The lawyers and staff of LMK congratulate their friend and colleague on this most prestigious and well deserved award! The Catzman Award for Professionalism & Civility The Catzman Award was created in 2008 by the Catzman family, together with The Advocates’ Society and the Chief Justice of Ontario’s Advisory Committee on Professionalism, in memory of…
This past December’s round of judicial appointments by Justice Minister Peter MacKay has put the issue of judicial diversity squarely back in the spotlight. Law Times, February 2, 2015 Speaker’s Corner: Why judicial diversity matters
The N.W.T. Court of Appeal has upheld a 2013 ruling that found Bell Mobility liable after charging customers in the territories for 911 services not available in their communities. Since around 2004, Bell Mobility charged all customers in N.W.T., Nunavut and Yukon the same 75 cents a month for 911 service it charged its customers…
Bell Mobility Inc. has lost an appeal of a class-action judgment that found the company liable to thousands of cellphone subscribers in Canada’s three northern territories over fees for non-existent 911 services. The Northwest Territories Court of Appeal concluded that the trial judge, who presided over what was the territory’s first class-action lawsuit to go…
The amount of time people are spending online, particularly on social networking sites, has important ramifications for family law litigation. The Lawyers Weekly, November 14, 2014 Social Media Increasingly Relevant to Litigation
Temporary work has become the new reality for many Canadians. According to Statistics Canada, as of May this year 2.1 million individuals were employed in jobs with predetermined end dates. Since the recession, temporary employment has grown three times faster than permanent work. The Lawyers Weekly, July 11, 2014 Explicit Language Needed for Fixed-term Contracts
Have you received a status notice recently? Rumour has it the Ontario Superior Court may be considering doing away with status notices due in part to its inconsistent implementation throughout the province. For non-litigators, a status notice is a form issued by the court advising that it will dismiss the matter unless the parties do…
One of the things lawyers look forward to least, short of having the their fees wholly ignored and unpaid, is having their fees challenged by clients. Ontario’s Solicitors Act sets out a process for a lawyer’s account to be assessed by an assessment officer of the Superior Court of Justice. Section 3 entitles a client…
As Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and former Ontario chief justice Warren Winkler have famously lamented, the costs of going to trial pose a great disincentive to access to justice for many civil litigants. According to the 2013 Canadian Lawyer legal fees survey, the cost of taking a civil action through to a two-day…
Lying close to the top of the litigator’s toolbox is a familiar, well-used instrument: the injunction. Injunctions have been sought and issued in wide-ranging circumstances, including in property litigation, commercial actions, IP infringement proceedings, labour disputes, and in cases of public proteses. They have been used to assist in preserving evidence (Anton Piller order, a.k.a.…