American Hustle (2013) 3/4 Deviously antic, deliriously energetic, and unrepentantly jumbled, American Hustle is a stereotype-drenched piece of cockeyed comedy and a pratfall-ridden work of dazzling showmanship. It’s juicy, relentless, dizzying, diverting, and works from the feet up, leaving you revved and tickled. Writer-director David O. Russell has mashed up a larcenous cast from his last two...
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...
The NHL’s Western Conference has reigned supreme over the Eastern Conference for the better part of a decade. Since the end of the 2004-05 NHL lockout, Western Conference teams have consistently gotten the better of Eastern Conference opponents, winning close to 60% of inter-conference games in each season. In addition, the West had produced 5 of the last 7 Stanley Cup Champions. However, the...
This year, the Academic Policy and Planning Committee (APPC) (a part of Faculty Council here at Osgoode), has been discussing the bell curve and its application to small classes. The scope of the discussion includes all seminars, intensive/clinical programs and classes with enrolments under thirty students. As one of your student representatives on the APPC, I would like to take the opportunity...
It started with a joke. On our way to Washington Square Park, struck by the startlingly warm – especially for November – air, we saw a falafel stand. I turned to my friend Daniel and remarked to him with complete sincerity – sorry, artificial sincerity, I was completely lying – that it was the best falafel in town. It was probably no more the best falafel in town than the hot dog stand at St...
On December 20th the Supreme Court of Canada released the Bedford decision, striking down Canada’s prostitution laws as unconstitutional, suspending the decision for one year. As an interested law student, I shadowed a member of one of the intervenors in the case, the Asian Women’s Coalition Ending Prostitution (“AW”), at the media scrum on the day the decision was handed down. AW is a...
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...
In late November, the Obiter Dicta ran a seemingly light and playful article on how Osgoode students could hide any extra pounds gained in the winter months. The article detailed how bold colours, structured tops, and “make up enhancers” could create a slimmer look. While these recommendations may aim to help individuals gain greater self-esteem in their appearance, they also have the effect of...
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...
In 1979, I left Osgoode Hall Law School, law degree in hand, excited and anxious about an uncharted career ahead. Thirty five years later, I am back at Osgoode, honoured to be selected as a Roy McMurtry Clinical Fellow.
From January 13 to February 7, I will be at Osgoode full time, eager to add to your legal education, and to learn as much as I can.
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...
During reading week, I had the opportunity to travel to Prague to visit a good friend of mine, and of course, to do research for my Entertainment and Sports law seminar paper. PIERA SAVAGE <Contributor> I’d been to Prague a few months before, in late August, when it was still quite warm, and had fallen in love with the charming city. I welcomed the opportunity that reading week provided to...
Kate Cash is one amazing second year student. As a fellow Section D buddy and having seen her perform, I wanted to write about her for the second edition of Avant Garde – but through the process, I learned that my talented friend can teach us about the importance of following your heart, but keeping your brain fed, too, throughout the journey. Kate has been a musician and bartender for much of...
Maybe that’s an overstatement. There are lots of good things about Christmas, especially since I moved away from home six years ago. Free from the burdens of exam season, I return to my parents’ home and relax. Every year, it’s the first time in months that I’ve had nothing to do and nowhere to be. I spend the time preparing baked goods, reading books, watching movies, and, more recently...
What is the biggest issue facing sports today? Is it doping? Head injuries? If you ask investigative sports journalist and recent Osgoode guest Declan Hill, he would tell you that there is no bigger issue in sport than corruption and match-fixing. Match-fixing refers to the practice by which sports are played to a pre-determined result in order to earn a profit by betting on the match. One...
As the year comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on past misgivings. Sadly, I had done nothing of importance to be considered for the Top 20 Under Twenty before I turned 20 myself. In response, I wrote this lamentation: Due to the unfortunate condition that will be imposed on me in a moment’s time, and the utter urgency for me to perform some magnanimous action, I have decided to compose this...
According to information received by Obiter Dicta this week, the Legal and Literary Society’s 2013-14 budget includes an operating deficit of $22 825. Approved unanimously at a special September 12 meeting, the budget includes categorized revenues and expenditures for, among other things, clubs and major L&L events throughout the year. Legal and Lit’s constitution requires publication of the...
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...
Like many Canadians, I can remember exactly where I was when Sidney Crosby scored the “golden goal,” propelling the Canadian men’s Olympic hockey team victory over the United States at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (it was at a hotel in the Dominican Republic, in case anyone is curious). The 2010 Olympic hockey tournament was by far the most invested I have ever been in a sporting event in which I...
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...
I can’t tell you what Professor Michael Mandel meant to each of the approximately 4000 students he had a hand in educating over his lengthy 39-year academic career; I can, however, tell you what he meant to me. Through this, those of you who had the chance to learn from him might remember something about the experience, and those of you who didn’t might perhaps be able to get some idea of what it...