As the clock hit zero, Lebron James let out a shout of triumph as he and his teammates rushed to the court to celebrate winning another championship for Los Angeles. The celebration was different this year: with no fans present at the arena, the only sounds the audience could hear from home were the Lakers’ cheers of joy as confetti fell in the stadium. A few minutes later, the Lakers were...
2020 has been a tough year for tennis. After the Australian Open back in January, things quickly turned downhill for the professional circuit with major tournaments being cancelled left and right. Wimbledon was cancelled (the last time the tournament was cancelled was during the Second World War), the ill-fated inaugural Adria Tour was abandoned amidst a COVID-related scandal, and Novak Djokovic...
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...
A company that wishes to offer its shares to the wider public and finally achieve what is often viewed as a company’s biggest milestone traditionally pursues an initial public offering (IPO)—but those times are changing. Both the state of a company when it goes public and the means used to achieve going public have been radically re-thought with the use of the special purpose acquisition company...
It can be no surprise that such an instant and dramatic change to the business landscape, via COVID-19, has caused certain firms to thrive while others sink. In addition to companies struggling to survive, people have struggled to make do: lost jobs, cut wages and unexpected expenses. This is not a reality for the companies that have best positioned themselves to thrive, whether by business...
On Sunday, Sept. 27, violence once more erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the long-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a reserved territory located in the south Caucasus Mountains. As the ethnic and territorial hostility continues to heighten, the region has been thrust into uncertainty and on the edge once more in response to long-held claims over the land. The conflict dates back to...
In a Time of Remote Learning, Students on Campus Face Additional Challenges Remote learning and social distancing have had a significant impact on law students at Osgoode, some of whom are facing these strange circumstances while living on campus at Osgoode Chambers. One major change is that students who live in residence are forced to attend the bulk of their classes via Zoom in their rooms...
Since the beginning of September, there has been a significant increase in daily COVID-19 cases province-wide, most likely due to the reopening of schools and universities. New daily cases now top five hundred, up from less than a hundred in the middle of August and surpassing the pandemic’s first peak in April. However, despite the recent upward trend in COVID-19 cases, Ontarians should not be...
By-elections have been called for October 26th in the ridings of Toronto Centre and York Centre. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, voters in these two ridings will be electing two members of Parliament (MPs) to represent them in the House of Commons. Both Toronto Centre and York Centre were formerly held by Liberal MPs, and while many predictions have the Liberals retaining these two seats, nothing...
A Public Diary Entry from Corey LeBlanc The start of a new school year can always be a stressful time. Doubly-so in the high-pressure environment that is law school. And so further in the COVID-era. Consequently, the fact that my September was going to be a little rocky was to be expected. However, the extent to which my little karmic ship was hammered by the proverbial open-and-stormy waters...
As the leaves begin to change, and we find ourselves spending more time at home, Obiter wants to provide you with some recommendations to keep you busy during your study (or procrastination) breaks. Documentary – Knock Down the House (Netflix) This documentary follows the primary campaigns of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) and three other female progressive Democrats who ran for Congress in...
“The better you do in Legal Ethics, the more corrupt you are as a lawyer.” This was told to me by a senior (and evidently, jaded) lawyer when I first began at Osgoode. I believe the underlying assumption of this perspective is that Legal Ethics, as it is traditionally taught, tests your ability to manipulate and argue rules, rather than cultivate “goodness” as a lawyer. Consequently, this...
Welcome to Osgoode. You’ve made it. Congratulations! Over the past few years, you’ve worked to earn stellar grades, experienced the blissful joy of writing the LSAT, and spent countless hours thinking about your wonderful self as you prepared your personal statement. Reality check. You’re smart and sharp. So is everyone else. And now, you’ll be graded on a curve in a school where everyone wants...
The question of who ought to possess the legal right to vote, or who should form the electorate, warrants serious attention. I defend posthumous voting: the view that deceased persons should be permitted to vote. I argue that posthumous events, including state actions, can affect the well-being of persons who are dead. This fact, I argue, warrants the inclusion of the dead in the electorate...
Get Active on Your Professional Social Media Accounts Soon after being accepted into law school, I contacted a few law students that were in my network to ask them for advice on what to expect during 1L. Ali, a 3L at Windsor Law and a former colleague of mine, sent me some general advice. At the top of that list was to get on Twitter professionally. I had been a Twitter user since high school...
Human beings are knowledge-seeking creatures. Evolutionary biologists explain this phenomenon as associated with our awareness of our own vulnerability and mortality. As such, people are sensitive to the amount of information that they possess or lack at any given moment. Intriguingly, we are bothered by either knowing too much or too little. On the one hand, we risk misapprehending the risks in...
It goes without saying how much COVID-19 has impacted the world of sports. It is now October and it hasn’t been a week since the Tampa Bay Lightning bested the Dallas Stars, winning their second Stanley Cup in franchise history in Edmonton, Alberta of all places. Beyond rescheduling and reformatting the playoffs, the NHL was forced to delay some of the most important dates of the offseason: the...
The night of June 13th, 2019 was supposed to be the greatest night in Masai Ujiri’s professional career. It was the night Ujiri’s Toronto Raptors defeated the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the NBA Finals 114-110, to secure the first NBA Championship in franchise history. In the dying moments of the game at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, Raptors President Masai Ujiri tried to go on the...
On the ice, the Tampa Bay Lightning finally got the equation right. After unceremoniously being removed from the playoffs last year by the Columbus Blue Jackets in an ugly 4-0 series, the Lightning found their stride in the 2020 playoffs. Perhaps it was getting all-star defenceman, Victor Hedman, back. Or perhaps it was the trade deadline depth acquisitions of Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow...
On Monday, September 28, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, approved the Kobe Bryant Act. This invasion of privacy bill moved to make it a criminal office for any emergency responders to take or share unauthorized photos of deceased persons at the scene of an accident. This issue first arose earlier in 2020, following the sudden passing of basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, his daughter...
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...
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of our lives in ways both big and small; from wearing PPE around on our day-to-day dalliances to lining up outside the grocery stores to purchase household staples. And, for many Canadians, the closing of most international borders is a particularly harsh reminder of our new inconvenient reality – especially as we enter fall and with winter on fast...
“I would like to be remembered as someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability.” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve as a justice on the U.S Supreme Court, an unyielding trailblazer for gender equality, and a lifelong advocate for women’s legal rights, passed away at the age of 87 due to complications from...
Around 15 years after a suicide car bomb in Beirut killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others on February 14, 2005, the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in Ayyash et al. convicted Salim Ayyash, an operative in the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah. Ayyash was convicted of five charges including conspiracy aimed at committing a terrorist act...