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Articles by Ken Chasse
What does a human-centric justice system look like?
Observers of the justice system and the legal profession, as well as writers of myriad reports by the Canadian Bar Association and others seeking to improve access to justice, all come to the same conclusion: to be successful, the system must be human-centred – arranged around and for the people it serves. This should be a given – to be successful any enterprise has to think about what the people using its services need.
The Paradigm Shift of Regulatory Sandboxes
Earlier this fall, the Law Society of British Columbia made headlines when it announced the creation of an “Innovation Sandbox” that would allow unauthorized providers of legal services to deliver those services in BC on a pilot-project basis while the regulator assesses their reliability and effectiveness.
Vanish - Slaw
A team of computer scientists from the University of Washington has developed Vanish, a program that lets you create an email or a document that will self-destruct at a given time. At the moment it’s still in the developmental stage, but you can download a trial copy that will enable you to use a Firefox plugin to create the various temporary documents. There’s also an online Vanish service if you’re leery of installing a trial app.
Archive for Robert McKay
Robert McKay gained his honours law degree at Queen’s University, Belfast. Presently a director of Dunedin Academic Press and an associate editor of the Italian Law Journal, he is a consultant in the legal, professional and reference information sectors in Europe. He has had extensive experience at director level with renowned international providers including Sweet and Maxwell (Thomson Reuters), Lexis Nexis (RELX), CCH (Wolters Kluwer), FL Memo (Frojal) and TSO (Advent International).
An Administrative Model of Family Law Dispute Resolution
In our present family justice system, disputes are presumptively resolved in court, with provincial and territorial legislation acknowledging the possibility of out-of-court resolution with differing, and sometimes indifferent, degrees of emphasis.
The British Invasion: Legal Services Regulation Edition
Bringing British things across the pond is a hot Canadian trend. Prince Harry and Megan Markle are now our most famous immigrants. A Canada-U.K. free trade deal has apparently become a post-Brexit priority. And the Downton Abbey movie has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from my parents and their friends. While we’re at it, we should copy at least three aspects of legal services regulation as practiced in our erstwhile mother country.
#Clawbies2019 are Here! - Slaw
As it does every year, December 1st has snuck up us. The date arrives just as the holiday busy season is heating up, and folks are packing their days and evenings with holiday shopping, parties, card-writing and travel plans. In the midst of all this, we ask the Canadian legal community to add one more thing to their plate: participating in the Canadian Law Blog Awards, fondly known as the Clawbies, now in its 14th year. Thankfully, no one ever complains about this “one more thing”.
Slaw and CanLII Release New Ebooks
I’m very pleased to announce that Slaw has partnered with the fine folks at CanLII to produce a series of ebooks of selected content from Slaw.ca. As a publisher with CanLII’s Authors Program, a number of Slaw’s columnists and bloggers have worked with CanLII directly to create highlighted collections of their finest writing on a single interest or issue.
Complaints, appeals aimed at Standards Council of Canada | Ken Chasse
Part one of this two-part article questioned the Standards Council of Canada’s ability to perform its part in the federal government’s high priority, IP-Innovation Canada project. A number of national standards will be needed to make that critically important combination of “innovation with standardization” successful.
IP, Standards Council of Canada problem at election time | Ken Chasse
The Standards Council of Canada is engaged in a public relations campaign emphasizing: (1) the large part that it is playing in the federal government’s high-level promotion of preserving IP (intellectual property), particularly so large databases of data and the creation of innovation-creating, Silicon Valley-type “clusters” in Canada; and, (2) its invitation to the business community to work with the council in the development of innovation in conjunction with standardization.
Using Multi-Factor Authentication Blocks 99.9% of Account Takeover Attacks
It was big news in late August when Microsoft said that users who enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for their accounts will end up blocking 99.9% of automated attacks. This doesn’t apply just to Microsoft accounts. It applies to any other account on any website or online service. Today, virtually all service providers support multi-factor authentication, and in most cases, there is no charge. It can be something as simple as SMS-based one-time passwords or advanced biometrics solutions.
