A Call for Humility in the Legal Profession We are the next generation of lawyers, and along with our responsibilities to our clients and to the courts, we have a responsibility to shape the legal profession. Many things are changing in the practice of law. We research statutes and find cases online. We write in a far more clear and succinct fashion. We are approaching client service in a much...
After getting my admission to Osgoode Hall earlier this year, I began thinking a bit about what area of law to go into. Then, strapped for cash, I took a job at an automobile assembly plant over the summer. The factory was sprawling, about the size of York’s Keele Campus, and inside was a winding assembly line, which was several kilometers in length. When the line ran smoothly, which it did...
Uncovering the parallels of the Scottish vote with our own, somewhat besmirched history of secession Last week, Scottish leaders followed in Quebec’s footsteps and held that nation’s first popular vote on secession from the United Kingdom. Sovereignty referenda are all too familiar to Canadians. Twice, in 1980 and again in 1995, the Parti Quebécois sought secession from Canada; the latter vote...
There has been substantial discussion about access to justice issues in the past several years. The inability of the most vulnerable in our society to utilize the legal system has been addressed through reforms to the legal system, the availability of pro bono services and clinics, and Legal Aid initiatives or programs. However, most of these discussions and reforms have been on the topics of...
Open any textbook on applied ethics, and you will find the same issues arising again and again: global economic justice, climate change, criminal punishment, world hunger, corporate responsibility, animal welfare, biotechnology. Philosophers don’t agree on much, but almost all of them will tell you that these issues are the biggest ethical challenges of our time. In fact, ask any theologian, and...
I’ve spent a fair portion of my time this semester exploring around the law. That is, instead of taking purely substantive law courses, I’ve been studying issues regarding legal theory and law and society. So far, it has provided me with much appreciated perspectives on the project of the law and its relation to social change. It is easy to become cynical over the idea. Some of us come to law...
A trademark can be almost anything that indicates a source or distinguishes a person’s goods or services. It can include words, symbols, graphics and even sound! Companies spend millions developing their trademark or “Brand.” The issue arises when defending or enforcing trademark rights, for example, from a passing off actions and trademark infringement claims under the Trade-marks Act (see...
“I go to Osgoode, not York.” This reflexive clarification is a matter of pride for my classmates at York University’s storied law school. The urge to distance our degrees from the university brand is visceral. Last week, it was once again easy to see why. Late Thursday evening, a young woman was shot in the Student Centre. A bystander was injured by shrapnel...
The Federal government narrative – that you can worry about the environmental impacts all you want, but the oil sands are fundamentally good for the Canadian economy – makes a lot of intuitive sense on two levels. First, the narrative is grounded in the historically positive ethos surrounding resource extraction in Canada. Canadians have long understood what laid at the foundation of our economy:...
It is an inescapable fact that our lives as lawyers will be guided in part by ethical considerations. For some of us, studying law is an opportunity to pursue social justice. For the rest of us, professional obligations require us to practice ethically and act in the public interest. And one issue that will affect all spheres of practice – from the lowly legal aid clinic to the high society Bay...
Kevin O’Leary’s recent comments on about how half the world living in poverty as “fantastic news” are disconcerting to say the least. According to O’Leary, “It gets them motivation to look up to the one percent and say I want to become one of those people. I am going to fight hard to get up to the top.” “I celebrate capitalism,” he said. You can see the video here. Let’s just take a work at what...
It is a widely held belief that addiction and pleasure make for poor bed fellows. Addicts are portrayed as wretched and joyless creatures: they are pale-faced and sunken-eyed hungry ghosts, stalking the urban landscape, wholly preoccupied with the addiction before them, deriving no pleasure from its fleeting abeyance. The architects of this paradigm are the medical authorities, who tell us that...
What are the costs of providing civil justice to Canadians? What are the costs of not providing access to civil justice for Canadians? These two questions are at the heart of one of the exciting projects underway at the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ). “The Cost of Justice: Weighing the Cost of Fair and Effective Resolution to Legal Problems” is a 5-year, SSHRC funded, interdisciplinary...
The legal world seems to be something of a paradox. Without missing a beat law societies and legal theory espouse lofty statements of morality, while at the same time encouraging lawyers to be nothing more than “amoral technicians”. The message is lawyers are the valiant vanguards of justice and right…unless the client just wants you to help increase the value of their stock, then do that. The...
Though every year seems to bring its own theme of revolution and social change, arguably 2014 can best be spent sewing our past hopes into our future aspirations. Perhaps it is time to put our current conception of “revolution” to rest, to build a new, more lasting, understanding of the idea. Since crossing into the age of majority, and being an avid news follower, I have found myself repeatedly...
And so a new year and a new semester have begun. Hopefully everyone had a fun but relaxing break. As promised, I did some leisure reading and finished watching season one of House of Cards (among other shows that I had neglected because of…well you know, law school). Surely, there is no need to describe the plot. Suffice to say that House of Cards is, generally put, a political drama. It is a...
It’s not just the nature of practising law – the habits and beliefs which make lawyers miserable are instilled right here in law school. 3L should be a time of celebration. Most of us have completed at least 7 years of post-secondary education, sometimes a lot more. We’ve been assessed and prodded more thoroughly than even the finest steak. We’ve beaten the odds again, and again, and again...
Allow me to open this article with a rather trite statement: judges and courts play an important role in the development of the common law. Their interpretations have wide-reaching influence, from determining the approach of lower courts in the future, to affecting how lawyers advise their clients. This effect is amplified in the Supreme Court of Canada, where only a relatively small number of...
And the countdown begins. A few days of classes remain. Then two weeks of sheer stress await. Of course, I am talking about exam-related stress, but only partially. There are the other kinds of stress, namely, Christmas-shopping stress. Naturally, as a busy law student, you will not have time to start until after exams are done. Panic will strike when you look at the list of people you have to...
Last week, Robyn Schleihauf published an article in the Obiter, condemning Trinity Western University’s (TWU) highly politicized application for accreditation of what could become BC’s fourth law school. She describes TWU’s Community Covenant as a “national disgrace,” proponents of which ignore “an underlying misconception: that requiring gay people to suppress their sexuality is not...
After another week of ridicule and embarrassment, Rob Ford is, whether in practice or name only, still our mayor. His resilience is, if nothing else, interesting. A man who has managed to morally and politically divide the city of Toronto’s population through actions that have next to nothing to do with his actual policies or political decisions, Ford has put all of Toronto in a unique and...
Many of you will have heard that the Federation of Law Societies has accredited Trinity Western University, a privately funded Christian university operating out of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, to run a law school. Trinity teaches through a Christian lens and requires all of its students and faculty to sign a “Community Covenant Agreement” and abide by certain community standards...
There is a certain kind of rivalry among siblings that is hard to describe. Perhaps it takes having siblings to truly understand experiencing un-vocalized love and very-vocalized competition, especially when your siblings make it to “high” places. So my dad and I often joke that he is the family’s parish priest, whose brothers have been made cardinals. While the priest has his ear to the ground...
At first, I was somewhat ambivalent about my stance on the Quebec Charter of Values.
Nicholas Banerd <Contributor>
I have always fervently supported the idea of a secular state. The Parti Quebecois’ ban on religious symbols would only apply to state-workers, and citizens seeking government services.
We need to talk about it. Why is mental health such a taboo topic, especially among law students? The fact is, many of us are going through the same thing, so we should talk about it. So, let’s have the talk.
What is it about law school that makes law students believe they do not belong? Why do so many of us feel that we got in by fluke? What are the pressures that law students are facing?