In 2024, the International Legal Ethics Conference is July 17-19 at the University of Amsterdam. To support the attendance of graduate students and post-doctoral scholars CALE/ACEJ has created a travel grant program, similar to its program for the annual conference, for ILEC 2024. Graduate students and post-doctoral scholars in the field of legal ethics and professionalism are eligible to apply for a travel grant towards the cost of attending ILEC. To qualify they must either be (i) enrolled or based at a Canadian university or (ii) a Canadian enrolled or based at a foreign university. They mu ..read more

As winter turns to spring, we ramp up the planning for the annual conference. At this point we want to get the dates and location out to potential attendees so they can start thinking about their travel plans. The conference will take place October 24-26, 2024. It will be in Halifax, Nova Scotia, hosted by the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. Professor Richard Devlin and Assistant Professor Andrew Flavelle Martin are the conference co-organizers. The conference will start on the evening of Thursday, October 24 with an informal social get-together. The sessions will start on the ..read more

CALE members who have an interest in legal ethics and professionalism at the international or comparative level are recommended to check out the new website of the International Association of Legal Ethics, which is here. As part of a technological transition, the IAOLE is asking its previous members and anyone else who wants to become a member to register as a member under the Membership tab of the website. The IAOLE is the host organization of the International Legal Ethics Conference (ILEC), held every two years, which was at UCLA in 2022 and will be at the University of Amsterdam on July 1 ..read more

Registration is now open for the 2024 Ethics Forum, which is presented as a partnership between the CBA, FLSC and CALE. It happens on Friday, March 22, 2024 at the CBA conference centre in Toronto. For more information, including a detailed agenda with topics and speakers, see this web page. This year’s panel sessions are entitled “Competence and Diversity”, “Law and Generative AI” and “The Duty to Report – How Far Does This Ethical Obligation Extend?” There will also be a keynote presentation over lunch on “Neurotechnology and the Practice of Law: Legal Ethics Intersections”.  The Ethics Foru ..read more

On October 21, 2023, CALE/ACEJ held its annual meeting of members at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria. In his report, President Stephen Pitel outlined CALE/ACEJ’s activities over the past year, including: the transition of the Chief Information Officer role from Amy Salyzyn to Basil Alexander; transitioning the listserv from UOttawa to Google Groups; implementing a Travel Grant Program to support graduate students and post-doctoral fellows attending the conference; partnering with the CBA and FLSC for the 2023 Ethics Forum; submissions to the FLSC’s National Requirement Review Commit ..read more

On October 20, 2023, during the annual conference at the University of Victoria, CALE/ACEJ presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Senator Brent Cotter. The award is for having demonstrated “sustained accomplishments in the field of legal ethics and professionalism”. Brent is one of the best-known and best-regarded scholars of legal ethics in Canada.  Throughout his career as a law professor, Brent has taught and published in the area of legal ethics.  Indeed, he is one of very few professors who specialized in legal ethics prior to 2000.  He played a fundamental role in inc ..read more

The next International Legal Ethics Conference will be held July 17-19, 2024 at the University of Amsterdam (details available here).  This major legal ethics conference is held every two years.  Recent previous conferences include UCLA (2022), Melbourne (2018), Fordham (2016) and City University London (2014). The organizers have issued a call for proposals (available here), which includes both papers and other kinds of presentation such as workshops.  Proposals are due by February 7, 2024.  The theme is “Legal Professionals in a Digitalising World”. It would be great ..read more

The annual conference was held on October 19-21, 2023, at the University of Victoria. Pooja Parmar, the Vice-President of CALE/ACEJ, was the conference coordinator. She was assisted by Alan Treleaven, Robert Tapper, Laura Hamilton and Tayana Simpson. They did a terrific job and made all attendees very welcome. The conference was generously supported by the University of Victoria, the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the Law Society of British Columbia. It featured introductory remarks and a land acknowledgement from Dr. Skip Dick (a Songhees Nation Elder with a long association with t ..read more

In June 2023 the National Requirement Review Committee of the FLSC invited feedback on options and preliminary proposals for amendments to the National Requirement described in a Discussion Paper available on the FLSC website. The National Requirement specifies the competencies and skills graduates of Canadian law school programs and internationally trained graduates and lawyers must have acquired to be admitted to law society admission programs in the Canadian common law jurisdictions. CALE/ACEJ had previously provided submissions (available here) at an earlier stage of the Review Committee’s ..read more

Thanks to conference coordinator Pooja Parmar and her team, details of the upcoming (October 19-21, 2023) CALE/ACEJ conference at the University of Victoria are now available and registration is open. All the information you need is here. The program, registration link, hotel information and a handy things-to-do document (prepared by Rob Lapper) are available. The conference features over 25 presenters covering a wide array of topics. Your registration is not confirmed until you receive an e-mail from Laura Hamilton. Due to room capacity issues, there is an upper limit on the number of people ..read more