Using electronic records as evidence | Ken Chasse
Records are now the most frequently used kind of evidence in legal proceedings and for legal services. Almost all of them come from electronic systems and devices, which are rapidly increasing in types and numbers in use.
Accommodation of Religious Holidays in the Federal Election
Any planning of a public calendar can be challenging in a diverse and multicultural society. The Law Society of Ontario, for example, learned this the hard way when they scheduled the Barrister exam this year on June 4, 2019, which coincided with Eid celebrations of Muslims across the province. The planning of a Federal election is a more extensive endeavour, not only in the national scope of the exercise, but in the more significant limitations imposed by statute.
Knowledge of technology requirement in Federation of Law Societies’ Model Code of Conduct | Ken Chasse
What follows is a message I recently sent to: (1) the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC) in regard to its Model Code of Professional Conduct— request for feedback in regard to “technological competence” requirements; (2) the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice; (3) the Access to Justice Research Network; and, (4) Access to Justice B.C. Re: Access to Justice and the FLSC’s Model Code of Professional Conduct.
Law societies’ policies for access to justice failure | Ken Chasse
Law societies appear to be powerless to serve the public interest by defending lawyers’ markets against three major threats: (1) The access to justice problem (the A2J problem of unaffordable legal services for the majority of society that is middle- and lower-income people), which has left the majority of law firms short of clients; (2) The commercial producers of legal services such as LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer now have millions of customers, who are now here in Canada beginning the same...
Independent paralegals signal major invasions of lawyers’ markets | Ken Chasse
Some of Canada’s law societies are creating new types of paralegal workers, being persons of lesser qualifications, licensed to provide certain types of legal services. The Law Society of Ontario (LSO) is in the process of creating family law specialist paralegals, and the Law Society of British Columbia has a Licensed Paralegal Working Group considering what services, and training, would non-lawyers need to be able to provide legal services in family law matters.
Book Review: Torts: A Guide for the Perplexed
Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law. Torts: A Guide for the Perplexed. By GHL Fridman. Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2017. 174 p. Includes bibliographic references and index. 978-0433495543 (hardcover) $85.00.
The 2018 Clawbies Are Officially On!
Depending on who you are, what you celebrate, and your personal tolerance for holiday cheer, December 1st is a big day for many folks. It can be seen as the officially acceptable date to begin various activities: listening to Christmas music, putting up your lights and decorations, or adding a little Bailey’s to your morning coffee.
Need for Greater Protections of Investigative Journalism
On Nov. 21, 2018, Finance Minister Bill Morneau provided the 2018 fiscal update, which includes nearly $600 million in tax credits and incentives over the next 5 years for the media, as well as a temporary tax credit for subscribers to digital news media sites. Non-profit media organizations will be eligible for charitable status and may receive funding from other registered charities. The role of the media within our legal system is emphasized in our constitution.
Go West - Life is Patently Unreasonable There - Slaw
The potential of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) has long been touted by many of us as part of the solution to the access to justice problem in Canada, especially for low-intensity disputes. The first province to introduce ODR was B.C. in 2012 with the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act (the “Act”), followed soon after by Quebec’s Plateforme d’Aide au Règlement des Litiges en ligne (PARLe).
Introducing Slaw Jobs
I’m pleased to announce a new member of the Slaw family of websites — Slaw Jobs, a Canadian legal job listings service aimed at connecting job seekers with opportunities in the Canadian market. Since our friend Simon retired in 2014, Slaw hasn’t changed much. There’s good reason for that. Everyone at Stem Legal knows that I take our role as caretaker seriously; and that we are very committed to maintaining Slaw’s culture.
