“This is the largest theft in the United States, period.” Such is the judgment of author and scriptwriter Justine Bateman who has complained to the US Copyright Office that the AI industry has scraped her work, much as it has everything else, having exhausted Wikipedia and Reddit it is moving on YouTube transcripts and Google docs. This is what it takes to assemble the trillions of words needed to expand the training of ever-more-powerful Large Language Models (LLMs). As a result, Bateman’s complaint has become a common charge. Authors (notably Sarah Silverman and John Grisham), publishers (U ..read more

Written by Christina Catenacci, BA, LLB, LLM, PhD, Content Editor, First Reference Inc. In February 2024, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador certified a privacy class action. The representative plaintiffs, on behalf of 260 individuals (first 240 individuals, and second 20 individuals), alleged that their privacy was violated when an employee of the defendant employer (a health authority) accessed the private information of these individuals that was outside the scope of their employment. The employer became aware of the first and second alleged breaches in 2020 and 2021, respective ..read more

Several times each month, we are pleased to republish a recent book review from the Canadian Law Library Review (CLLR). CLLR is the official journal of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL/ACBD), and its reviews cover both practice-oriented and academic publications related to the law. Public Health Crisis Management and Criminal Liability of Governments: A Comparative Study of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Edited by Michael Bohlander, Gerhard Kemp & Mark Webster. New York: Bloomsbury, 2023. xii, 368 p. Includes preface, list of contributors, abbreviations, and index. ISBN 97815099463 ..read more

There are a lot of ways to characterize any event, and a good lawyer can use language to describe a situation and also advocate for their client. I learned from experienced colleagues who were teaching students this skill. The example my colleagues used was drawn from a tragic event nearby: a police shooting of a person who had not yet harmed others but who was behaving erratically and had brandished a weapon. My colleagues used two documents from the case. The first was written by a pro-police advocate who described the scene and the confusion and fear felt by the officers before their fatal ..read more

Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice, just published by Oxford University Press, is THE book that family dispute resolution (FDR) practitioners and educators have been waiting for. Edited by Peter Salem and Kelly Browe Olson, this book delivers the goods like no other— all 600+ pages of it.[1] It is an essential guide for experienced practitioners in particular—lawyers or mental health professionals with dispute resolution training or experience. The book will remind them why they were drawn to this work in the first place and rejuvenate their practices in unexpected ways. Though he ..read more

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec. PÉNAL (DROIT) : La juge de première instance n’a pas erré en condamnant l’accusée, une fraudeuse qui avait usurpé l’identité d’une autre personne, à une peine de 18 mois d’emprisonnement; l’accusée ne convainc pas la Cour que les accrocs procéduraux liés aux déclarations des victimes lui ..read more

Each Friday, we share the latest job listings from Slaw Jobs, which features employment opportunities from across the country. Find out more about these positions by following the links below, or learn how you can use Slaw Jobs to gain valuable exposure for your job ads, while supporting the great Canadian legal commentary at Slaw.ca. Current postings on Slaw Jobs: Staff Lawyer | Westbank, BC (BC First Nations Justice Council) Director of Policing, Oversight and Accountability | Head Office in Westbank or any Indigenous Justice Centre, Canada (BC First Nations Justice Council) Family L ..read more

When a party fails to abide by an interlocutory court order, there can be several consequences. For instance in Ontario, Rule 60.12 of the Rules of Civil Procedure states that “…the court may, in addition to any other sanction provided by these rules, (a) stay the party’s proceeding; (b) dismiss the party’s proceeding or strike out the party’s defence; or (c) make such other order as is just.” In the recent case, Buduchnist Credit Union Limited v. 2321197 Ontario Inc., 2024 ONCA 57 at para 53, the Ontario Court of Appeal reaffirms that the court’s discretion to respond to a breach of a court ..read more

Everyone is the poet of their memories. … But like the best poems, they’re also never really finished because they gain new meaning as time reveals them in different lights. Richard Hell The resolution of disputes does not always depend on the memories of parties or witnesses, but when credibility is at issue the memories of actions can be a critical part of resolving disputes. The more we learn about how memories are formed, and more importantly, how they are retained, the more we should have real concerns about the ability of decision-makers to assess credibility of testimony of events th ..read more

I recently read about an interesting concept about reframing one’s point of view. It stated that if you wake up with the sun, you are still asleep. However if you awaken the sun, then you are truly awake. I had to read it a few times to actually understand it’s meaning, but then I realized that what this means, is that the way our day develops is completely up to us. If we set an intention for the day to unfold in a calm and peaceful manner, knowing that we are fully capable of dealing with whatever challenges may arise, then we are setting ourselves up for success no matter what the day brin ..read more