“The traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most (but not all) professionals to be replaced by less expert people and high-performing systems.” This is the central message of The Future of Professions, a new book from Richard and Daniel Susskind. Machines, they argue, will take over much professional work. Even when the machines cannot do so alone, the Susskinds expect that they will...
250 years of ineffective forest management doesn’t mean that we can’t get it right in the future A study published in last week’s issue of Science, a prestigious scientific journal,seemed to uncover another negative consequence of the human footprint: 250 years of forest management in Europe didn’t remove carbon from the planet, but added to it. The three European authors of this study simulated...
Examining Alcohol and Zika Virus Policies The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) created a small controversy on 2 February after it released a report that recommended sexually active women should abstain from drinking alcohol. The CDC’s report intends to reduce the risk of accidental but harmful complications to pregnancies. However, some organizations have criticized the CDC’s recommendations. For...
Painting a snapshot of 1L and the narratives that are excluded from the realm of law using literary prose The OFC’s recent excavation of the history of the Women’s Caucus has prompted the Feminisms of Osgoode Past to revisit their relatives at the law school today. The body of documents, zines, and ephemera we have unearthed are sometimes uplifting and even enlightening, and sometimes offensive...
This past week, I had the fortunate opportunity to interview a Toronto-based legal innovator. Amer Mushtaq, a lawyer at Formative LLP and an Osgoode alum, recently launched www.YouCounsel.ca, an online course to help self-represented litigants make their way through the small claims court system. I had the chance to speak with Amer about his background, the inspiration for You Counsel, and what...
Awkward Confessions from a Mostly-Reformed Dope Fiend Justin Trudeau’s plan to legalize marijuana possession has created quite the stir in the last year or so, and frankly, it’s about time we unscheduled the stuff. I don’t actually have much of a dog in this particular fight. I’m not going to be a blatant liar and say I don’t ever partake, but to say legalization would have any impact on my day...
The history, present, and future of gambling and sports A recent investigative report alleges widespread match fixing in high-level professional tennis. These serious allegations again raise serious concerns relating to sports gambling. The dangers of sports gambling and its potential to corrupt the competitive process is not new. In 1919, eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of...
Why We Should Play The Most Sensible Lottery General Managers (GMs) in Major League Baseball (MLB) often want to try to catch lightning in a bottle when and if they can, especially given the current economics of the game, where the average salary of a big league player now exceeds $4,000,000 per season. One highly economic way often utilized that goes far back in time is the infamous Rule Five...
Entering the 2015-2016 NFL season, few expected the Carolina Panthers to repeat as division champions, and no one foresaw the team getting 15 wins, let alone making a trip to the Super Bowl. In the summer, Kelvin Benjamin went down with a torn knee. As the Panthers best receiver, this did not bode well for their playoff chances. At the same time, great teams find ways to win. This is football. ...
What the X-Files Reboot Tells us About the Persistence of the Gendered Wage Gap Bradley Cooper made headlines last autumn when he vowed to do more to address the gendered wage gap by working with his female co-stars to negotiate for equal pay for lead roles in films. His remarks came in response to Jennifer Lawrence’s public statements earlier in the month, which expressed both her frustration at...
A Make or Break Moment for Sanity in Politics 2016 looks like it’s going to be a pretty weird year for politics; if current trends continue, it’s only going to get weirder. Canada’s mostly avoided the worst of the lunacy that seems to be taking hold of the United States, but between Kevin O’Leary thinking about running for the federal Conservative leadership and Doug Ford salivating at the...
Over $2.3 million in bursary money distributed in the Fall process One of the first real deadlines Osgoode students face at the beginning of the school year is not an academic one; rather, it is the deadline to submit one’s bursary application. As students are acutely aware, law school is expensive and many look to Osgoode’s financial aid to offset some of the cost. On average, bursary applicants...