New Book: The Fundamentals of Statutory Interpretation
Below is an excerpt from the introduction of my new book that will be published by LexisNexis on November 30. More information about this book can be found here. There are times when judges interpret statutes in ways that defy common sense. A notorious example was raised during the Senate confirmation hearings of eventual U.S. Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch in which he was pressed by Democratic members to defend his dissent in Trans Am Trucking.
Effectively Managing Change in a Law Firm
Change is a reality of business. Client needs shift; legal expertise shifts due to retirements and new hires; legislation and case law create new opportunities and close down previous legal practises. Change is hard for most people, but particularly for lawyers. The lawyer personality doesn’t like change; it likes the expected, precedent and tradition. Lawyers tend to be risk-averse, and change represents risk. Yet managing anything, be it a practice or a law firm, is all about managing change.
Canadians Create New Searchable Database of Edward Snowden Documents
George Raine, a recent graduate of the Faculty of Information’s Master of Information program at the University of Toronto, has created the Snowden Surveillance Archive, a searchable database of all the publicly released classified documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The leaks reveal the widespread surveillance practices by security and espionage agencies in the US and allied countries.
The Cost of Family Law Disputes
Last year, the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family (CRILF) and the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) sent out a survey to family lawyers in Canada to get a sense of legal professionals’ preferences around dispute resolution methods and the costs associated with these various avenues.
Tomorrow the Supreme Court of Canada Will Start Publishing Plain Language Case Summaries
Starting tomorrow, the Supreme Court of Canada will publish Cases in Brief on the Court website, and on its Facebook and Twitter accounts. These are short, plain-language summaries of Supreme Court decisions. The first such Case in Brief will be made available tomorrow at noon in the case of Carson v. The Queen. “We’re doing this because we want to be more transparent and accessible to Canadians—but we’re also doing it because we must.
Dan Pinnington Appointed LAWPRO President & CEO
On behalf of everyone at Slaw, I’d like to extend a warm congratulations to our colleague Dan Pinnington on his appointment as President and CEO of LAWPRO. Dan has written with us here at Slaw for nearly a decade. His commentary has covered an enormous range of topics related to law practice management, legal technology, fraud and claims prevention (to name a few). But most of all, Dan is a communicator — speaker, blogger, book author, teacher, magazine editor, and conference chair.
Challenges Around the Right to be Forgotten in Canada
This past Friday, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released a draft position on online reputation which includes a call for several measures that help protect Canadians, including the right to ask search engines to de-index web pages and removing information at the source. There is little more precious than our reputation.
New Developments in International Legal Information Resources
The New Year is a great time to re-assess old legal research tools and review new ones, so here’s a look at some of the additions to and changes in international legal information resources in the past couple of years. New resources include the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (MPECCOL), Elgar encyclopedias on private international law and on international economic law, and Oxford International Organizations (OXIO)(freely accessible until July 2018).
What Actually Goes on in Articling? Ethical Obligation of Regulators . . .
The Law Society of Upper Canada is undertaking (yet another) review of its licensing process. This is at least the fifth time that it has examined changes to the licensing process since 2000. However, in all of these reviews, the Law Society has never actually examined the actual working conditions of articling students. In this it is not alone. I am not aware of any Law Society in Canada that has done so.
What is Blockchain and Why It’s Important for Law Practice
You have probably heard of blockchain. If you didn’t, I am sure you’ve heard of bitcoin. There is a chance you have also heard that blockchain or bitcoin are the next big thing. I believe that blockchain is the next big thing, and the purpose of this essay is to explain why and to show blockchain’s significance for lawyers and law practice. Blockchain is an escrow of conclusive transaction evidence. That’s it. Don’t worry about hashes, blocks, distributed ledger, encryption and so on for now.
The bogus rhetoric about bogus refugees
It is time to take a stand against all the bogus rhetoric about bogus refugees. Our current Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Chris Alexander, has unfortunately taken a shine to making frequent use of the pejorative, inflammatory and meaningless term.
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