Our Take On Things
The Brampton Court House Shooting – Thanks to All who keep us safe
Our firm has trial lawyers, myself included, who find ourselves in the Brampton Court House with fair regularity. We don't like being in Brampton. The Court Clerk Staff are overworked and matters take far longer there than in other jurisdictions. For eg. the clerk...
So you want to leave an adult child out of your will
As business lawyers, helping business owners with Estate Planning is part of what we do. I'm not going to write a long and detailed (yawn) blog post about all of the "interesting" technical issues that come up in drafting wills. Today, I'm going to write a direct and...
Know your customer so we can help you more efficiently
In sitting down to write this Blog, I tried to think of a business that doesn't have customers. I can't come up with one - if you can, send me an email and let me know. If you don't have customers, well then, read some of the old Blogs because this one is not meant...
Sometimes laws work in unusual ways
Leamington, Ontario, is the tomato capital of Canada. Many of the former and soon to be former workers of the Heinz tomato factory located there may now disagree. But then enters the Canadian Agricultural Products Act, which requires that tomato juice in Canada must...
International Women's Day
Tomorrow is International Women's Day. Sometimes I get frustrated that we have to single out women as a special group - I just want to be equal, not separate. However, today I choose to reflect on the fact that tomorrow is not "Canadian Women's Day" it is...
Public Safety vs. Human Rights
The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal recently ruled in favour of a foreign trained Engineer who claimed he was being discriminated against as he had failed the proficiency exam for Engineers in that province three times. The Alberta Human Rights Commission ordered the...
The Outrage about Severence Pay
The Toronto Community Housing Corp. was in the media last week, for amongst other things, paying severance to 26 employees it dismissed in 2013. The stats show the payment of severance at the TCHC is up from pervious years. No kidding. I would imagine most companies...
Canada is #1 at the Olympics (right now) and in Business
What a great morning to wake up Canadian - we currently are in first place in the Olympic Medal tally. We have a lot to be proud of as a country: this goes well beyond our ability to ski, skate, curl & hurtle down icy tracks on a small sled facing forward. We are a...
Expectations of Internet Privacy
Oh the excitement in the media recently: the Canadian Government spied on the activities of Passengers at (presumably) Pearson Airport who logged onto the free Wi-Fi. Shocked? You shouldn't be. My first thoughts in reading the story were "who has an expectation of...
Mental Health & Business
Today is Bell's "Let's Talk Day" and the entire month of January has brought mental health issues to the forefront of the media - seems like the perfect time to talk about the legal aspects of Mental Health. A mental health problem is a tough problem for an Employer...
There should be ZERO expectation of privacy in prison
I don’t practice criminal law for a reason. The extension of Charter rights to every facet of police and detention procedure in dealing with an accused, and the resulting dismissal or stay of charges for minor breaches, has always infuriated me. When I was in law...
Parties who do not have lawyers
The news this week included the Canadian Bar Association report that called for more funding for Legal Aid given the increase of unrepresented litigants before the Courts. This lead to much discussion about the number of people who are representing themselves before...
Are you out of time, legally speaking?
Did you know that there are time limits that can prevent you from suing a party, if you wait too long? Unfortunately, many businesses learn that lesson the hard way and it is so unavoidable. Most lawsuits in Ontario must be started within two years after the event...
The Night Before Christmas (with appologies to Clement Clarke Moore)
'Twas the night before Christmas (or the holidays if Christmas is not your thing), When all through the firm, Not a creature was stirring, not even Paul Voorn. The files were stored in the file room with care, The desks were all tidy, each had a pushed in chair. The...
The Self Regulation of Lawyers
As Ontario lawyers, our profession is regulated by the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC for short - oh yeah, we pronounce it that way too ). The proclaimed goal of the LSUC is to regulate the profession to protect the public: if we don't, the government would step in...
Hiring to protect the Employer & the Employee
Have you heard the ads on the AM radio stations lately? You know the ones that say “If you have been fired, don’t sign anything without calling XYZ law firm: we don’t get paid if you don’t get paid.” If you have not, you can bet your staff has, and this is part of...
Small Claims Court is Overloaded
22 years ago when I was an Articling Student, the Small Claims Court limit was $3000.00 except in Toronto where it was $ 6000.00. I forget exactly when (I'm old) but it was bumped up to $ 10 000.00 across the province and of course, a few years ago, up to $ 25 000.00....
Lawyer/Client Confidentiality – Protecting it in the age of Google
Have you seen the Microsoft Gift Shop Mugs yet? They say "Keep Calm while We Steal your Data". As a lawyer the thought of someone stealing my data is a bigger problem that the mug suggests. As a lawyer, everything my client and I discuss is confidential (yes, there...
The R Word
Rob is the R word, of course. If you live in the Greater Toronto area there is no escaping that word these days. In the rest of the world Rob is making his presence known, but there are other news stories that have the headlines. I've watched this drama unfold with...
Experience is Priceless
I’ve been a lawyer for 20 years now. When I was a new lawyer I thought lawyers who were in practice as long as I have been were ancient. I was right. I recently enjoyed an out of Court examination with a relatively young lawyer. That lawyer didn’t know the rules that...
What we can teach our High School Students
Tomorrow is take your Grade 9 to work day. Our firm is participating and looking forward to exposing a student to the reality of what being a lawyer is: it's not all Courtrooms & cross examinations, they will learn there is a fair amount of "boring desk work"...