Adjunct Professors: carrying the majority of the teaching load, at a fraction of the cost Hallway conversations at Osgoode follow a typical pattern in the early weeks of the semester: “Good to see you,” “how are things?” “What courses are you in?” The answer to the last question can be up-in-the-air as students try to arrange the perfect schedule. This leads to inquiries about the professors...
Most students at Osgoode know that once upon a time new law students were required to learn Latin. I heard this little bit of trivia in an Ethical Lawyering class during my first week. The point that my professor was trying to make was that the Law Society used to throw up all kinds of barriers to keep “certain people” out of the practice. The idea was absurd enough that my classmates...
Exploring the Paradox This article is not for everyone. If you are looking for an in-depth analysis of a Supreme Court case, or a cover on how to secure that Bay Street interview, move right along! If you are going to stay, however, keep in mind that most of the generalizations made here are meant to be illustrative of the greater point and, really, it’s not that serious. It has recently occurred...
Breaking Through I. Lay of the Land There are broader discussions about the need to take mental illness seriously in the legal profession, but in the din we may lose track of our peers for whom the topic is a lived reality. Rather than critiquing our system and proposing systemic solutions, I want to speak here about what resources there for those of us who are struggling and the concomitant...
Unfortunately Not an Archaic Procedure of the Past We as Canadians have a dark history of oppression and violence enacted upon marginalized populations. Unfortunately, some of this oppression and violence lives on, often occurring under the radar of many Canadians’ knowledge. The sterilization of vulnerable and marginalized groups was used as a process of eugenics in a much more direct and...
The continued downfall of a charitable empire Having to live paycheck-to-paycheck is a harsh reality for many, and one of the scariest thoughts for a low-income worker is arriving to your job and seeing that it no longer exists. This happened on 17 January 2016 to the workers at Goodwill Toronto, when it closed sixteen stores and ten donation centres in the GTA, leaving 430 front line employees...
This past Wednesday marked the sixth annual Bell Let’s Talk Day, a public awareness campaign designed to break the silence around mental illness across Canada. This leads me to speak of several recent student submissions to the Obiter. We received powerful and deeply personal stories about mental illness whose authors requested that their names not be published. As a result, a number of...
By: Matthew Dylag B.A. (Hons.), LL.B., LL.M. (Candidate 2016) Today, it is generally accepted that in order to effectively improve access to justice, one first has to properly understand the legal needs of the ordinary person. Modern access to justice literature takes as its premise that the focus of reform must be on the problems experienced by the public, not just those that are adjudicated by...
Covering 1–21 January 2016 Legal shows are apparently back in vogue (or at least the true crime variety). Netflix’s Making a Murderer and soon-to-air American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson (not to be confused with the also airing American Crime—which is also worth a watch if you are a L&O: SVU fan) are examples of television shows riding the popularity of the genre. Also airing is a...
Several months ago, I surveyed the Toronto classical music scene for the Fall semester with the hope of providing some recommendations for both new enthusiasts and seasoned aficionados of classical music. These included performances of Beethoven’s immensely popular Fifth Symphony, Rimsky-Korsakov’s exotic Scheherazade, and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. And so, with the start of...
Your Life Can and May be Used Against You Just in time for the first week of our Ethical Lawyering classes, Lori Douglas recently spoke out about the humiliating experiences that led to her premature retirement. For those of you who don’t recall, Lori Douglas is the Manitoba judge whose career was ruined after nude photographs of her became public knowledge. The photos were posted online without...
Gender still influential in perceptions of “fair process” On 7 January, it was announced that Alberta Attorney General Kathleen Ganley has moved for the Canadian Judicial Council to skip the review panel phase of its investigation into the conduct of Federal Court Judge Robin Camp and move directly into the formal inquiry phase. Camp made headlines last autumn when criticism began to mount over...
“Monkey see, monkey sue is not good law—at least not in the Ninth Circuit” I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be taking copyright this semester; it seems like 2016 is quickly shaping up to be a tumultuous year for this area of law. The year started off with controversy after the copyright to Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf expired on 31 December 2015. The copyright had been held since his...