The international community received a welcome dose of optimism earlier this week when Moderna Inc., a Massachusetts-based biotech company, released encouraging evidence of its progress in developing a vaccine effective against COVID-19. According to early data released by the company, the Moderna vaccine has proven to be 94.5% effective against COVID-19 upon evaluation by members of the Data...
Connor Campbell is an articling student at McMillian LLP in Toronto, Ontario, and Editor Emeritus of Obiter Dicta. Connor previously served as a staff illustrator for Obiter during his 1L year at Osgoode, before serving as Editor-in-Chief during his 2L and 3L years. Connor was also the staff cartoonist for The Varsity, the school paper at the University of Toronto. Connor graduated from Osgoode...
You may be surprised to learn that Snapchat was not profitable until nearly two years after its IPO – that is, until the third quarter of 2020 when it beat analysts’ estimates on revenue and finally generated a profit of US $0.01 per share (1.23 billion shares outstanding). Snap beat estimates for Q3 by $127 million, generating $679 million and narrowing its net loss from $227 million to $200...
The Mi’kmaq peoples of Mi’kma’ki, which is now called Nova Scotia, are being attacked by white supremacist lobster fishers because they have an Aboriginal Treaty right to fish and to a moderate livelihood. Full stop. That’s it, that’s all. Call it what it is. What is happening on the East Coast has nothing to do with conservation or concern for overfishing. It is quite the opposite. White...
If the theme of the 2016 US election was rage in the electorate – rage against a changing country, rage against globalism, rage against corporatism, rage against capitalism, rage against immigration, rage against racism, rage against sexism – the theme of the 2020 US election is undoubtedly rage in the media. On a daily basis the news media – from the corporate broadcast...
Why Solange’s 2016 release carries weight today To paraphrase James Baldwin, to be Black and conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time, and if there was an apt time for such an expression to ring true, it would be today. 2020 has been a uniquely difficult time to be Black. From being inundated with reminders of our own mortality, to losing widely revered figures who had an integral role in...
Winged Words Series Story #2 In 2015, I spent the summer hostel hopping, allowing the cost of my flights to determine my destination. Who could turn down €20 airfare to Stockholm? Just imagine the least glamorous way to get from point A to B, and then add in the fact that most of my clothes at the time had been purchased at Primark, and were only washed in shallow sinks – once a week...
As some of you already know, most of the time I write about love. Because of that, I spent a lot of time this summer staring at a blank screen, waiting for the right words to spill from my fingers. They never did. There was not much to either sew or harvest. Imagine if we had actually kept track of the ways we’d spoiled our earth and its residents. I have also said that I cannot pretend to have...
Welcome to Obiter 2020-2021 When I joined Obiter in 2018, I had a simple goal; write about law school as little as possible, and remind people that behind their academic veneer, they were far more than just students. I wrote to show people that who they were before law school was someone still worth being, that these legal identities prescribed for us were not as all-consuming as they felt. ...
This year, more than any other year, Obiter Dicta is committed to ensuring the voices that need to be heard have a platform to call theirs. We are committed to doing everything within our power as a paper to publish pieces that are representative of the change that has occurred, and the change that is yet to come. Police brutality, structural racism, and systemic injustice have inspired the...
From Dr. Theresa Tam to Osgoode Hall’s Faculty Council When the pandemic first became a reality late last spring, it was not obvious what the world would look like six months down the road. Many – including myself – were expecting a shut-down of at least a couple months, but nobody could have predicted that we would still be practicing social distancing on a society-wide scale in mid...
Last Friday, Hicks Morley hosted a moot at Osgoode — just like last year. I competed with Jeff Adams — just like last year. We made it to the final round in the Moot Court room, and Hicks treated Osgoode students to dinner at Osteria Da Geppetto (Sud Forno) — just like last year. But last Friday, there was a striking difference: John Kloosterman was not there. Because...
The last time I felt this lonely, I was living by myself on an ostrich farm in the-middle-of-nowhere, Guatemala. I would go for a run every day, find a tree to sit under, and cry. It’s sad, but also funny, in a dramatic kind of way. I was living that maudlin storybook life: drunk on desolation, epiphanies galore. I walked away from that dang ostrich farm with a very deep understanding of...
My oldest step-sister and I have always been close. Maybe it’s because we’re both the “eldest” but mostly, I think we’re just wired in similar ways. In a few years, she’ll finish her PhD in Social Work in Calgary. Until then, her trips to Toronto and ours together are the best kind of time we spend. Professionally, she’s spent a good chunk of her adult life helping patients and their families...
You may be wondering what exactly L&L does at Osgoode. Before joining the executive this year, I didn’t quite understand the breadth of activities that L&L supports or leads. I thought of it as your typical student government offering social events here and there. I also thought of it as a fairly insulated group (for a student government at least) which is why I am writing this article to...
The view expressed herein reflect the view of the author, and does not reflect the opinion of Obiter or its Editorial Board. Obiter Dicta stands for freedom of expression, and commits to reflecting in its print editions the variety of viewpoints submitted for publication. We always welcome student feedback, whether we agree with it or not. This is one such viewpoint. Against the backdrop of the...
If You Don’t Like What We Have To Say, Why Don’t You Write Why & Attach Your Name to It?
Why do it? Why shouldn’t you? Last year around this time, it was all anyone could talk about. Are you applying, where to, what are your grades like, do you think you want to do corporate law, etc. Everyone has an understandable and deep personal desire to be the best, to stand out from their peers, and send a message that their choice to go to law school was the right one...
On January 3rd, 2018, I went to visit a friend, Simon, at North York General Hospital. We met in high school at De La Salle College (‘Del’), where he was a year behind me. Simon had beaten cancer once, before coming to Del. I spoke to him over the summer, when his osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, was back. This time, he said it was terminal. I started law school in September. I...
On January 3rd, 2018, I went to visit a friend, Simon, at North York General Hospital. We met in high school at De La Salle College (‘Del’), where he was a year behind me. Simon had beaten cancer once, before coming to Del. I spoke to him over the summer, when his osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, was back. This time, he said it was terminal. I started law school in September. I...
This paper is a lot of things, but it would be none of them without the contributions that come from our community. We are a platform for your thoughts, opinions, beliefs and ideas: blank pages to be filled with your colours. Print is not dead, but some days it fights to live. You are the reason that fight has not come to Osgoode’s campus. You engaged vibrantly with Obiter this term and we...
And Something About the Recruit If nothing else, after this week, we will be able to talk about something else. When this issue hits shelves, many of our 2L colleagues will be halfway through a racking week of recruitment. And while this will mark the end of the formal 2L recruit, it will only be a punctuation mark for others, because only some students will receive job offers on Wednesday. Your...
Reflections from Someone Still Learning to Lead If you come by the Obiter office often enough, I will probably try to show you a video called “Give Me Compliments.” It was made by Kollectivet, a group of musically inclined German comics. The video is absurd; it went viral on Instagram years ago; and its premise is simple. The singer wants compliments for the simplest, most quotidian tasks...
When was the last time you really failed? As law students, we are trained to treat that question like a beast that we must learn to both tame and strategically unleash. Failure becomes a tool we use to make an impression; it’s not about what impression failure left on us. It’s a hot topic in interviews, but seems to be denied in contexts outside of that. I mostly hear about failure being raised...