Family
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October 07, 2025
Attorney General Sean Fraser tells SCC the law needs to protect people with ‘no voice’
There was a celebratory mood at the opening ceremony for the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2025-26 court year, but Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Sean Fraser and other legal leaders delivered a sober message to the Ottawa courtroom packed with lawyers and judges.
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October 07, 2025
Undermining a costs claim: Costs and conduct in the context of interim parenting litigation
In the recent Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision Singh v. Kaur, 2025 ONSC 4122, Justice Imran Kamal underscored that where litigation arises from the conduct of both parties and neither achieves a substantially better outcome, an award of no costs may be appropriate on account of that unreasonable conduct.
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October 07, 2025
Lawyer ordered to pay costs for non-disclosure of gen AI use and citing fake precedents in court
In a cautionary case for litigation lawyers who use generative artificial intelligence (AI) for court submissions, a Federal Court associate judge recently hit an immigration lawyer with personal costs for submitting two defective AI-generated precedents and for breaching the Federal Court’s requirement to disclose any generative AI use in court filings.
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October 06, 2025
The Friendly Bar Series, No. 13: No brew, no bar
Recently, a friend lamented the loss of the Tim Hortons in the courthouse. At first, I dismissed it, being neither a coffee-shop enthusiast nor particularly invested in courthouse caffeine. Upon reflection, I saw it as a metaphor for the infrastructural and systemic flaws in the Ontario legal system.
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October 06, 2025
Saskatchewan to regulate non-lawyers in bid to increase access to justice
Saskatchewan has brought into force legislative changes that will allow “non-lawyer legal professionals” to deliver certain services to the public — something officials with the province’s law society say will enhance access to justice for “underserved” residents.
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October 06, 2025
Family business succession: Don’t send in the clowns
In an earlier article in our series on business succession, Murray Gottheil quoted these words from author Leo Tolstoy: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
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October 03, 2025
Hague abduction case pits B.C. Supreme Court against Bulgaria’s District Court
In Zahariev v. Zaharieva, 2025 BCCA 35, the British Columbia Court of Appeal considered a Hague Convention case that featured a contest between Bulgaria’s District Court and the British Columbia Supreme Court, in relation to the parties’ infant daughter, Neva.
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October 02, 2025
A divorce, a custody battle and an assassination: When people take the law into their own hands
On July 18, 2014, Dan Markel, a respected Canadian-born law professor at Florida State University, was shot in the head in broad daylight outside his home in Tallahassee, Fla.
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October 02, 2025
Line crossed: IRCC’s proposed administrative monetary penalties should alarm all Canadian bars
The federal government is quietly implementing a regulatory framework that should alarm every lawyer in Canada, regardless of practice area. Under the guise of addressing immigration “ghost consultants,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has crafted administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) that grant it unprecedented authority to discipline lawyers — the same lawyers who routinely challenge that department’s decisions in court.
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October 02, 2025
The legendary Jane Goodall and her influence on animal law
It can rightly be said that few people achieve the status of legend in their own time: Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, was one such person. Goodall passed away on Oct. 1, 2025, at age 91 while on a speaking tour in the U.S. after leading a life that inspired many.