply for a travel grant towards the cost of attending the annual CALE/ACEJ conference. To qualify they must either be (i) enrolled or based at a Canadian university or (ii) a Canadian enrolled or based at a foreign university.

Applications are due to the Vice-President by July 15, 2023. Applicants must provide sufficient information to establish their eligibility and explain their financial need for the travel grant. Applications will be assessed by the Vice-President and the Treasurer by July 30, 2023.

No more than $2000 is to be awarded in this year. No applicant is to receive more than $500 in a single year. The travel grant will be paid after the annual conference. To receive their grant, each recipient must submit receipts for travel or accommodation expenses to the Treasurer totaling at least the amount awarded.

2023 Conference: Call for Presentation Proposals

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As announced in March, the next annual CALE/ACEJ Conference will be held October 19-21, 2023, hosted by the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Like the 2022 conference, 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.

For teaching, please respond to Andrew Flavelle Martin (andrew.martin@dal.ca) by June 30, 2023.

For research, please respond to Deanne Sowter (deannesowter@osgoode.yorku.ca) by June 30, 2023.

Save the Date for 2023 Annual Conference

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Next fall CALE/ACEJ will hold its annual conference at the University of Victoria in beautiful British Columbia. The conference will start on the evening of Thursday, October 19 with an informal social get-together. The sessions will start on the morning of Friday, October 20 and will run to mid-day on Saturday, October 21. Our conference coordinator is Professor Pooja Parmar.

The organizers will be putting out a call for presentation proposals later in the spring. As usual we will have sessions on research, teaching and the regulation of the profession. It is not too early to start thinking about a possible topic to propose.

Registration and accommodation information will follow in the summer. For now, save the dates and start envisaging your trip to Vancouver Island.

Conference Recap 2022

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It was a great pleasure to return to an in-person conference this year. Our host was the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University and we are indebted to Dean Jula Hughes, Wendy Parkes and their team, including several faculty members, for running a terrific event. We met October 20-22, 2022.

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Conference Recap 2021

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This year’s annual conference was held over Zoom, as public health conditions continue to make in-person gatherings difficult. We had intended to gather at Lakehead University but instead its planning team, led by Jula Hughes and Wendy Parkes, enabled us to meet online. The conference was held October 22-23, 2021. A full agenda for the conference is available elsewhere on this site. The conference featured a more formal opening than in some prior years, including a welcome from Elder-in-Residence Gerry Martin and greetings from Chief Peter Collins of the Fort William First Nation and Deputy Chief Anna Betty Achneepineskum of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

One highlight was the session on legal regulation which looked at what several law societies are doing in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. Initiatives include mentoring programs for Indigenous lawyers and new continuing professional development programs with Indigenous content and perspectives. There are ongoing debates about what level of competence should be required of the profession and whether particular aspects, such as educational courses, should be mandatory. As an example, Alberta has made the completion of an online course about Indigenous cultural competency training mandatory. Other provinces and territories are considering how to proceed.

Another highlight was a special session on the new Ethical Principles for Judges adopted by the Canadian Judicial Council earlier this year. Several commentators with expertise in the area of judicial ethics offered their perspectives on the most important changes. One of the key themes of the session was the need to update and develop the Ethical Principles on more of an ongoing basis rather than once each generation or so.

The session on teaching legal ethics considered the benefits to students of exposure to real-world discipline cases and ways to address curriculum gaps relating to particular groups. It also featured a debate about the importance of instilling certain ethical values in students. All presentations fueled the notion that teaching legal ethics to the next generation of lawyers is an important responsibility that involves difficult choices in structuring and delivering the course.

The conference featured five presentations about recent research activities by CALE/ACEJ members. These were about (a) ethical issues facing in-house counsel in the Canadian context, (b) the duty on Attorneys General to encourage respect for the administration of justice (and how that relates to potential criticisms of judicial decisions or processes), (c) making decisions to take on litigation clients in cases that are highly unpopular, (d) adopting a modified resolute advocacy model for transnational environmental and human rights litigation involving extractive industry clients and (e) what lawyers should know about the obligations on psychologists concerning the release of patient files for use in legal proceedings.

As usual, the tone was largely informal, allowing for significant debate and disagreement without animosity or hostility. The 40 or so attendees found the material rich and engaging. The obvious drawback was the inability to connect in person and relax in a social setting after the sessions. Lakehead University has generously volunteered to host again in 2022, this time in person in Thunder Bay. CALE/ACEJ members very much look forward to it.

Recap: Annual Conference 2020

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On October 23, 2020, CALE/ACEJ held its annual conference, the intellectual and social high-water mark of its annual activities. The conference was held virtually and was supported by the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. Heartfelt thanks are due to its Acting Dean Richard Devlin and Zoom Coordinator Conor Falvey for their efforts, without which the conference could not have happened as it did.

The conference featured presentations in three areas: teaching, regulation and research. A complete listing of all presentations is on the CALE/ACEJ website under the Annual Conference tab.

The teaching panel focused heavily on issues relating to teaching legal ethics online. One of the themes in the discussions was which recent short-term developments would continue to be used even after the end of the pandemic. This generated considerable (and heated) debate. Another related topic was whether the current requirement that the JD program be primarily taught in person rather than online is defensible as a matter of pedagogy or access to education.

The regulation panel considered the implications of the pandemic on the regulation of the legal profession. All presenters noted the significant demands the pandemic has placed on the need to improve access to technology and training in how to use it effectively. As with teaching, a major issue was thinking about which changes, made for emergency reasons and often in a very short period of time, will be retained for the future.

The research panels ranged widely over the landscape of legal ethics. Several presentations examined lawyers and the use of social media. Other topics included improving the ability of lawyers to work with and serve trans clients, how to regulate electronic legal services provided directly to members of the public, recent developments in the law on lawyers’ undertakings and on the obligation of advocates to raise adverse authority, and how to respond to the increasing use of analytics to predict judicial decisions (“Moneyball” for judging).

Many conference participants were struck by how much exchange and debate the presentations produced. The chat function in Zoom played a major role, allowing relevant commentary and information to supplement the oral presentation in real time and keeping people very engaged. While regular attendees certainly missed seeing each other in person, the virtual format did allow several people to attend who otherwise would not have done so.

CALE/ACEJ very much looks forward to the 2021 annual conference, to be hosted at Lakehead University. Here’s hoping we will be able to be there in person.